Other practice animatons

Within the final hand in you will see a few other variations of the monster character animations which did just to see what I could do and how it would look. But I decided just to use the simple walk cycle one as my practice and technique learning animations for this module hand in because I forgot to do the class ones during the term.

thoughts after animation techniques and practice...

Im really happy about my short walk animation im really proud of it as i think it looks quite good. The techniques and skills i have learnt doing this exercise will become invaluable to me in the future and help build on my 3d skill-set.

Animating my model...

OK now that I have a fully rigged model I can begin to animate him walking towards the camera in a slow and ghouly manor.

I know when you use a biped you can use the walk cycle function to perform a basic walk cycle to a desired length. Instead I decided to animate the walk my self as I felt I could maybe do a better job as it does look a little rigid. Below is a screenshot taken from the start of the walk cycle. Using the auto key I hand animated each part of the walk and tried to keep the models body posture humped.

The screen shot above is at the point where I was trying to tweak the walk as it was looking a little static and robotic, I need to make the animation curves flow a little bit better so the animation ran smoother. I did need allot of practice not using the walk cycle and trying to do it simply buy hand with the auto key and the move tool. when the model was rigged I did not add any floating controls for the rig instead you just click and move the actual biped or mesh and you can move it that way rather then controls which I didn't like.

The animation is pretty much finished now im actually quite happy with how it looks just a few more tweaks to the animation to make it a bit smoother then render it out and do a bit of post production in after effects and it ready.

In this shot you can see the render set up for the walking animation, I used two omni lights positioned either side of the camera and set up a free camera to capture the walk towards it. the renders came out quite good and I wasn't that bothered about using a skylight to give it a better diffused light on the model. i have just added a floor plane to gage the footsteps and its sorted ready for rendering.

Rigging my model:

This was a part that I really struggled on with nod but after watching a few more tutorials and trying out various was of rigging a model, I decided to use the biped but modifiy it so that it worked better for my model.

The image above shows the basic biped rig that was created for the model it was a fairly straight forward biped rig which was simplified to make sure the defamation of the skin was not effected to badly with excessive movement. I actually watched a massive series of tutorials from lynda.com which guided me through every stage of rigging and skinning and refining your rig to the point it was very consistent and reliable on the model.

I learnt fairly early that it is best to design your rig around what your character will be doing in the animation. So for this small animation I just wanted to do a slow, sluggish walk towards camera, no massive extravagant movements or actions, So I decided to use a biped.

The biped was fairly standard, once the parameters in the motion panel had been changed to incorporate the necessary amount of fingers legs arms ect, in this case 5 fingers same as a human. Once that was all sorted it was time to use the physique modifier to make sure the mesh fits the biped and gets the skinning process correct.

Once the skinning process had began using physique I basically whipped round the model and checked for anything irregular in the mesh and deformation when the model was moved in various directions. if there was I then modified the envelopes until I was happy with the skinning of the mesh and it fitted and moved correctly over the whole model. tweaking the envelopes took allot of time and was a pretty long winded process as I found many parts of the mesh which had not skinned properly and had to be modified with the envelopes.

buy using allot of tutorials I found that it was good to put the model in awkward positions that may be encountered in the finished animation. After a while you begin to deal with the irregularity's that pop up in the mesh buy just fiddling with the envelope properties and most can be fixed quite quickly.

Monster textured and ready to rig

Here is my model which has now been unwrapped and textured ready to be rigged for animation. The texturing was fairly straight forward i got the texture maps on-line and just had to make sure they were consistent and in good order. The accompanying bump and reflection map where in good order and unwrapped in Photoshop to be applied to the model through the material editor in 3ds Max.

Here are some screen shots of the process below including the texture,bump and specular maps:

here is the screen shot as the textures where applied to the model through the materials editor in max.

Experimental Animation techniques (Mini project)

Seeing as this is my re submit and Jo mentioned that my original final didn't quite utilise much animation and I also didn't add many of the tutorials during the module, I decided to do a small mini project for the re submit to cover both topics.

