Finished animation. Final render.

Here it is, my finished animation, complete with all the sound.

I am really pleased with how my first maya animation has turned out, although I would have liked a couple more sound effects when the door closes and maybe some background clinking glasses, but I couldn't find the sounds I wanted online and I did not leave myself enough time to record them myself.

I also would have liked to add some minimal animation to the background characters, unfortunately I ran out of time for this as well.

Overall though I'm really proud of my first 3D animation and I look forward to doing more as I've really enjoyed maya.

Toy Story.

The toy story franchise, with it's four movies, is a very successful chain of movies. One of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is the way that a whole generation of people, my generation, aged with Andy and we watched his toys come to life and his life unfold. 

Because the audience was aging at the same time as the boy in the movies, we all developed a connection with him and his toys and could understand what was going on in his life. Andy is not the main character in Toy Story, but it's this connection between character and audience that has enhanced the love everyone has for the characters of the toys, and has kept the Toy Story franchise so successful. 

When Toy Story first appeared, it was already a success before this connection was made though, as the toys themselves, told and exciting and loveable story that captured the audiences attention with relatively unseen animation techniques, as 3D animation had only just started to appear. The idea that our toys could come to life while we were out was something many children found incredible and the toys really cared about their owner. When Andy finally went off to college, around the same time that myself and other people my age went off to uni, the idea of him donating or giving away his toys resonated within us as many of us have outgrown our toys and passed our favourite toys onto someone else. 

In my opinion, the attention to detail with connecting Andy to an entire generation has set the Toy Story franchise firmly into the hearts of the world, as the audience has watched him age throughout the movies and become very attached to the characters.

Importance of Supporting Characters

Some of the best and most loved characters in animation are the animals that aren't strictly necessary for the plot and the narrative, but add humour and fun to the story and are there to interact with the main characters. 

Tangled is a good example of this. Pascal the chameleon isn't a crucial character, he's there so that Rapunzel has someone to interact with while she's trapped in the tower for the first part of the movie. His character is someone who plays games with Rapunzel and is too scared to venture out of the tower. He is Rapunzels best friend and he does what he can to look out for her. His character doesn't speak it can only squeak and make little sounds when necessary, and he can't do over exaggerated gestures to show what he's feeling as he's a very small character and doesn't have a huge range of movement, so most of his emotion is portrayed in facial expressions. His large eyes help get across the emotion he is feeling well. In my opinion, the best pascal moment in Tangled is when he's staring Flinn Ryder down while balanced on a frying pan and he wakes Flinn Ryder up by sticking his long tongue in his ear. 

These moments early on cement pascal in the minds of the viewers as a funny and loyal character.

Maximus, the horse, is another character who is not crucial to the plot line but adds excitement, humour and compassion to the film and other characters. His interactions with Flinn Ryder and Rapunzel are the main source of comedy throughout the film. Flinn and Maximus really do not get on at the start of the story but as the film continues, the audience can follow the growing friendship between these two characters which adds an extra narrative to the film and adds a bit more depth and excitement. 

His behaviour adds a lot of humour just by itself. Maximus is a character that almost appears to think he is a dog instead of a horse at times and at other times it is like he is a human, and who loves apples. 

He's also a very law abiding horse, as he works with the palace guards, although as he spends more time with Flinn Ryder he becomes more rebellious.

Final crit.

Today the course saw my what I had done so far and I got some feedback on my animation.

It was suggested that as moom is in a tavern, is a pirate and is drinking, to maybe loosen up some of his movements and make him look a bit drunker. 

It was also suggested that I add more sound, which I was intending to do but I had not yet gotten around to it.

All I need to do now is loosen up his movements, and render out my full animation and add sound. 

Using exaggerated gestures to tell a story.

In a lot of cartoons, the story isn't told just with words, but also with exaggerated gestures and facial expressions. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones are all cartoons that demonstrate this perfectly. It's a well known expression that something can be jaw dropping, and in many cartoons, when a character experiences something jaw dropping, the animator over exaggerates the drop. 

Other classic cartoon expressions are the heart literally popping out of the characters chest when they see an attractive character, over exaggerting the anticipation before a character runs off, and eyes popping out of the characters head because they've seen something unbelievable.

These tricks of the trade that are so commonly used in 2D animation, help to easily translate to the viewer what is happening and what that character is feeling, without needing to use any words or add in excess frames that would help tell the story. All the narrative that the viewer needs to know is clearly portrayed in the one character's movements.

UPDATE: Bar scene lip sync.

I have lip synced my animation! I still need to add in some hand gestures and make him look more alive but the lip syncing is done now. I have left a gap between the last two sections of speech to add in another drinking sequence as the mood between the two lines of speech changes quite drastically.

Limitations of 3D software.

Render Time.

Often, 3D animations, especially feature films can take a really long time to render. Avatar, for example took 2 days to render a single frame because of all the lighting and special effects added in. This is a limitation to working in 3D software because if you spend 2 days rendering out one frame, if a mistake has happened or something isn't right in the rendered frames, it could take weeks or months to correct the mistake and get back to where you started. This particularly affects the animation when working towards a strict deadline. 

Limitations.

A lot of 3D software is very expensive which makes it less easily accessible for people to use who don't animate at a company or place of education. The prices of the software mean that small non-funded or low- budget 3D animations aren't as commonly found as 2D traditional animation as software for that is a lot more accessible. Some 3D software can cost upwards of £3000 which, for a beginner, would be a lot of money to spend on the software to potentially not use again.