this scene done...

I think this shot is more or less done. Except I think I overdid the facial movements on unluckyman. He blinks far too much.

Charlie Chaplin

DANCE CHAPLIN, DANCE!!!! MWAHAHAHAAHA!

The idea is, you flick the pages of the dissertation and it dances!

Didn't really work though, not enough pages, and too big.

Fun though!

The work so far.

Here is the scene I have been working on.

Needs a few adjustments, the ending is too quick and the handshake needs finishing.

It's coming along, just very slowly. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist...

Also, finished my dissertation. Yay! I'm not posting all of the pages up, just one at random. This one:

(The chapling in the bottom corner dances, courtesy of Wensdi who traced the video for me)

Update

It has been a while since I have updated this. I have been busy on my next scene and my dissertation, which has to be handed in tomorrow.

I am tired.

This weekend, I shall upload my current work.

Work Done This Week

Mostly, I have been working on my dissertation. I am on 6,767 words (hehe 6767, what an odd number) so I should be done soon.

As far as actual animating is going, I have worked out how to get both of the hands of one of my characters to hold the suitcase, so that when the suitcase moves, his hands stay attached. Very handy, as I can now go back to the shots I already have and animate Unluckyman properly. Big step forward. No rendered scenes to show yet, but I'll show some later.

Stay tuned.

Background City

#

Okay, just downloaded a plugin for my 3ds max thanks to the help of my tutor Mario, called Greeble. It acts as a modifier and helps me turn a normal shape into a series of

randomised... um... sticky up bits. So this is what I have used to sort out my backgrounds. I was worried I would have to clone several buildings and blocks and arrange them randomly myself, which would be very time consuming. Instead, this has done that for me! HooraH!

Obviously, this is still just basic as it needs texturing, but at least I know what the background will look like!

And this is the scene that comes immediately afterwards, as we see Happyman walk towards unluckyman in sympathy. This includes a vague idea of where the background will be, but it needs to be edited by a lot. I'm thinking of pushing Unluckyman further back so he looks semi far away.

Here is video one of two that I have made so far.

I know I know, I'm working too slowly. This is the shot where Unluckyman is sheltering under his suitcase as Happyman walks past with an umbrella and notices him.

First Shot.

Here is the first proper shot, facial movements and everything.

Atmosphere and effects still need to be added.

What on Earth?

Okay , so I'm animating away. As I do. When I render this scene out to see how the walk cycle is and there is a creepy face staring at my character! It kinda looks like my character is staring at it too, which is even odder. Turns out when I deleted a character from here a while ago, I missed his teeth, eyes and bowtie so they just kinda stayed where they were, hidden. And when I unhid all, it appeared!

Creepy!

Anyway, animating is still moving quite slow. I need to speed up if I ever plan on finishing on time! I shall have to make a strict schedule and stick to it! So far I have done the first four shots, more or less, of scene 01. But they need backgrounds adding in, so I do not now how complete I actually am. But I will get there. Oh yes.

Lancaster Children's Film Festival

Mostly this week I have been working for the Lancaster Children's Film Festival, where I have been involved in running a couple of 2D animation workshops for two age groups, 6 - 11 and 12 - 15. The first class were taught simple 2D animation basics, such as blinking, pulling a face and bouncing a ball. The second were given slightly more complex tasks, starting with the bouncing ball and moving on to a walk cycle. They were then given free reign, animating whatever they pleased.

I was so nervous, bearing in mind that I was in charge of the lesson plans, teaching, organisation, everything! Plus, at the end of the session I took the multiple Layout pads home and scanned in all of their work and edited it together to make a series of animations that were shown at the 'We Made This' screening on Saturday. I edited it with music and titles for each student. This took the longest, starting from scanning it on Wednesday at 12pm and finishing on Thursday at 1pm. Plus the editing took me a day and a half, finally finishing at 2am on Friday, the day before the screening.

