MA 3D Computer Animation

Part1 storyboard

Part2 make outline of the animation

Although we are already working with students majoring in dubbing. However, we couldn’t get the voice acting immediately, so I had to make a rough version of the voice acting to determine the pace of the characters’ action. Because if I wait for their voices to come out, I might not have time to finish my work. All I could do was work while wait for their voices.

I used youdao software for translation and dubbing. These are several audio files after translation.

I made an outline of the position and performance in Maya, and combined it with those sound file in PR to integrate and export.

This is an outline of the animation.

Part3 Make a loop:

I had to do six different walking loops before I found one that worked for Abilene

Abilene’s walking loops

Part4 Add a mouth animation:

This is the key frame where I adjusted the mouth shape of the character’s face

If the hair is displayed, Maya always crashes during play the preview. In order to improve efficiency, I had to hide my hair for playing the preview.. This is the mouth animation part of the character.

The problem I encounter and how to solve it:

When making animation, the hand sometimes needs to use IK, sometimes needs to use FK, when the two control methods switch to each other, the movement of the hand appears to jump, unable to connect the movement smoothly. Therefore, I copied the model of the character in the frame before and after the arm control switching, and made the next frame pose based on the model pose of the previous frame. This ensures the fluidity of the character’s movements to a large extent. Give the copied model a red material. Bright colors help us to adjust posture of the character.

Animation curve:

After we had adjusted the posture of all the characters, I opened the curve editing interface and smoothed and adjusted the curves of the existing characters.

This is my final working:

Part3 Feedback & Updates

This performance design was suggested to me by my group members. I originally envisioned Edward and Abilene performing in the same shot. But when my crew told me it was a VR interactive scene that required seeing Abilene from Edward’s point of view, I had to rethink it. I tried to make the audience understand that the camera’s lens was Edward’s eyes, based on their descriptions and my own ideas.

During production, my character didn’t walk that naturally. You can clearly see that in the mouth animation part of the character, the character’s walking movement is very strange. When I show it to people around me, they point out similar problems to me. So I spent a lot of time tweaking the character’s walk.

Part4 conclusion

When adjusting the animation, you need to settle down and adjust it bit by bit. Don’t be too hasty. Once we lose the patience to adjust the animation, the final result of it will not be in ideal. When making this animation, I did not find a suitable animation reference, so I made it according to my own imagination. I also tried to shoot video references, but the performance was not ideal. In the production of animation, the animation may be turned bad. Don’t be impatient at this time. Take a proper rest. After adjusting the mentality, continue to make.

For creating animation, I have saved 66 working files.

Part1 Room design

The design and production of the room was jointly completed by me and XUAN, a VR professional.

In the beginning, she built a room modeling for Abilene. But, in the group meeting, we agreed that Abilene came from a very wealthy family and that the model was a little too shabby. So we decided to redesign and build the scene.

Part2 Reference

This is the room reference that our group members searched together

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Part3 communication, help and design

During this time, I built a rough model of the room to match the role play positions. (The team members helped me find these models, and I was responsible for the combined installation.)

This is the initial plan of character movement (scene layout needs to be coordinated with character performance)

I sent this video to Xuan, and she designed and made the room according to the character’s movement. Then, Xuan sent me the room model and material.

Video recording about making a simple love lamp model:

I spent a few days making some changes to the scene according to the script and character performance. I spent a few days adjusting the position and texture of the model. And added and made some models: curtains, sketch boards, bed, and love lamp, etc. This is the final model after my modify.

Part4 conclusion

In this process, I found it very enjoyable to work with other people to make things. Everyone has inspiration and design flash point, different thinking collision, communication can produce more sparks in the design. Make it tend to be better.

In order to modify and make room models, I have saved 9 working files.

character texture:

eye:

For the UV of the eye, I chose the way of plane mapping. The more human-like the characters’ eyes become, the more frightening they seem. To avoid the uncanny valley effect, I chose this exaggerated texture for the character’s eyes.

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face:

I unfolded the UV of the character’s head. But when I imported it into Photoshop and started to texture it, I realized that the skin color in Photoshop was not exactly the same as the skin color in Maya. The slightest change of color can make a character’s skin color strange. So, I had no choice but to choose the face of the character head model and paint it with different colors. I think I need to spend more time to learn how to make skin texture in the future.

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clothe texture:

Tutorial

This is a video recording of part of unfolding UV

Color matching：

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I asked our group members to choose the color I matched, and finally, we chose the blue dress by voting in the group.

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This is the material of the clothes I made by downloading the texture on the Internet. But I found the texture of it a little disorganized and not good. Therefore, I spent a lot of time to redesign the texture of the character’s clothes. The theme of the texture of clothes is consistent with the theme of our group project, that is, love.

