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| Click image to view the animation |
This is my final piece for the advanced character animation module for my 2nd year. Since this animation would be very difficult to do, I had to make sure I understood what my animation was going to be about. I first created a storyboard and once I was happy with that, I started to design my own character. Once the characters modelling was complete, I decided that it would be better if I used a stock rig which I had used before for minor animation projects.
After the storyboard and the character (modelling and stock
rig optimisation) were complete, I decided to start working on the animation.
Over the course of 12 sessions (13 weeks), I can safely say that my animation
skills have definitely improved compared to my last year final submission. The
most important aspect of animating I learnt was blocking and posing. With this
skill alone, I was able to create the work I have done today.
Another aspect of animation that I learnt was something I
did whilst not in university as part of my directive study. I learnt how to use
references when animating. This is something that is very important since using
real life references helps with creating the realism aspect and helps me a lot
from a technical perspective.
HOW I COLLECTED MY REFERENCES
For my references, I decided to take my own initiative and usually I would take to Google or YouTube in order to collect my video references but since my storyboard was different to just finding any piece of reference online, I decided to call the Yorkshire School of Acting in Bradford. I spoke to one of the owners if he could assist me. He offered to post my job offer on a local acting site where his actors are active users in.
A few days later I received a call from someone who could
help me with my animation. We arranged a time and I booked a small rehearsal
room at the Bradford Playhouse. I also loaned out a DSLR camera to help with
the recordings since I would have a tripod at the ready as well. After
recording the footage, I went home and started to animate over the course of
4-5 weeks. I used the video and image reference that I collected as well as
acting some very minor scenes myself.
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| Some of the image references I captured along side re-enacting the storyboard with several takes. |
ANIMATING
In my opinion, animating this was possibly the most
difficult thing I have ever done. The movements in the scene may seem simple
but there were a lot of difficulties and problems I had to get pass before I could
move onto the next scene. One of the major problems I had was the technical
side. Although my technical animating abilities are stronger than my character
expression abilities, even this was proving too difficult but I managed to take
these stages slowly and with great struggle and effort, I managed to get to a satisfying
standard of animation.
For the actual animation, I used my knowledge of posing
first, then timing and then curve editing. I decided to cut the entire piece into
sections. This would be determined by the action and this made it much easier
for me to animate as each section would be similar to the one previously so the
posing would blend in nicely.
ISSUES
I came across a numerous amount of errors when animating. Maya
would crash at random intervals, the rig would sometimes give me grief and I had
to restart my animation several times over. But in the end and as mentioned
before, I managed to overcome these issues by using my previous experience and
knowledge with Maya.
RENDERING
After many hours of animating, I finally reached the rendering
stage. I decided to use mental ray since using the software renderer gave a
very 1980’s style of render which wasn’t what I was after. I spent roughly 3-5
days optimising the render engine to get the perfect balance between quality
and render speed. Rendering took at least 8 hours approximately.
POST PRODUCTION
After the rendering stage was complete (all 600 frames), I took
to Sony Vegas to start the editing stages of my animation. I imported the image
sequence and exported as an MP4 to help with cutting the video up. I then
reimported the video clip and did some colour grading and gamma corrections.
After this was complete, my main focus would be the sounds. Now since this was
a robot, you would expect to hear many sounds that give the character personality.
Since I did not own anything robotic in which I could record
the sounds from, I had to find audio clips online and use them. After checking their
copyright licenses, I was able to use all the sound effects that were used in
my animation for non-profitable purposes (I have included links to all the
sound effects used at the bottom).
After the sound design was done, it was just a case of
choosing my render output and uploading my video clip to my blog.
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| My editor after I completed everything and just before exporting the final video. |
CONCLUSION
Overall I am very happy with the way my animation turned
out. At points I felt like giving up with the animation but I stayed strong and
focused on getting my animation done since this essentially is what will give
me my grade. I believe that I could have improved the character aspect more in
a sense that I could have added little actions between each ‘calm’ stage of the
animation but this can be feedback if I were to animate another piece and
something that I can reflect on.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXyEiGnkYms
Papa Americano - Song used in the animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g0sKiRSNt8
Robotic sounds, reconstructed for fair use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPlUyMW6NQ
Radio tuning sound effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0dHV7l-jeE
16 robot sound effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNjAVjbotk
Power drill sound effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i88GS99SkSU
Metal clang sound effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TszdtRbI3m4
Click sound effect
https://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/roboter-for-maya
Robot rig used in the animation
