Evaluation

For my CG project using a pre rigged biped model I had to create a character performance using industry standard processes. The character will walk towards a box, look into the box and react to the contents. Along with this we had to create a 3D model of our choice.

I was incredibly happy with how my Jack in the box turned out, it was a vast improvement on what I had previously made. I’m glad I used him in my final sequence, even if he did cause issues with timing, it added a touch that was mine. It made my sequence original to me. I also like that I managed to create a background for my character and box, for me it just brought it all together. Again unfortunately is caused problems with lighting and rendering, but they soon got fixed. But it just shows that I experimented.

I’m not completely happy with the actual animation I produced, I felt like the reaction wasn’t natural enough. Her reaction seems too quick and her eyes don’t move where I would like them to. I did however find it much harder than I thought I would, I kept coming across issues. Mostly the timing of the Jack in the box that I rigged myself, as a result it took longer than I intended and I feel like I could have produced a better animation. Even if it didn’t look as aesthetically pleasing. I cared too much about making it look nice, the animation suffered. 

3D Reel

My Final Rendered Scene

Here is my final performance, lighting has been added and it has also been rendered. I very happy with how the scene looks overall, but I'm not completely happy with the actual animation. I feel like it doesn't seem natural.

Fixing Lighting and Textures

Here I have added lighting to my scene, but it really wasn't easy. I have always set my textures as 'stingrays' which I have recently found out isn't compatable when you try to render in mental ray. So I had to change them all to 'mis_material', which seemed to fix it.
For some reason the lighting wasn't being compatable with the textures I put on the wall, it was also lighting the actual character differently to the rest of the scene which was causing me issues. But Luckily with guidence I was able to get it working, I used a spot light to add dramatic effect.

Final Concept

Here is my scene from a far view, just to show the character within the room, however everything seems slightly flight due to there not being any lighting, this would be m next job.

Room Textures

I wanted to make my scene stand out so I decided to make a room for my character, I did this by creating a cube about my scene and texturing it on substance painter (my old friend) and making it look like she's in an attic, i had to choose what bricks I wanted for the walls. wooden roof and carpet. I also added wooden beams to my ceiling to make it seems less flat and unwrapped and textured them also.

 

I felt like these bricks were too much, they looked like they belonged on the outside of a house.

 

I also felt like this concrete belonged outside and not inside an attic.

 

 

 I decided on this brick, I love that you can see the cement seaping through from between the bricks.

 

I place it on my unwrapped scene.

Along with the wooden roof and carpet textures I decided on.

Trying to Finalise

I showed this version to my tutor but she was concerned about the fact that she kneels down and that's it. She felt like I needed to show the fear further by possibly moving her head as she falls down or picking her leg up in fear.

I decided to try moving her head as she moved down I felt like it worked well but it wasn't perfect, It doesn't feel natural enough.

I decided to try working in the fact that she's still curious about the box in my scene even though she is frightened, I did this by having her move her her head from her hands and looks to the sight curiously. However again I feel like this isn't natual enough, it's too fast and she's not going to be thst forward with looking at the box if she's frightened, so I think I might have her just pearing through her fingers because she's curious.

Attempts

My attempts were always very fast, I also had some issues with the timing with my Jack in the box and with my timing overall. Nothing was really working well together. I had to try and figure out a way to fix this.

I tried to sort of the jack in the boxes speed, and my characters reaction speed by using the graph editor to help me represent of the animated attributes in my scene, shown as animation curves. The Graph Editor lets me manipulate animation curves and keys within a graph view of a scene.

Being Frightened By Box - Test

I produced a few tests of my character finding the jack in the box and being frightened, all of them unfortunetly are very quick, so I need to work on my final peice and make it slower. However they do give an idea of how I want my character to move.

Finding Box - Tests

Based on my reference videos I decided to play around with the characters face and see what emotions I could produce, I feel like this is too quick for an emotion for my character being happy that she found the box. I need to make it slower in future.

Being Shocked By The Jack In The Box References

I continued to try and find references, me being the actress (unfortunetly for you) but this time I was being shocked by the contents of the box, I need to make sure I'm sure on the level of scared I want her to be. Whether she's frightened at first and then is curious about what she see's, or she's just frightened and doesn't want to be anywhere near the box.

Find The Box References

I decided to film my face reacting to finding a box that i was unfamiliar with, but am excited to open. (i'm not a professinal) just to give me an idea of what my characters face could look like.

Jack in the Box references

When I was looking into references for my character it made me realise that I didn't have many references for my jack in the box, how was he going to pop up? How long would he wobble for abfter the impact from bursting out the box. 

Unfortunetly I couldn't find many references of spring Jack in The Box's like what mine is, so I feel like it would move differently to a lot I have found.Which seem to spring up and not do much else. I feel like I am going to add more movement to my puppet after it has left te box.

 

 

Box Tests

I decided to take some videos of me being shocked by a box opening when I was about to open it. I wanted to get reference for my scene, one of the videos has me shocked but I don't bounce back. It's basing the reaction on the facial features mostly, but I felt like I needed a variation. 

 

I decided to make this reaction more 'animated' showing my emotions through the use of my body language, this works better as it gives a dramatic reaction the the audience will hopefully understand easily. I'm also obviously not the best actress. 

 

I had to idea of maybe my character holding on to the box and turning the handle, but the more i thought about it I realise that I would get a bigger reaction out of her if she didn't know the box was going to open.

Textures

Here is a screen shot of me unwrapping the shapes on my Jack in The Box, I attempted to make them the same size in terms of resolutions. That's how I know some bits of the model will come out as the same resolution. 