Here is a screen shot of the Monster character which I have textured, rigged, and animated over the past month. I decided to make a small animation to further my skills in the area of animation and rigging in order to aid my mark in this module and show I have taken what was said and acted upon it.

Building a convincing persona for my character.

I need to build up a convincing persona for my character nod the ninja. i need to create a personality and physical attributes which can aid me in expressing his feelings and emotions through animation on the screen.

I have created some illustrations which show the true traits of a stereotypical ninja and the persona i want my character to have. this is a great visual way of explaining this persona creation process.

this is the stereo typical persona a ninja has, being all of the below...

And this is how i want nod to behave and to carry himself (His personality and traits)...

when i came up with an idea for a character, a ninja was one of the first ideas i had, but i wanted to do the opposite of a ninja and that is how i came up with nod the ninja. basically taking all the traits of a ninja and then reversing them to make him lazy, slow and clumbsy. I think these will be good traits to express on screen and aid in the character expression process. when i was thinking of a name Nod popped into my head and was the perfect example of his personality, and it also rhymes which is always a bonus when coming up with a character.

Expressing his persona through his physical appearance...

If you look at the way i have designed nod it is to gain maximum personality not only through his movements and behaviors but his Physical appearance too.

He is quite small and fat, this helps in aiding his lazy personality. i also made his limbs quite small and stubby to create a cute and funny aspect to his looks. the addition of small eyes and overall small and stumpy appearance helps in giving a cartoony comedy feel to him but keeping the cartoony ninja appearance. one of the key factors is his oversized head, everyone loves a cartoon character with a massive head its great for the cute, comedy factor and really helps express his overall personality visually.

overall i am pleased with the persona i have created for nod and i think it should work really well on screen, as just as a static illustration he already says allot about himself so its a really good start and should prove to be interesting.

Body language

Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously.

well thats how wikipedia describes it, body language is something im gonna need to swat up on if im going to be successful at this module. It is a key description of reading a humans feelings and mind set, so it will no doubt be of help for this module. getting to know and understand body language better can help me interpret my characters persona and mood much better on screen and will be of benefit in everyday life as a bonus.

Body language is the unspoken or non verbal communication that goes on in every Face-to-Face encounter with another human being. It tells you their true feelings towards you and how well your words are being received.

It varies between 50-100 percent of our message is communicated through our body language. A simple roll of the eyes or hand gesture may be all it takes to convey 100 of what we mean, no words, no tone, only 7-10 percent is an attributable to the actual words we use in a conversation.

below is a good diagram of some people showing various signs of body language:

its instantly apparent to see the mood and feelings of each of the people in this photo. just the placement of hands and body posture instantly tell you weather the persons confident, relaxed, happy or sad. with the addition of facial expressions and eye contact its easy to build up a characterization of yourself on screen which can be applied to our 3d characters in the development stages.

Physical expression

Physical expressions like waving, pointing, touching and slouching are all forms of nonverbal communication. The study of body movement and expression is known as kinesics. Humans move their bodies when communicating because, as research has shown, it helps "ease the mental effort when communication is difficult." Physical expressions reveal many things about the person using them. For example, gestures can emphasize a point or relay a message, posture can reveal boredom or great interest, and touch can convey encouragement or caution.

The images convey a few classic body language examples which can be of really good use when visually showing a characters mood and feeling on screen. these can all be applied to a character when animating in 3ds max to help me convey the persona of my 3d character effectively.

the list below is a quick breakdown of non verbal communications (body language) delegated to each part of the human body, a good bit of information in reminding me ho you can use the hole of the characters body to express subtle or over the top moods and expressions on screen.

This research will prove invaluable when coming up with my characters persona and giving him attributes to emphasis his personality, and also ideas and techniques to use when animating him later on in the module to make sure his personality comes out on screen.

