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Author: Jiaruo Zhang
Categories
FMP- Model and Texture
Categories
FMP-Rig monster
Categories
FMP-MODEL
monster：
Categories
FMP- Design’s Details
When talking to Michel about the story, he gave me some advice on the setting. For the characters in the story, think about the gender, name, and personality of the main character, as my style of storytelling has an oriental element to it.
Suggestions:
- You can consider the gender of the main character, would it be more contrasting if it was a girl. From a distance it looks like a boy, but up close it looks like a girl. For example, when the wind blows through the hat or veil, the character’s eyes and face are feminine in close-up.
- doing water in maya would be a bit easier than ue5, and the result would be okay
- give the character a name.
- when designing the character’s clothes, consider making it have the same elements as the monster, to imply that the protagonist and the monster are the same character.
After I get these advices, think about and make improvements to the protagonist’s setting.
I wanted to create the protagonist in a state of amnesia, where he’s immersed in his dream world, and at the end it dawns on him that he’s the monster that’s been there all along. The things he dreams about are actually his memories, except that at the time he was appearing as the monster.
The protagonist, despite his uncertainties, wandering, and self-questioning throughout, must be a composed and emotionally stable monster. Inquisitive about people, yet when actively pursued, frequently yields negative outcomes. People are naturally afraid of things they don’t comprehend, yet they also have an insatiable curiosity about them.
Charater’s name
I looked up a lot of names for this characteristic and discovered that Glaucus is the best fit for the character.
Glaucus is both a reference sea creature name and a god’s name, both mysterious and straightforward. As a god, it possesses great power; as a magical sea creature, it is one of the main references for the construction of monsters.
The protagonist can fly, swim in the sea, and transform into a human. A beautiful appearance combined with powerful abilities makes him both a blue angel of the ocean and a frightening monster.
Clothes and Weapons
Idea：
I’d like to design a wasteland style costume that will be slightly distressed and can be worn by both men and women. Because of the main character I would like to design as an androgynous character, he should be between 14-15 years old with no obvious gender characteristics.
At first I was thinking of boys, but after hearing the advice I thought it would be more appealing to add a feminine touch. Because gods and sea animals are gender-neutral, hermaphrodites.
I have looked for many pictures of fashions and I want to design a costume that is suitable for putting on and taking off. It needs to have a jacket, an inner dress, trousers and shoes.
Based on these pictures I have come up with a few points.
- Wasteland fashions tend to have hats, bibs, lots of strings and the costume has to be wrapped around the body to keep the wind and sand out.
- Jackets are more contoured and the fabrics feel stiff.
- Waistbands are tightened to reflect the shape of the body.
- Loose, comfortable trousers make it easier to move around.
- There are some irregularities in the symmetry of the clothes.
For bags and weapons, a medieval fanny pack that holds both daggers and loose change. Very much in line with the fantasy worldview setting, in which the Chinese and the Western blend into each other. People with oriental styles and western monsters transform into each other.
Design：
A draft of the initial version may be seen on the lower left, however I believe it leans too far towards fashion. Rather, it doesn’t represent the features of the monster, and it seems as though the people and the monster are incompatible.
The second version is the drawing above the first, with the jacket’s shape changed and several details added to better capture the features of the monster. For instance, the jacket’s sleeves are fashioned like the gaping mouth of a monster, complete with tooth accents. I put a skirt at the bottom that has the shape of the monster’s wings. The monster’s body colour, which ranges from dark to light, is the overall colour. As a decorative, an earthy-looking bandage was added.
The final outfit changed the hat, trousers and shoes but retained the jacket from the second iteration. The monster has a lengthy form because I made it thin overall, but the bottom of the second iteration feels rounded. He took off his bibs and put on a hooded sweater with extra string. In keeping with the worldview, the fanny pack design was also modified to resemble a more mediaeval one. In keeping with the impression of the individual fleeing in the opening scene, the dagger is likewise worn out. The interior’s white, short-sleeved clothing complements the relaxed, cosy vibe and is interchangeable for subsequent scenarios.