Here I'm filling the UV shells with colour, the different colours mean different things. 

Colour Map

Height Map

Metallic Map

Normal Map

Roughness Map 

Story Board

Here is a very basic idea had for my 3D sequence, it starts off with my character walking towards the Jack in the box being exciting about the find. They are later scared by the box when it decides to pop up before she gets to it.

Inspired By Nights

I decided that I didn't like the head on my model, it was too basic and I wanted something that was pleasing to look at. I look at my previous reference photo.... 

 and it reminded me of the video game character 'Nights' from 'Nights into Dreams', she had a hat with two 'tails' on either side. I decided I wanted to use her as reference instead. But how?

I looked at many tutorials on how to find a method to create very organic shapes, meaning I wanted to find a way to manipulate the geometry in curving and shaping the basic shapes already there.

 By finding many tutorials and blogs about the subject I was able to create something I was actually happy with. I was also able to update the handle. Before I had lots of shapes making it up, but now I just have one straight shape which means I have a lower poly count.

I unwrapped the model on a UV sheet, I found I had some broken geometry that I needed to fix, but was luckily able to. I took it to a software called 'Substance Painter' where I took both my model and UV sheet and added textures to it. I found unlike my house they didn't distort because the UV sheet was done properly this time.

Here is a very slow turntable of my model after it was textured, I'm very happy with the way it turned out compared to my previous work. I decided that I want my rigged character to open up the jack in the box and be scared by the joker inside, If I will accomplish this I'm not sure, But I will try.

We're Introduced to Ben and Jen

We were introduced to Ben and Jen, already rigged models that we need to animate to look inside a box and have an emotion about what they find. 

We need to rig tem to walk, using the very helpful guide at the bottom which we can upload to Maya and play our models where we would like them. 

Jen Walking 

3D Ball 

I had a go at animating a ball, which is done by using key frames much like a lot of software. It's a pretty basic bounce, I feel like I could have squished it more on the impact on the floor, but other than that it's not too bad. 

Task

"In between this and next weeks session we would like you begin to model and texture an object. This object must be something that you can bring into next week's session. Should you become stuck in the process of modelling or texturing then do not worry, please bring in your progress for feedback and guidance.We will be briefing the assessable elements to this project shortly, one of which is a model on a 360degree turn. For now experimentation is the priority, but do keep your tests as this can form part of your submission."

I thought of a pretty basic toy that I wanted to create, for my model I decided I wanted to make a jack in the box, it's both simple and pretty to look at. I feel like I could make this look quite impressive. 

Here is a pretty basic tutorial I found on how to make a jack in the box, I felt as I want to make this model much better and spend more time on it. I should follow tutorials to better understand how to get the best result possible.

Through following the tutorial I came to this end result which I was both happy with and unimpressed in myself, I felt like it needed more character. The box and spring were done pretty well, I just wasn't overwhelmed by the face, I felt like I needed to work on this.

Here is just the mesh within my model.

Turntable of Jack 

Brief Look into Texturing and Rendering

We had a lecture that consisted of learning how to texture, render and add lighting on Maya. A software that will take some practice. The model itself isn't very good, it's incredibly basic. Some of the images seemed distorted on the object, this could be because of the UV unwrapping, I feel like this is something I need to research further.

Here is an example of when we played with the lighting on the model, one of the more interesting concepts. When you add lighting to a very flat shape it brings it to life, you can get very natural lighting so it almost looks real. 

Here were some of the flat textures I decided to use, they came out partly distorted due to the unwrapping of the UV's

Turntable of House 

Maya

We had our first lesson on the Basics of the software Maya, I'd previously been familiar with it and so was able to understand more of the terminology. They had us create a snowman using the basic shapes, like spheres and cylinders. It turned out pretty well, It's nothing special. 

We had to also create a 360 turntable to show off our model, which also seemed to work fine.

Introduction to 3D

MODELING
You will be introduced to the fundamentals of Digital 3D modelling, texturing and rendering. Within a series of guided workshops and independent experimentation you will create, texture, light and render model of your choosing. The model must be an object which you will bring to modelling session.

CHARACTER PERFORMANCE ­ THE MYSTERY BOX
Using a pre rigged biped model you will create a character performance using industry standard processes. The character will walk towards a box, look into the box and react to the contents. We will be looking for development of a performance full of character, clear posing, range of emotions and good demonstration of animation principles. The movement of the rigged biped model should give the audience a sense of character and purpose. The character can be modified (within reason) using textures and additional props e.g. hat, umbrella.

PRIMARY OBSERVATION AND RESEARCH
You will collect primary research through observation of form and movement to inform the development of all outcomes. Analysis and interpretation of reference video footage is essential to developing performance and understanding of movement. Research into the technical and creative processes appropriate to Digital 3D.

This is to include:
● Study Proposal ​outlining your ambitions for the project
● Model ​a Quicktime file of a model on a 360° turn.
● Character Performance ​with a pre­rigged character
● Research Portfolio ​reflecting on the results of the iterative process used to develop your character and narrative concepts
● Experimentation Reel ​a compilation of key development work leading to the outcomes of the Model and Character Performance.
● Evaluation​ of 250-­300 words on the project and achieved outcomes

Submission Date: 22/04/2016 

Study Proposal:

STUDY PROPOSAL #Yeah write about what you intend to do for the upcoming project!! You could mention target audience or what type of animation it is and initial ideas that's what I do for mine 
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