Rendering

Finally finished rendering my animation in Maya. It only took forever… Following a course on digital tutors I learnt about using render layers so that I could save different settings to different layers and render out only what I needed on each layer. This means I now have separate renders for my lighting, shadows, reflections, ambient occlusions and general beauty passes which I can import into After Effects and tweak them individually depending on what needs adjusted. In this image I have the ambient occlusion, diffuse colour with shadows, indirect lighting and specular lighting for the robot. How much use I'll get out of these I'm not sure but I need them to make my breakdown video anyway

Animation

Here is a playblast of my animation. I modelled a rough mockup of the room to try and get the shadows to both onto the robot and the walls. Theres still a bit to do on the leg animation but the camera has moved up to head height by that point anyway



Now I need to start looking into rendering and taking that into After Effects

New Storyboard and video

Going back to the drawing board I decided to base the animation around my feelings at the time. My character will be going to the window to have a look outside and see if it was still raining, and show his disappointment when it still was.

This meant I could film indoors and spend a bit more time planning the scene and placing markers for tracking. I also like having the contrast between the blue/grey lighting outside and the warmer orange lighting indoors

I filmed a few different shots to review later on and decide which worked best. This one, starting off low and leading up to about head hight was the best quality filming and also had the more interesting movement of the lot so I went with that. I did prefer the lighting in the first though

I've tried to learn from my match moving practice and put down plenty of markers, with enough points for the MatchMover to track through the whole video. I also made sure to position them so I would be able to get a clear X Y and Z axis for my grid to be placed on

Location and Problems With Nature

With non stop miserable rainy days, I finally got a break in the rain and a bit of sunshine. So I had planned to go and film my footage as quickly as possible. However when I got there the wind was too strong and my post it note tracking markers kept blowing away. So partly down to my not being prepared and having to rush out as soon as I got a chance I forgot to take something to keep them in place. By the time I gave up the rain had started again.. So have had to give up on that idea for now. It doesn't look like the rain will end any time soon and I want to actually get a start so I think I will have to compromise on the location if I want to get any animation done

Practice match moving

My first attempt at using MatchMover to track my camera movements wasn't entirely successful. I hadn't placed enough markers in my scene to track and by the time it got to the last few frames there were none left at all. I also need to try and set up my markers in such a way that there is a clear X Y and Z axis for MatchMover to create a grid from. I did, however, manage to track the camera for the first few seconds while there were still plenty of tracking points. And it was really cool to see the 3D grid moving along with my footage.

I've also decided on the rig I will use in my scene. I'm planning on using Roboter which is available at:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/roboter

After messing about with this rig in Maya I found it very easy to use and the rig moves nicely with all the movement I need. I also think the model is pretty cool and fits what I was looking for well

Initial Ideas

When thinking about what kind of animation I wanted to make, the most important thing to me was to take advantage of the fact I would be compositing both filmed footage and 3d animation. So this to me meant looking for somewhere beautiful to set the animation. I settled on the idea of having my character wandering through a forest, and simply enjoying being there. I could have some nice lighting if I go at sunset and can get the light coming through gaps in the trees. And if I can show this light also interacting with my character it would really help to sell the idea of my character actually being there.

Looking for other videos featuring composited characters I found this stunning animation

Gloam from We Are The Forest on Vimeo.

it also has a nice video breaking down the different elements to it


Gloam - Character / Shot Breakdowns from We Are The Forest on Vimeo.

I would like to try and get the same kind of calm and serene feeling in my own animation as is in that. Trying to focus more on having simple but well done animations and making sure my character fits into their world perfectly

I want to use a robot if possible to try and help make the difference between 3d model and filmed footage less noticeable. Since a robot would already seem out of place it will hopefully be less off-putting than seeing a more natural thing like an animal or person that doesn't match reality perfectly. I also think it would help with my idea for the animation as the robot would be wandering around this forest being amazed at all the natural scenery thats a completely different world to what it would be used to

The scene would open with a shot of the forest and a tree in the foreground as the robot wanders into view, looking around in amazement. He spots the tree and moves over to examine it before seeing something else out of frame and disappears off to see that. The overall time would be around 10 seconds

Intro and Brief

Hi, I'm Ryan, and for my animation module I will be doing a short animation for visual effects. I will be filming the background for my scene before animating a character in Maya and attempting to match the lighting as closely as possible. Then I will be compositing everything together in After Effects, and making adjustments such as colour corrections to make the whole thing feel more coherent before finally making a video breaking down what has gone into the animation