Exercises and Projects

Week 1-14

Jennifer Tan Qing Ni (0333137)
Advanced Animation
Exercises and Projects

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LECTURES

Week 1 

Lecture 1

For the first week, we had our first class with Mr Kannan. Mr Kannan started the class by teaching us how to do simple animations in Maya, using keyframes. In order to familiarise ourselves, we were given an exercise, in which we have to animate 3 types of balls. I chose a tennis ball, football and bowling ball. 

Week 2

Lecture 2

For our 2nd week, we learnt about the hypertrophy hierarchy in Maya. We also learnt how to animate a pendulum that was provided by Mr Kannan.

Lecture 3

We had our first class with Mr Faizal. He explained that, in this module, he will be focusing more on the more theoretical side of this module, like character design and how a character or item would move. During the lecture, he gave a tutorial on drawing characters from simple shapes. Our task was to draw out characters using only simple shapes. 

Week 3

Lecture 4

For this weeks class, we proceeded to learn something that was a little bit more complex, which is the graph editor. The graph editor can help in making an animation run much smoother by adjusting the curves and axis on the graph. We were to practice using the graph editor with the pendulum.

Lecture 5

This week, Mr Faizal proceeded to teach us how we can take our characters to another level by doing some character development.

Week 4

Lecture 6

This week, Mr Faizal told us to draw different poses and expressions for our character. We were also told to do a run, walk and jump cycle along with a character turnaround. 

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INSTRUCTIONS

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EXERCISES

Week 1

For the first week, Mr Kannan introduced us to our first exercise, which was to animate 3 types of balls. I personally chose a tennis ball, bowling ball, and a football. When I first did them, they were kinda awkward. Mr Kannan commented that the timing was a little off. Below are my outcomes after a little tweaking. 

Video #1 Tennis Ball

Video #2 Football

Video #3 Bowling Ball

Week 2

Exercise 1

For this week, we were introduced to the pendulum. Below is an exercise that I've done on the pendulum. 

Video #4 Pendulum

Exercise 2

For Mr Faizal's class, we were to create characters from basic shapes. I proceeded to sketch out some characters on my sketchbook before digitalizing the characters. Each character represents a different shape.  I kinda had a lil fun with the characters that I created. 

#1 Bowie the Rocker: Square

#2 Annoyed Annie: Rectangle 

#3 Teddy the Puppy: Circle

#4 Nach O'Cheze: Triangle

#5 Lil Walter: Trapezium

#6 Mochi: Oval

Figure 1.1 Characters.

Mr Faizal then said to proceed with the characters poses and expressions. 

Week 3

This week, we were introduced to the graph editor so I practised it with the pendulum. Below is the pendulum with the graph editor in use. 

Video #5 Pendulum with Graph Editor 

Week 4

For this week in Mr Faizal's class, we were to create a few different poses and expressions for one of our drawn characters. After Mr Faizal's tutorial, I proceeded to take Bowie and draw a few expressions and poses. 

Figure 1.2 Bowie's character poses and expressions

However, Mr Faizal asked if I was sure if I wanted to use this character as it was a little too simple. I voiced my worries as I was weak in drawing different poses for more complex characters. Mr Faizal commented that I should think outside the box and he proceeded to find some examples and guides so that I can reference and understand better on character development. Below are the examples that he showed. 

I then proceeded to develop another character. Below are the sketches I made for a character

Figure 2.1 Turn Around 

Figure 2.2 Turn Around

Figure 2.3 Poses and Expressions

Figure 2.4 Poses and Expressions

I actually wasn't really happy with the character at all. I've trialled with it so many times and only managed to get the proportions right. However, Mr Faizal commented that the proportions were off as well, especially the limbs. So I requested to do the character again. 

Week 5

This week I redid a new character. I went on Pinterest to get inspired. I then proceeded to create the character below. I gave it a name: Moozers. 

Figure 3.1 Moozers

I then proceed to draw the character poses as well as its expressions. I referenced my character a lot with Adventure Time characters, especially Finn the Human and Jake the Dog as I realized their limbs were quite similar. 

Figure 3.2 Adventure Time Characters

Below are my sketches for Moozers. 

Figure 3. 3 Poses #1

Figure 3.4 Poses #2 

Figure 3.5 Expressions

Week 6

After consultations, I proceeded to digitalise my character. I changed the colour of Moozers body to make it not too bold and bright. I went from bright mint green to a more subtle purple. Below are the digitalized outcomes. 

