Making the Ferris Wheel

After making the tent, Hayley said she would like to make the stall so I got onto other aspects of the environment and started to make the ferris wheel. I had no idea how I was going to make this object, so I sort of went into it open minded and if it went wrong, then it went wrong and I would think of something else to make. 

I started off by trying to make the basis of a ferris wheel, which are the circular bars. I went about this a few different ways before I actually got what I wanted. Firstly, I thought I would use the 'cylinder' polygons and delete the faces, however like the cone, I could not add edge loops to the face. Therefore I then tried thinning out the donut polygon, but this did not look realistic or stylised enough for me. Then finally I found the perfect polygon, and shrunk it down to my desired size.

Trying to get the proportions together was a big challenge for me because I wanted everything to feel right. Therefore I practiced a lot trying to get the tent and the circular bars to look compatible together, as if they were actually on a fair ground.

Then I made the bars to actually hold the ferris wheel up and this was easy enough because I could actually duplicate them and use them for the bars in the centre of the wheel also! 

I then made some simple seats for the ferris wheel but not too detailed because our whole scene is going to be rather simplistic and I thought it would be a bit odd if one object was more intricate than the others. I also coloured the wheel as I went along, trying to follow the colour palette of our choices. I did not UV map this ferris wheel because it would have taken a really long time and I thought the colours looked nice enough as they were.

I then did some lighting tests and was really pleased at how the light effected the scene/environment. I also had a go at changing the colours of the lights and I really liked this even more. I think trying to get the lights to move will be another thing for me to experiment with, but so far I am very pleased with how our environment is coming along!

                            

This is a rendered version of the scene without a background, however I am really enjoying seeing the environment at night and this maybe a good idea to set the animation this way? 

Making the Tent

Whilst waiting for Hayley to make her character, I got onto making parts of our environment. Because lighting didn't work as we thought it would have inside an object like it would have if it was outside, we decided to move our story to outside the tent and onto the fairground. This meant that we could just make parts of a carnival, like the tent, stand, etc, and then make 2D settings on planes! 

Making the tent was a lot of fun and gave me a new perceptive of making objects with different surface areas. Because the top of our tent is pointy, I decided to go straight for the cone polygon and extrude the edges downwards to make the 'walls' of the tent. However when it came to wanting to bend the walls inwards, I couldn't insert any edge loops to the roof of the tent, and after a quick google search I learnt that you can't do this action on a cone. Therefore I got rid of it and extruded the walls up again, and brought them all in at the centre so that I could move the vertices inwards instead.

After Planar mapping, cutting edges and taking a UV snapshot, this was my unfolded mesh! I was quite happy with the way this turned out because it meant that I could see exactly where to put my pattern from the designs I had already pre made.

             

After running into no problems so far, I decided to import my UV snapshot into Photoshop and start colouring it in. I experimented with the 'white and red' colour scheme first, just to see if it would look more aesthetically pleasing, but I ended up not liking it at all.

Another problem i had was that my patters looked very 'wobbly' and unsteady. Even though i had taken time to be precise in Photoshop and follow the exact mesh lines, when I imported it back into Maya, it didn't look very good at all! 

So I quickly went back into Photoshop and cleaned all the lines up, as well as trying the 'red and yellow' colour scheme Hayley and I had originally planned. This ended up turning out a lot more vivid and exciting, and I could start to see our animation take place here! I added the texture onto a 'phong' material, just to see if I could get that shiny material you usually get on a tent and it turned out rather carnival like. 

I then wanted some more detail on the tent that we had planned for example the flags and started to make them individually. However when I went to colour the flags in and I just could not seem to get the colour to show up on the flag. In the right picture above, I had coloured the flag in bright purple but no matter how many lights I added to the scene, it would not show up.

Therefore I decided to try and draw the flags on, adding a drop shadow to make them look 3D and I think they turned out much better than when I had tried to make them individually. 

And this is what the tent looks like so far! I am very pleased with how it came out and I think it will bring the rivalry theme to life which is perfect for our narrative. Also when we add spotlights of all different colours, I think shadows will be very exciting to play out as well! So far this has made me excited at what else I could accomplish in Maya and has allowed me to try and solve all the problems myself first, without instantly asking someone else for help.

Tent with example grass & lighting.

