Green screen induction

In this session, we were taught how to get rid of the background of the images sequence we took last lesson.

I found this process quite easy to follow, and have enjoyed the induction.

To firstly get rid of the background, I used the tool 'key light' where you can select the colour you want to make invisible and it will try to select similar tones. you can use the 'clip black' and 'clip white' to adjust the range and make sure you have as little invisiblity on your subject as possible.

I then masked out the rest of the image I didn't want, carefully using the pen tool to go round the rocks. There is a section on the rock that has disappeared slightly, this is due to the blue lighting from the tv used last session, so it has effected the model.

 

 I the got a high quality background and put it into my composition. I put it in the corner to cover the rocks already in the image, and I think it looks good!

To take things further I wanted the model to look like it was in the water, and to do this I shrunk it down a little, flipped it, and use a seccond mask to get rid a a section of the model so that it would give the effect of being in the water.

I had to remember to subtract this, other wise it just reveal what you previously go rid off.

 

 

 

Telling tales - animating

In the next part of the animation I have the girl reaching for the ball and throwing it and catching it. I decided to do this in parts, one because I wanted to camera angles, and two becasue I wanted to get them both done that day, so didn't want the render time to be massive.

I spent the morning doing the first second of reaching. I did this from the girls point of view becuase I wanted a new interesting camera angle.

I put the playblast vidio with the other two scenes to see if it looked good, and I was happy with it. but when it came to rendering, the last few frames came out black. I thought I could maybe get away with what I had, but this was too fast, so I went back, adjusted the camera, as I thought it might be too close to the girl's head, and rendered again.




When I re rendered it this time it was fine, not sure what went wrong, but I got the images I needed.

I then got on with the second part of my scene 3, where the girl it throwing the ball in the air. I need add quite a few frames to make sure the ball was in her hand when needed. and used a refence video of me to make sure I got the timings right. Here it looks quite slow, so I decided to put the ball higher up so it fall quicker.
I also made sure her eyes and head were looking tin the right direction, and used different perspective points to help me get the ball and hand in the right posistion so it created a nice flowing movement. 




I now need to make the brother move in someway, I think I may get him to look bored and un interested in what  she's doing. 

again, I need to work on my timing, he moves too fast. I can fix this by deleting some frames and/or space them out. 

Telling tales - animating

noticed the character was a different map from Ciaras, just needed the right file.

Mat suggested that to make it clearer have something to knock over, for example coconut  or bottle, but as Ciara has already rendered out 20 odd seconds of her animation, it's d unfair to get her to change each scene.

For the next scene, we have the girl getting fed up with the brothers' poor attepts at throwing the ball and failing to get it though the hoop, that she pushes him out the way.

We filmed some reference videos, to help me with this interaction.

My character however, cannot move hist legs so I will have to just have her push his upper body back, and see how that looks without him actually stepping back and reacting like Ciara does in the vid. In the playblast here, I decided there needed to be more exageration, to make it clear what's happening.

I exaggerated his reaction, by making him look down at her hand and bringing his chest back to empasize he is being pushed, I then made him fold his arms to make him look unhappy about the sitiation. I showed this to Ciara and she was happy with it, she did think that the brother was wrapping his arms around the girl, but I showed her a playbast without the skeletons and she said it made more sence to her that he was folding his arms

Telling tales - animating

Because I struggled a bit with where to start in my first scene and then again with me seccond, I made sure I had a clear storyboard I can follow with enough notes to assist me through the process. 

I talked over my next scene with Ciara and we both liked the idea of a slow motion throw when it's the girls turn. this will be to exagerate her powerful through, and to make it clear that she gets it through the hoop. Going back to the scene in Despicable Me, I like the slow motion bit in there where the camera follows the ball, and I'd like to have a go at creating something like this.

This is what i have to hand now, it's got clear timings and I drew out a the different key stages of each scene so I know what to create, where to start, where to finish, so hopefully I should now beable to follow this perfectly.

Telling Tales - animating

I had a problem with Ciaras character as the right shoulder wouldn't move, we quickly fixed this though, by importing the character again into the scene and everything seems to be working fine. 

Beacuse I need more practice with timing, I calucualted the speed of which I wanted the girl to be tapping her hand, I wanted it to look as though when coming back towards her it would tap quicker. So I thought about the frames and for a smooth 1 second tap I'd set the hand out at 1fps, back in at 12fps and out again at 24fps. but becasue I wanted at quick tap, I se it to had out at 1fps, in at 6fps and then back out for 18 frames, and this worked nice. I've got a slow outward action and a quick inward. I need to keep rememberin ght e less frames the quicker the action.

