Final Animation Evaluation

My animation for this module is now finished and has a running time of 1 minute 30 seconds. Various animation techniques have been used to achieve the effects. The secondary character, the Seagull, was a basic model built with the box modelling technique. After being given a materials, a bone structure was built to fit inside the model. This allowed me to use keyframing to move different parts of the character through rotation, particularly the beak, neck and tail feathers. With this, I could make the character squawk and twitch in the background while the main character animated in the foreground.

The antagonist of the piece, Crabs, was built out of multiple pieces. By having different objects making up the body and limbs, it allowed better attachment to the rig. The crab CAT object was used as the rig and the different objects that make up the character were controlled by selecting each element and applying weight.

The eyes were moved using a look-at constraint. Using my research shown earlier in this blog, an important thing I learnt was to have the characters constantly focus on anything whether it was on or off screen. I feel that I achieved this in the final animation. Crabs also made use of the morpher modifier with the 9 base expressions I found in my research. I think that the different combinations these expressions provided made the main character have an emotive face that conveyed his intentions effectively.

If I had more time, I would have worked on blending scenes together more effectively. In the final piece, there are a lot of separate renderings used for relatively short scenes. I could have animated more action into longer renderings, but it was faster to do it this way. For example, when Crabs spots the bacon and the camera pulls back, a new scene plays after a cross-fade showing him holding the bait instead of him walking over and taking a hold of it.While this does allow for more camera angles to be used, it does break up the action a little more than I would prefer.

Still going...

Since I haven't done a sizeable blog entry recently, here is a token screenshot of me getting on with some animating.

This shows the fully rigged 'Crabs' character picking up the tophat. A look-at constraint has been used to guide the eyes around throughout the animation including this scene.

All of the techniques I have used in the animation should be covered under previous blog posts. These include but are not limited to;

Keyframe animation of pupils by increasing the sphere's hemisphere, bones in the Seagull, eyes using the look-at constraint and various scene objects e.g. the top hat.
Character Animation Toolkit techniques such as binding 'Crabs' to a dummy helper and giving it a path constraint to follow a line across the scene, making the walking motion.
Basic camera movements.

Just over half the scenes are fully rendered now and placed in a Premiere Pro project file, so I'm confident this will be done with soon, with plenty of time left for tweaking if my other module's workload allows.

Re-rigging Crabs

With the morphers complete for the main character, I needed to re-rig him in the same scene. This also gave me an opportunity to make a better rig.

This time, instead of using envelopes on the skin modifier, I used 'paint weights' instead. This allows individual vertices or elements to be applied to each bone. Since my character was built with separate shapes for each bone this was a good find.

The image below shows how much better the new version is. On the character's right hand side is the new technique which shows almost perfect skinning. The other side is from the envelopes and clearly shows how much it warps the mesh even though the envelopes were carefully sized.

On the skin modifier, I selected 'edit envelopes' and ticked 'select elements'. An appropriate bone was selected, then the element was clicked which lit up all of the required vertices only. I increased 'Abs. Effect' to 1.0 which gave the bone full control over that part of the mesh.

By creating a line and a 'dummy' helper, the crab can follow a path with CAT's pre-made movements. However, I am having problems with this. The body follows fine, but the mesh legs stay rigid to the body while the actual rig's legs are walking properly. Until I get over this problem, I can't work on any scenes that require walking.

Rigging the Seagull

Instead of using the character animation toolkit, it will be easier to just rig the seagull with a simple set of bones. The character isn't in the animation very much and he doesn't have any complex movements.

 The bones form the rough shape of the bird.

They are the aligned inside the mesh of the seagull. The model is given the skin modifier, and the bone structure is assigned there. After editing the envelopes, the seagull model can be moved. The legs and beak move fairly well, but there is a bit of deformation when moving the neck around.

The seagull is a minor secondary character in the animation with little to do, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. The facial animation is going to be centred around the crab character.

Character Profile 2

This is the character profile for my second character, the bird.

Name: 'Sea Gullington III'
Personality: Mr. Gullington is rich, thrifty, intelligent and a philanthropist.
Appearance: He is a common seagull with not-so-common accessories in his top-hat and monocle.
Occupation: The chairman of a successful chain of hotels.
Affiliations: His loyal employees.
Goal: To leave a large inheritance to his young.
Home: The biggest nest on the southern coast of England.
Allies: All of the rich and elite birds in England.
Enemies: None, but he does have 'competition' in his business rivals.
Likes: Dressing to impress and going fishing.
Dislikes: The owners of his rival hotel chain.
Skills: Making money.
Weakness: Income tax.
Powers & Abilities: He can fly.
Weapons: His powerful connections.
Fate: To be the unwitting victim of a mugging.
Quote: "Never spend your money before you have earned it."

Using Morpher

Using the facial shapes I found in my research earlier, I can use the morpher modifier to give expression to my main antagonist.

 

Below are the different faces Crabs can pull. These are just the basic faces, but by combining them, moving limbs, moving eyes, eyelids and dilating pupils, a wider range of emotion can be achieved.