Monster
I went to the Natural History Museum and did research on the body structure of whales and pelican eel. This set the stage for the subsequent design and rigging.
Reference
Idea：
Referring to the head and mouth of the pelican eel, along with the body and pattern of Glaucus atlanticus. created a completely new species that fits into my perspective.
The yellow portion of the tail resembles the lantern of a lantern fish, which has the ability to glow in the dark. In this way, there will be light and a more attractive image when the monster swims in the deep sea.
Categories
FMP-IDEA
Thinking Process
I continued the drafts that I had done in my previous semester class. I came up with three drafts at the time, one of which I did as an assignment at the time, and the other which became the inspiration for the final work.
At the time, the plot was constructed so that the protagonist was running away at sea and was being pursued. He encountered a monster that consumed him along the route, but the sequel lacked coherence.
George did tell me that the story was engaging, but it was still lacking a finish and some more description.
I gave it a lot of thought as to whether it would be more interesting if my story was sort of sliced and diced. The primary character may not always have the same persona due to scene changes brought about by various transitions and time alterations.
After deciding on these points, I organized my story and added some settings.
- The story is now about:
‘Dream’ is an animated short film that follows the protagonist Glaucus as he plays different roles in different dreams, but he himself doesn’t realize that he is dreaming. Instead, Glaucus feels it is real. In each dream, Glaucus meets a magical monster. Sometimes the monster is cruel and tries to eat him, and sometimes the monster and he live in harmony. During this continuous exploration, Glaucus discovered that the monster turned out to be himself, and all these were his memories of what happened before.
I wanted to make the film feel like dreamcore.
I was very interested in strange creatures, familiar places and people and seeing yourself.
This file has some of the mental journeys I was thinking about at the time.
Character design
- Monster：
Combine Pelican eel and Glaucus atlanticus. This creature would have a large mouth to feed on and beautiful appendages to support its flight. Ideally, this creature would fly like the legendary “鲲.”. The “鲲” is a legendary fish from the northern sea, a creature that looks like a whale.
- Character：
The protagonist is a robber on the run in the opening scene, and to further emphasise his identity, his clothing is more in line with the wasteland aesthetic, complete with weapons.
The protagonist is wearing more relaxed and loose clothing in the second scene since he is fishing in comfort.
When the main character opens his eyes and rests on a monster in the third scene, he realises that he is the monster. Perhaps the outfit is more akin to the monster.
Three layers of clothing could be designed to achieve a dressing-down effect by hiding the clothing. The innermost layer could be the thin clothing worn when conscious of waking from a dream, the second layer would be the tight clothing worn when escaping, and the outermost layer would be the loose clothing worn when fishing.
Video link：
FMP PROPOSAL：
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques
summary
Studying animation over two semesters has improved my understanding as well as my knowledge of the technical aspects of animation.
Last semester was to complete a process to familiarise me with the animation process and to understand the importance of keyframes. Only when the keyframes are done well can the subsequent animation be done well. Exploring the shot language has taught me that it is essential to design the shot language, how to articulate it, highlight the subject and not to suddenly cross the axis, etc.
Using the lens language as a vehicle to get a more intense, realistic and vivid picture. In the past, my shots tended to be mostly flat, but in the first semester I intentionally used some shots with a large perspective. I feel that the impact of the images is stronger when I use shots with a large perspective. I will continue to experiment with different lenses in the future.
At the same time the creation of the robotic arm helps us to make up for our knowledge of modelling, as well as to understand binding. It is possible to make great results with just the properties that come with maya.
This was an area I had never been exposed to before because when I normally make mapping I do it in SP and rarely use maya’s own material balls to connect nodes to make changes. This was my first introduction to nodes and it was very important, difficult but also very interesting.
And the arm bindings, basically, are bound by curves as constraints. I used to basically use bones, and this was very inspiring for me.
I think I have a better understanding of binding and can use it in combination in the future, which will be more convenient.
This semester has improved the understanding of animation, and both limb animation and mouth animation are very important.