So yes, lots of work. I am unsure if I am able to post the videos up here, so I shall have to ask, but here is a link to the website of Lancaster Children's Film Festival.

http://www.lancasterchildrensfilmfestival.co.uk/

They were very young, but there were a couple of really interesting animations, which is very promising!

First shot?

Here is the first shot I have animated for my animation.

The one I have previously talked about.

New Semester

The new semester began in september, BUT, my laptop broke waay back in August. I have been without a computer for over two months and it has been difficult to get much work done.

The good news is, I bought a new laptop yesterday and am able to continue with my work, thanks to a free download of 3ds Max from Autodesk. So yay! My work can begin.

I have started with one of the beginning scenes, Unluckyman looking up at the high walls of the Dome and sighing, then feeling fed up as it begins raining.

Pretty simple so far, just getting used to the concept of animating on 3ds Max, I shall post the video once I have downloaded Quicktime Player onto my brand new computer.

Additionally, my work for my dissertation has also begun. I am researching into the use of nonverbal communication in films and animations to convey ideas without needing dialogue. So far, I have introduced my ideas and talked in depth about the technical side of nonverbal communication and the seven main codes that define it. Next, an analysis of silent films.

Futures

Additionally, during this summer, I have secured some relative work experience and have been employed to produce a one minute animation for employment advice centre 'Futures'. This will give me valuable insight in the animation industry, just like my recent work experience at th1ng.

Out with the old

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxbmp55QGZs

This is a short video I made.

Basically, I have completely remodelled both my characters, which has proven to be extremely time consuming. I have not even started filming yet. But it needed it, you can see the difference between the models here in this animation, doesn't the new one look so much better??

This was just a little tester to get my head around animating with him. I think it's gone well...

Buttons fixed, posture is better...looking better?

Okay, so I have the buttons fixed now, with a lot of trial and error and attaching the buttons to several different spines. Plus the jacket needed some work too, hence why is was so distorted as he walked.

I think this is the final walk, but more work may be needed...

Buttons

Oh dear.
Look at this mess.

I tried to fix the buttons by attaching them to the body, but this added mroe vertixes and polygons which meant the rigging was reset. So the buttons became morphable. This may take a while...

Happyman Happywalk

Here is an almost completed version of Happymans Happywalk.

few bugs to sort out, his buttons do not stay straight on his chest, and I think his feet may be far to far apart. it looks ok from the side, but the front looks bizarre...

Stressed.

I still cannot work out how to stop my files from becoming corrupted. Whenever I save files, they save as so much bigger than they should be, which slows down the power of my computer. I cannot work out why. So far the only files that remain intact are my Happyman and my Child. I found what I thought was a solution, and it seemed to work at first. Opening a new file but keeping all the objects as they are made the files so much smaller. But although the files were a good size, I could not reopen the files. Ever again. Something went wrong with the bipeds and they couldn't open. Error. Grr.. I made this animationg because I am stressed. I hope I can fix the problem in time, because I am going to need these files uncorrupted.

Although this has no official use, it's still good practise, right? I still need some work on my timing I think. Plus, it doesn't really look like he's holding his head...

Animating!

Yes, I had to rerig those damn hands again. That wasn't a very stress free day.
BUT on a more positive note, I have moved on from the stressful rigging process and have started some tutorials on how to animate. Although I did have to go back to the rigging and modelling stage a couple of times (I noticed the body underneath the shirt was poking through sometimes, and had to delete some unnecessary polygons to stop it from happening again), I am making my way through the stages of the animation tutorial on 3ds Max (it is easter so I cannot go into uni for tutorials, so I have to make do with uninteractive ones on 3ds max).

Here is where I am so far. It is a couple of walk cycles using 'footsteps'. Although I hope to learn how to make a walk cycle without footsteps when I come to do my actual animation, as I find this particular method very wooden and unemotive.

The above is a general purpose walk cycle using footsteps, where I am learning to stop mid walk and start again. I added the posing in the middle because I felt like it. Please ignore the shoes merging at the end, the footsteps were a little too close together.

