This weeks Schedule:

28/02/2011: Continue with facial models

01/03/2011: Group meeting with Robin on dissertation research/deadlines

02/03/2011: Showreel Group meeting/Showcase preperation class

03/03/2011: Finish Facial Models

04/03/2011: Meeting with John/ discuss schedule/gain feedback on progress

05/03/2011: Finish Lit Review/Start Format Case Studies

06/03/2011: Finish Format Case studies, Game, Animation, and VR/send these to Robin for feedback

07/03/2011: Meeting with Robin

Game Format Research: LA Noire

I had heard of this game a few weeks back, but was forwarded these videos from someone in my class, and these will be really useful towards my format Case Studies. It's also relevent to emotional response technology, and a new way games are portraying real world emotion into virtual characters.

Game Trailer:



Tech Demo: Technology behind performence:

Final Head for Jaime

I'm going to see what my supervisors think, but here is the final screenshots for Jaime as a boy.







All thats left to be done with him now, is to attach controlers for the eyes, and start on the blendshape work.

50's and 80's fashion and hairstyle research

To make sure the audience will no roughly what the time scales are, my advise from John was to research into iconic styles from 50 - 80's... so this is just some reference for the different hairstlyes that Jaime could have, keeping with the time differences with age.

Hairstyles:



50's style suit Jacket:



50's style Leather Jacket:



I will gather more stuff as I go along.

Another Test Render of Jaime with ongoing modelling of the eye socket, just trying to make it look less patchy now.

Bully Child Test Render

I'm finally getting closer to what I want in terms of the style, and look for the bully. I'm still working on attaching the eyes properly for Jaime, but he is looking much better with them.







Jaime with Eyes:

Further Test Renders

These are test renders, and scene tests, the face is still to be finished, and the age difference of the faces will be sorted with blendshapes... over all I'm quite happy with the look, very simple, and to the point. I'm thinking I may use a black & white or sepia colour for the flash back scenes after the animation is complete. I'm aiming to allow my self 4 full weeks of animation, so still have time to get the facial stuff finished and the paint weights sorted. I'm very happy with the rig and body... I'm just going to edit it slightly using different textures.. as it will be the overal empathy of the character I'm concerned about, and the facial animation its self.

Revised Specific Research Question

"How do animators generate empathetic character performances, and how might these performances be used to convey an anti-bullying message?"

I'm really happy with this, and is more suited to my practical project and research combined.

Showcase log Continued

Todays meeting went alright, I have come up with a schedule of deadlines that will let everyone what were heading for. (pie chart - Cam Goold)

List of Roles:
• Dave: Point of Contact/ Video Editing
• Gemma: Video Editing
• Samir: Video Editing
• Chris: Video Editing
• John: Sound Design
• Calum: Sound Design
• Ben: Video Editing
• Maxime: Structure Design
• Arnaud: Structure Design
Deadline Dates:
• 21st March: Early Work
• 22nd April: Final Work



This chart represents everyone in each course from the forms. Including GPDM we have 63 people presenting in the showcase. From this we have calculated the final times for the showreels, and how long each piece of work will be shown for. (See deadlines)

Other deadlines/expected deadlines:
• By the 11th of March (Friday) we should have the final logo etc from the graphics group.

• Collect Disks from everyone up till the 21st March (Monday)

• By Wednesday the 16th March have Ideas ready to present on the structure of the showreels (Structure Design)


• Promotional Showreel: (2m.30s) – 2.5 -3 seconds of work per person: by the 21st of March we will need to find out what the intended aspect ratio/website space etc from the interface Group.

• Main showreel: 1 min of work per person: 63 minutes
(These times will change slightly if more than one person is working on a project)

• Sound deadline for the promotional showreel: Wednesday 6th of April

• We intend to complete the test early work showreel by the 15th of April(Friday) (promotional and main showreel test)


• 2oth April(Wednesday): Present showreel test in presentation to the class

• 21st April (Thursday): Final Work Deadline: One person from the group to go collect the work from the 4th floor at 4pm.


• 28th April(Thursday): sound finished for promotional showreel

• 4thth of May (Wednesday): Present Final promotional showreel


• 5th May (Thursday): upload video to youtube/Give interface group the embedded code or hand them the file.

