Use the facial control of the character conveniently and efficiently. In addition, I also created a camera to parent-constrained restrain the face of the model to facilitate my work.
I made a small plan for my work. There are many facial structures. I decided to start with the easiest one, which is the jaw. I rotate the X-axis of the jaw when the character is pronounced “0”, “u”. “q w”…
Next, I set the corners of the mouth on both sides, then the cheeks, eyelids, eyeballs, and finally the eyebrows.
After several attempts, I slowly explored some of these patterns 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
nose upnose downcheek upcheek down
Tips:
Try not to make all the facial features move together, nor too symmetrical, that is, there are some wrong frames in the nose, mouth and muscles, which is also part of the overlapping movement.
Some exaggerated mouth patterns should be neglected to ensure the continuity of the movements.When speaking at a high speed, some exaggerated mouth patterns should be properly ignored to ensure the continuity of actions.
When speaking at a slow speed, the mouth shape can be exaggerated, especially some obvious pronunciation.
Finally, I tried to make a short phonemes animation .
I need to write an essay as a summary of the first term of design for narrative structure, film language and animation. As a big fan of animation and film culture, there are so many topics that interest me. In the beginning, I couldn’t get started, so I started thinking from the parts I am most interested in: animation, film, special effects, games, 3D art, and even the salary level and employment prospects of an animator have become my consideration…
Finally, I decided to take the comparison of Japanese and American animation as the topic for my essay.
There are two reasons for choosing this theme: The first reason is that Japan and the United States are well-deserved animation giants. Their understanding of animation, from production, publicity to influence, both are at the top level in the world. Japan’s Anime culture has influenced my entire childhood and school days. Even now, I will always pay attention to good works and industry news. Not to mention the United States. Disney deserves to be the overlord of the entire animation film market. Almost every year, it wins the Oscar for best animation film (the 2019 Oscar was SONY’s Spider-Man: Parallel Universe) and the champion of the box office of global animation movies. Disney and Pixar have brought me a steady stream of upward surprises with the world’s top animation production technology and the most expensive team. Therefore, the collision of Japanese animation, which is my animation enlightenment, and the world’s strongest American animation, can give me new inspiration and thinking.
The second reason is that by chance, I saw a 3D animation comparison video of China, Japan and the United States on YouTube. I found it very interesting. The author has popularized the differences between the three countries’ animations from the four dimensions: roles, scenes, actions, and expressions. The specific cases and in-depth analysis are very worthy of my study. I began to think that 3D animation in Japan is indeed very different from that in the United States. In terms of style alone, Japan tends to be more elegant in the shape of Oriental characters, while the United States prefers to use cartoons, anthropomorphisms or animals (maybe it’s more about serving children) as the core of character modelling. The reason could not help but aroused my thoughts. Therefore, I want to get answers from many aspects such as cultural background and their different national personality.
Before I start to write an essay, I need to do some preparatory work. This is the first essay I wrote after I came to the UK to study. Regarding the differences in essays between China and Britain, I need to inquire about some information to help me write a qualified essay. First of all, I think of the November workshop on critical writing. That lesson gave me important inspiration for how to think critically and write. This will be a theoretical basis for me to write a good essay. I would like to post some screenshots of what I thought was important.
Critical Thinking ＆ Writing
Then, I easily found the format and writing method of essay on the Internet. The standard format is the most basic and important part of assignments.
This week, I will officially enter the stage of performing animation. I chose a dispute fragment I like very much in “Rocky VI” as my reference. This clip of quarrel includes both body movements and anger, helplessness, and sadness.
Next, I will do a small performance in person. Although it is a bit awkward, it is indeed an important part of the animator’s need to learn.
https://vimeo.com/503326067
Once I have a production goal, I will analyze the action and k pose of the character in the next issue.
Every character has weakness, most of weakness concept from John Ruby.
Two types of weakness：psychological ＆ moral
Weakness which harm other characters
Prejudice
Impatience
Greed
Pride
Dishonesty
Internal or external/decisions to consciences
Flushout
The weakness’s of a character shouldn’t be obvious. If you try to spell out the weaknesses then the audience could feel like the story becomes a lecture. This is not enjoyable for the audience.
Character development is the process of creating a true and credible fictional character by giving the character emotional depth. It has nothing to do with whether your character is a human, animal, or anthropomorphic object (think “Toy Story“). The definition of role development is divided into two parts: internal and external. You can think of the inner development of the character as the basic goal and motivation of their actions. External developments such as struggles, scars, or transformative experiences that make them people in the external world. When you try to come up with a character or try to continue their growth in a story, it is difficult. Therefore, a table on character development was compiled in the article. This suggests that you can add to your character or details in an interesting way, making it easier for the audience to identify with the development of the character.
As mentioned in the definition, follow up with the inner situation of the character, these statements will be found in the mind of the character you write. So look at the development examples of each character one by one. Many of these examples will reflect the goals we see in the role arc and the internal and external conflicts. Give some character development suggestions under each heading so that you know where your mind is when creating these things, so you have something to do. What is the role’s goal? This is obvious, but your role needs goals. Whether it is Malin looking for his son Nemo in Finding Nemo，Allie obtained a degree in “The Lawful Beauty“，Or Indiana Jones looking for the Ark in “Indiana Jones“.