Dilated pupils, widened eyes and an 'Ooo' expression is how Crabs will look when we sees something he likes and wants.

By manipulating the FFD boxes, I can give Crabs an angrier expression. This is combined with the 'Anger' mouth shape.

A wince and the 'Yuk' face makes Crabs look disgusted.

The 'FVBPM' face is used in dialogue more than expression. This is the shape the mouth makes with  those letters. Mostly air being pushed through the front, top teeth.

This is the 'Elvis'. I suppose I can make him look confused with this. An unsymmetrical wince helps too.

This is Crabs' neutral face. His eyes will probably be a little wider as he looks a bit too dopey like this.

This is the 'Smile' mouth shape.

This is the 'Frown' mouth shape.

Widened eyes and the 'Big Smile' mouth shape make Crabs look even happier.

Raised lower eyelids and the 'Big Frown' face make him look  upset.

The 'Oh' expression and widened eyes make him look surprised.

All of these models are linked to the original with the morpher modifier.

The army of crabs will all be hidden except the rigged one.

Final Story Details

Now with the changes to my story complete, I feel it appeals to the target demographic more. Children would enjoy the cartoon style and bright colours and instead of being a bit mischievous using bait to get the hat, he is now much more up front and obvious about his villainy by being more physical.

As for the story, it will hopefully go like this:
(All mouth shapes are referred to in the way I found in my research which I have posted earlier on this blog)

• Screen fades in as Crabs is in the centre of the screen. He has a shell on his back and is squeezing out of it. His mouth is clenched and eyes shut tight, showing effort. The shell pops off and his eyes open slightly and mouth relaxes, showing relief. Crabs scuttles to the right as the screen cross fades to the next screen.
• The bird is on the right side of the screen, twitching and squawking.
• Crabs scuttles on from the left with a neutral expression.
• Crabs' eyes lock on to the hat. It is his object of desire, so his eyes widen and pupils dilate. His mouth morphs to the 'OOO' position and he raises his claws to his mouth.
• As the thought of taking the hat crosses his mind, his eyes narrow and has a wide, toothy grin. His eyes will shift quickly side to side in a mischievous way.
• Crabs steps closer to the bird, and his eyes focus on the Seagull's eyes intently. Still narrow eyed, his mouth changes to the 'angry' position and he clicks his raised claws in a form of taunt.
• Crabs mouth changes to the frown position, eyes staying narrow as he quickly scuttles forward and nips at the bird's legs.
• The bird hops off screen in pain and the hat topples from it's head.
• As soon as the bird begins to leave shot, Crab's attention is straight back to the hat. His eyes will follow the hat through the air and to the ground. His mouth will change back to 'OOO' and his eyes widen again.
• Crab's face turns to joy as he finds the hat in his possession. His mouth changes to 'big smile' and his eyes return to neutral.
• He picks up the hat and throws it onto his back. His face changes to a smug expression. Eyes closed and a big closed smile. He scuttles off and the screen fades to black.
• The screen fades back in and crabs has a neutral expression.
• Some bacon on a line come into shot and Crab's expression changes back to 'OOO' with wide eyes and dilated pupils. Crabs LOVES bacon. He raises his claws and clicks them in excitement.
• Eyes slightly widened and mouth changes to a wide toothy grin.
• He grabs the bacon and pulls it towards him.
• The string goes tight as the bacon is a lure from children going crabbing. Crab's eyes go very wide and pupils contract. His mouth changes to 'big frown'.
• His mouth then morphs to anger as his eyes narrow.
• His eyes look the line up and down and head reaches forward and snips it.
• His face changes to a wide, toothy smile while his eyes remain narrow, giving him a menacing look.
• Crabs looks up and rears onto his back legs. He raises his claws in the air and waves them, along with the bacon in a taunt.
• Crabs looks at his bacon with glee. His bottom eyelids will be raised and he will have a smile.
• Finally, he scuttles off screen and fade out.

I intend to make use of various camera angles, particularly close ups to convey the facial animation clearly. However, I will not use extreme close ups as my earlier research made some points as to why that type of shot does not translate well to this style of animation.

All of the models are finished, and the rigging and morphers are nearly there so I think I am on track.

Story Changes

After getting some opinions on my initial storyboards, it seems the antagonist is not villainous enough. The series of events leads the viewer to feel sorry for the main character, Crabs, rather than disliking him.

Firstly, instead of Crabs being mischievous and sly but tricking the seagull with a fish, he will taunt the bird, giving the proverbial 'finger' (claw?). He will then go and attack the seagull by pinching at its legs. This leads the story to the same effect, as the bird hops away in pain and the hat topples off it's head.

 

 

Later on in the story, instead of getting caught by the line and losing the hat he attacked the bird to get, he will grab the bacon, but notice the line. He will cut the line and look up to once again taunt.

Rig Test

Using CAT, I have used the crab rig and fit it to my character. I am having problems sorting out the envelopes so the joints move properly without quite a lot of deformation. It is a pain! I'm also having problems working out how to attach the eyes to the body so they all move as one. This is difficult because I need to keep the FFD box working, so I can't just use the attach function.