 I them moved on to the eyes and head, making sur the characters were looking the right way.

I soon discovered that they eyes on my character dont move, so with him I just had to move his head to get him to be looking at the hoop.

Telling tales - final crit

I showed the animation I had created so far to my peers, they really liked how vibrant the characters and environment was and that it was a good start.

Things mentioned to make this work better were that, he could pause longer at the point of letting the ball go, to emphasise the action. All the bit at the end where he sighs and reaches for the next ball could be slower.

I took this feedback on board and with asking about how to animate better in maya and how to play blast and render out, my animation is looking a lot better.

I didn't pause too much on the throw as the action continues round for him to stand up. And I noticed that the ball looks as though it goes though the hoop so I adjusted this so that is clear that he misses.

I'm happier with the animation I have done now, it's near enough the right speed and I've also delayed the bit at the end where he sighs, because it was pointed out that this was too fast and unclear.

This was my animation before any feedback and help with using the program.

This is my animation after. 

Responsive - final outcome

These are my final outcomes of my quilled illustations for the short story 'Rhythm Hit' by Jean-Luc Bouchard

I really enjoyed the process of this, working to a set brief but working in a medium I enjoy working in. it was also great to beable to get feedback from both the company and the author as I think it's really important to communicate with them so you produce what they want.

telling tales - animating

I asked for some help, and Mat replied saying that to make it easier I should group the controls and create a button so it selects everything for when I set my frames.

This made things easier but I was still having difficulties, I've screen shotted my poses to show that when I play my animation the movements change. I'm not sure why this is so I will have to ask.

I created some sweeping camera angles that I like, but as I can't render anything out so I've just recorded the screen to show what I've done for the crit tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get feedback that can help me improve my animation.

I've got the hang of posing my character, I might need to go over the weigting again as there are some creases in some poses. But my main focus for the next 2 weeks is to concentrate on animating.

Telling tales - begining to animate

Firstly I printed Ciara's storyboard out and we went over more about what was happening. I added notes and tried to work out better timings and camera angles for my half of the animation, so I clearly understood what I was doing before I started. 

to help me animate I film myself throwing a ball, to get the motion and key frames to get the characters into the right possition.
I can pose the character, however when it comes to animate, I don't know what I'm doing. I've followed the steps, of moving the character into position, setting the frame with the controls still selected and then repeat.

For some reason when I play the scene, it changes from what I set, here I set the arm to a straight out position, when he's just letting go of the ball, but when playing it, his fore arm is tight against his upperarm?

I'm continuously trying to go back over this and fix it, but I get the same result, and it's not how I want it.
Also I cannot render out my scene as it says there's nothing to render?

Telling tales - character design (fixing controles and applying weights)

 I asked for help on my problem of not being able to connect the joints and controls without them going weird.

To fix the solution, I went thought the prosess I had previously gone though, grouping etc, but this time I selected the option to 'maintain offset' and everything worked perfectly, and it was a really quick fix.

 Joints finally move with the controles and he can now move and rotate.

 Weighting. this process was a little time consuming, but worth the end result even though it may not be perfect.

weighting is the procsess of selecting a section of the character and colouring where is it extreamly infulenced (white) and where it had no influence (black)

here on the hand, some fingers influence other fingers causing it to pull it out of shape, so so fix this I needed to select and colour apropriatly.

I had some trouble on the elbow and both me and Ciara tried our best to get this section to work properly. we eventually did, after moving the arm around, putting it in different positions and we eventually got it to look decent and it looks okay.

Responsive - design alterations

I went back, taking on the feedback I had got and came up with this design. the murderer is now smaller and the humourous effect the autor was after is more visible.

I'm really happy with all three designs and I think they will look so much better quilled as the shadows created from the paper will make the look even more dramatic and mysterious.

Telling tales - set design (sky and mountains)

Getting on with the sky, I really like looking at the stars and thought it would be nice, to create a sort of astronomy chart styled sky, I looked on Google for a chart, and in photoshop on a seperate used a star looking brush to pin point the stars. 

 I then assigned this to a sphere in maya, and I think it looks really good, the set will be insider the sphere, so it actually looks like you're looking up at the stars.

I then found these really simple mountains created in Maya, and thought this was good inspiration to create mine.  

 To start I made some pyraminds and added loads of edge loops and just manipulated the vetexes to get a shape I thought looked good.