Everyone needs a goal to fight for, so they have their own direction. What drives the character’s pursuit? There must be a reason to come to the end of the road. For Marin, he was afraid of losing Nemo like losing his wife. For Ellie, she wanted to show her ex-boyfriend her intelligence and ability, and for Jones, it was to stop the Nazis. What if the character fails? This is where the risk of your story is internalized. Of course, if a character fails, he may feel bad, but there may be more terrifying things at work. If Nemo is gone forever, Marlin will be left alone. Ellie will never have self-worth, and if she fails, a woman will be imprisoned by mistake. If Jones cannot stop the Nazis, then the Nazis will have the most powerful weapons in the world.
When studying the development of external characters, one wonders what changes these characters have undergone as the story unfolds. How does this affect the character’s body? For example, Gulu in “Lord of the Rings“. When you are creating such a character, you will want to see the physical damage the Lord of the Rings brings to him，the same is true for people like Nick Fury in “The Avengers“, he is a warrior with a long history. And Sarah Connor in “Terminator“, she turned from a waitress to a strong survivor.
Are there scars on the character? This is simple and important. Guru is the shell of the Hobbit in the past, and he is a vivid metaphor of haggard and evil. Nick Fury has a blindfold, which establishes his sense of mystery. Sarah Connor travelled to Mexico with a bunch of weapons, ending the journey of the first Terminator. In the second movie, her body changed. She is muscular, strong and intimidating. How will this change the character? When your character is pushing the storyline, they must have self-reflection, which can help them deal with what is happening on the inside and react on the outside. Gulu knew how painful he would be without the Lord of the Rings. Nick Fury is willing to die for the greater good. Sarah Connor was worried about her own life first, and then worried about the lives of billions of people on Judgment Day. Finally, to end all this and save her son’s life, she was willing to die.
Clarify the map-introduce your role at the beginning, clarify who they are and what their characteristics are.
Starting point-put your role in a place where their shortcomings are obvious. Show how their problems will be exposed.
The first step-put your role in a situation where they learned to be different and let them blend into it.
Change course-let your character embrace their new version and see how it can help them.
At the foot of the mountain-what can the new and improved characters accomplish?
Climb to the side-as they experience the story, show the conflict between who they are and who they were. Should they continue to change?
Through the cave-clarify the role of the new self and how these new roles change the world.
Re-evaluate the problem—Is the role of the new self able to face the old problems? Or will they return to the way they were before?
Try and fail-put the character in a new, terrible situation. Let them fail in the things that succeeded in the past.
Depravity-How does the character’s new self completely destroy what they want? Did they go too far? What can they learn?
Hidden clues-what is the personal conclusion that the characters’ emotional journey leads to their need to embrace now?
Race to the finish line now, as the character’s full selves, they can tie up the storyline.
Treasure Box-Will the role change?
The next thing to do is to reserve options for how this role will continue to change in the future.
At the beginning of Claudia Hunter Johnson’s Short Film Script Writing, there is an exercise called “Le Menu” by the author. He asks readers of the book to fill out a survey to determine what kind of story they should write. The screenwriter can pretend to be this character and write 5-10 answers:
Film analyses——Finding Nemo
Story development
The clown fish Marlin and his wife Coral created their home on the Great Barrier Reef, but a barracuda attack caused Marlin to lose most of the coral and most of its eggs. Marin named the only remaining egg after the coral’s favorite name Nemo.
Nemo’s right fin became smaller due to an attack during the egg period, which affected his swimming ability. Marin’s overprotection of his son made Nemo dissatisfied on the first day of school. He swam out of the coral reef in anger and was captured and taken away by a diver who accidentally smashed his frog mirror into the sea while leaving on a boat with his companion.
On the way to catch up, Marin encountered Dory, an optimistic but transient amnesia, and three sharks who wanted to be vegetarian: Bruce, Anchor, and Chum. . Marin and Dolly were taken to their place of residence and found the goggles with the address of the diver. Dolly later successfully read the words written on the goggles and learned that the diver lived in Sydney, Australia. Marin and Dolly were given directions by a group of silverfish. They learned that the fastest way to get to Sydney was to take the East Australia Ocean Current. They were knocked out by passing a group of jellyfish on the way. They woke up and found that they were riding the East Australia Ocean Current. Rescued by the green loggerhead turtle. Marin told his story to the turtles, and passed it word of mouth to the Pelican grandfather (Nigel) on Sydney Harbour.
The diver who captured Nemo was Sydney Harbour dentist Phillip Sherman, and Nemo was placed in the fish tank in his clinic. The fish in the tank include Bloat, Bubbles, Ochre Starfish (Peach), Royal Silk Bass Coward (Gurgle), Blacktail House Mud Fish (Deb ), Jacques, and Gill, a sickle fish from the sea with damaged fins. Zhongyu learned that the dentist will give Nemo to his niece Darla, a girl who likes to shake the bag of fish and killed a fish. Ji Ge conceived a project to escape from the fish tank: Nemo got into the water filter and blocked the operation of the water filter with small stones, forcing the dentist to fish out the fish and put it in a plastic bag to clean the fish tank by himself, and finally pushed the plastic bag out. The window enters the harbor. After an unsuccessful attempt, the grandfather who had made friends with all the fish brought news about Marin to Nemo, drove Nemo to try again and successfully failed the water filter, but the dentist planned to install a high-tech water filter Failed.
After leaving the East Australian Ocean Current, Marin and Dolly were helped by a blue whale and were transported to Sydney Harbour. They were later recognized by Pelican grandfather and taken to the dentist’s clinic. At this time, the dentist was about to give Nemo to Dara. Nemo pretended to be dead and hoped to be flushed to the toilet and discharged into the sea. The grandfather who had just arrived flew into the clinic and caused chaos. Before being driven away by the dentist, Marin saw Nemo pretending to be dead and thought that his son was dead. In the chaos, Nemo fell onto the dentist’s workbench. With the assistance of Jie Ge, he entered the tube of the mouthwash tray and returned to the sea.
