Category: Animation Practise

Learning and progressing my skills in 3D animation through the term has proven challenging yet has given me a more substantial base understanding of the toolset in Maya and the application of the 12 principles of animation. Engaging with tasks, especially character performance-driven exercises, proved enjoyable and stimulating, allowing me to establish effective workflows with in-class teaching and research from Richard Williams The Animator’s Survival Kit and Kenny Roys How to Cheat in Maya 2014.

Alternate Video Links: https://vimeo.com/664528146/aebffcca26, https://youtu.be/L1WbyQtwRIg

Reflecting on the work I have produced overall this term, I feel I have pushed myself to a higher level of creating animated work. While there are aspects of my work that need improvement, especially in terms of refining and weight conveyance. I feel my particular weaknesses were in walk cycles. Going forward, I intend to experiment with different character performance walk cycles, focusing on cleaning pops in the knees and elbows. Pairing this and gaining a better understanding of more complex rendering techniques to those I have already researched, looking further into the capabilities of the Arnold renderer. I have found particular enjoyment in creating character performance and facial animation and hope to continue to record strong references and really push my capabilities. It could be beneficial to take practises from Acting and Performance for Animation ( Derek Hayes, Chris Webster) going forward in this direction of animation. Using applications such as SyncSketch has proven extensively beneficial for me in reflecting on my work. Next term, it will be particularly effective as a collaborative feedback tool for the group project module.

Further reading material ideas for next term:

• Character animation in 3D: use traditional drawing techniques to produce stunning CGI animation- Steve Roberts
• The illusion of life: Disney animation- Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
• 3D art essentials: the fundamentals of 3D modeling, texturing, and animation-Ami Chopine
• Cartoon animation- Preston Blair

Challenge Blog Posts

Challenge 1:The 12 Principles of Animation – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk) Challenge 1: The 12 Principles Applied to Industry Standard work – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 2: Bouncing Balls – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 3: Challenge 3:Obstacle Course – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 4:Challenge 4: Gesture and Posing in 3D Space – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 5:Challenge 5: Tail and Ball Animation – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 6:Challenge 6: Walk Cycles – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 7:Challenge 7: Reference Footage – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 8:Challenge 8: Body Mechanics – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 9:Challenge 9: Advanced Body Mechanics – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Challenge 10: Challenge 10: Lip Sync and Facial Performance – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Class Workshops

Matchmove 1:Matchmove Class 1 (Tracking and Matchmove) – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Matchmove 2: Matchmove Session 2 (Tracking 3D Objects) – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Previs: Previs Class – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

For the Final Challenge of the term, I had to plan and create lip-sync and performance animation using the ‘Eleven’ rig. During this process, I found relevant, performative audio from the 11 Second Club, and recorded relevant reference footage of myself adding exemplification of personality.

Planning and Prep

Kenny Roy’s ‘How to cheat in Maya’ was a key reference for me during this process, and suggested that the first step to the lip-sync and performance process is to listen to the audio over and over, finding the accents and nuances and creating a performance in your mind before recording (2014: 248). To prepare for this I noted the key pauses and tonality changes in the piece of dialogue I had chosen. After recording the reference footage, I imported it into sync sketch and made a visual note of all of the keyframes of eyebrows and influenced cheek movement to help better understand the nuances of the face.

When starting this step I added accentuation on each nuance of phrase by using one finger to pronounce the word first, pausing motion on the word moment to visually underscore he is savouring the moment, and adding a softer motion at the end to compliment the ‘flowy-ness’ of the word ‘experience’.

Blocking the Animation (Facial)

The initial building blocks I used to start the animation were getting the key jaw bounce and viseme poses to create a believable looking lip sync. The tongue was the next step of Roy’s process I followed, ensuring that the tongue was in believable enough positions at key moments of dialogue to sell the speech as much as I could (2014). The next step required the addition of eyebrow motions and eye darts. Referring back to Roy, I created the eye dart movements across two frames at a time to create the most naturalistic look to them. Baring in mind the rigging and skin weighting of the rig, I also tried to exaggerate the eyebrows as much as I could without causing the polygons of the eyelids to crash to an unfixable state.

