Red Panda Trust Animation Progress

This some of the work I've been creating for an organisation called The Red Panda Trust since November last year. I was asked to produce a short animation as a test by the company, so I chose a run cycle to show my ability.

The first video was the original run cycle I created. I wasn't sure if they wanted a different design for the animation, so I created my own design to see if it worked. I knew from the beginning that I wanted the animation to look quite clean, so I decided to use Illustrator to copy over the original drawing. It was also a lot quicker to draw the posing for each frame using Illustrator.

Unfortunately, it wasn't what they were looking for. They liked the red panda's design, but they felt it targeted a too specific demographic. They wanted the design to replicate their current logo. After some heavy modifications to the frames, I also added a bit more motion to the torso as well to avoid it looking too static.

This video is a current walk cycle I'm working on. I'm close to finishing, but I still just need to fine tune the smoothness of the legs.

Back after LONG Hiatus/ Sonic Mass Effect

Happy new year to everyone. Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few months, my life's been very hectic recently. Thought as it's the new year I'd start posting again.

I finished my degree in Animation last year and got a 2:1 (YAY!), and I've been seeking out various work opportunities pretty much everywhere. I volunteered at Bristol Encounters Film Festival and did some work for Social Enterprise West Midlands last year (I'll update about that later). I also got a part-time job at Primark for some extra money. For now, I'll show you some of the work I've done in my spare time.

This is for a project I've been doing in my spare time entitled Sonic Mass Effect. As their two of my favourite games to play, I thought I'd have a go at merging various characters from both series to see how well they'd fit together.

First up was Sonic, who's merge with Shepard was a bit of a no brainer as their both the main playable characters. Part of the challenge was blending N7 armour with Sonic's simple design. I then learnt how Sonic's shoes were based on the same ones Michael Jackson wore in the 'Bad' video, so I wanted to portray a similar effect in his armour design. I took major influence from the suit he wore when performing Billie Jean on stage, particularly the single glove he wore. I also gave the armour a blue tint so that it would look more natural against Sonic's spines. Theres still a bit more detail I need to add on the final image, but it shouldn't take too long now.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Next up was Tails, who required a bit more thought as to which Mass Effect character he'd portray. It was a toss up between Joker or Garrus, but I decided to go with the latter due to their similar personalities (Slightly under confident, look up to main hero as a role model, tech savvy). Part of the challenge was still making Tails look cute in Garrus' armour, which wasn't particularly easy. I made the tails look feather-like to fit in with the Turians bird physique. This is my favourite one I've made so far, I just need to add the final details before he's completely finished.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Knuckles was also fairly hard to figure out his character. He's cast the strong one in the Sonic games, so he could play any of the brute characters from Mass Effect (Grunt, James etc). After looking at various Mass Effect character sstory arcs to see if they share Knuckles' backstory, I decided to cast him as Wrex. This is mainly down to Knuckles and Wrex's roles as guardians (Floating Island and Tuchanka respectively), their initial hostility towards the main character and their transformation from pessimists to optimists. It took a while to include all the armour detail, but I'm close to finishing now. I also added a Pyjak (Chu Chu) for good measure.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Hope you like them so far, I'll make sure to post again as soon as possible.

Final Films: 3D Modelling and Final Major Project

Here's the films for my final year university. The first one represents my concept art and 3D modelling, which leads into the final project below, enjoy.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 17

This week my aim has been to make refinements to Fishbone's animation. As he is the most complex character in the scene, I felt it was important to focus on his animation. This was also necessary to avoid making changes when rendering.

 

 

 

One thing I have focused on is the inbetweening of certain parts of Fishbone's animation. This is to achieve the best result in motion and avoid the animation from looking too stiff when played back. Below are some examples of the inbetween frames that I've done.

 

 

 

I've also started to make progress on the coconut's animation. I've left this character's animation till last because I know it will be a lot easier to animate than Fishbone. I now need to finish making refinements to the scene and characters before I begin rendering the scene and adding sound.

Working on this project has really taught me a lot about time management and teamwork. I have also learnt a lot more tips and tricks in Maya, and I will aim to discover more techniques in this software to improve my workflow. I now aim to take these skills and use them for studio practice.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 16

This week I've been carrying on with Fishbone's animation as before, and aiming to finish Fishbone's base animation so that I can improve previous parts of his animation. 

I carried on with the same process of animating over the blocked frames. One thing that has been difficult is keeping the trident placed in Fishbone's hand, so I've had to use numerous keys to keep it attached.

Next week I will start improving Fishbone's animation and start animating the coconut. Hopefully I will also be able to find time to do secondary animation for the palm tree and the rst of the environment.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 15

This week I've carried on working on the animation of Fishbone. I've also rectified part of the scene so as to improve the quality of the final render.

Over this week I've feel that I've made good progress with the animation, making refinements where necessary. I have now reached the halfway point of my animation, and will continue working on the motion to improve it.