Sad Marin and Dolly went home alone after saying goodbye to their grandfather. Dolly, who was left behind, meets Nemo, but fails to remember Marin because of a relapse of short-term amnesia. After seeing the seal of “Sydney” written on the seabed sewer in Sydney, Dolly recovered her memory and assisted Nemo to catch up with Marin. When Marin and Nemo hit each other, Dolly and a group of groupers entered the net range of a fishing boat. After Nemo told his father that he had to let Nemo go flying without worry, he got into the net and helped the group of fish escape from the net with Dolly. Nemo enters the fishing net and instructs the fish to swim to the bottom of the sea, successfully destroying the fishing net and saving Dolly.
Dolly, Marin and Nemo returned to the Great Barrier Reef. Marin no longer overprotected Nemo, and Dolly became Bruce and other shark companions. On the other hand, the high-tech water filter in the fish tank of the dentist’s clinic failed. The fish in the tank successfully escaped to Sydney Harbour, but found that they were still trapped in plastic bags.
Character development——Analyse how the main characters evolve
Marin overprotected his son, and his son Nemo had a rebellious attitude towards him. Facing his dad’s timid and cautious appearance, Nemo even “scorned” his dad, in order to prove that he was not as cowardly as his dad, and to protest his excessiveness. To protect, Nemo swims to the deep sea with anger, but is captured by human divers. The story begins here. From the two perspectives of father looking for a child and his son bravely saving himself and returning to his father’s side, the father has gone through many dangers and learned that love is brave instead of shackles. The son is in the same strange world. People explore and grow, understand the greatness of fatherly love, and learn the bravery and fearlessness of life.
A timid father who grows into a brave warrior for love Marlin, who is extremely cowardly at heart, has become a timid person afraid of the deep sea and fear of danger because of the pain of his wife being killed by a shark. Facing the unpredictable reality of his son’s life and death, he gave up the courage of his life to find his son. Marin took the first step, but did not overcome his inner fear. At this time, he happened to meet the optimistic and confident King Lantang. Fish Dolly, with Dolly’s help, they have gone through several thrilling pursuits with the great white shark Bruce, fighting the monsters in the bottomless abyss Dou, traversed the venomous jellyfish group, swam across the warm current of East Australia, made a life and death decision in the belly of a whale, and finally found his beloved son. In my opinion, Marin’s path to find a child is actually more like a father’s path to self-growth. From a timid person who cringes and keeps a cautious attitude towards everything, Marin has learned that courage and love can overcome his inner fear, and only if he is brave to move forward can he have hope of life. In life, sometimes you must face challenges, and you must have something worth taking risks in your life in order to live worthwhile.
Nemo’s story line
The unworldly child explores and grows in an unfamiliar world, and learns the true meaning of bravery and love. Nemo was captured by the divers and returned to the human world. After putting it in the aquarium, he joined the aquarium’s animals . The animal leader of the aquarium, Jie Ge, wants to lead everyone to save themselves, because Nemo can freely enter and exit the filter, let Nemo as the most important part, jump into the filter, take a pebble into the filter, block the motor, and let the aquarium The tank became dirty, and when the humans cleaned the water tank, all their fishes worked hard together and took the opportunity to escape human control and return to the sea. But their first attempt failed. After Nemo blocked the motor, while swimming out of the filter, the pebbles loosened and the motor started, and he almost died. After hearing from Pelican Nigel about the heroic deeds of his father Marin, fighting sharks and crossing jellyfish groups to save him several times, little Nemo bravely tried Gige’s method again and succeeded. Make the water in the aquarium muddy. The development of things did not go as smoothly as they expected. After being caught out of the water tank, little Nemo swam in the bag to the window to try to escape. After failing, he pretended to be dead and deceived humans, hoping to enter the sewer through the toilet, and failed again. Later, with the help of Nigel and the aquarium animals, he finally managed to enter the toilet, swim into the sewer, and save himself. Nemo’s story line is simple but deeper. We usually think that parental love is the greatest, but we don’t know that children’s love for their parents is sometimes more brave and pure. It is because of the endless love for father that Nemo tries to save himself several times despite the danger, and finally has the perfect ending of reunion with father. . In my opinion, the two-line narrative is more direct and easy to understand. The psychological changes and growth paths of the father and son are presented to the audience at the same time, which will arouse deeper resonance and insight. At the same time, the two-line parallel narrative method, the development of the story is intertwined, the plot is compact, and the plot is clear. The values of father and son growing up at the same time, learning to love together, and learning to be brave are echoed from afar, and the artistic value conveyed by the film is reflected in both directions, enriching the audience’s perception Experience.