Performance Animation Blocking

Following on from the completion of the facial animation, I took keyframes from my video performance and tried to replicate the general feel and timing to express the ideas I conveyed in my own performance. When doing the performance of this step I wanted to try and push my level of understanding of body movement and make reference to my video footage, using the body movements to help accentuate each of the words. While my initial blocking poses lacked in conveyance, I feel during the cleaning process I added more exaggerated stress on each action.

Video of Process

Post Editing

Going into after effects and adding additional motion blur, once again adds a sense of realism that Maya cannot time effectively replicate. During this process, I think the piece started to come together, however reflectively in order to improve the piece I would focus more on the detail and follow-through of the fingers. Also, the strength and weight of the key poses when blocking out initially, as I had to change a lot in the general cleaning process to convey the emotion I wanted to. I also think that getting the nuances of facial expression could have been pushed a bit more than I have done.

Final Product

Problem Solving Methods

During the process of this animation, I had issues where the head seemed to disconnect itself from the rest of the rig. In this case, I had already produced a lot of the animation and did not have enough time to look into the issues surrounding the rig. Thinking of solutions, I looked into methods of exporting keyframes from one rig and placing them onto a fresh version of the rig.

By selecting all of the Facial controllers, and exporting the selected as an ANIM file, I was able to recover all the work I had done of the broken rig and apply it to the new one in order to add the body performance animation.

Final Result

Bibliography

Roy, K., 2014. How to cheat in Maya 2014. Abingdon: Focal Press.

An essential part of the animation and visual effects process is previsualization. Planning and blocking out shots can prove both time and cost-effectiveness. It can help provide the production with a clear to develop a sequence that “link a variety of departments, technologies and points of view” that will create the finished product ( Okun et al, p.53).

Pan Shot

Below is an example of a panning shot, using a virtual camera set up to replicate real-life cameras. In order to add another level of realism, the camera needs to be delayed slightly, to give a more human feel to the movement, as no live-action camera movement is perfectly timed. when viewing CG animation this can cause an unnatural look when everything is perfectly smooth, as the human eye is not exposed to that type of movement.

Roll Shot

Traditionally associated with film noir, the roll shot can help add further meaning to a story visually. Interestingly, the previs shot has a dual meaning depending on the direction in which the camera moves. In the first video, there is an implication that the character is overwhelmed by the number of steps he has to potentially climb. The second reversed video implies more that the character has made a stark realisation, or is confined as the camera closes in on his face.

Pitch Shot

The pitch shot follows the character, in this case, superman, fluidly through a pan down without accidentally clipping the character out of frame.

Dolly Shot

The dolly shot is a camera setup that follows a track in order to keep the camera still and fluid in motion. In this example the camera replicates a classic western scenario, introducing a fight between two characters.

Crane shot

Once again, following traditional mechanisms of a crane in real film footage, this shot highlights the use of a crane show coving two stories of a building.

Contra Zoom

The Contrazoom is created by zooming in or out while simultaneously moving the camera backwards or forward. This creates a jarring somewhat unnerving effect that is often used in action or horror movies to create a feeling of tension.

References-

Okun, J., Zwerman, S., McKittrick, C. and Sepp-Wilson, L., 2010. The VES handbook of visual effects. Amsterdam: Focal.

Planning and Blocking

Taking a step further from the body mechanics task and involving a different level of intricacy involving Ik and FK switching allows the rig to perform actions more fluidly. Due to my lack of physical abilities, I used reference footage of an athlete jumping over a box as provided in class and wanted to try and match the smoothness and skill behind the motions performed.

Starting with the initial blocking, I used the reference to match the positions and speed side by side. As stated by Kenny Roy, “blocking is the most efficient stage ” to time and retime your animation, as you have clear and understandable keyframes before elements such as offset and follow-through crowd the timeline (2014, p.182). In my approach to blocking, I tried to use the IK/ FK witch in the process to experiment and see how this would affect the splined version. This replicates bodily movements in real life.

