So after taking the Feedback on board and editing our animation we are pleased to have completed our very first short “Falling For You”. I am so happy with what we have accomplished and how everything went so well in the making off it. My team have been brilliant and I hope we will be able to work together again in the future to create more animations!
Part of the feedback was making Waddles stay in the air a little bit longer. Conann had mentioned looney toons and we thought that Coyote and the Road runner was a good example of exaggerated falls. Every time he falls off a cliff he would have a moment of realisation that he is about to fall, and have time to wave goodbye or hold up a sign. This of course would never been possible in real life, but it is in cartoons!
Although Waddles is not falling from a huge height we can still exaggerate his fall slightly. Keeping the time in mind, Rebecca animated the bird to stay in the air longer, making him go up higher aswell.
Flutter, the girl bird was given a little more animation in edit. This was because we wanted to add a little character and more movement. Kristina and Rebecca worked on the twirl with Robert and myself giving suggestions. Robert had also made a previous attempt using a curve motion path. Kristina had researched the move by looking at figure skating. She came across a video with a step by step guide on how to do the jump.
Using this guide they where able to create a similar move with Flutter. As she is a bird we thought that it would be nice to have her flap her wings on the down fall, allowing her to land softly. We did this because we did not want her to skate too far off the screen, if she had of landed on her full weight she would have skated further back.
Part of the Feed back was ensuring that the girl bird comes in from the left of the screen. We also made sure that the timing was accurate. The girl skates past the boy close enough to make wind blow on him, so the camera changed almost instantly after she had past. The image below is the girl bird already on the screen the minute the camera changes. Also the camera is now on the boy birds point of view. We had set the camera directly infront of the bird and at his eye level to ensure it was believable.
Flutter twirls around at the highest part of her jump. She is a bird and light in weight, so she is able to jump higher than a human figure skater. During her downfall she flaps her wings, slowing her descent and allowing her to land gracefully. Once she lands she waves over at Waddles.
Imaging and Data visualisation Reflection
During this module it was the first we were properly introduced to modelling in Maya. During the planning of the floating city I found it difficult to visualise what the finished city would look like until near the end. This was perhaps because I had never done 3D modelling and was unsure of the potential. It was difficult at the start and I spent a lot of time looking at tutorials and using trial and error, but this personally is the best way to learn. I felt that although we had lectures on using Maya, I relied more on tutorials, especially when it came to the head model. Not much in the lectures helped with the head as they were mainly based on techniques for the short animation such as textures, lighting etc (although these were helpful). I feel like after completing the head model I have learnt a lot in modelling and it will be easier to visualise and create future objects or characters. The name of this module suggests that data visualisation is the main purpose of learning. If that is the case then I don’t think it was met. The floating city had to have some form of data but it felt like a second priority to the actual creation of the model, even though my group spent a lot of time making a booklet, video and graphical poster. The head model had nothing to do with data visualisation so it’s abit confusing. Overall I have learnt a lot on modelling with Maya, considering I had never done it before and now I have created my head! Also doing this module alongside new narratives helped, as I was constantly using Maya, getting used to the menus and learning.
Just before hand in I was advised that my cheek topology was a little stretched.To fix this I added two more edge loops around the face. This also allowed me to adjust the cheek bones for more likeness. The image below shows the old and new head models. The right head has the adjusted cheek.
I am fairly happy with the finished result. When I started this task I was overwhelmed and thought it was very complexed. After the several attempts I become more confident and understood how the edge flow works. The most difficult part of this task was probably getting the head and neck shape right and connecting the ear to the head. Here is an image of the completed head model in different angles:
For the last part of adjusting the head model I had to look more in the mirror than use the references. In the front reference my head is slightly tilted upwards and to the side, making some of my features lope sided. I spent alot of time on my nose trying to get it to look exactly like my own. I was having trouble with getting my top lip to look thicker without going too far out of my reference photo. Below is turn around images of the head in smooth.
Below is an images of the model front and side not smoothed. I had to adjust the back of the head more to follow the references. I had to guess a little for the neck because I was wearing a scarf in the picture.
I tried my best to keep to the references, especially the side image, The front had to be a little different because my head is tilted but its still fairly accurate. The two images below show this.
The image below shows the similarities with my head model and photo reference. I noticed that my eye socket is very inset and I tried to get that in the model. Also the dip in my nose. I wanted to get my cheek indents around the mouth laugh line and also the cheekbones, which slightly protrude just below my eye.
Part of the feedback included changing the ice. Our original ice was clear and smooth, almost like it was professionally done in an ice rink. To make it more natural we experimented with bump map using a fractal texture. We adjusted the settings and rendered the scene out to pick which one was the best. We tried frost looks, watery looks and even lines. We tried lines because they are skating on the ice which would leave some markings. However as a team we decided to not have lines as they arnt actually skating with skate blades. Also we just didn’t like the look of it.
Here is the final ice texture that we settled on. The bump map is scattered throughout which mixes up the smoothness. It is not too much that looks like it may crack. Also we didn’t want too much texture or the reflection on the ice would be lost.
After the other half is combined and I made some tweaks it is finally looking like a human head. I am finding it hard to see any resemblance of me but I will keep working out it. Perhaps it is weird seeing my head and face without hair or eyebrows?
So far I am pretty happy with the shape and topology. I still want to adjust the head shape and give more detail around the eyes and mouth.
So after the other half was combined I noticed that my nose was way too wide. The part in between my nostrils was too big, as you can see in this image below.
To fix this I moved to edges closer together and adjusted the nostrils. I did the same on the bridge of the nose to make it thinner, like my own. Below are two images of my nose not smoothed and smooth.
My nose goes down in a dip on the bridge that I made sure to keep in the model
So after I was happy with one side of my head it was time to use ‘Duplicate Special’ which mirrored the other half. I then had to carefully go along the middle and merge the vertices together. This part was very time consuming as the back of the head bent inwards in the middle and gave me a weird brain shape. After fixing this I soon realised there was a lot of adjusting needed. My nose looked way to wide aswell as my mouth. I don’t have a very symmetrical face so I knew I would need to work on that.Also I have a man chin here!
Michelle Animation 