Supporting characters——Analyse how the characters drive the story
Dolly
Dolly is a natural optimist, because of short-term memory amnesia, her life is full of unknowns. But she is never sad, always Facing the unknown in front of him optimistically and confidently, be able to believe and help the people and things he meets wholeheartedly. Throughout the film, Dolly is an important leader in Marin’s growth and transformation. When looking for Nemo’s important mask and falling into the abyss, Marin grabbed the cliff in fear and did not dare to move, but Dolly discerned the depth of darkness through echoes, and was able to sing a song to give Marlin courage: “When we encounter difficulties, we must Continue to swim forward, we have to swim and swim and keep swimming.” When lost in the sea, Dolly would tell Marin, “We are not optimistic and try hard, how do we get out of here?” When life and death are in the line of whale belly, Dolly’s words are even more puns to express the core value of the film. Dolly said, “It’s time to let go.” Marin said with a look of horror: “How do you know that there will be no bad things to let go.” Dolly said calmly: “I don’t know.” After they let go, they were not eaten by the whale, but fell into the sea with the water spouted by the whale. No one knows whether it is good or bad after letting go. Only if you are brave enough to try, will you have a chance to live. Dolly’s remarks are a sublimation of the core value of the film: the deepest love for a child is letting go. Protecting him under her wings is never unexpected. It is not worth looking forward to. Letting go and let the child interpret his own life can we realize it. Life is colorful. Dolly, seemingly a stupid fish with amnesia, but a “wise man” with real life wisdom. Only by not being pessimistic and desperate, and dare to try, can you survive from despair. In reality, such a person looks ordinary and unremarkable, but he is not afraid of hardships, bravely resilience, smiles at life, and leads a wonderful life in optimism and openness.
Colucci
Loving children is not about protecting him, but allowing him to experience the kindness and enthusiasm of his life. Colucci is the opposite of Marin in children’s education, and it is also the initiator of changing his father’s way of love. He will put turtle eggs on the beach and wait for them to hatch on their own. He will push the children to the depths of the rapids, let them experience the stimulation of the ocean currents and learn how to protect themselves from danger. Marin’s education method is the “wrapped” paternal love that is common nowadays. He wants to arrange everything in his child’s life properly so that the child can pass his life according to his own arrangements. That’s not love, it’s using the child’s life to make up for the shortcomings of one’s life. The comparison between Corusie’s role and Marin aims to reveal that true parental love must learn to respect and trust the child’s ability to grow. The way of education of Corusie makes us realize that the joy of letting go and fulfilling love brings more joy. Children should experience a wonderful and crisis life, joy and sorrow, expectation and surprise, to be worthy of this life.
I chose the character’s bounce as the task of this week. During the production process, I need to pay attention to the character’s pose, stretch, squeeze and overlap during the movement.
Process
Storyboard
The character’s bouncing is the same as the ball’s bouncing concept. There are squeezing, stretching, squeezing and stretching in the air and landing, and then restore to normal size.
This is my first stage pose, key frames 1—7.
Obviously, this is just a rough pose. Regarding overlap, wrist movement, and head movement, further adjustments are needed.
This is the first version I made, and I will improve on this version next.
Firstly, I adjusted the overall position of the curve to make the character stay in the air longer.
The 13th frame is stagnant. I moved the previous keyframes forward one frame, and the following keyframes moved two frames backward.
Follow through and overlapping action
Follow-through and overlapping action are two very closely related topics that generally accomplish the same goal of realistic motion. Follow-through is the idea that certain appendages and body parts might continue to move even after a motion is completed. So if a character with a scarf is running, then they stop suddenly, the scarf will fly forward past the body, then fall back where the character stopped. If a car stops moving, the antenna on top will keep moving for a second. If a cat turns suddenly, their tail might whip around.
Overlapping action is the idea that different parts of a body will move at different rates. So if you walk, your arms will move at a different speed than your head. Both overlapping action and follow-through are ways to provide convincing motion to animation.
3D Equalizer is a software specially designed for 3D movement tracking. Through highly accurate motion tracking calculation function and a unique and adaptable user interface, users can accurately calculate and reconstruct the original motion trajectory of the 3D camera and object in the picture from any real film. Currently, data can be directly input into the following 3D software packages: SOFTIMAGE, Alias|Wavefront, Discreet, Kinetix, Side Effects, Newtek and Kodak. A large number of output filters and floating license function make 3D Equalizer an independent software and can be integrated into any post-workflow environment to help users quickly get a return on investment.
In modern CG production, the combination of 3D animation and real shooting environment is widely used in the production of movies, video games, architecture, and commercials. Taking real-life shooting with a camera, the concept of a camera is also used in the process of making three-dimensional animation. So how can the camera position and focal length of the three-dimensional animation and the real scene be consistent with the camera? If you use a manual frame-by-frame adjustment, the workload is huge and you may not be able to adjust to a satisfactory result. Therefore, you need to use camera tracking software to match the camera position and focal length in the 3D scene with the actual camera. The 3D-Equalizer is designed for 3D movement tracking.
In addition to the export function, TCL interface and 2D/3D curve export function, 3D-Equalizer PLE have all the commercial version functions. The project file can be saved in a special PLE file format and can only be opened with 3DE/PLE. Normal 3DE can also import 3DE/PLE. (King Kong Movies also use this software for tracking) 3D-Equalizer is the only tracking software used in the production of “Lord of the Rings”. It uses more than 20 licenses due to its accuracy and stability. 3D-Equalizer is undoubtedly the first choice of match-moving experts. Below are some pictures that are given by Rolf Schneider of Science-D-Visions in The Lord of the Rings system. Smooth pocket model shooting (black gate and road). 3DE is used to track the camera, not only using automatic tracking, but also using a manual tracking method marked in advance, and then adding background and CG elements.
The tracepoint: We should choose points in the image that is high in contrast and clear, but not the edges of the wall. As the camera moves, the foreground and background change inconsistently. This causes the tracepoint to rotate, eventually produce the wrong result. So we have to pick points that are on the same plane.
When dealing with the problem of edge lines, we should observe frame by frame and press the keyboard E key to end the track near the edge. This process takes time to process, but it is very critical. Secondly, we should create as many points as possible, and these points are reflected in the foreground, mid-range and long-range. In this way, the position and movement of the camera will be more accurate.
Deviation: It’s very important to get as close to 0 as possible but not equal to 0. Moreover, not all the tracked points have to be calculated, and some will increase the deviation.