First Spline Pass

After converting the stepped tangents into splined animation, While the timing and general posing were, for the most part, incorrect placement, there were multiple issues, with popping in the IK/ FK switch process and Collision with ground plane and feet. However, the arms, hands and feet were generally the right place but did not precisely match where they should have been to avoid the ‘popping’. Using Syncsketch, I highlighted the issues on the exact frames they occur to later export as a Maya grease pencil file to import directly into my scene file.

Solutions to IK/ Fk Switches

FK (Forward Kinematics) and IK (Inverse Kinematics) Serve different purposes when animating a fully rigged CG character. FK means the positions of the limbs work hierarchically, meaning the hands will be affected by arms, and the arm by the shoulder, for instance. IK works differently as the hand is the leader of the rigging hierarchy, and the arm adjusts itself to the position of the hand, which is very useful in creating the animation below. Kenny Roy underlines how in Maya, the IK and FK function works as two different arms, so when animating, it is crucial to consider that the IK and FK will be switching skeletons. This implies that the FK will be in the same position as last keyed, so making a seamless transition requires different methods to get the two to match in 3D space (2014).

As learned in class, the geometry of the arms can be copied to freeze the position of the arms in place for spatial reference when swapping to the other skeleton. As seen below, the bony rig has a straightforward application of this method, and once unparented and assigned an alternate material, it works similar to ‘onion skinning. Using this method, I improved the popping and created a smoother transition in and out of the jumping motion.

While this works, I thought it helpful to look into the IK/ Fk switch processes to gain a better understanding of its process. For example, Kenny Roy draws light onto is using an ‘IK’ weight which enables the transition between the two by positioning the IK skeleton the intended frame keying the FK in progressive order to interpolate (2014). Using the Euler Filter to fix any gimbal lock issues that cause the rig to move sporadically and out of control. I found this possible using ‘set driven keys’ to create a blend between the two different skeletons in the rigging process.

FK IK switching in Maya using Set Driven Key – YouTube

To keep the hands effectively pinned to the box, locators can be used which prevent unrealistic slippage.

Working on these issues, I managed to clean the respective IK and FK switch glitches as clean as I could possibly make them. Focusing on follow-through elements in the finger and head movements. While this version is not perfect, and due to my inexperience in IK/FK switching, there are still several points, especially in the elbows and knees, where the constraints do not always accurately follow the rig.

Final Version (Rendering)

References

Roy, K., 2014. How to cheat in Maya 2014. Abingdon: Focal Press, pp.104-105.

First Session: Matchmove Class 1 (Tracking and Matchmove) – Esme’s Blog (arts.ac.uk)

Following on from the last match move session, using the same method of tracking the different points of the scene, selecting areas of high contrast and exporting

When tracking, It is important that all elements of the screen are accounted for, and there are clearly well-placed markers in every ‘quarter’ to minimize distortion and help form the fake lens that will be exported from 3D equalizer. This plays an important role in changing the lens to match that of a real cameras lens dimensions. This, in the process of tracking, allows everything in the scene to have a marked depth of field required to place the 3D object realistically in the scene.

An important aspect of the point tracking system for the application of 3D models is the use of ‘camera points’ and ‘object points’ which separates the two different point areas into two different layers; Background and foreground.

Having completed the background point tracks, the foreground point tracks were the next step in tracking the movement of the mans head to apply the 3D modelled helmet too.

During the process of adding tracking points to the man’s face, there were issues in the movement of the eyebrows, as the head rotates. This required certain tracking points to be manually moved frame by frame, rather than allowing the calculation to account for the movement and relying on high contrast pixels.

Once the facial track was complete, the 3D ‘Iron Man’ helmet was imported and manipulated in the 3DE 3D orientation controls viewport. This was then lined up with the mans face in the footage to fit the size of his head adequately.

This, similarly to the previous matchmove class, was exported into Maya, alongside the footage, where it can be appropriated tracked and animated. During this process, the helmet could be textured and rendered to a more photorealistic standard. Referring back to research from an earlier post of mine, this would be a key opportunity for the application of a Chrome or HDRI ball in industry practice. In theory, while preparing to film, images would be taken of the lighting and reflective Surfaces in the real live-action setting. This could then be used to apply the same lighting, and even reflections into the iron man helmet model, where it can be more effectively and appropriately composited.

