MA 3D Computer Animation

I rendered part of my animation and corrected some errors that I didn’t find originally, such as：

I also encountered many bugs and wrong operations during the rendering process, which made the slow process even more difficult. Fortunately, these problems were solved in the end!

Anyway，this is a very exciting teamwork，every member did their best to contribute.

In the preliminary preparations, Sean and Yann established the theme and story outline. Layne and Jay have produced different versions of storybord for the team to screen. Yann, Sean and I drew the early character settings.
In the mid-term, Murray was responsible for the binding of the roles. Yann and Sean modeled the character and converted the two-dimensional concept map into a three-dimensional asset. Evanna from vfx professional created the fabulous scene. Everyone made the animation clips they were responsible for.
In the later integration stage, Jay was responsible for the design of special effects, and layne added the sound part.
We upload all assets to onedrive regularly for everyone to review at any time.

I learned a lot from this project. I not only emerge many new ideas from the reference animation materials, but also tried modeling and lighting. I am really interested in the rendering part, and I hope I will continue to study this direction in-depth in the future.

During the animation, I also encountered a lot of difficulties, especially the rigging of men’s clothes really broke me. Thanks yann for giving me correction suggestions！

I watched the above two videos, which inspired me a lot. Especially how to use Arnold mesh light.

Mesh light is very helpful to enhance the picture, especially for scenes full of high saturation colors and luminous bodies such as cyberpunk. I tried to increase the mesh light effect on my shuriken. I added a warm color to the blade part and mainly purple in the ring and adjusted certain parameters by my feelings. The effect is really great! It’s like a futuristic high-tech weapon.

Then, I tried a certain degree of lighting on the characters. I want to render into a cyberpunk style. I added different area lights to the surrounding area, respectively setting purple, orange and blue. Mixing of different tones of lights.

Next, I continue to try mesh light, which can really make the picture super cool!

I also rendered my animation part, adding mesh light to the girl’s sword and the man’s mechanical eyes. Below are screenshots.

All in all, rendering and lighting are very important parts of the final stage of animation. The quality of rendering can directly affect the overall quality of the animation, and even get twice the result with half the effort. In the next semester, I will make good use of the course with KK to learn more about lighting.

After handing in my animation part, this week entered the integration stage of the collaboration project which is composite, adding VFX and sound.

This week I will study a hard surface model (robot). The learning tutorial comes from the Internet.

First, I used basic geometry to build a simple model through Extrude and Bevel. The beginning steps of any modeling should originate from this operation

In the process of refinement, how to face the subject? First, add a certain thickness to the model through Extrude and Bevel.

Copy a cube, through Mesh > Booleans > Difference, I can get the effect in the picture. Of course, the objects obtained in this way are relatively rough and need to be re-wired to achieve accurate results (in other words, they can be put into the production process as “qualified products”). After three operations, I got this effect.

I also adopted the method of Booleans > Difference for the production of the vents on both sides. Cut out two holes with small cubes.

The disk of the robot head is made by Extrude the surface and Bevel edge to reflect its arc.
The round tube on the back is also and Bevel to make it more structured.

The operation of the lens is also the extrude and bevel, making it more like a circular camera, and its number of segments and faces should be increased (the more faces the model will be smoother）.

The adjustment of the legs is the same way：Extrue of the surface and bevel of the edges are used. And Boolean are used to make the concave part.

Making process of mechanical legs.

Strictly speaking, after the components of this kind of complex structure are manufactured, very detailed wiring is required to make the objects more accurate.

Finally, I did a simple lighting layout and rendering of the model. The materials I used are Blinn and Lambert.

I am satisfied with the final robot model. Through this week of study, I have a better understanding and control of modeling, especially mechanical models.

In general, modeling is the process of stacking different geometries. The most commonly used operation is Extrude. There are endless possibilities through extrude operations. The optimization process needs to use Bevel, some special effects can use Boolean.

This week, I made shots of men：

3.frames 153-210 man looks up

5.frames 242-264 man stays back

6.frames 265-290 man stares

9.frames 427-500 man saying

Men do not have a lot of movements, only walking and backing, rest parts mainly facial close-ups.

And Overlapping of men’s clothes is a major difficulty.

Regarding emoticons, I studied last semester.

The corners of o’s mouth are closed inwards, and the corners of e’s mouths extend outward.
Cheeks: cheeks up when the mouth is flat, and down when the mouth is round
Mouth shape: cheeks down when the mouth is flat, upwards when the mouth is round.

The above is the part of my animation. I found that there are still problems with the rhythm, especially the part where the girl jumps down and the man jumps back. The speed is too slow, so I corrected it.

In the past two weeks, our team has mainly carried out character modeling, scene modeling, and skeleton rigging. After the assets are allocated, I will make the animation. Our division of labor is very clear, and each person is responsible for the production of a short animation. The content I assigned is as follows.

I subdivided this animation into 9 shots to be produced in batches.

They are:

1.frames 1-72 girl looks down

2.frames 73-152 girl Squat down

3.frames 153-210 man looks up

4.frames 211-241 girl jumps down

5.frames 242-264 man stays back

6.frames 265-290 man stares

7.frames 291-379 girl stands up

8.frames 380-426 girl’s pose

9.frames 427-500 man saying

And this week，I will focus on the girl part（shot1,2,4,7,8）.

Before starting, I looked for a lot of ninja videos. Refer to the ninja fighting style and poses.

The fight between Batman and the Deathstroke in this section is very exciting！ Especially the action of jumping down the Deathstroke was something I wanted to imitate at first, but considering that my character is a light-action female ninja and the Deathstroke is more like a power type fighter, so I had to consider a better way to jump.

In this one, genji is the object worth learning. He assembled all the characteristics that a ninja assassin should have: agility, lightness, and fluent movement.

Regarding the way of holding the sword, I also referred to Genji and Akali in League of Legends.

In order to observe Akali’s movements, I specially entered the game and recorded a section.

The above is my work this week. I searched for a lot of videos and pictures to refer to the actions of the ninja (assassin).

This week, the team’s asset allocation is still in progress. So I will have a cyberpunk theme drawing exercise. Drawing has always been something I love and insist on, and it is also the best way to mediate myself in three-dimensional work and software (with music).
The reference this time comes from the famous Illustrator & Concept artist—ibrahem swaid on artstation. He is one of my favorite artist.

https://www.artstation.com/noobovich

I can’t accurately copy, the purpose of this exercise is to learn his color matching and rendering.

When rendering, I mainly used hard light and multiply to superimpose the layers. This can better achieve the effect of color mixing.

In short, this is a simple attempt. I tried a new way of layer overlay on painting. This is far from the final finished product. With my current strength, I still can’t reach such a high level. I still need more understanding and learning, the most important thing is understanding of character structure and lighting treatment. Anyways，I will continue this painting .

Team progress (updated on March 20th)