Alas we finally cracked on with the walking and running cycle today in Sean's class, and I must say it was definitely a lot easier than I though (especially after the ball bounce and actually knowing how to use Maya).
Picked it up quite quick, and I think again my understanding of anatomy and muscle movement has really helped, so i'm understanding what parts of the body will shift to where and why, and what controls what etc
It's DEFINITELY helped me to feel more confident to tackle the animation in my personal project. It is also highly addictive.
Working with Sean's model which I am stealing cause it looks awesome
Will definitely be sure to use a walking image sequence as a reference, and i'm also aiming to add more body language in so the audience can pick up on my characters emotions etc.
Ah yes also one thing i'm still getting a handle on with animation is making sure to use the graph editor for bit of clean up, but also to alert me to any issues.
Also will sometimes work purely in silhouette mode to make sure i'm not getting distracted by the textures etc and am focusing purely on the shapes.
LOL my first attempt at both (put them into premier pro to get a loop hence the slight jump.
This is definitely the kind of thing I get OCD about to make sure its perfect, and I already found it this that I started tweaking individual frames a lot which started to have a more negative impacted, and my movements/transitions were less soothe. So I need to make sure I avoid doing that when animating my project!
After all the fun and games did a quick slight jump test with my model (ignore the horrid armpit deformation.
I'm always wanting to make sure that i'm balancing all this work with personal art to build a portfolio. So i'm keeping up with my daily sketches, with bigger pieces every couple of weeks. I'm continuing to try and branch out an try different styles with different techniques.
The legend that is Ron Swanson
I've also decided that I need to kick my perspective studies into gear. I was doing little bits here and there, but I think im finally ready to properly tackle the theory and actually do it probably.
I'm going to be using the perspective and composition tutorials / seminars by Matt Laskowski, who's an artist i've been been following for YEARS. His composition and perspective pieces for his comic project are amazing and I really feel like i'm finally in a position to start working on it.
I really believe that this will really really aid my story boarding process as i'll be paying more attention to composition, POV, FOV and things like the rule of thirds. I also think it will help me in the matte painting department AND help give me more confidence to tackle landscape / cityscape pages for my comics.
Well, i've been avoiding binding / weighting my character mainly cause it's not a process I particularly enjoyed last semester, and as per usual now that i'm doing its screwing me over and i'm beginning to become a fan of it.
Now that I actually understand what i'm doing and why etc, i've found myself sitting her for 2 hours just doing the bloody leg. Making mistakes and finding ways to rectify it.
Basically all the little bits of armour are annoying, so i've realised that I don't need to actually bind them / weight them, by grouping and parenting them to the relevant skeleton they should work... in theory. By doing the same method for the eyes /teeth etc I should also avoid the problems I was having earlier with deformations and looking all crazy.
The whole process has also alerted me to other issues like making sure things have been scale constrained to the skeleton after deleting mesh history. oops.
Also threw in a global move control for good measure!
I've definitely learnt the most about Maya through the rigging / binding process. Most importantly I have learnt that the process needs to be done with a glass (or 3) or gin.
No wonder the boob was screwed...
UPDATE #1:
So I was wrong, weighting is still kicking my arse and not playing ball, but I may have found a way that listens to me more! I might try making a few of the trickier tweaks listen to me via the Component Editor.
ALSO on a brighter more 2D note, i've discovered Blank on Blank - animations of interviews from famous people (dead or alive).
I've been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith again lately so this was pretty cool to see. Once i'm out of heavy 3D mode with this project and Going Live i've bribed Natasha into giving me some 2D lessons hehe.
UPDATE #2:
So with a clear head and the soothing sounds of the Buffy 'Once More with Feeling' soundtrack cause i'm cool and diverse like that, Weight painting has suddenly clicked (as stuff usually does with me when I leave it alone).
I'd been view each influencer as their own separate influencer... if that makes sense - it hasn't really occurred to me that the weight influence on one influencer affected the weight painted on another one - e.g that they were split percentage wise. So I was just whacking 100% everywhere not understanding why a change i'd made earlier had suddenly disappeared. How ridiculous.
So with a song in my heart and a skip in my models step, i'm finally making a dent in my weight painting schedule.
I've been working on modelling my assets - I set myself a week for this to give myself some buffer time to make any design changes or test out a couple of things.
For the flag I had a little go with nCloth - it was a lot easier to do than I thought it would be, and to be-honest i'm not sure if i'll need it, but was still good to get myself associated with and know that the option is there if I need it.
Also finally found an easier way to create the cave. As I only really need the entrance and then side views i'm just going to create a couple of planes and add bump maps / textures and some clever lighting.
Did a test render of one of the scenes kinda (without a UVed cave hence the stretching)
The 3D previs really did give me a heads up on what i'd need to look out for, and building a quick temporary set helped me to get some things out of my system, in terms of figuring out how I would structure the assets.
Also thinking about texturing, I really do want a 2D look so i'll be making the textures look A LOT more painted. So will probably tweak my matte painting aswell.
Found another really nice example of a more painted texture style!