I have also refined some of the detail on the main island. As I've been occasionally rendering some parts of the scenes to check the lighting, I've noticed that parts of the island look very pixelated. I knew that this wouldn't do for the final image, so I've rectified the pixel size and made adjustments where necessary.

Next week I'm heading to Stuttgart Animation Festival with a group of 9 other people, and will be there for the whole next week. I see this as an opportunity to improve my networking with professional studios, and plan to show a segment of my final major project at the festival. I will provide photos that I've taken at the festival next week.

Animation Direction AM50309-6: Week 14

After finishing all of Fishbone's key posing, it was time to start the animation process. My aim is to try and experiment with his motions to see what works and what doesn't work. Having already utilised animation layers the week before, I plan to use this technique for thee rest of the animation.

So far I have had varied success with the character animation, with some motions being hard to animate. As a consequence, I have sometimes tried to act out some of the motions to gain some perspective. I have also regularly checked the motions through playblasting to check the results.

Here's a video showing the progress I've mad so far. There's still some refinements I need to make but I will address them in the future.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 13

My aim this week was to try and finish the key posing for Fishbone. As my film is 2 minutes long, I wanted to make sure that the posing was completely right before I start animating. If I had time, I would actually begin animating him as well.

Overall, I've found key posing very useful, and I plan to use this process again for future 3D animations. There are still some poses that I have to work on, but these can easily be reworked when I start animating.

I finished the key posing early enough that I could actually start animating. I haven't really done a lot yet, but it's given me an opportunity to test out new techniques. One thing I've decided to do is use a new animation layer for modifying the key poses. This will allow me to edit the keys without deleting the original key poses. I've also been editing controls using the graph editor to avoid them looking to static.

I now progress onto week 14, and will continue animating Fishbone to better quality.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 12

This week I plan to make a start on the animation process. Having experimented with key posing in the previous week, I decided to utilise a similar process in my animation. My aim is to key pose all of Fishbone's animation to the 2 minute timeframe.

As I was creating the key poses, I made sure to keep referencing to the original storyboard to avoid conflicting with the time frame. However, problems occurred in that some motions would require longer or shorter durations, so I made sure to accommodate them in the timeline. It was also an opportunity to insert some of the cameras in the scene as well.

Overall, I'm happy so far with this process, and feel that this will allow me to get a balanced animation.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 11

This week my aim was to finish the rigging and practice using the rig. I wanted to understand how the rig will work first before I animate, so I felt it was necessary to do poses to test the rigs versatility.

As hands are quite difficult to animate, I decided to create set driven keys for various expressions. I feel that when I start animating, this will be a valuable shortcut for different hand movements. After completing this, I made final checks to ensure that the rig is working properly, and parented joints to the appropriate nurbs curve.

Left Hand

Right Hand

I then started practicing putting him in various poses to check the rigging and to see how Fishbone looks rendered. Overall I'm happy with the results, and look forward to animating him.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 10

This week I've commenced with the production of my storyboard animatic and the body rigging of Fishbone. As my main priority was the completion of the storyboard to begin animating, I decided to focus on this first.

I brought my sketchbook into university and scanned every page of the storyboard panels into a computer. I then used StoryboardPro to composite the sequence together. I added some extra panels digitally so as to pad out the story. The next part was adding audio into the storyboard. I'm rather familiar with the software Final Cut Pro, so I used that to edit sound in. A lot of the sounds at the moment are placeholders from Freesound, so I've asked Laura to help me with specific sounds to make them more original. I also plan to include music in my final animation as well, which has been recorded by my good friend Rob Millard.

                

After completing this, I started to make progress on the body rigging. I used a rig that I made for Fishbone last semester to save time, and made slight adjustments to it where appropriate. After skinning him, I started paint weighting the mesh to the correct joints. I haven't ran into any significant problems so far, and hopefully should have it finished by next week.

Here's a photo of the mic I borrowed to record Rob's guitar, will cost me a grand if I break it :/

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 9

Over this week I've decided that I ned to make final preparations to begin my animation. To do this, I decided to finish the final texturing for my characters and the environments. This week was also an opportunity for me to experiment with rigging for Fishbone, so I decided to focus on the face to create his various expressions.

Importing all of the of the environmental assets was quite tricky, as I had to think about how everything would suit the scene. I also had to think about lighting, and make sure to get the right contrast between the rocks and the sea to avoid it looking too bright. It's currently a work in progress, and I plan to get it finished in the next few weeks.

For the facial rigging, I decided that I wanted to get as many facial expressions as possible. This was so that I could actually have as many varied poses for when I render Fishbone for still frames in my portfolio. I focused on the mouth expressions first, then worked my towards the brow and ears. Here's a few facial expressions to show my work.

Smile

Kissy Face

Sad

Shocked

Clint Eastwood

Laughing

I now commence with week 10, in which I will focus on the final storyboarding and the body rigging.