Above is my initial track applied in Maya, where there is a clear match to the movement of the man’s face, there was also a glitch towards the end where I had not deleted a faulty point track. I Was successfully able to fix this in Maya by finding the faulty frame which caused this jolt and deleting it from the timeline to prevent having to re-calculate and find the faulty point.

I then expanded on from this by adding some animations to the front of the mask, to emanate the motions of the ‘Iron Mans’ mask. Concluding that I was able to successfully integrate CGI and live-action footage in the early stages of the VFX pipeline.

In an attempt to enrich my understanding of body mechanics and the blocking animation process in Maya, I have referred to the work of Alessandro Comporota, who outlines the importance of each step in the blocking process. He accentuates that getting the timing and dynamic posing right is essential to creating good and clean animation.

How To Animate (part2): Blocking – YouTube

Using Maya to colour code the keyframes (red) versus the in-betweens and breakdown keys (green), I blocked out the mainframes of the animation using the reference footage. This helps prioritise the primary key poses versus those in support of them.

Blocking Phase

First Spline Pass and Improvement Comments

Doing the first spline pass, I learned a lot about converting stepped tangents into spline tangents and the process of cleaning the different arcs. Utilising this time to learn about the various uses of the tangents, for example, stepped, clamped, flat and linear. Below it is apparent that the curves (in this case, the waist rotation) were very messy and was causing it to have a slightly unnatural look in the viewport.

After using the tangent handles to tidy and create a clean arc of motion, I made use of the flat tangent to stabilise the movement of the following keyframes, which “automatically puts an ease-out and ease-in on a key” but never overshoots the motion (Roy, 2014, P.49). Due to the placement being after the direction change of the curve (after he sits down), the motion needed to remain still, and this tangent proved most effective.

After gaining feedback on my animation from class, I was made aware that the back arches much too extensively appear broken, and the fingers did not portray the weight of his body pressing down.

Making use of Mayas Grease Pencil Tool, I highlighted the issues to make it easier to directly correlate in the viewport what needed to be changed. In reference to Roy, the grease pencil is a key tool and can be used with many applications, which help animators create strong gestural arcs reminiscent of 2D wax/ blue pencils that are easily removed (2014). These lines, married with editable motion trails, can help create strong lines of action and arcs. However, Roy makes a clear point that to make the most effective use of the grease pencil tool, a Wacom tablet is essential to create the visual gesture required, and the effect of a mouse will not be majorly beneficial. In this light, due to the lack of equipment I had at the time of animating this, I used a mouse to give myself an indication of the areas I needed to fix (such as the overly curved back and circling the weight suggestion in the hands, so I did not forget when caught up in the animation process. Going forward, I will obtain a drawing tablet that enables me to utilise this tool to the best of my ability for future animations.

Improved Spline and Clean Up

After taking on these suggestions, there was a visible improvement in the animation quality, and I could not quite get the IK/ FK switch to look as clean as I had intended. I could not separate the arms from duplicating for visual frame placement due to the geo model and rigging. In order to solve this, when unparenting the hand constraints from one another, I also swapped them to IK from FK, instead of when he makes contact with the chair, which has a visible ‘jolt’ effect in the hands; however, it did not look outrageously out of place as the blend parent faded in strength along with side the FK Influence. The fingers also did not have the fluidity and follow through towards the end to take them out of a ‘floaty’ CG stage. They also moved a bit too much initially, which seemed unnatural because the fingers were being held still together in a grasp. There also was not enough bend in the fingers when taking the seat, despite being an improvement from the initial block out.

Final Version

Applying all these self-critiques, I focused on finger movement and added slight details to enhance the level of realism. F r example, adding subtle facial animations such as blinks and eyebrow movements. Since a majority of facial expression is created in the uppermost regions of the face, this felt like the primary area to focus on to pass as ‘realistic’, adding hair ‘bounces’ that follow through with critical movements. Reflectively speaking, the piece of animation has elements that need refining, particularly in weight distribution. For a better future understanding, I will practise more with a range of rigs to understand IK/FK seamless switching.