Good lip sync is done on good body animation. Body animation is the foundation, and the keyframe pose is the most important. If the keyframes are not posed properly, the animation will be stiff. During the blocking stage, in particular, more time is spent on determining the pose and the shot.
I learned a lot at this stage, such as that a character’s face should be facing the camera most of the time, that posing in key frames should be as extreme as possible for the action, not to shy away from the camera, to dislike the face when it’s time to dislike it, etc.
This makes it much easier to adjust the spline, so that the movement doesn’t feel flimsy and weak. There are times when adjusting the curve will break the feeling of the original blocking, so we will need to jam certain poses. This is where you need to remove and modify the broken parts of the blocking to spline.
I think I will pay extra attention to these areas in my future animations because it will be very helpful in making them.
Also, the short films that the group worked on were very helpful to me. I learnt about how different members of the team think about animation and how they make it. The collaboration gave me a deeper understanding of textures and lighting, as our film had more realistic materials for the spaceship and scenes, but the characters were cartoonish. How we combine these is something we always need to be aware of.
This time I worked on a lot of lighting techniques and the final light came out pretty well I think. Especially the part where the ship is flying into the tube, the tube is cool, but outside I used warm ambient light, and the colour of the ship’s tail flame looks good with the mixture of warm and cold. I also used a lot of surface and silhouette lighting to avoid objects being invisible outside in the dark.
I am very grateful to the members of our group for working together to complete this animation in such a short period of time. Although it was the first semester we had already completed part of it, due to staff changes and revisions to previous assets, we had the equivalent of redoing this animation. Having gone through the changes, our group has become more united, we speak up if we have any problems and are all willing to keep working on completing it.
The final film may leave a lot to be desired, and I think we will continue to improve it when we have time, and finally finish a nice film as our answer.
Categories
Week20: Animation & Shelter
Sessions with George
Shelter
Advanced Body Mechanics
Spline has been slightly modified and submitted for assignment.
This week
What I have done
I adjusted the curve used to the controller and removed the excess. It makes it more fluid, paying attention to the elbow so that it doesn’t hyperextend and rotate too much.
And the lips and facial muscles have been adjusted to make it more compatible with the whole.
Next week
Will do
Although the assignment has been submitted, I will continue to work on it. In the class after the assignment was submitted this week, the teacher gave many valuable comments during the feedback on my turn to lecture.
Shelter
Minor adjustments to details, rendering compositing complete. The film is complete.
This week
What I have done
I had some difficulties with the rendering, both on the model side and on the rendering side. I made adjustments and changes to this. In the end it made it render successfully and finished its own part in PR editing.
- Details
- Due to the resizing of the camera as well as the scene, some objects are positioned incorrectly.
For example:
The fog starts out at the entrance to the pipe and is not visible in the subsequent shots.
I think it works better with the fog, so I put a few more in the ruins to create a deserted scene. - The moon and stars were positioned too far away when zoomed in and completely invisible in the shot. So I brought it closer and resized and repositioned it.
- The star twinkling effect I did before was a straightforward adjustment of the visibility, so I couldn’t see the actual effect as it wasn’t rendered. But when this clip was rendered, it was just too abrupt. One second it was there, the next it just disappeared, very strange. Also the star material is special and the transparency can’t be adjusted. So I changed it to move the star position from far to near and the star gradually appears, which solved the problem perfectly.
- Rendering and editing
Using the render farm to render each segment to completion and composite the clip.
But when rendering I had a lot of problems.
At first the render farm wouldn’t render, the format was right and everything, but it just wouldn’t run and kept queuing up.
Then the images that I managed to render with deadline, some of them would somehow lose their materials. But the good thing is that not every image had the problem and I picked the ones that went wrong to render individually.
These problems took me a lot of time to solve, but it was good to finish successfully.
Final film（Tang，Jiaruo，Yuhan）– Shelter
Next week
Will do
This film is currently finished, but we will be revising it a second time during the holidays or when people are free.
After all, the production was rushed and there were a bit too many projects that needed to be done at the same time. So I hope we can tweak it again and make it better when we have time in the future. After all, we have put a lot of effort into it.