The sleeves

The vest

The skirt

Final rendering

Part3 Feedback & Updates

In the process of designing clothes material, the team members gave me a lot of useful suggestions. The color matching of the characters’ clothes was decided by a vote of the group members. For example, Iris told me that she liked some texture at the waist and bottom of the character, so WHEN I redesigned the character’s clothes material, I made sure that there were some beautiful patterns in these two places.

Part4 conclusion

During the process of material making for clothes and character skin, I deeply realized the shortcomings of my material making for character, especially the character skin. I think I need to spend more time to learn related software in the future. At the same time, when I finished the model, I was deeply aware of how stupid it was to make the model and material of clothes directly by intuition without designing the design drawing for the character at the beginning. Because it really takes up a lot of my time. It takes much longer than drawing up a design concept. In the process of character design and production in the future, I will avoid such situation to happen again.

For clothe texture, I have saved 7 working files.

Part1 clothe design

Reference

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Part2 Modeling

Tutorial

This is my original dress design：

I am satisfied with the current initial version, but there is still a big problem with the hair of the little girl, so I decided to determine the hair of the little girl first, and then carry out detailed clothing design.

In the process of creating hair, because my hair is generated from the surface, a lot of times, the roots will grow at the end of the hair, which requires me to manually adjust. Also, because the density of hair is not that high, I created a scalp for the character in order to avoid goof.

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Because I wanted to express the character’s personality through the character’s hair, I tried different colors and styles of hair

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Because I wanted to express the character’s personality through the character’s hair, I tried different colors and styles of hair. The little girl’s arms were drooping, but it was very inconvenient for building clothes, so I changed this part of the model and extended the little girl’s arms straight.

The design of the waist bothered me for a long time, and I spent a lot of time studying the design of waist clothes.

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This is a video recording of part of my modeling

I will also talk about my troubles to my team members, and they also gave me some good suggestions. This is the model we finally discussed.

Part3 Feedback & Updates

The team gave me a lot of helpful advice on the waist line and skirt design. Also, they suggested that I add a bowknot to the Abilene character as a decoration. This is to echo the design of the main character Edward. Therefore, I added a hair band with a bow as decoration for Abilene.

Part4 conclusion

In the process of designing the dress, I did not draw a design, but built a model of the dress according to my personal preference. At first, I thought this method would speed up the work progress. However, in the process of actual modeling, I found that building the model by feeling without drawing would greatly reduce the work efficiency. This experience also tells me that in the future design and creation process, only by drawing specific design drawings can 3D models be made better and faster.

For clothe design and hair, I have saved 20 working files.

Part1 character design

Reference
According to the script, Abilene is a child who was born in a rich family, kind and loving. At first, I thought she was a girl about 15 years old. the reference style I looked for was tend to be mature and rich, and I liked the shape of the characters’ faces and the extravagant clothes they wore.

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The draft
In fact, I am good at realistic style rather than cartoon style, so I tend to be realistic style when I build character model at the beginning. I built a preliminary model according to the draft.(Apply a flat projection map to the head）

Feedback and modification:

At the beginning I established the general model and character style, but in the group meeting, when I showed it to my teammates, the group members very clearly express their opinions. They pointed out the place that I need to modify: Abiline is not a 15-year-old girl, she is a 7-year-old girl. The model I made is too mature, and the style of model reference is not close to the overall style of the work. So I had to go back to the draft, redesign and change the style of the model.

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Character design
I’d like to highlight a few characteristics of the character
Hair: cute ((No sure)
Dress: skirt, vest, sleeves, European aristocratic style
Face: big eyes, small mouth, eyeliner and eyelashes
Figure: cute, short hands and feet
Based on these ideas, I redesigned her scale, enlarged his head, shortened his hands and feet, and made the character’s body look fatter and cuter.

New Reference

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Part2 modeling

The tutorial

Maybe it’s because I haven’t made a model in a long time. At first, the process of modeling was very slow. In fact, my modeling approach starts with a basic model in the Maya library. it helps me save a lot of time. In Maya, I actually only made half of the character model, and the other half was made by mirroring, which will also keep both sides symmetrical.
During the modeling process, I was always unhappy with the modeling result. And I didn’t think the model was exactly the same as I wanted. These questions of whether the characters which I made are cute enough to look like, and whether they fit in with the character style of the book, has always bothered me. I included the reference image in Maya to accurately determine the proportions of the character’s body structure.

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Girls need to watch their eyes and eyelashes. This time I used the form of surface to make hair. It’s because I want the feel of a strand of hair. At the same time, by using it, I can create hair with the hair system later. It is more convenient.