References

.Roy, K., 2014. H w to cheat in Maya 2014. Abingdon: Focal Press.

During this session, I have gained knowledge in the software 3Dequalizer, learning the interface, uses and tracking devices. For this session, we learned how to track a piece of footage (in this instance a video of Camden lock) and use the 3D points to later convert into 3D space. The process requires stable and key points of the footage to be tracked across the whole timeline of the video; this includes high contrast areas and objects in the scene that do not move around a lot. A key point is to never track water, as it is very unstable and organically interchangeable. The tracking should take place across every corner of the footage in order to create a clean and non-biased tracking point to prevent the successful warping of the footage later on before the lens distortion.

After the tracking is complete, and there is an even spread of points, the lens points are changed to match the original camera, and the tracking is calculated in the parameter adjustments to ensure the whole track is smooth and does not have any drastic ‘glitches’ in the playback of the video. The Camera and the tracked points can then be exported, and placed in Maya where the process of scene blocking can begin.

After this process, once all of the data is calculated and cleaned, the points can be exported to be processed in Maya. The modelling stage of the matchmove can then be built up around these different tracking points.

During this process, I built rough models using the locators as spatial reference points to map out the real scene into 3D space. In the process of adding additional details such as a railing and windows to give a clearer indication of the objects for potential interaction.

Below is the final modelled product of my track, where a 3d character can potentially be animated interacting with the live-action scene to prepare for the compositing process.

An essential part of the animation process is the collection of reference footage. It can take the animation to a level of realism or stylization that sells the performance to audiences more effectively. Kenny Roy’s How to cheat in Maya 2014 suggests that before starting an animation having a clear plan, such as thumbnails, are ideal before you start your reference footage to get a strong conveyance of performance across (2014). However, due to the simplicity of creating an animation just to work through general body mechanics, I made reference footage based on how I would generally sit down rather than add extravagant performance.

Reflecting on this video, my reference footage could be significantly improved in terms of angles and capturing speed. Going forward, it would be wiser to capture multiple angles (front, side and back) to get a clear picture of what is happening when animating in 3D space. Also, capturing footage at a higher frame rate (e.g. 60 fps) so the frames are easier to break down when importing into Maya. Watching youtube videos from Sir Wade Neistadt, I took on some advice and bought a compactable tripod to make filming from specific angles easier to achieve in future. This is also an easily portable, compactable and adjustable tripod which should greatly benefit my reference footage creation in the future when doing more intricate performances.

Take Your Animation to the Next Level & Capture GREAT Reference – YouTube

When recording reference footage, Kenny Roy also suggests finding many references on youtube alongside your reference footage to gather enough material to successfully get the realism and performances nuances across in your animation (2014).

Due to my physical limitations in performing advanced body mechanics, I have found several sources on youtube for potential animation tasks that could fit this criterion going forward to the next task.

Scared walk start to run transition animation reference – YouTube

Animation reference – Jump 3 – YouTube

50 Ways to Jump + Sit + Fall – YouTube

References

Roy, K., 2014. How to cheat in Maya 2014. Abington: Focal Press.

Initially taking into account the diversity and potential of the Walk Cycle, it is a vital part of animation to learn to do effectively at first without excessive amounts of character and embellishment. Taking reference from Richard Williams, the key poses of the basic walk cycle are as follows –

Looking at this, the basic walk cycle has 5 key poses to achieve a realistic movement. When beginning my animation, I referred to the ‘Animators Survival Kit’ (Williams, 2009) to get the key poses.

Blocking Stage

During this stage, the blocking emanated key poses referencing Richard Williams’ method and trying to think about details such as ‘flops’ in the feet that add a kind of ‘silly’ charm to them when slightly overaccentuated. Bearing in mind the real-life centre of gravity that takes affects the ‘swaying’ and side to side motion of human walking that conveys weight at this stage.