At the beginning of the film, a small scene leads to the protagonist—— Carl, a depressed middle-aged man, whose career has not improved, and love has no results. Always say no to friends’ party invitations. He lives like a living dead every day. He fears being rejected from the bottom of his heart, so he simply chooses to reject others first.
2.Need
By chance, Carl participates in a course called YES. The rule is to say yes to everything (obviously a brainwashing organization). Carl agreed to the tutor’s request under the pressure of the group. From then on, Carl Just says yes…
3.Go
On the night Carl left the course, he met a homeless man. In order to fulfil the promise that he only said yes, he agreed to the homeless request, drove him to the mountain and gave him all his money. But on the contrary, he also met love on that day.
4.Search
Carl started trying to say yes to things he usually refused. As a bank lender, he approved more than 200 loans, accepted all sales, learned how to play the guitar, Korean and even fly a plane…
5.Find
Since Carl started saying yes to everything, life has slowly improved. He was promoted and raised, and he gained friendship, love and career, even save people’s life with music. His life is getting better, but at the same time, there is a potential crisis…
6.Take
By chance, his behaviour was discovered by his girlfriend. As a result, her behaviour of yes was not accepted by his girlfriend. He lost his love.
7.Return
He was very unwilling and wanted to cancel the “contract” with the person in charge of yes. After a car accident, he suddenly realized something important.
8.Change
He no longer only said yes to anything, and no longer rejected anything, he pursued his girlfriend with sincerity and finally reaped love successfully.
Ⅱ.Story Arcs
Ⅲ.Types of characters
Protagonist: Protagonist is the main character in the story, but not necessarily all positive characters, such as the Walt·White in Breaking Bad.
Antagonist: Antagonist refers to one or more characters that oppose the protagonist. In the same way, Antagonist is not necessarily a negative character.
Dynamic: Dynamic refers to the film, some characters have experienced some type of important internal changes.
Static: Static means that some characters have little internal changes in the story. They often did not learn important lessons and did not make any important changes.
Round: Round means that some characters are rendered lifelike in the film. These characters have real emotions, conflicting emotions and multiple characteristics.
Flat: Flat is the opposite of Round. These roles are usually one-dimensional. They lack some emotional expression. The audience’s knowledge of these characters may be only part of the character’s characteristics. For other information, the audience cannot know.
Characters of YES MAN
Carl Allen’s life, career and love have reached a bottleneck-there are many limitations, and many troubles, such a static life, Carl has lived like this for at least three years. All of this was caused by his girlfriend who abandoned him and fell into the arms of others. His good friend Pete tried his best to bring Carl back to a normal life, but Carl was still like a recluse, closed the door and thanked him, and refused all invitations.
Alison is a touching girl, Carl won Alison’s heart, and the two fell in love. However, for Alison, there is another problem in front of her. How can she know whether her “Mr. YES” said “YES” because he loved her or because he was used to saying everything “YES”.
Pete is Carl’s best friend, has been urging Carl to participate in social activities, can not bear to watch Carl degenerate day by day. To a certain extent, he gave Carl a lot of care and encouragement.
Carl’s former friend, by chance, introduced the yes course to Carl, which played a turning role in the movie.
The leader of the yes club gave Carl a huge change. In the final story, he also awakened Carl.
Ⅳ. Characters Archetypes
Hero (Protagonist or central character)
Mentor
Threshold Guardian
Herald
Shapeshifter
Shadow
Trickster
Allies（sidekicks）
In the character design, we let the character include these 8 archetypes.
Ⅴ. Timelines and backgrounds
STAR WARS’ timeline Timeline：It can be more intuitive to show what happened at what time, using time as the axis to introduce the beginning, development and end of the story. At the same time, you can insert story fragments into the timeline by inserting and flashback.
Ⅵ. Background
The background of the story refers to the historical situation or real environment that affects the characters and events.
The background, or the scene, can be extended to all works of art. It is often a contrasting relationship with the subject it represents, a master-slave relationship. It can promote the development of the storyline and characterize the character.
Last time, I made a zombie walk, however, obviously there are still many problems. So I am gonna try to adjust these errors in this task.
overlapping spine
Follow through and overlapping action
Follow-through and overlapping action are two very closely related topics that generally accomplish the same goal of realistic motion. Follow-through is the idea that certain appendages and body parts might continue to move even after a motion is completed. So if a character with a scarf is running, then they stop suddenly, the scarf will fly forward past the body, then fall back where the character stopped. If a car stops moving, the antenna on top will keep moving for a second. If a cat turns suddenly, their tail might whip around.
Overlapping action is the idea that different parts of a body will move at different rates. So if you walk, your arms will move at a different speed than your head. Both overlapping action and follow-through are ways to provide convincing motion to animation.
In the first class, we learned the 12 Principles of Animation. This is a very important theoretical basis, which runs through the entire process of animation learning, so understanding this theory is very necessary for every animator.
During zombie walking, the movement of the heads, shoulders, hips and legs will form an overlapping effect due to inertia. And in the last week zombie walk, obviously, I did not use the fifth of the 12 principles –Follow through and overlapping action.
This is the effect after I modified it. The shoulders and hips form a clear s-shaped curve. But this still looks very weird, I guess it is caused by not adjusting the animation curve editor…Mr. Luke’s correction feedback
Rendering
Through the learning in class, I made a simple rendering of this zombie walk.
I created a simple space and lighting, the final effect looks like a black and white horror movie of the last century.
Summary
Always remember the 12 principles of animation, understand and apply them in practice to make progress!