Responsive: Penguin

After being briefed on this module, I was really apprehensive to start. I have never entered my work in a 'competition' before, therefore because this is foreign to me, I was nervous about even looking at the briefs. One thing that did stick out to me however, was that the teachers told us that the animation students were allowed to enter illustration competitions and visa versa. I thought this would be a great opportunity to work on position, colour and style a bit more, because I feel like i still haven't found my own one yet.

Also in that lesson, I overheard someone talking about Penguin having a brief. Because I am a massive book lover (I read at least 2 books a week!) I couldn't stop thinking about this competition, and I kept wondering if it would be possible for me to even make one book cover, let alone three!

Nevertheless I went on their website and pondered the three briefs. To summerise, Penguin want us to create three front, back and side designs for three different books. These books come under separate categories, so the following books are; 

- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (Fiction) 

- How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran (Non-Fiction) 

- Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner (Children's).

I mostly read fiction novels and I do like non-fiction as well, so I think these will be great challenges to take on, however the children's cover I think will be much harder for me because I don't have any younger siblings/cousins, and I don't read children's books so I have no experience on what they like. This does not stop me however, for seeing this book as the most exciting one to take on and I am going to use colour to play with my strengths! 

I also went into WHSmiths and looked at the Penguin section. I noticed that they have such a variety in covers, some more iconic than others because of the different editions (vintage, modern, library, etc). The ones that stand out to me, are those that are vivid and exciting. There are a hundred black and white books out there, so I am thinking for this brief I really want to challenge the boundaries and go all out there, because people do judge books by their covers, and that is what make them look inviting and appealing sitting on your own shelf.

Character Improvements

After the crit the first thing I wanted to change was the alterations to my character. Since a lot of people said that she was too big to be seen as 'a little sister', I scaled her down so that it is more obvious once she is next to her brother.

Another thing people mentioned was her eyes. I loved how small and mischievous her eyes looked to begin with but since more than one person commented on it, I decided to enlarge them. I think most people will be able to tell what her expression is trying to say better once the camera is far away.

Since I really did have the final design for my character now, I drew her in the t-pose! I have never drawn a character in t-pose before so this was quite fun for me to experience! It was more tricky to draw her from the side as I had to get all the shoulder and leg height the same as the front and the back.

Sara also mentioned in her lecture that it can be a bit more helpful to draw your character in other poses to get their personality across. Since I want my little sister to be upbeat and full of mischief, I posed her like a typical younger sister and I also had a lot of fun doing this as well!

Lastly, I drew some outlines of her because I think this would be much easier as references for when I am actually in Maya. The lines make the character more easy to see, especially when I will be using it as a guideline for extruding and so forth, so this was a very helpful step for me to take.

Updated Animatic

                  

This is the updated animatic that I made. I fixed all the timings on here so Hayley and I have rough ideas of how long each scene is meant to be. We obviously have never animated using Maya before, so we are going to be using this as a guide and have agreed if something ends up changing then that is okay and we will not be too upset that we did not stick to our original plans.

This whole brief is learning all about Maya and 3D modelling so I think if we make mistakes we will learn more from them than just by sailing through the tasks ahead.

Interim Crit Feedback

In the interim crit that we gave today, Hayley and I received A LOT of feedback. A lot of which I am very appreciative of, purely because without the interim crit we probably wouldn't have had the confidence to go up an ask for comments and advice on our work. Therefore this interim crit helped us see what we want in our animation more clearly, and will allow us to refine each aspect even further.

To begin with, a lot people mentioned that they noticed our characters looked great but their heights were an issue. For example, the little sister is not very little, and she could be a lot smaller, to make her less obvious at winning. Because this is my character, I am definitely going to alter this. Some others also stated that her eyes could be bigger in order to match Hayley's character, and i am vey glad someone pointed this out to me, because having the two characters be easily distinguishable as brother and sister was very important element to me.

Lighting was also a reoccurring comment. Because Hayley and I decided that our animation would be set in a tent, Mat notified us that lighting works incredibly differently inside and outside an object. I did not know this, and before I completely eliminated the tent idea, I think it would be best to model the tent and then do some tests on lighting. 

Then we got a lot of feedback on our animatic. I am going to fix the animatic right away, as I completely forgot about the timing of it, and more about the fluidity. And I will also look at lighting for this aspect also. Sara also mentioned whether or not we need the swooping into the tent -our establishing shot- in the beginning, or could we get away with just starting the animation inside the tent, getting straight to the action. Hayley and I both agree that this is something to think about.

Overall I have received a lot of feedback and this is a lot more than I have ever gotten so I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the work we have to do in such a small space of time. However I am going to fix all the problems that were brought up and also see what Hayley think so them.