Facial expression s in more detail:

i found a really good site which showed exactly how to draw various facial expressions and how each feature on the face reacts to another being moved. This is really good in giving me a good idea of how to achieve various emotions for my character just through the face alone. i didn't realize the complexity of how each feature on the face reacts with one another to produce the desired emotion. its defiantly a side to animation which you don't first take on board.

Here are some sketches which show various facial expressions in detail.

Happy Ecstatic content Sad

1. The Eyes – Probably the most important feature for evoking a clear emotion. Utilize the eyelids and eyebrows to create your effect.

2. The Cheeks – The way they squash and stretch will affect the look and position of the eyes.

3. The Mouth – The shape of the mouth is also very important. It affects how the cheeks move and the shape of the entire face.

• Note that when you move the shape and position of one feature, it affects everything else. Nothing stands completely on its own.
• For a stronger drawing and character, really push the expression. Instead of simply drawing a happy person, draw one that is ecstatic; instead of drawing an angry person, draw a furious one.
• Have a mirror nearby. When I’m trying to nail down an expression, I often find my own face making weird movements unconsciously. It can make for good reference.

Here are a few more facial expressions which are often very hard to describe without the aid of a drawing or audio explanation.

Bored Annoyed Surprised Tired

this article has really helped me get a better understanding of how the features of the face really interact to produce the expressions on our faces. i actually had no idea how important the eyes are in helping get across a characters feelings on screen and has defiantly given me a much more detailed understanding of how the face works.

Facial expression and body language (Research)

Facial Expression

Its is a very important factor in the creation of a convincing character and a everyday occurrence which we often overlook in every day life. i am going to further investigate facial expressions and body language so i have a better understanding when it comes to animating a 3d character. a great way of summarizing these to gestures, A simple smile can make others feel more at ease where a frown can make people see that you are aggressive or unsure of something. We use facial expressions to get our points across in the right context. For example, your message would suffer if you were saying how angry you are with a huge smile. this is something which can be directly conveyed onto a 3d character to add the audience in understanding his persona and attributes.

Eye contact

When someone talks to you, do they look directly at you or look away? Maintaining eye contact when talking (or listening) to someone gives an impression that you/they are confident and honest. Making little eye contact can say that the other person doesn’t like you, is nervous or shy, or perhaps believe that they are higher in status and think that eye contact isn’t necessary.“Making little eye contact can say that the other person doesn’t like you” Also, look out for it if you believe that someone isn’t being truthful, as most people can’t keep eye contact when they are bending the truth.

However, someone looking at you non-stop is stressful and in these situations you should throw your hands around a bit more or point to brochures and objects to distract them. Staring is basically seen as an aggressive act and can also be interpreted as being unbalanced.

If talking to people outdoors, avoid wearing sunglasses as this can be very uncomfortable for the other person and can give an image of trying to hide your identity (a shifty salesman, for example). In addition, try to blink as less as possible as this can make it difficult for the other person to understand you (due to being distracted). Blinking less also gives an image of confidence.

Summary

Body language comes in many forms, as you have seen above. Different people have their own ability to recognize body language and they will recognize it with different meanings to other people. So, when you use body language, one person may see it differently to the other.

When we don’t know someone, we use their body language to get first impressions of them. In most cases, the impressions we make are wrong, as a positive form of body language may mean something negative about them. For example, someone who moves around a lot may be seen as energetic and efficient. In some cases, this may be correct, but it can mean that they are uncomfortable in the situation and also nervous.

Use body language to make you appear more confident, powerful, trusting, etc depending on what the situation may require from you. If you give off negative signs, then it could be the difference of achieving your goal (e.g. a successful presentation, proposing an idea in a meeting, discussing a task with an employee, etc).

Also, try to recognize other people’s body language. By doing so, it could mean that they are/aren’t interested or that they feel threatened by your presence: in which case you can change your body language to make them feel more at ease.

If you ever get the opportunity to have a presentation by you video taped, you may see things you would never have believed!