Here I modified the standard walk a little to give it a bit more character. Even so, I think I'm gonna have to make one using key framing or something.

Error?

Uh oh! You can see his foot poking through certain areas of his leg, which isn't good at all. But I figured out how to fix it. It did, unfortunately, involve going back into the model and playing with the vertexes, making the end of the foot scaled down so it doesn't reach the outside of the leg. I was worried about playing around with the vertexes of the model as I know this sometimes resets the rigging of the hands and face etc.

I appear to have avoided it this time. I'm guessing this is because the feet are NO WHERE near the head and hands, so they have stayed relatively unchanged. Either this, or because I haven't made any actualy changes to the amount of vertexes or polygons on the model. So it's ok.

I would hate to re-rig the hands again. I've had to do this process about 10 times now...

Baby also coloured

This is a slightly smaller video size. The baby is also coloured. I had a little trouble at first colouring him cos it undid all my rigging, but I tried again and it worked the second time. No idea why...

Unluckyman Coloured

Coloured version or previous video. Look he has a bow tie now as well

Child Rigged...

An example of the child I have rigged, again, before and after the rigging is complete. The main problem on this character where his feet, but with the new method of rigging, this was easily solved...

Rigging hands...

An example of a before and after shot of the hand on my Happyman. As you can see, it looks a bit messed up before I rig it properly.

Successful rigging

tadaa! My first sucessfully rendered character. Much easier this new way.

I am having sooo many difficulties rigging my characters. It is slowing my 3ds Max down so much, and I believe my files may be corrupted. That is, until, I figured out where I was going wrong.

Instead of using Nurms to smooth my model, it works better to use a turbosmooth after I have rigged my model. This way, the physique works better with less polygons, then the smooth is applied after. As you can see on the top picture (middle and right), this makes a much smoother version than the one on the top right, which is terribly creased.

Barriers

Here is a quick render I did of the barriers for the entry into the Dome. I just wanted to check that barriers could raise and fall smoothly without juttering to the side or anything. I think it looks good. Moving on!

Props are almost all completed. You may notice I'm taking a quick break from rigging, it's not working well at all

Still rigging

I'm still working on the rigging of my characters. I am also getting a week placement at Th1ng productions in London, which is exciting.
At the moment I have Unluckyman and the baby almost rigged. I am also working on the young child.
I had issues with the physique modifier at first, but I am working with fixing it.

I have begun the complicated process of rigging my characters, starting with unluckyman. This may take me a while to sort out. Although maybe not as long. I have been informed that because the character fits neatly over the biped, the actual rigging is straightforward and most happens automatically. There are just a few bits here and there that need tweaking. The main items being the hand. Because the fingers are so close together, the points are pulling on all the wrong bits. So I need to manually select which vertexes are attached to which links. As I am rigging these hands, I am noticing that my hands don't look very handlike. They lack knuckles and the palm doesn't look realistic enough. I need to ask myself, are these changes going to be worth the difficulty of changing them? How important are the characters hands in my animation. Probably very important, so maybe altering their shape is a necessity. I just wish I didn't use the same shape of hand for all my characters now...

A couple more additions to my list of props. Above is a buzzsaw I made that Unluckyman will accidently create. To it's right is the reference I got for its creation. Also, I have begun work on the huge orb that generates everyones imagination. I have gone for a hi tech looking machine with a central globe in the centre and multiple wires extruding from it and connecting it to the ceiling (see below)

Balloon

Now I have made a balloon, I just need to work out details, such as how to make the string and how to make it shine like a balloon. But, the basic shape is complete. Including knot (Shown above)

I makes cakes!

Yum Yum Yum!


Obviously it needs colouring, but I'll get to that. This is the cake that Happyman summons up. Candles were important, and were made using the array tool. I want them to appear above the cake and fall into the icing one at a time.

More random objects I am making!

I am forever ongoing with objects, starting more and more as I come to a standstill with others. Although I have a whole bunch of objects almost finished, there are a few that need finishing that I have no idea how to do.