Telling Tales Animatic

After Hayley and I decided on what we were finally doing for definite in our storyboards, I decided to go ahead and make an animatic. I basically wanted to get a brief idea of what we were going to be animating so that we wouldn't be stuck for ideas at any point in the next few weeks, and I also added our chosen carnival theme music that we had both agreed on.

I think this really sets the scene and the mood of our animation. We want it to be full of mischief and rivalry and I think our characters and setting really portray that. Of course our colours won't be as bright in Maya and I think it will be mostly a case of trial and error when we come to actually animating.

From my animatic I screen-shotted certain points in the animation and combined them all onto one board and I am thinking of printing this off, one for Hayley and one for myself. This means that we don't have to keep looking at the video each time and we can have this reference in front of us the whole time we are animating. I also highlighted key points in each scene on this board, for example what character is most important on each scene and where the ball should be at the given time. I think this will really benefit us by planning early! 

Circus Audio

Since Hayley and I knew we were going to have a circus theme, I was really excited to start thinking about the audio. Since carnivals and circus extravaganza's can be really exciting, I took this as an opportunity to liven up our animation, especially since it is only going to be one minute long. I am thinking to have this main audio a bit quieter in the background because I don't want it to be the main focus of the animation either, but I will wait and see what Hayley thinks.

             

This first audio (and my favourite) that I found is really atmospheric. I love that is has some 'ambience' of a real carnival because it could give our animation a more authentic feel, especially with people chatting and having a good time. I also like how musical it is, especially since our animation is about a game and competitiveness between two people, so this is definitely a contestant.

                         

Then I found this piece, which is like your typical circus music, so it would be a great match for the whole theme when put together. I also like how fast it is, to mirror the thrilling feel of winning. However I am not sure if this is too typical, or would match part of our planned narrative when some of the characters are walking and paused, because the music is so fast? I will be asking this in our interim crit.

          

Next is something a bit slower, something more the pace of our animation. It comes under the 'creepy/eerie' genre of music, but I don't see it as that at all! But it is perfect for Halloween! Nevertheless I really like this track and can't wait to show Hayley to see what she thinks. It could potentially be too slow for the ending of our story, but I could always try and speed it up in post production.

         

This is another slow track, but more 'jingly' and a lot more mystical. If we put this on a lower level, I think it would fit right in with our narrative, so this is one to think about also.

                        

I also found this one which changes pace from slow to fast which we could use in particular for our ending. It is much more orchastraic which I like, but I am not sure if it has enough of a carnival feel like to it, as opposed to just a song.

                        

Then lastly I had to research this one because it is actually used in the Circus scene in the film, and has a perfect pace as well as enough drama. The only issue I have with this one is that I don't want it to be too recognisable to 'Coraline', and when people watch our animation, I don't want them to think of the film, so i'm not too sure if it would be worth using this.

More Character Alterations

                                                                                After sending the updates to my character to Hayley and also seeing how she improved her character, she thought I could change a few more things to mine to make them go together more. I really loved my character and didn't want to change it at all, but working in a team is about compromise so I decided to combine my version of my character and her version and start again.

I kept the colour palette of my original character, but I did a good few alterations. I made her head a bit smaller as Hayley's character looks a lot more realistic than mine, so I didn't want the two to look completely different. Hayley also changed the colouring of her characters hair and eyes which I didn't want to happen because I wanted them to look like brother and sister, and I really like the blonde hair/green eyes combo, but I changed them anyway. I changed the shoes to boots and made her legs a bit wider and Hayley said she didn't like them really skinny. 

Therefore overall I think the two characters do go well together now and it is time to focus on the environment!

Character Feedback & Realistic Goals

After doing a lot of research on existing characters and existing rivals, it was then time to decide what kind of characters Hayley and I were going to make. I did some more research on looking at simple, existing characters made in Maya, because we have to be realistic when tackling this project. Neither Hayley or I have made characters in Maya before, therefore we don't want to be too ambitious and then end up struggling making a character that we can't even animate. 

So we both decided to get some moodboards of characters we both liked, and characters that were possible to achieve through this software, so that we could come up with two rival ideas that would work well together and also bounce of each other, as they will be interacting with each other in our animation.

Character Feedback & Swapping Drawings

After talking with Sara, she recommended that once Hayley and I had both chosen our characters and got our visions on paper, that we swap each others and try and either add to them or improve to make our characters match and look like they would actually go together in an animation. I thought this was a great idea, so I decided to colour Hayley's character in and match it with the colours of my character.

