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. 

Character and Narrative.

You can tell so much about a character by how he/ she or it walks into a room, doing the same task. This character study for Big Hero 6 shows how much the way a character behaves can tell a story without words. 

Baymax's character clearly looks quite timid and unsure about his surroundings and how he fits within them. He doesn't know his own size and appears to be easily flustered. 

Hiro acts like a typical teenager, always on his phone or using some form of technology, not really paying attention to his surroundings. He clearly looks comfortable in the room he is in, perhaps it's his home?

Tadashi on the other hand looks very much like a guest in his surroundings, he's very polite and careful about everything he does.

Aunt Cass clearly works in this restaurant that is the set. She looks like she works quite hard but when she sits down she curls up on the seat like she's still quite young. She looks comfortable.

The way a character behaves means that you get an impression them or their day just from watching a few seconds of their behaviour. Their walk cycle, the way they sit down, it all tells a specific narrative about that character. 

UPDATE: Improved walk cycle.

I took the advice of Mike and Rosy to smooth out the walk cycle a bit. I also lowered the body of moom so that he was less bouncy and dragging his feet more as his character is supposed to be having a really bad day. I also made him hang his head a bit more. 

I have made him sit down at the bar and get a drink in as well, I think this part moves really smoothly and well and I used his arms to make it look like he was lifting himself onto the stool at the bar.

UPDATE: Walk cycle.

I've created a walk cycle for my moom, however it's too jumpy and unnatural and I can't work out how to fix it..

Rosy suggested exaggerating the hip swing and Mike has suggested looking into the graph editor and evening out spikes and getting rid of flat lines to make it move smoother.

UPDATE: Blocked out movement

I've blocked out the movement that moom will be walking from the door to the bar to work out timings. Next I will do a walk cycle for moom.

Stewie Griffin- Rocketman.

Here is an example of they type of thing we're being asked to do in our brief, in the industry. 

Stewie Griffin is speaking the words of the song with a different tone and emotion than the original song and the character is animated to fit the scene and lyrics.

Using 3D software for stop motion.

Thanks to 3D software, stop motion animation techniques have improved in leaps and bounds. 3D printing has enabled companies like Laika to create interchangeable faces for their characters, making lip syncing a much easier and faster process and it means that its easy to replace them if they break. For each full length film, Laika can produce up to 50000 faces overall. The ability to print whole faces off also means that every face for each character is identical and there wont be any unwanted small differences between frames, leading to a consistent animation.

Benefits of 3D over 2D animation.

The ability to animate in 3D has had a great impact on the animation world.
3D technology has meant that more realistic animations can happen and it's making it quicker to churn out lengthy animations because you don't need to draw every single frame. Once the characters and the set are modelled, key framing makes 3D animation a quick and effective animation style. 3D animation software also allows for effective camera angles and lighting effects that would be more challenging in 2D traditional animation. 

Computer Generated Imagery is being used a lot more often in modern film. It is used in live action films and fully animated features.

With 2D, everything is drawn out individually, but if an arm goes behind the character, you don't need to draw the arm. However with 3D, you need to be aware of every body part and its positioning even when they are obscured behind the figure. 
2D is obviously drawn on every frame and therefore takes a long time to sketch out, draw and colour each frame and you need to make sure each image is consistent and that the character doesnt change it's appearance between frames. This can be a challenge as tiny differences between frames arent noticeable straight away but become apparent over time while watching the animation through. 3D doesn't have this issue as the character will stay consistent between frames as you are just manipulating a modelled character.

The Croods.

The Croods tells the story of a family of cave people who have to leave their safe cave when an earthquake destroys it and they venture into the unknown. The character design for most of the characters in the film are really well done. They all look like how you would imagine cave people to be. Eep, to me, doesn't look quite right. Her shoulders are a little bit too broad, her legs are a bit too short and her hair doesnt look like it has any weight to it. However, Eep's character is a really important character to the narrative of the film. Without her character, the Croods would have probably stayed in the cave and the story would have ended when the cave collapsed. The story follows her curiosity of new things and becomes encaptured by watching Glug begin to trust her curiosity and become more open minded as the story unfolds. 

Scene building.

I designed the scene for my animation as a tavern or old fashioned Pub, and tried to make it as Pirate-y as I could manage, while also keeping it pretty simple..

I created barrels for the chairs and kept the tables, bar and bar stools a simple shame. 

I found most the textures I needed on google images. I think I need to adjust the window to make it a bit higher up, but other than that I'm pretty pleased with how my first scene setting in maya has turned out. I just hope I've made it the right size for Moom, although it won't be too hard to adjust at a later date if it's the wrong size.

Motion Capture.

Motion capture has improved film drastically. Using motion capture, it is possible to track an actors movements and gestures and apply them directly to a 3D model. This makes the characters movements more life-like and realistic. It works particularly well when the character being animated is within a scene or interacting with actors in a live action motion picture, for example, if a character is a mythological creature like a troll or an ogre and the entire character is needed to be created digitally.

It also makes the animation process a lot faster as each position is not having to be key framed by hand individually.

Colour choices in Character design.

The colour choices made when designing your character have a strong impact on the story that is told, without any words being said. This is perfectly displayed in the characters in The Emperors New Groove.

 Dressing a character in red colours could suggest that your character is dramatic, energetic or brave. Kuzco is a great example of this. He is a very over dramatic character who shows a lot of energy and passion in the movie. He is also determined to get his pool house on the hill, which is another thing that the colour red suggests.

Purple, especially deep purple, is a colour often used with villains in animated movies. The colour purple shows that a character is eccentric, unique and in a position of power. Some of the most successful villains have been represented this way, like yzma. She's a very eccentric and original villain with some creative plans to win the kingdom. 

Kronk is dressed in yellow and a blue-purple, which represent his personality perfectly. Yellow shows that a character is cheerful and excited, while the blue shows that he is calm, peaceful and reliable, while still being associated to yzma with the purple. 

Pacha, on the other hand, is dressed in greens and brown, to show that he is loyal, gentle, reliable, and stable. 

Bob The Builder.

Bob the Builder is one of the best loved children's characters of the last two generations. 

He has recently made the change from a stop motion character, to a 3D computer generated character, and with that has gained a lot more realism, lost a lot of weight and gained a completely different character design. The animators changed the style and animation technique to computer generated animation probably because a lot of tv companies and animators believe that stop motion animation is on the way out, if not already gone, and computer generated animation is going to be huge. CG animation is also a lot quicker to produce on a short time scale. 

Personally I prefer the stop motion design for the character, I feel like it is more authentic and simple and friendly, whereas the more realistic modern version of Bob is a bit too realistic, it's slightly unnerving. I also feel like the CG Bob looks like he's aimed at a slightly younger audience and doesnt appeal to as wide an audience.