For example, I need to make a spring stretch out from the fuses of the dynamite and into the clock, but I am unsure how to mould the spring shape into the shape I want. Many other objects needs texturing done which I have yet to learn how to do. All in good time.

Here are the latest of objects I have almost finished:

Jack in the Box.

Lollipop

Candy Cane

Fishing Net

Broom

More on the dynamite...

Here is the current work on the dynamite. Mario has informed me of the best way of making the wheels detach and the wings shoot out from the sides. I was originally going to extrude the wings from the model itself, but upon reflection it is obvious that it will be easier to make the wings as a seperate object and have them grow out of the side using scale.

The wings will have movable flaps, and the hands on the clock have been made so they will rotate.

Added hinges to the suitcase. They may or may not be seen, depending on how far away the suitcase is from the camera when it is opened, but I like to add little touches.

Also, started on the dynamite. Simply made from cylinders and a tube for the strap so far. I am going to make two versions of this, one with wheels and one with wings and a jet pack. I do however need to ask how to make the coiled up cord on the fuses.

More suitcase

Suitcase almost done. Finished the latch and the handle, I think I'm getting the hang of this. I just need to find out how to make hinges on my object, so I can animate the lid opening and closing.

Suitcase

Shots so far of me making a suitcase.

Props

Finished objects, the chair and the golf club are completed, I believe. Although they obviously need textures, and I will be rendering them with material. I am now working on the suitcase, in particular the locking mechanism. When creating the suitcase, I need to remember that it will be opening up at the end of the animation, and therefore needs to have an inside, preferably large enough to hold all the items that Unluckyman will be using.

Chair part two.

...To solve this problem, I first deleted the large multisided polygon and replaced it with seperate polygons and a few triangles. This gave me a round shape that I could use for the bumpy bits. Following this, I had to work out how to make the cloth look bumpy, and turbosmooth was overdoing it. This was when Mario showed me how to use the NURMS subdivision thing, which smooths the object without adding extra polygons. Now I am currently on the way to making the back of the chair. I am adding the cushions seperately.

Chair part one.

I have gotten underway on the chair, but had some difficulty at first.

The first problem I stumbled across was making the right shape for the arm rest out of a box. This was simply solved, as seen in the second picture, by using a cylinder instead of a box. But then I was stuck as to how to make the bumpy bit on the front of the armrest. I need it to stick out a little, and make it look like it was a smooth bump, and the fabric was wrapped around.

Objects

Update. Over the last week the two main characters (Unluckyman and Happyman) and two sub characters (baby and kid) have been completed and are ready for rigging. Now, I have started on the props, but having difficulty. The first object I made was the bowling ball (bottom right) until I realised from my research that the holes were in the wrong position. So I remade the ball and this time, working off my research and concepts, made a correct ball (Top Right). This was relatively easy. Then I attempted the umbrella, and started with the canvas part (top left) until I realised that it was a) the wrong size and b) I hadn't worked out how the frame was going to look. So, I started again making the handle first and doing the frame, but this doesn't work either, cos the frame looks terrible. Mario has shown me how to multiply the canvas part so I can have 8 made of one, so I will work on this next.

Unluckymans clothes

Current progress on collar for Unluckyman.

Child

Child now completed, more or less. Although personally I think I may need to edit the top of his head, the eyebrow area doesn't look right.

I have made good progress on the clothing for Unluckyman, and with tuition I am starting to work the collar out. Here, I have extruded the edges that surround the neck out, up, and back to make it 3 dimensional. Now I will begin to work on the front part of the collar.

Kinda complete? Hmm?

Baby completed

Baby is completed and looking quite nice, so I have moved on to the child. At the moment, all I have done is the head and one sleeve for the arm, making sure to extrude the tshirt sleeve so it appears as though the arm comes out of the sleeve. I have also copied the same hand from the baby model to reuse in this one. The head was a fairly basic shape.

Baby baby, give me your answer true...