Compositing is probably my weakest area at the moment - I just haven't seemed to click with it like I have done with the other aspects of 3D - it's taking me a bit longer for certain elements to click with me mentally, but I know it's mainly down to the way I learn and process etc etc.
But I really want to work at it as I know it'll be really useful for elements of my final project, (I think at least) and it started to make sense when I was using it for Multipass rendering (It felt like more of a Photoshop-esque process at that point).
We had another Nuke session on Friday focusing on tracking. I think I understand it a bit more now, but I know I really need to work at it to find away of using it that work best for me.
It was cool to see how the tracking then links in directly with Maya
Need to start fitting in Nuke sessions into my personal time D=
Lol, so Is decided to have a crack at my 3D pre-vis, because I thought it was time to finally get a proper handle on key framing, and a look at what my animation could turn out like (at it's very worst).
I looked at lot of pre-vis's to get a look at what to do, and got scared and just decided to do it.
I think i'm having an incy bit of a crisis of confidence with this mainly because I really liked the look of my animatic so there's the whole "do it in 2D?" thought. But I know why i'm choosing to do this in 3D (and not 2D) and I really really want to challenge myself, and I know i'll really be pushing my limits to get this to turn out how I want. ALSO once i've figured out my textures this will make it look rather 2D so huzzah. So what did I learn?
Key framing is quite soothing - but only if you remember to key frame your changes of each camera and pose.
In earlier scenes I was aware I needed to key frame the starting positions of poses I would later move, so when I move them later on, the poses were in wrong positions at that beginning. Touche Maya, lesson learned
Camera angles are EVERYTHING
I think this DEFINITELY showcases my lack of Maya camera skills, and I struggled quite a bit with the placements and getting used to moving them. The scaling of my scene didn't help either I don't think. But I know I need to do quite a bit of research to find out how I can make this work for ME. And i'm gonna look back to what I did for the 48 hour film project in terms of camera work and angles.
ALSO I didn't realise pretty much till the end that I wasn't always lining up my camera with my model haha. So this created a weird skewed affect that I didn't quite understand. Until I released that the camera and my model were miles apart
Save difference camera's as a separate scene
Luckily this was a tip I picked up from Amit before I started so I was armed. Doing this DEFINITELY saved my arse a few times. So if I found i'd made a mistake, or accidentally moved a camera etc I could just open up the scene with that camera angle and edit away and do a new playblast
Next steps?
Research the hell out of cameras - To make sure I get the right angles and can use them confidently. I'm also going to take Phil's advice to think like a camera man! I'm going to do some practice, and avoid the linear look - the more natural the better.
Timing, timing, timing - This is something I really need to watch out for, especially when it comes to the dance sequence, but I think i'll have le-way here.
Short-Cuts, Kinda - Motion capture is definitely a potential avenue for parts of the dance, especially once the sequence is locked down. This will take a load of in terms of key framing, and stop me destroying Maya.
Shout out to the Wonder man for spending 10 painstaking (but only enjoyable) hours with me during my first attempt at this. Your soothing sounds and piano filled melodies are forever cherished. And my house-mate, whose chocolate cookies gave me the sugar laced energy to complete such a feat.
It's also time to start facing the the UV based texture monster that is texturing - i'm due to start this in a couple of weeks, and Phil has given me some ideas of how to approach it.
I've been nattering on about it for a while and my idea's about it keep changing, but he's strongly suggested that I bring in some of my concept art style to it, which I feel is definitely the route to go down with this character.
I've been umming and ahhhing a bit with toon shading because it still didn't seem right, but Phil's suggested I make my own changes to it via Photoshop. I'm going to start doing some tests in a couple of weeks, and i'm hoping the process will make me like texturing more!
Some examples of the style from The Wolf Amoung US which looks awesome
I think I could create something REALLY cool if I continue down the same line as my concept art.
I'm making sure that i'm staying on track with my schedule, so this week i'm also working on my assets. I've done a bit more research and have settled on some redesigns for my space craft and record player.
With the record player I initially wanted to go more futuristic, but then realised that I kinda wanted to pay homage to music via a gramophone design. I mixed it in with a more modern design of the new Gramovox!
I also wanted the pod to be a more simplistic, and rounder to compliment my character. And getting all psychological about it, I kind of saw it as an egg lol...new life, developments, emerging etc and I feel that fits in with the theme of my story... (to me it does at least).
Also made sure to include a seat and some screens this time! I know the pod won't be in it for long, but you get to see a bit of the interior, so don't want it looking like a tin can!
I looked at some pod designs for inspiration, and I think they'll be really handy when it comes to texturing!
I've also worked on my matte painting which i'll be projecting into the background. I might create some distant rocks etc as a separate projection, but will have a play around first (aka figure out how to do it properly) then make a decision.
Also started working on my space matte painting (in 4K). I wanted to keep it simple, and I'll have to do some tests to see of I should add some of the terrain or just model it all! But so far it looks ok with some of my scenes I think. Will also see if the colours work... also not sure about the planets...
less stars
Music to matte paint to: Sonic Youth - Disappearer
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