However, what I have done it got the character moving properly within the basic walking animation of the rig.

It is quite a fast walk here, but that's just a case of extending the time scale. This was achieved by applying a path constraint to a dummy box. The crab mesh and rig was then set to walk within this dummy box.

The dummy box's rotation is off a bit in the picture above, but by rotating this box, the character is rotated, so the crab could walk up and over hills, and most importantly, be set to walk sideways like a real crab with no effort.

I think I am at a good stage with this module because I have my story set out, the majority of the modelling done and made a start with the animation, Although I haven't started much with the morpher for facial expressions, I am confident that I can get it to work without too much trouble due to work with it on previous modules.

Character Profile

To have an effective character in general, not necessarily just a villain, they need to have background information to make them seem more personable. So, here is a profile for my character who will simply go by the name of 'Crabs'

Name: 'Crabs'.
Personality: Crabs is a mischievous, crafty, sly and selfish (shellfish) kleptomaniac.
Appearance: He is a red hermit crab with his expressive eyes on stalks and four round white teeth.
Occupation: Doing crab stuff.
Affiliations: None as he is a solitary hermit crab.
Goal: To find a new home as he has recently outgrown his old shell.
Home: Crabs is currently between homes.
Allies: None.
Enemies: None in particular, but often gets on the wrong side of complete strangers with his thievery.
Likes: Bacon, top hats, commotion and salsa music.
Dislikes: Birds and crabs with bigger claws than him.
Skills: Exceptional thief.
Weaknesses: Bacon!
Powers & Abilities: Kung-fu grip and juggling.
Weapons: His pincers and will occasionally bite with his teeth.
Fate: To steal a top-hat...and get away with it.
Quote: "I can resist everything except temptation. And bacon."

Setting the scene

The ground is a plane with a sand bitmap applied to it and the sky is a bitmap placed in the environment slot. The sea is a box with a multi sub-object material applied where one is the water and the other is the foam of the breaking waves. This will not be animated.

There are no rigs in these models yet, so these are just test renders to get the idea of the setting across. This first shot is the crab first noticing the seagull and his rather fancy hat.

Here is a shot of the crab closer and he has a menacing grin on his face. The seagull is looking away, oblivious to the crafty crustacean. Using the look-at constraint allows the eyes to be positioned right at the hat. The eyelids are pulled closer together and combined with his grin, makes him look suitably mischievous. 

Here is a higher angle of the same scene, but with a very basic box-modelled boat just to create more atmosphere. 

A daylight system was used for these scenes with mental ray enabled which makes it look brighter and more lively. The sharper shadows behind the boat created by the daylight system make the sea more obvious as being flat, but this very minor issue is not the focus of the task anyway.

Modelling the Seagull

This time with a reference plate, I modelled the seagull in a similar way to the crab's body. I started with a small plane and just sat for a while extruding faces and positioning them to get the rough shape.

I used symmetry and turbosmooth every once in a while to check the shape.

Here's the seagull modelled and textured. At this stage it has creepy, human-like feet. I changed this later on because the looked too strange!

Also relevant to the story, I modelled a monocle starting with a cylinder and using the inset and extrude tools.

The chain was created by making a spline and moving it around so it was the right shape. I then created a thin torus. The torus was then placed in an array following the line using the spacing tool which is found at Tools > Align > Spacing Tool.

He also looks pretty good in a top hat.

Building The Antagonist Cont.

By following the shape of the rig, I created the legs out of spheres, and scaled them to be longer and thinner.

The claws also started as spheres, but a little more vertex manipulation was involved to make them look better.

With the crab's right side of legs and claw done, they were attached to the body. This caused the symmetry modifier to apply to them too, completing the shape of the crab. Some soft selection was used to make a few lumps on the crab's back to give him more character.

And, relevant to the story, I modelled a top hat, starting with a cylinder and extruding some faces. I modelled the top hat before the bird because the hat needed to be scaled to both the crab and bird, as they will both need to wear it without it being over / undersized.

Building The Antagonist

I started the crab by building eyes in a similar way to the eyes we made in a tutorial. A sphere for the eye with the hemisphere increased a little to make the black pupil. This method allows the pupil to be dilated and contracted easily. The eyelids are also spheres which are slightly larger, and then cut in half. An FFD box spacewarp is used to manipulate the shape of the eyes while retaining the ability for the eyes to be opened and closed just by rotating them. The stalks are then cylinders with a bend modifier.

The body will be made by starting with a small plane and extruding the edges until the rough shape is formed. It will be completed with a symmetry modifier and turbosmooth.

After looking at the CAT tools in 3DS Max, I found that there is a crab rig already, which is handy! I put this into the workspace and scaled it to my model. With this, I can use it to get the proportion and angle of the legs looking right.

When animating, it is important to have the eyes always focussed on something on or off screen, so I research the look-at constraint.

Binding the eyes with this small sphere as a look-at constraint makes the eyes following the sphere wherever it is. This will help make the crab more expressive.