I have started work on my baby, and have gotten quite far quite fast, so I guess I must be getting faster at the process of model making. I only have the hand and foot left to do, and then I can mirror the body and attach it to the head. He was quite easy to make because he isn't wearing any clothes except a diaper, which was relatively easy to make.

Once the baby is done, I shall move on to some older children.

Difficulties

The clothes are becoming difficult. The file for Happyman seems to be corrupted and it crashes every time I open it, which means I may need to begin the clothes again. I am also having difficulty in working out how to make the collar for Unluckyman. I can't get my mind around how it should work. Basically, the collar needs to fold over, and go around the neck and back down the other side, making it very difficult. I just can't work out what to do for it, so I may take a break for a while and work on the baby.

Clothes

I have finished the clothes for Happyman. I started by highlighting the areas of the body that were to be clothed and expanding them as a seperate object, then editing the new objects to look like the clothes whilst still maintaining the same shape. I included a crease on the trousers and made sure there was a kind of 'lip' on the edges to give it a more 3 dimensional feel to it. Next I will do the clothes for Unluckyman.

Additionally, I have decided to edit my film somewhat. I am going to cut out the part with the fridge and just have the Happyman make a cake out of thin air. Here is a list of objects I need to make for my film:

1. New Umbrella
2. Old Umbrella
3. Barrier
4. ID Pass
5. Central Orb
6. Bubble
7. Lollipop
8. Golfclub
9. Golfball
10. Umbrella Stand
11. Happymans Chair
12. Unluckymans Chair
13. Cake
14. Unluckymans head/Demon
15. Balloon
16. Bowling Ball
17. Stringy Shape
18. UFO
19. Pirate Ship
20. Robot
21. Noose
22. Book, including 3 pages
23. Buzzsaw
24. Jack-In-The-Box
25. Bomb
26. Bomb with Jet Engine
27. Butterfly Net
28. Broom
29. Candy Cane
30. Some sort of monster for Happyman to trip over?
31. Helicopter
32. Muscley man/Flabby man
33. Tall boy
34. Suitcase
35. Juggling balls

I have a LOT to make :S

Issues with the foot!

I had a little hiccup, I merged the foot I had made for Happyman from one file into Unluckymans file, hoping to reshape the general model. When I tried attaching it to the leg, it came up with this error message and I wasn't sure what it meant. Turned out it was something simple. I had merged in an already used shape so the ID was the same, or something. Easily fixed by pressing a button. Unluckyman is well under way now, I have his body and arm all sorted, soon be ready to finish it off!

Finished Happymans basic structure. Started Unluckyman

I have finished the basic body of the man. I only needed to model one half of the body and I mirrored it to make the model symmetrical. I then welded the two halves together and tadaa! I have my body. As you can see, I still need to give him clothes.

I have also begun on the Unluckyman. So far I have just done the head, using the same techniques that I used when making the Happyman. Next is the body...

Body made

I have used the methods I have already learned about to continue with my model, so to speak. He is naked. But I have completed his hands and am working on his feet, getting his shoes to match the shape, which shouldn't be too difficult as it is a simple shape. On this picture, I am working on the legs. I am adding more polygons because I have been told that they are a bit sparse and need a bit more detail.

I used my own hand to model the hand and fingers, looking at it from all sides to attempt the shape. I do not think it is too bad. Although the thumb needs some additional work and the hand needs touching up in general.

Chest and Arms

Been working on shaping my body and arms, the arms and legs seem pretty straightforward but I have to keep adding polygons to the chest to make enough polygons to match the neck and head. Because I will be attaching them to each other, I need the same number of polygons on both, and am worried that there are too many polygons on the front. I hope it doesn't hinder my animation at all...

Struggling

I am currently struggling with working in 3D. It is hard to work in wireframe for me, as I cannot see what on earth is going on! It's confusing, there on the bottom! Also I am slowly getting used to working in such a 3D environment, which is completely different to what I am usually used to. But the actual model making as coming along nicely, and I have already got a head for my Happyman made, as can be seen on the top.