This module has been at times the most frustrating and difficult I have so far taken but I think has produced the work I am most pleased with due to the effort I have had to put into it. The hugely steep learning curve that comes with 3DS Max has been very difficult to overcome and I have found myself watching endless youtube tutorials in an attempt learn how to use the program. With no prior 3D animation knowledge and limited 3D modeling knowledge I knew the second part of this module was going to be difficult so I took a conscious decision to make my models as simple as possible. This was in an attempt to make the animation as easy as possible. I used much more basic materials (than in the first part of the module) that would deform more naturally on my character than more complex materials.

However I made the mistake of making the limbs on my characters far too thick. Due to their thickness their range of movement was very limited. My inexperience animating was the reason I made this mistake. It proved to be my biggest problem throughout the animation process and something I would definitely change if I were to do the module again.

I used 3 lights for my scene, 1 omni light, 1 spot and 1 skylight. The skylight gives a very natural effect with great shadows but dramatically increases the render time. I decided to stick with it because I knew I would regret it if I had removed it. The spotlight emitting from the lamp is particularly effective in lighting the scene and was very happy with the look it gave.

As I have previously highlighted I made the arms and legs too thick to achieve a good range of motion that limited my animation. I think I managed to overcome this problem quite well in the end. The skinning stage was quite frustrating with random vertices moving with bones for no apparent reason but when it finally went according to plan it was a good feeling seeing the models come to life.

I used a variety of different camera shots mixing long shots, aerial shots, close ups and a point of view shot.   Having the freedom of getting any shot I wanted was something I enjoyed, im sure it will make going back to actual video producing feel much more restrictive.

I think the weakest area of the animation was the sound. I learnt finding sounds that were appropriate was very difficult. Amongst others I ended up using two songs from Toy Story, people often said that my character and scene reminded them of toy story so I decided to continue with these connotations by using the songs from the films. I wanted to give the idea that my animation could fit into a scene of Toy Story.

I have learnt the basics of animating in 3D during this module and feel that I have gained a good foundation that I can build on in future projects. I have enjoyed gaining the new skills and pleased with the work I have produced.

So after rendering around 1600 frames at between 1:30 - 2 minutes per frame the animation is finally at a point where im happy with it.

Once all the parts of the animation were rendered I was ready to edit them together in Premiere Pro. It was a nice feeling going back to a program I was very familiar with after the frustrating struggles with 3DS Max. I started by importing all the rendered scenes, both the .mov’s and the bitmap still’s that I had rendered. I trimmed the clips to required lengths and dropped them into the timeline.

After I had my moving clips where I roughly wanted to be I then placed the bitmaps on the timeline. I used bitmaps for when the animation was still because there is no point rendering still motion. By using bitmaps I was using a lossless image type so the stills would not be noticed. I then went back to max and created an intro still which I thought to be much more effective than a simple photoshop graphic intro.

I used ‘fade to black’ for my transitions where I have used them. I used a fade to black with a black screen for a few seconds in order to show a period of time passing after the character is sewing his heart.

I then created a thought cloud in photoshop to show my character having an idea. I can create this directly from Premiere Pro by selecting File > New > Photoshop file. This opens up photoshop with a canvas the perfect size for the video. This also allows me to edit the file and the changes are made in premiere when the file is saved which is a good example or Adobe premiere pro & photoshop integration.

After animating I had 11 different files that would require rendering. I was rendering after I finished each scene to make sure I didn't run out of time. I decided to render at a 16:9 resolution of 1067 x 600. I chose this format to give the animation a more cinematic look. My scene had 1 skylight and 1 omni light, I set the ‘rays per sample’ for the skylight to 12 which was a good compromise between quality and render time. Depending on the specific scene I was rendering each scene between 1:30 and 2 minutes. I did make a few mistakes whilst rendering, I had to re-render a scene because I forgot to turn on the omni light which was highly frustrating. I also had to re-render a scene due to me not hiding the biped which was poking out at the feet. From these errors I made sure I checked everything before hitting render and leaving it to run. For times when the animation is still I rendered a bitmap image so as not to waste time rendering still frames. 

Once I had completed modeling the scene and skinning the characters I was ready to start the animation. Having no prior experience animating in 3D in any form I made sure completed many of the tutorials and watched some appropriate videos on youtube.

I wanted to produce a render to see how long it would take. This is an initial animation test. Having a skylight in the scene provides a much more natural lighting but dramatically increases render time.

After skinning my character I could now start to experiment with the footsteps mode. My initial thoughts on the footstep was that compared to most other functions of 3DS Max it was relatively easy to use and implement. Getting my charcter to walk, run and jump was quick to achieve, the difficult part came when I wanted to mix footstep mode with normal freeform. I soon realised that I had to convert the footstep keyframes into freefrom keyframes, this however meant once I converted the keyframes i could not go back and edit the footsteps easily. This also meant that my animation would have to be in more seperate parts when mixing the different parts of the animation (i.e walk - do something - walk - do something - walk)

My sack model below is now almost complete. The standing pose shows the skinning to have turned out well however in the sitting pose a few problems appeared. The arms have a few sharp points when moved to their maximum amount of avaliable movement also something on the left arm is effecting one vertex on the lower part of the head which can be seen in the image below. These problems only require small modifications to the skinning. I am quite happy how the model/biped/skinning has turned out and am now confident enough that the model will work well when it comes to animating it. I do however have the problem that becuase of the nature of my character there is not the same level of movement in the limbs that a normal human shape would have. This is due to the 'chunky' nature of the body, hopefully it wont cause me too much trouble in the animating phase.

To create the background & lighting for these renders I used this tutorial

Tutorial excercise.

After completing the models body (exluding the eyes) I inserted a biped and began skinning. I could certainly foresee problems with the skinning phase so I wanted to get this part done as soon as possible. Initially I inserted the biped which didnt require much modifying. I removed the fingers & toes from the biped as my character had no need for them, I also removed a spine link.

The lamp provides a visual source for the light & creates an effective lighting style. I created the lamp by starting with a cylinder and extruding out from the cap, the angles were created by using the 'hinge from edge' tool.  Finally I created a cone and extruded inwards to create a space for the light bulb. For the bulb I set the material as self illuminating which gave the effect that the light was on. I finally set a target spot to make the lamp actually provide the lighting for the scene. I adjusted the intensity & falloff to create the required lighting.

I will now create some objects on the floor of the scene that will provide obstacles that my character will interact with at the beginning of the animation.

After creating my reference images I began modelling.  I started by creating a box which would form the body of the character, I then extruded out the polygons for the limbs and head. I moved the vertices to create the shapes I wanted. The model was kept as simple as possible so that when i came to the skinning stage the task would not be too difficult.

Inspired by the characters from "little big planet".

This is the storyboard for my interpretation of the fable "the lion in love".

More to follow.

I have decided to produce my animation based on the fable "The Lion In Love". I am going to switch the characters in the fable to sack toys after being inspired by the film "9"  & the video game "Little Big Planet". Next I will produce a storyboard for my idea.

My first task was to read through the Aesops Fables and pick out a few that were of interest. So far there are 3 fables that have initially caught my imagination. The Wolf in Sheeps Clothing & The Sick Lion both contain quite dark morals which would allow me to create an interesting atmosphere & feeling in the animation. The other fable that I found interesting was The Lion in Love. I think this fable would be a good oppertunity to convey emotion though expression.

Im not looking to take the fables too litterally. I will definatly look at taking an abstract view and substitute animals & people with possibly more unqiue characters.

I think now I will continue to read through more fables and see if any more stike me as possibles.