Figure 4.1 Moozer's Introduction

Figure 4.2 Moozers Turnaround

Figure 4.3 Moozers character poses and expressions

Mr Faizal then told us to draw out a background to put our character in. Below is my first attempt

First attempt

Mr Faizal then advised us to sketch out 5 different backgrounds. 

Figure 4.4 Background #1

Figure 4.5 Background #2

Figure 4.6 Background #3

Figure 4.7 Background #4

Figure 4.8 Background #5

Mr Faizal said that it was good and told me to proceed and colour the background. I continued to do so and I put all my completed animation in it. Below are my final outcomes with the BG colourized. 

Figure 4.9 Run Cycle

Figure 4.10 Turn Around

Figure 4.11 Walk Cycle

Figure 4.12 

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Project 1

Week 5-8

For our first project, we were to animate a flour sack. We were given a rigged floursack and our job is to give it a little story so that we can animate it. We were first told to draw some thumbnails as well as practised with the floursack. I decided to animate my floursack jumping off a diving board and into a pool. Below is a practice that I did with the floursack.

Mr Kannan further explained some scenarios that I could possibly put. After the classes, I went on Youtube to watch some real-life examples. I found 2 examples, the first being a scene of Mr Bean at the pool, wanting to jump off a diving platform but was too scared to do so. The second video I referenced to is a scene from Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, where Greg Heffley wanted to jump off a high diving board to impress a girl but was too timid. 

Video Reference #1 Mr Bean at the Pool

Video Reference #2 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days Pool scene

Below is my first attempt with added sound effects. 

Mr Kannan commented that the effort is there. However, I should let the flour sack have a bigger personality. The start of the animation, it sounds more like he's questioning whether to jump or not rather than being scared. Mr Kannan also showed me a few examples of how I can animate it better, just so that it can have a bigger personality. 

I then redid the whole animation in Maya to make it a little better. I observed the videos over and over so I could get a better understanding. I also tried to reenact my scenes in real life and it helped a lot. Below is the outcome.

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Final Project-Character Animation

Week 10-Week 15

For our final project, we were to animate a character according to an existing character. Prior to the project, we were to act out a scene from an animation. So I chose a scene in the incredible where Edna Mode was giving Elastic Girl a pep talk. Below is the reference video. 

I then re-enacted this scene however, I didn't use a voiceover. Below is my take on Edna. 

After this, we were given a rig of a Rocket Girl and we were to animate here according to a chosen scene of animation. I decided to stick with Edna. Here is an image of the rig of the rocket girl. 

I then drew a simple storyboard.

After that, I proceeded to animate. We were told to first do blackouts first. However, I constantly had trouble doing that, so I just started to animate. I first played around with it and explored the rig a little. 

I then proceeded to break down each scene in Premiere Pro and there were a total of 12 shots. I started to animate each scene, putting each scene as a separate file. 

Below is my first attempt. I have yet to animate the lip sync as i wanted to focus on the actions first. 

Mr Kannan commented that the character is a little too stiff. Edna's personality is really sassy and she tends to get easily annoyed and I was encouraged to add a little bit more of exaggeration of Edna's sassiness into the animation. 

I then reanimated some scenes according to the feedback. Below is my second attempt. However this time, I included the lipsync. Some parts of the animation were a little weird I gotta say. 

Mr Kannan commented that is a little better than the previous one however some parts of the animation, it started to look weird, and he told me to redo one particular scene. I agreed and i deleted some keyframes in Maya for that particular scene. 

After I was done with animation, I started to look for some free 3D models online. However, I couldn't find one that was free. So I decided to model it myself. 

However, in the middle of modelling, Maya crashed and I couldn't open the original file. So I had to redo it again. Below is the one that I redid. 

I then proceeded to add the cabinets into the animated scenes. 

After the background was added to all the scenes. I proceeded to render it as a png sequence and did everything else in After Effects. 

 

I then proceeded to add the audio in Premiere Pro. Below is my video.

I then realized that the lighting was quite bad so I re-edited it again. Below is my final outcome. 

And that marks the end of Advanced Animation. Wow, it has really been a ride. Despite it being really stressful, I'm honestly glad that I got to experience animating. It really made me understand how hard animation is :") It is stressful I've got to say and frustrating at times but I really did have fun making things come to life through animation. My work is not the greatest, but I really tried the best I could to animate it.