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At first, the eye was an oval sphere. But the eyes move, so I left out half of them for the convenient of rigging and eye movement.

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Since the eye is a standard sphere, somewhat distant from the model of the face, I spent some time adjusting it.

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Part 3: Feedback and updates
During the discussion with my classmates, they gave me some suggestions:

1. For example, by showing them my work, in the process of discussion. I find that the current character has no distinctive features and lacks personality, so I want to add personality or special point to the character’s hair.
2. For example, as mentioned before, suggestions from team members on my role design style and production direction: the style of model reference is not close to the overall style of the work. This advice helped me adjust in time.

Part4 conclusion

For body modeling, I have saved 14 working files.

After I had a rough scale design, I started to build the model. I hadn’t used Maya to build a model for a long time, and it was a little stressful at first.
I would like to thank my teammates for pointing out my mistakes and shortcomings when my design direction and style are different from the overall style and direction, so that I can change the style of the model in the first time. It helps me realize my problem in the first place, thus avoiding a more waste of time.

I found a new team to work on a project based on a fairy tale: Edward’s Wonderful Journey, which is a very long story.

During that time, we had two dialogues.
First, after I joined the team, I understood the theme and discuss the direction of the script revision with everyone.
Second, discuss with them whether 360 degree rendering can be achieved.

Part1 discussion
The existing scripts are:

According to this script, we need to make five 3D character models and five scene. But in this team, we only have two 3D animators, and we need to build five character models in two months, which is too much work. After discussing with them, the students in our team made some cuts to the script. At the same time, some characters were demonstrated by two-dimensional animation, which successfully reduced the workload of three-dimensional animation from five models to two, which was also the workload we could complete within the specified time.
Here’s the revised script:

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Part2 discusses whether 360-degree rendering is possible
P1: I think 360-degree rendering should be the background image + scene + model in Unity for animation configuration
P2: I think the scene + animation should be done in Maya, then export the model, animation and scene files respectively, and reassemble them in Unity
P3: Specifically, it is this kind, but it will take time to assemble, and it is impossible to turn the lens, so you can try to fix the angle of the camera
P4: All in all, now we have to accomplish everything in Maya before we can decide

Part3 Reference materials and topics: We found some reference materials (illustrations in books), hoping to get inspiration.

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Link about Edward’s Wonderful Journey:http://www.dushu369.com/tonghua/adhdqmzl/

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Part4 The reference map found by the team members is used to determine the style of the team’s working

Part5 Task Overview

After consulting with everyone, I was responsible for the character Abilene’s design, modeling, binding, animation, scene design, lighting, rendering, etc.
We know it’s going to be hard to accomplish it. But I wanted to at least finish the 3D animation, which means finish all the modeling, bindings, textures, animations and visual effects rendering. If I do not have enough time, our group member may be asked for help me set up the scene.

At first, I was thinking about whether to set up my own team, but after much thinking, I decided to join other people’s team and be a member of the team. I’ve always wanted to work with someone who is a VFX major, so I found them.

We had two conversations this week:
First, we got to know each other and determine the theme.
Second ,we establish a public cloud disk, and the technical specifications and requirements of the project.

Part1 dialogue 1
Project: The group leader presents his project idea and vision. We discussed it and decided it was a viable project.
Exchange of information: We exchanged our curriculum requirements and adapted existing project ideas to each other’s specialty requirements.
Personal skills: We determine which parts of the task we are responsible for according to our personal skills and interests.
References and Themes: Our theme is a concept short movie about ancient myths. So far, we have a brief concept of the background, content and plot, and next week, we’ll start character design, costume design and camera design.

The second part of the animation style reference
We found some antique animation works for reference. Determine the overall effect and tone the project is intended to achieve. Meanwhile we found some martial arts moves for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjfL3gdt9RY

The third part, the technical specifications and requirements of the establishment project.
Since we are project cooperation of different departments, we set up the specification of file transfer at the very beginning, so as to avoid delay of project progress due to version problems in subsequent document handover process.

Render sequence frame:.exr
Maya finished animation export: ABC is an intermediate file
Model as far as possible four sides, UV does not limit the normal operation on the line
Render size: 2048*858

Part4 Task Overview
I was responsible for character clothing design, storyboarding, fabric calculation, visual effects rendering, etc.

Part 5 Task 1: Design and make clothes

I found a lot of references, and these are three of them.

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This is the initial design of the character’s clothes :

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Part 6 Conversation 2
In the process of our communication, I found that the team leader was a mighty person. Maybe in the initial communication process, the result is not ideal. He has what he insisted. I have what I stand for. This led to a great deal of disagreement between us.

Finally, due to irreconcilable conflicts, I had to abandon the existing project and look for a new team.