This week I will study and analyze the 3D skeleton binding ideas through the following steps: first study the skeleton structure of the 3D character, then study the production process of Maya skeleton binding and explore whether the smoothness of the characters in the 3D animation mainly depends on how well the skeletons are bound. Definition of Maya skeleton binding
Ⅰ. Definition of Maya rigging
Rigging is the operation of skinning the model with the created skeleton. Since the skeleton and the model are independent of each other, it is necessary to match each point on the model to the skeleton, and then use the movement of the skeleton to control the movement of the model.
Ⅱ.The specific content of Maya rigging
2.1 Joint
Rigging is to use the IK controller to control the movement of skeletons. There are two arm binding methods, one is rotation constraint binding, and the other is IK binding. Both can realize the adjustment of the movement, and the combination of the two is more convenient. Finger binding is to constrain each joint to control the rotation of the finger. The binding of the legs and feet is the control of the legs by using IK and the feet.
2.2 Facial expression
There are two types of facial bindings for characters. One is directly controlled by skeleton points, and the changes in expression are controlled by adjusting the skeleton points. The other is controlled by BlendShape, by adjusting the deformer slider to adjust the deformation effect.
Ⅲ.Maya role rigging thinking analysis
3.1 The rigging ideas of realistic characters
3.1.1 Rigging of the spine
The rigging of the spine mainly uses skeletons instead of clusters, through the skeletons to control the vertex operations in a region and to realize the rotation of the spine by moving and rotating the skeletons. Create a skeleton chain according to the human body structure, select the spine skeletons, create IK, and realize the control of the skeletons. In order to better control the skeletons, optimize the points on the IK curve to obtain three points, and then create three skeleton point data to freeze the data, Respectively snap to the curve points, skin the skeletons and the points on the curve, select the second option as the type, and move the skeleton points to move the skeletons. skeleton rotation, check IK rotation to achieve rotation, but there is a problem, the head skeleton axis is inconsistent, you must first create a skeleton start controller, select the correct axis, in order to achieve the rotation of the skeletons and control the skeletons Create three rings and group them together, and move them to the skeleton points. The ring and the skeleton points are used for child and parent operations. You can move the skeletons by moving the ring.
3.1.2 Rigging of arm IKFK
FK forward dynamics create three ring curves, use MEL language Parent-add-shapeAshape; add the shape nodes of the three rings to the arm skeletons, the rotation shape nodes are in the same direction as the arm skeletons, and the rotation of the shape nodes The rotation of the skeletons can be controlled. In order to distinguish, you can adjust the color of the ring.
IK refers to the reverse dynamics to create a ring group and move it to the wrist position, adjust the ring axis to be consistent with the wrist skeleton, and create the IK skeleton. Note that the skeleton should be rotated and recorded before creating the IK to avoid creating IK The direction of the skeletons is opposite, the new Loctor-set to the back of the elbow skeleton, the Loctor and the IK curve are used as polar vector constraints, moving the Loctor position can control the orientation and rotation of the elbow, the ring and IK are used for point constraints, and the fingers are for rotation constraints. Realize the rotation and bending of the ring control arm.
3.1.3 Rigging of the legs
Select the leg skeletons and set the IK for the skeletons. There are two types of IK. One is constrained by polar vectors, and the other is not constrained by polar vectors. Here, choose RP and use IK with polar vector constraints. The skeletons should be rotated and recorded before constraining, so that errors occur in rotation after IK is done. Create a new Loctor, select the Loctor to attach to the knee, and move it forward for a certain distance, freeze the Loctor parameter to zero, select Loctor and IK as the extreme vector constraint, and move the Loctor to control the direction of the knee. Make a CV controller for the foot, adjust it to be similar to the shape of the foot, to facilitate the selection and identification of the controller later. Create two RCIKs without pole vectors for the toes, soles and soles of the toes respectively, select the toes and soles of the IK to form a group, name it group 1, attach the axis to the sole of the foot, and rotate as the toe. Select the bare IK group and name it group 2, attach the axis to the sole of the foot, as the foot lift with the sole as the axis. Combine this group 1 with group 2 and name it group 3, and attach the axis to the toe as a rotation with the toe as the axis. Then group 3 into groups, named group 4, attach the axis to the toes, as the toes as the axis rotation. Combine group 4 into groups and name it group 5, and attach the axis to the sole of the foot as a rotation with the sole of the foot as the axis. Combine group 5 into groups and name it group 6. Attach the axis to the heel as a rotation with the heel as the axis. Combine group 6 into groups and name it group 7. Attach the shaft to the inside of the foot as a rotation on the inside of the foot. Group 7 into groups, name the group, attach the axis to the outside of the foot, as a rotation with the side as the axis, set group 8 and the foot controller as parent and child constraints, move the foot controller to move the foot, and this is complete For the left leg rigging, the right leg rigging is the same as the left leg rigging.
Ⅳ.The difference between Maya plug-in and Maya manual rigging
4.1 The difference between Maya plug-in binding and manual rigging .
The ultimate purpose of plug-in rigging and manual rigging is to make animation. Animation can be done. Any rigging can be used. If a company is doing a project, more requirements are Efficiency and quality, so most of them use plug-in rigging. Manual rigging requires a lot of time and effort. Although the rigging effect and deformation effect will be better and more convenient than plug-in rigging, plug-in rigging is sufficient if there are no higher requirements.
Conclusion
The smooth movement of characters in 3D animation depends on the quality of rigging, which is the core and soul of the entire 3D animation production.
