Unfinished due to the fact that I was working on a SkillsUSA project and had some issues relating to the nCloth and my saves corrupting. This is a temporary video and I will make sure to get a better version done later on.
Category: Animation II
Blocking Out Project 2
just finished the animation and used the cameras, going to add more actual assets later on.
Blocking Out Project
Didnt finish blocking out the storyboard I made a day ago, but this is most of the movements
Skills Animation Project 2/1/20
Ok so I haven’t posted an update in around 2 weeks so there is a lot to catch up on. Essentially I have completed 90% of the modeling that is required for this project and also worked on materials and textures for some of the models, even completing the rig for the birds that will be in the scene (they won’t be focused on so the rig is poorly done). The only two parts of the project that I need to model are the city, which I am hoping to make relatively simplistic, and finishing my characters face. I ended up encountering an issue when I built the nose, so I used an online tutorial to get a new idea on how to build it. I kept the head but rebuilt the top half of the face and reattached it. I now need to smooth out and fix the face so that it doesn’t look completely disgusting, as it currently appears to have entered both the uncanny valley and a dump.
Props Created:
I have started to create most of the props I will be using in my animation, here is the list of the props and their progress:
Notepad:
I was a bit overly detailing when I made this clipboard, but that is due to the fact that I plan on having the camera focus closely on it. I will made the actual textures for it near the end of my texturing so that I will have even slightly more experience with it, as this will have to look like someone actually wrote words on a page.
Burger:
I just made a really low poly burger, and I have added materials to some parts but not all of it yet. I am debating creating a texture for the bun or leaving it plain, and will decide that when I return to the small parts of the animation
Bird:
The bird is only going to be in the background, so I tried to make it relatively simplistic and low poly, but I still wanted to animate it so I did create a rig and made sure it was more than just a few polygons. I also made a material for it but that is just a black material since, again, it will be in the background
I would add pictures but as it turns out I can’t open the last few save files I made of the bird. I’m unsure if this is because the version of maya I have at home is a year older than the one at my school, or if something went wrong with my rigs, but until I find out if I can recover the files I will wait to post an update on them
Scythe:
The scythe isn’t meant to be very detailed, and will likely be one of my targets if my more detailed objects slow down render time too much. It has not been textured yet but that will likely be simplistic as well.
Car:
My car was based on a few pictures of a Pontiac GTO. While I may add some lights to it and change up the materials, it is mostly finished save for the grouping I may go through and some work I will likely have to do with its materials.
Continued Progress:
Death:
my death model was problematic because my cloak was made as a single flat surface, when I was planning on making it into a cloak. I worked on fixing it but the top still has some issues, I believe it should mostly be fine.
I completed two versions of the skull, the first including a jaw bone and the second with a smooth face where the mouth should be. I then used the skull with the jaw bone as an addition to the car model, as it is meant to be a tool being used by death. I also added some wrinkles in the cloth since I am unlikely to make it an actual physics cloth. The hands are made up of separate blocks, but every part of the model is combined. I am likely to make small edits with it but I’m not sure what they exactly will be yet, as I haven’t even added materials yet and thus dont know what this would currently look like as a final product.
Person:
Oh boy. So I started out the face by creating the eyes, as seen in a previous blog post, but then I moved on to developing other features. The mouth went of mostly without a hitch, though I did decide to create two versions and decide which one I liked better, but again it was mostly fine. Then I moved on to making the nose and immediately realized that I was not going to be able to make a nose that would actually look decent on my characters face. That simple addition would, no matter how I tried it, simply make the face look monsterous, and I believe the main reason for this was that I developed the eyes separately despite the bone on the eye connecting so smoothly to the nose, and thus that part would never look right if I extruded again for the nose. Because of this I began googling how other people would make their human faces, and noticed that multiple videos started by building the eyes rather than the whole head. I watched how they would build the eye sockets and slowly move outwards, eventually bridging the two parts together and building a nose out of that bridge, and realized that I had to do something similar. I proceeded to build a sort of face mask off to the side of my characters head, using the videos I found as a tutorial for some parts and a reference for others, and eventually had my own new eyes and nose. I then proceeded to delete those faces on my model to then replace with my new face, and after plenty of adjustments to make sure all the vertices on both meshes could connect I was able to combine them. Now I have a face that does look more human, but also looks like a human fresh out of multiple horrible plastic surgeries. I have hope that putting the right textures and materials will make it look better but I also believe that once I smooth out most of the parts and adjust the location of multiple facial features it will likely look much better. I also used previous knowledge in an art class I took to find an article that described the proportions of the face, regarding the placement of different parts of the face (the eyes being halfway down the face) and used that information to place edge loops onto a block that would act as a guide for how I would adjust the features.
Point is it doesn’t look very good. I have made a few edits that I believe make it look better, but i still am not quite proud of it in its current state. Once I add hair and textures/materials I’m hoping it will look much better
Previous-
Edited-
To Do:
Currently there are only a few things left that I need to do, but each is obviously going to take a long time. Modeling wise all I have to do is add some hair to my character and make his clothes wrinkled, possibly edit his face more, and create the city environment. I’m hoping most of this will go off without a hitch. Afterwards will come the materials and rigging of my characters, and while I’m hoping death will be easy as he doesn’t need to walk much and does not have legs, rigging a full human character (possibly including a face) is going to be interesting. Especially if there is actually an issue with bringing rigs to and from school, such as with my bird. After that is done, which will likely take the longest out of all of this, I have to animate it. I’m hoping that this can be done quickly, as I don’t have much time left, but I believe that if I can get most of this extra work done quickly and animate quickly as well, so long as I dont put too too much detail into the textures. The only issue now that I am really worried about is the Rigging and the Rendering, as those are the most unpredictable and most difficult parts of this process currently.