Cleanup

When going through the process of cleaning curves, turning on pre and post infinity cycles will continuously loop the animation and help see more clearly, errors in the graph editor. This is the stage where I cleaned and polished issues and unnecessary keys, creating cleaner arcs by manipulating different handles and tangents.

After cleaning, and the addition of squash and stretch, I animated the walk cycle to begin to walk forward in 3D space. Using locators to mark the position of the feet, I moved the body forward and lined the feet up with the locators every time the foot left/joined the ground. Using a clamped tangent too help keep the foot grounded and prevent as much slipping as possible to keep this clean.

Preventing knee clipping as much as I could on the piece of animation, I used the body and rotation on the foot to minimise drastic movements in the knees and tried to keep it as steady as possible. In the case of a more complex motion and rig, this solution may not prove as effective, however, and may need to be changed by editing aspects of the rig (e.g. making an individual knee controller).

Finished Result

Adding more characteristic details such as the movement of the moustache and changing the character’s colours gave them more appeal in the finished result. As a final product, the walk seems to emanate a happier, more bouncy emotion behind it, which in future I could expand on by honing down on the character in a more complex rig.

References

Williams, R., 2009. The Animators Survival Kit. Faber.

Incorporating a tail to the animated ball bounce requires thought out follow through and well-planned timing.

In-Class Exercise

In class, we had to use motion trails to create a smooth arc and with added squash and stretch and follow through on the tail, considering its three key sections and their different timings. Looking at the realistic movement of a tail, I used the reference of a squirrel to see how the tail would effectively follow a small jumping body and exaggerate it.

Squirrel Walk & Small Jump (Slow Motion Animation Reference) – YouTube

Below is the finished task, which I feel has successfully created a clean follow through with the tail, however, the bouncing itself is quite violent and the timing could be worked on to create a more effective and natural-looking piece of animation.

Stepping Stones (Extended)

Expanding on from the initial in-class exercise I wanted to create a more creative and challenging version of a ‘staircase’ animation, adding a more playful essence that allowed me to think more about the tails reaction to the involuntary movement (such as the platform hovering like a lift). Looking into different ways, I could approach a more appropriate follow-through method. I used the dope sheet to offset the different movement timings, which was visually easier to manipulate than the graph editor in this instance.

Reflecting on the final product I think that once again I achieved a realistic follow through on the tail, which seems to correspond to the environment in the most practical way I could achieve. However, the last bounce of this sequence lacks the weight of realism, and in an attempt to add character and charm to the fox, I seem to have missed an element of realism. Going forward, I will focus in more detail on the weight and balance of the character.

Final Version (with Rendering)

Using newly learned rendering techniques, I used an Arnold global light source with added directional lights to make prominent reflective surfaces that make the ‘fox’ stand out against the background to make the movements clearer rather than blending into the plain background. For future rendering areas, I could incorporate ‘360’ environments that can be used with the Arnold globe. In accordance with The VES Handbook of Visual Effects (Okun et al, 2021), HDRI and chrome balls can be used to capture light sources that help match CGI objects with real live-action footage, generally with a grey matte side which helps capture light sources on non-reflective objects simultaneously. These images can then be imported into Maya, and prove interesting to perhaps keep in mind for potential CGI live-action projects in future.

Final reflection

Making reference to Richard Willaims discussing the portrayal of weight, in animation, after discussing with Milt Kahl that to effectively convey the illusion of weight, you have to understand where the weight is at any point in the animation (2009,p.256). Taking the grease pencil tool that I made use of in the process of later energy, I went back and made an indication of where the weight would be present in the ball at every frame, and where it would be transferring, to help me assess retrospectively where I faltered at specific points to make better progression in future. For example, towards the end of the animation, I give the conveyance of weight impact before the ‘ball’ even makes contact with a surface, which takes away from the realistic effects of the performance. The grease pencil tool, and software such as Sync Sketch, will become essential parts of my workflow going forward into next term.

References

Okun, J., Zwerman, S., McKittrick, C. and Sepp-Wilson, L., n.d. The VES handbook of visual effects. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

WILLIAMS, R., 2009. The animator’s survival kit. London: Faber and Faber, p.214- P.282.