Visual Culture refers to the way of life of individuals to observe the world’s external objects through specific visual texts. As a way of life, visual culture includes the individual’s visual planning of self-life, as well as the ability to visually decode objects, people and relationships in daily life. The visual texts include specific texts such as paintings, pictures, movies, fashion, and decorations-generally speaking, human beings have the ability to better copy reality to grasp real cultural trends through simulation.
For example, a few hundred years ago, people had no impression of people outside their home country. To understand foreign countries, they could only use scriptures, or they would ride a boat to read them, and then use words or maps after reading them. That is to say, people are not used to it. To grasp the world with vision, we use words to abstract things that we don’t understand. After the Renaissance, people gradually began to truly describe the world around us and even the invention of film and television. We can transfer the real world we see to images. Going to the world is different from hundreds of years ago. Even though you have never been to New York, you also know what the Statue of Liberty looks like. Her color and posture can be displayed in your head. Our grasp of the world is no longer abstract. It’s concrete.
The concept of visual culture helps to reveal the cultural connotation, spiritual phenomenon or aesthetic meaning behind various daily life installations.
Mise-en-scene
I have learned the basic concepts of mise-en-scene in the second week. In this week I want to talk about mise-en-scene in 3D animation movies.
First of all, 3D animated movies and traditional live-action movies belong to the category of movies. From the perspective of scheduling itself, the difference is not too big. But in terms of form, the operability of 3D animation movies is much higher than that of traditional live-action movies. For example, in traditional live-action movies, due to the real existence of environmental space, many technical methods are needed to make up for these shortcomings. And 3D animation films have no principled restrictions, as long as they can meet the director’s explanation of the shots, they can basically be achieved. Once there was a company preparing to shoot a shot about the Capital Airport. The director needed the camera to follow the trajectory of the plane from the Capital Airport to the night sky and see the Shunyi District. I chose a variety of aerial photography vehicles before to realize this shot, but unfortunately, I decided to use 3D animation to simulate the real scene when shooting. After all, the weather cannot be controlled during the shooting. How to synchronize the trajectory of the camera and the aircraft without losing the sense of the picture, plus my country’s air traffic control area is relatively large, etc., it is easy to destroy the expected effect. The advantage of traditional live-action movies is that they can portray rich expressions and convey more real body movements to the audience. Of course, this requires very good actors to complete. If the actor’s own acting skills are more general, it will also be counterproductive. The expressions and body of the animation, judging from the current situation, it is indeed difficult to reach the height of a real-life performance. Although motion capture technology has become popular in China, due to the cost of equipment and the shortcomings of operating technology, it cannot fully meet the needs of high-end animation movies. For example, in an animated film released in 2015, there are many unreasonable tremors and amplitudes of the characters, which affects the viewability of the entire animated film. However, there will be more and more trends in the future, which should be closer to CG movies that combine traditional real-life and 3D animation. If such an industrial system and production process are gradually formed in China, the difference in scheduling will become smaller and smaller. But the actual situation now is that the storyboard is only used as a reference in traditional live-action movies; the storyboard must be used for instructions in 3D animated movies. Traditional live-action movies are limited by the industrial environment and pay more attention to on-site scheduling; 3D animation movies can only be scheduled in virtual spaces, so there are fewer restrictions and more play.
Visual metaphor
Nichts auf der Welt ist keine Methapher. ——Goethe
“Everything in the world is a metaphor” This sentence comes from Goethe, and was taken by Haruki Murakami in 海辺のカフカ , which was borrowed from the character Oshima in the book. I always think this is a wonderful sentence, and the tool “metaphor” is also one of the important charms of literary works, especially movies. Movies are a complex art category. Containing multiple elements such as vision, hearing, literary drama, etc., “metaphor” can be used in a convenient and wide range, almost inclusive. There are many purposes of “metaphor”, and the major categories are nothing more than digging deeper connotations or to put things in a different way. For the former, Freud’s theory of sexual psychology undoubtedly occupies an important position. No matter how outdated Freud’s theory is from a scientific point of view, but from the perspective of film and literary works, the metaphorical aesthetics of Freud’s theory has been fully carried forward. From Japanese-style horrors such as Silent Hill to monster designs such as aliens, sexual psychological hints have an important position and are one of the sources of the charm of these movie designs.
This kind of sustenance of the author’s ideas through something implied under the surface of a certain “thing” is undoubtedly the most common use of metaphor.
The huge statue of Monroe in “Carnival” and the story it experienced are also such metaphors. But more than that, the female characters of different age groups in “Carnival” may also be metaphors on another level-they are very similar to the different age groups experienced by the same person, in the same despicable and cold world. In the end it became a cruel “same destination by different routes.”
This kind of sustenance of the author’s ideas through something implied under the surface of a certain “thing” is undoubtedly the most common use of metaphor.
The huge statue of Monroe in Angels Wear White and the story it experienced are also such metaphors. But more than that, the female characters of different age groups in Angels Wear White may also be metaphors on another level-they are very similar to the different age groups experienced by the same person, in the same despicable and cold world. In the end, it became a cruel “same destination by different routes.”
This kind of sustenance of the author’s ideas through something implied under the surface of a certain “thing” is undoubtedly the most common use of metaphor.
The huge statue of Monroe in Angels Wear White and the story it experienced are also such metaphors. But more than that, the female characters of different age groups in Angels Wear White may also be metaphors on another level-they are very similar to the different age groups experienced by the same person, in the same despicable and cold world. In the end, it became a cruel “same destination by different routes.”
The ending scenes are full of emotions that are hard to express, like hope and despair.