 I added a solid dark colour to it, as it's going to be in the background so it's not a focal point and doesn't need much detail.

With the objects from the fun fair, I hop they're just add some depth to make the world look less flat.

The world looks dark now, but with lots of light in the main area, the animation will be lit up nice, focusing on the characters.

Telling Tales - set design

Ciara has spent most time with the set, and I try and help out giving feedback on things. today, looking at our scene, I suggested that the grass plane could be extended out more so that the grass doesn't just end at the fence, and so it will look like it has a horizon.

we both quite like the idea of it being at night, here Ciara tested how the background could be created without there being a line, where the square planes meet, we now have our se in a sphere, and tested putting a material on it.

To make sure I got the terms right, I was speaking with my boyfriend about different times of day, and he said the time of night we are thinking of is called, Civil Twilight, where the horizon is still visible, but stars are also able to be seen. It's at point at 6 degrees below the horizon, so just after dusk. So we are still able to have our night sky look with the stars out but with the horizon visible.

I'm really pleased with how it's looking though, it's so colourful, Ciara has done such a good job on this section.

I think now, Ciara is going to add some detail in the sett, and I'm going to make the world look less flat by creating some mountains. 

Telling tales - character building (orientating and connection controls)

 For this part of the tutorial I folowed it, not really understanding what I was doing. I created null groups and attatched them to the joints but not entirely sure why. 

One thing I did learn was that you cannot select a null group in the grid, it has to be selected in the outliner

 I got the next section, of parenting up the controls with the next on up in the hierachy, as this was similar to parenting joints, so now for example, when I rotate the elbow contoles, everything below (wrist, hand, fingers) all move too.  

I got to the stage where I was starting to connected the joints and controller, but when I did this, and connected them, the joints flipped on their side, and even though they connected, this isn't how it needs to be.

I asked my peers if they knew where i'd gone wrong, and Malachi said he'd had a similar problem and it was down to parenting the wrong way round. So I now need to go back, watch the tutorial again and try and correct my mistake, if this fail, I'll have to ask for further help. 

Telling tales - character building (skeleton, controls and ik handles)

I found creating the skeleton really easy to do, and I feel that with help from the guid still, I am understanding the process more and more.

Some complicated part were creating the fingers, as I created a proper hand with all 5 fingers, so the room to see where I was putting joints, so I rescales the size and this helped me see where I was a little more. 

When I mirrored the skeleton, it wasn't quite simetrical, so I just adjusted some joints by eye to where I thought they were the same on both sides and he now looks good.

I got on with the controls, again I got thought this without much trouble, I was a bit slow creating the eye control, as in the tutorial I had trouble with the eyes, and continued using the tutorial character's mesh that was already made, so I didn't have much practice with the eyes, but I think I have done a good job following today.

I also created ik handles, I don't know why I fond it complex at first, but when Mat explained it further in the tutorial, I understood what I was trying to do more. 

Responsive - final designs

 These are my 3 final designs, I sent off the two sets of designs I had done, and asked family and my peers for feedback. Everyone preferred the white background designs, and these were also my favourite too, as this is my preferred style. 

Some of the feedback I got were:

'You've done a great job then, I personally can't tell the storyline from those pieces but that may be down to the fact you've only been asked to create three.' 

  

'I like how clean it looks and the fact that you've not gone over board with colour. Used just enough to finish the pieces.'

'The white background ones look better and simpler for an illustration, plus the quilling will show up better when you send the photos.' 

I think because this is a story no one has read yet, you won't know what the story is about really, but I hope the illustrations do their job of accompanying the story. But I received a lot of feedback, and got opinions with picking the right shade of colour. and I think over all they work well as a set.

I also got in touch with the Authour of the story and it was really great to hear his feedback and read more about what he had invisioned.

'I really love what you have so far, particularly that image of the cell phone. My only note is for the image of the two men in the car. Would it be possible to make the figure of the driver smaller/more slight than the passenger? I'd envisioned the murderer to be a small, daintier man than the assistant, which makes his power over him all the more dynamic. Also, I like having the face of the man visible in the mirror portrait, and especially to have his expression be so confused/pained, but in the image in the car I would rather not show their faces. If you agree, I think it'd be cool to have their faces shadowed, with maybe just their mouths showing, but not revealing the expressions of their eyes.'

Now I will go back to the car scene to make these ammends as I really wanted the illustrations to refect what was invisioned in the authors mind also.