My goal will be to get all of the materials I will need done tomorrow, and to finish up every model as well. I will then look into making textures for items such as the notepad. Rigging will come afterwards and I believe that, since my main character, Dave, will not be grabbing anything, I wont need to put too much effort into his hands. Also since his legs are jeans I believe that will be easier than normal legs, so I am hoping the only difficult part with Dave will be his feet (I’m still no good at rigging feet) and his face, if that is rigged OR deformed. As for Death I believe his rig will be simple, so I am not worried about anything other than possibly his hands. The bird should still be rigged at school, but if not I have the completed model so it should be simple to rig it and be done with it, as it is a background character. I want to be animating within the next 6 days at least so that I can begin rendering soon, even if that means rendering the first few scenes overnight while still working on the later scenes during the day, or rendering at home while working at school.
I believe that this project will be a close call, but that I should be able to get it done. Even if it ends up extremely simple I am hoping the complex models will give it a decent look compared to some of the other animations and stills being entered into the competition
Second 2 hour animation practice
This one we got the prompt “race to the finish” or something like that.
First 2 Hour Animation Practice RENDERED
rendered the 2 hour animation after time was already up, this is the result.
First 2 hour animation
made in 2 hours solo, materials were done last second so thats why they are so poor, may render out and reupload.
Skills Animation Project 1/17/20
So today I began building a Death/Reaper character, and its not going as smoothly as i would have hoped. The model looks extremely plain, and while i already have ideas for modeling and texturing it to fix this I am worried I may have to change fundamental stuff about it which may be even more annoying than just remodeling it from scratch with a drawing as a reference. I will probably just stick with this model after adjusting it enough though.
Once I got home I spent some extra time working on the eyes of the “Dave” character, as I decided that I need to go all out on this animation if I want a chance at improving my skills and possibly getting a decent place. I ran into some annoying troubles but mostly I am now working on the fine details of it, and once it is complete I will begin working on either the mouth or the nose. I still will likely not add any hair but it is always a possibility, I will need to decide on that once I see the finished face.
Reaper model currently-
Here are the three versions of the eyes that I am deciding between now
5.1- alien looking
5.2- shrunk to be more human looking
5.3- additional adjustments to 5.2
UPDATE: I decided these will likely be the base of my final eyes, still needs some editing though. This came from my girlfriends suggestion that the eyes were too small, so i edited my 5.3 eyes to be bigger.
Skills Animation Project 1/16/20
So the power went out in my class today. Wouldn’t be much of a setback if I hadn’t been working on the hands of my model for nearly an hour and a half at the time or if I had remembered to save every now and then, or if the computers were able to function earlier than almost an hour after the initial power outage. But hey, lesson relearned, I guess.
Anyways I did end up remaking the hands at home and I am satisfied enough with them to move onto other parts of the character now. I fixed and adjusted a few things, such as extending outwards parts like the butt, adjusting the sides of the torso a bit more, and editing the jaw a bit. I’m now looking into what I would like to do with the face, as I initially wanted a simple model but got a bit more carried away when I started working on the head. I still feel that I haven’t had enough experience with deformers or any experience with facial rigs so I would like to keep the mouth and nose gone from the face for this animation. For eyes I am unsure as to whether I would want to make oval eyes, such as the ones in the pictures, which would be easier to exaggerate in the animation but possibly will look silly, or if I should add indentions as the eyes/eye sockets which would possibly be creepy and would be weirder to animate, but could still be simple with deformers, or if I would want to try to make more realistic eyes, which would probably just make this look like an actual monster and would be weird to animate in such a short timespan. I will probably decide on that during class tomorrow.
I added shoes that more resemble short boots, and tried to make them a mix of simple and nice looking because of the fact that there is going to be a close up shot of them at the end of the animation. I am wondering if the fact that they are shoes is going to mess with my rigging, but I feel like it should be fine.
At this point it looks like the main remaining steps for this model is deciding on a face (and then adding what is needed for said face/facial animations), possibly editing the pants a bit more, adjusting the proportions, and then moving on to texturing and rigging. I plan on making the textures on my own seeing as how this is a SkillsUSA competition and I would feel wrong using another persons stuff, but I am concerned about it due to my lack of texturing skills and the mix of cartoony and realistic that my model is, but I feel that once I test 3 or 4 textures it will be clear what style will work best with the model.
*The lights in some of the pictures are just for fun. This is not the final model
Calm face-
Startled face-
Not denoised tpose-
Denoised tpose-
bright tpose
Skills Animation Project 1/15/20
I mainly worked on the head so far today, and I am mainly trying to give the person a realistically shaped head to go along with the body. I dont plan on adding many features at all, and I may honestly edit it later on to be more cartoonish or only use this for a Still i have been considering, but I think I am making good progress on the jaw shape and back of the neck.
I also worked on fixing some of the body proportions so that he isnt too wide, but I will have to adjust it more later.
Also the blocks along the arms and legs were used to determine generally where I want my knees and elbows, they wont be a part of the model.
Jackie Bois Website 