I decided to take this idea from Hayley to add to because I really liked the idea of having a jock type of character as a brother and I liked the possibility of being able to play around with the colours and the sportswear!

Therefore I came up with this guy and tried to make him have the same colouring as his sister because since the animation is only a minute long I wanted the audience to easily establish that they are related.

And I think they look great together! I do think I have to alter the size of my characters head, just because in general it look a great deal out of proportion, therefore I will be making sure this looks natural once I get to Maya! 

Hayley's design

When I sent my ideas to Hayley, she really liked the shape I gave him and his colouring, so took these aspects and remade him herself. She made him slightly bulkier and hefty which will be a great way to think about weight when we animate him throwing the ball. The only negative I have is the hair and eye colourings as I want them to be the same so that with the one minute time frame people will be able to tell that they are siblings. Hayley says that she doesn't think it will matter so for now we are going to leave them like this.

Hayley's drawing

My alterations

Hayley also sent me some ideas to improve on my character which I thought were really good to add so I went ahead and altered my character. I added some pom poms to her hat which which will be a really great effect especially when she is throwing the ball. I also added some pockets for extra added detail to her dress as well as a backpack which I will add in Maya if I have time.

Hayley's interpretation.

This is Hayley'a interpretation of my character which I love! She has a darker colour palette to my character but this is probably more realistic to what I will achieve in Maya so I am glad she has done this. She has also added boots and made my character a little more bulky which is a great option to experiment with once I get into Maya.

I think Hayley and I are working really well and communicating quite frequently and being open with what we like and don't like, which is making our collaboration more enjoyable.

Maya DIY Model: Orienting, Connecting & Ordering Controllers

Before I could fully start adding controls to my Maya model, I had to do some quick fixes with the wrist joint as it wasn't properly aligned yet.

I had to select the joint and go into 'Orient Joint Settings' and made sure it's primary axis was 'X'. Though this was easy enough to follow, it did slightly confuse me because my wrist joint looked as if it didn't even need re-orienting, as it was already horizontal to the x axis. I did it however, just in case I could have missed something!

Instead of doing this all again for the other side of my model, instead I deleted the right arm and them re-mirrored the left, so that both sides would have the exact same conclusive co-ordinates and orientations.

Next it was time to fix the orient of the controls and somewhere between doing my quick fixes, I ended up with my model looking like this! I had no idea how I had done it, and every time I tried to undo my steps, the skeleton still went all out of shape, so I had to start over and try and avoid selecting the wrong joints.

HOWEVER after much perseverance, I ended up changing the orient of all my joints and controls with much ease and without distorting my model. Therefore all my controls had the same orientation as the joints so could work in sync.

So the next thing I did was make a hierarchy of the joints (hand connecting to the elbow, elbow to the shoulder, shoulder to the clavicle etc...). To do this, I selected the child group and parent controller and selected 'P' to parent them. This wis a very clever tool, because one you start rotating a joint, it rotates it's child joints also, which makes the model look like it is really coming together!

A problem I did encounter, was that when it was time to parenting the hips, I had accidentally previously parented the hip controller to the root joint, so when I went to orient it, the bottom half of my model flipped vertically. To solve this, I thought about what I could do before starting the whole control process again because I thought I had really messed my model up. But instead I just made another null group and repaired the controller to the hip joint. However because the controller was already paired, I had to UN-parent it, and then re-parent it to the correct joint, and then parent it again back to the root controller and it ended up working great and I didn't have to start from the very beginning! 

Then I ran into another major issue. I could not create 'Pole Vectors' for my leg IK handles and knee locators! Nothing would happen and I kept getting this error message 'Handle must be valid and use rotate plane solver', which I obviously had no idea what it meant. So after a quick search into Google, I found this video:

             

Though the video isn't even in English, I followed what the instructor was doing and was able to fix this issue and allow my knees to bend properly!

I created a 'Rotate-Plane Solver' which is under the IK Handle tool settings, and connecting it from the top of the leg to the knee. 

From here, I parented this new IKHandle into the corresponding foot group, and then held shift and selected the correct knee locator and was finally able to make a pole vector!

And as you can see, once I translate the knee locator to the left and right, the knee bends with it, and therefore I think this solution has been a success. Now all I have left to do is the binding, and I will be able to get creating my own character!