Aesthetics
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Art Director: Adam Stockhausen
In the “Budapest Hotel” known for its use of color and architecture, many scenes are hand-made. The second collaboration between Weiss and art director Adam Stockhausen created a pre-war and post-war composition Calm the world.
People who have watched The Grand Budapest Hotel will not forget this iconic pink building. This architectural scene design is warm and sweet like candy, using two completely different effects in the same space.
We can use different decorations to convey wealth and fantasies in this movie, but also sink the sad reality and past. The whole film also undergoes dramatic changes through color, furniture and design.
Color composition
Complementary colors
Complementary color refers to the contrast effect formed by two corresponding colors, and it is also the most extensive color matching mode today. Two colors of warm color and cool color are used to emphasize the contrast and enhance the vivid and prominent effect. The most common examples are orange, blue, and teal, which is why most Hollywood blockbusters use these two colors as the color effects of movies. However, when using the complementary color mode, its saturation must be adjusted appropriately so that the contrast effect is pleasing to the eye rather than dazzling.
Amelie
The above two pictures are the corresponding color cards in the movie Amelie, which is a typical corresponding effect of red and green. Usually two contrasting colors symbolize conflicting behaviors, and the appearance of external complementary colors indicates that the character is in a state of contradiction or mental and physical conflict.
Fight Club
Fight Club is a perfect interpretation of the corresponding combination of orange and blue-green. The dark part is represented by blue-green, and the bright part is represented by orange, just like a person’s heart is filled with various positive and negative thoughts to attack a complete individual.
Similar colors
Similar colors refer to the composition of adjacent colors on the hue circle to present the overall color coordination in the movie. The color combination between each other is more flexible, and it is not a warm or cool color, so it will not show the strong and tense effect like the complementary color mode. Usually, similar colors are used as the scenic tones in movies to present a natural and soft feeling. The most common mode is to choose a main color system, and choose a similar color for matching, and finally use black, white and grey as a foil.
American Hustle
A scene in American Hustle uses red, orange, brown, and yellow colors to connect with each other, making the overall tone of the film biased toward a warm atmosphere, and the picture contains almost no tension.
Ternary color
The ternary color means that the three colors are separated by 120 degrees on the hue circle. Although the overall color saturation is not too high, it still gives people a sense of vitality. However, the third-class distribution color is the most unpopular color mode in the movie, but it will still show amazing effects when used properly.
Pierrot le fou
Rectangular color
Rectangular color matching is composed of two sets of complementary colors, usually with a colorful sense of colorful, but at least one main color to highlight its effect.
Mamma Mia uses a rectangular color matching mode to present its party scene, which shows a good sense of coordination for the scene, rather than degenerate into a discotheque.
Rhythm
I think “rhythm” is the most important part of the movie. It can even be said that rhythm is the life of the movie. Many outstanding film artists emphasize rhythm and rhythm, such as Akira Kurosawa, Rossellini, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky…. This is because the rhythm of the film is an important part of the artistic beauty of the film. The personality of art. Regarding the rhythm of art and film, theorists have not clearly defined it, and most of them are based on music. Ingmar Bergman once said based on his creative experience: “There is no art in the world that is more like a movie than music.” Indeed, there are many rules in the use of techniques between music and movies. The similarity is that when the film uses sound and picture as the form of expression, the rhythm is more embodied in the repetition and distribution of time and space performance and the form of time and space changes. In movies, images with similar characteristics are often distributed in multiple places in space and repeated in time, and the interval of such repetition and distribution is arbitrary. On this basis, the audiovisual elements with stable characteristics are usually used as the fulcrum of the movement of things, and the audiovisual elements with dynamic and unstable characteristics form the gradual development of things. Through the regular and logical movement pattern between the fulcrum and the expansion, the inherent regularity of the rhythmic movement of the film is reflected. Grasping this point is the key to understanding the rhythm. What are the characteristics of movie rhythm? First of all, the film rhythm is a coercive psychological effect directly on the audience. The psychological feelings of the audience and the film creator’s grasp of the film rhythm are mutually influencing. On the one hand, the creator must find a way to use precise ideas-involving the composition, sound, performance, light and shadow, movement, color, etc. in each frame of the picture, to cater to the audience’s psychological induction; on the other hand, they must appropriately add themselves His creative style guides the audience to a certain extent. The same is true for the audience. While trying to feel the rhythm of the film, they also constantly add their own subjective feelings. Therefore, the rhythm of the movie is not only a sensory effect embodied in the audio-visual aspect, but more importantly the psychological effect produced thereby. Moreover, the rhythm of a film is completed at one time, which requires the audience to have a certain understanding and sensitivity to the rhythm of the film, and also requires the artist to create a film with high accuracy in the rhythm. Secondly, the rhythm of the film does not exist independently, or a special technique used exclusively, but exists and is integrated into the weaving and application of various audiovisual languages. Therefore, another feature of the film rhythm is the integrity of the comprehensive composition of film audiovisual methods. Rhythm is very rich in the form of expression in the film, that is, it exists in the script of the play and the director, but also in the creative departments of photography, art, performance, recording, editing, etc.; it exists in the overall conception and overall feeling of the film, and also exists In every field, every shot, every sound and relationship of the split body.
The excellent film rhythm technique is by no means a pure artistic technique, it can reflect the artist’s unique creation and ingenuity, the creator’s understanding and grasp of life, and the understanding and pursuit of beauty. It can be said that the creation of the film rhythm should be based on the plot, the needs of the scene, the characterization and the psychological needs of the audience, and then the comprehensive use of the film’s audio-visual means, which is the result of the overall grasp of the entire film.