• 16th May: Deadline for finishing the final showreel/Test it in the cinema

Updated Specific research Question

Robin feels that my question is fine, but could do with a bit of refinment. so... this is the new question I'm going to go with.


while investigating virtual reality, games, and animation;

"How do you create empathy for characters within an anti bullying campaign?"

Aim: To create an anti bullying campaign, focusing on facial emotion within a narrated narrative.

I like this question because it's easy to understand, and to the point.

I'm going to get feedback from Robin on what he thinks of it.

showreel meeting/showcase log continued

I had a meeting with cam in the showreel group, and we spent a bit of time going through the showcase forms handed in from everyone, and finding out a percentage of people on each course. This has allowed us to finilise how much time each showreel should be, and how long each piece of work will be shown. We had these in rough form, but this has confirmed, and made us realise that the promotional showreel will have to be extended slightly to allow a couple of seconds of each persons work to be included.
(2m.30s) The long showreel will last about 50 mins which is fine. All in all (with the forms we have) there should be 50 of us, which is not including the GDPM course, apart from 1 (who is actually taking some responsiblity for preparing it.)

Meeting with Robin

We had a chat about my case studies and disertation structure. I have a few changes to make within the case studies, but overall is pleased with the way things are moving. We are having a group meeting with Robin on tuesday the 1st of march, to go over more stuff to do with the dissertation. The practical stuff is moving on slowly but there has been a good amount of progress since our last meeting.

We have agree'd action points for the next meeting:

- Have two completed head models
- Test uv mapping/blendshapes
- Dissertation lit review
- 2nd draft (case studies)

I also had another meeting with Keith today to finalise measurments for the MDF paneling. and have agree'd where the table will be positioned, along with the toilet. He is going to get in touch once the base coat of black paint has been applied. He has also said he may have time to make me a small table which won't take up a lot of room. I didn't ask for these things, but I think because I have made sure to get in touch early, and am using a table that was used last year, he want's to try and help as much as he can, which is great.

Log Update Continued

Schedule for the coming week:

19/02/2011: Set up 1st draft structure for dissertation/ finish 1st draft of the dissertation Abstract and Intro

20/02/2011: Finish Tim Burton case study/ work on finishing environment props

21/02/2011: Work on the next 6 weeks schedule for practical work and the dissertation /Fill out Project Diary for meeting with Robin.

22/02/2011: Meeting with Robin/Gain feedback on dissertation/meeting with Keith/meeting with Showreel group member Cam Goold at 2pm to go through the forms/categorise work visualy for wednesdays presentation.

23/02/2011: Meeting with showreel group 12pm/Prepartion for showcase 1pm (Class)

24/02/2011: Continue Facial Model

25/02/2011: Continue Facial Model

Online Forum Post and current Feedback

Now that the blender.org site is back up and running, I thought it would be a good idea to post my Thread post, and feedback that I have had so far.

(http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=208787&p=1786282#post1786282)

Hi Everyone

My names Gemma Pullinger, and I'm currently half way through my final year honours project at Abertay, Dundee, Scotland. The aim of my project is to look at processes which assist on translating humen emotions into non humen virtual characters within an anti bullying campaign... I would love any feedback on a number of questions I have which relate to my dissertation research... you would of course have a mention in my dissertation references... I'm going to start off general, and see if I recieve any interest.

1: Do you think character emotion is more achievable depending on the visual style? eg cell paint animation vs 3D animation?

2: What do you think blender can achieve in terms of preparing character expression than other 3D packages?

3: Can you think of any films, animation, and games that do or do not achieve believable character emotion, and why do you think this is?

Feedback:

From oggbog:

There was a study a while back where they judged people's emotional reaction to three different things all emulating the same thing. First, a photograph of a person. Second, a cartoony version of that character. The third was a hyper-realistic rendering of a human, ala the Robert Zemeckis films. They were shocked to find the cartoony version appealed the most, but even more shocked to find the realistic rendering was disliked in comparison to the photograph.

So yes, visual style has a tremendous impact. The worst thing you can do for a film's emotional impact is go full realism poser characters. This one point is why Pixar, Dreamworks, etc, have all made lots of money on their films while at the same time Disney has fired Zemeckis after multiple "realistic 3D" movies flopped.

Good: Pixar, Dreamworks, Blue Sky's stuff.
Bad: Midnight Express, Beowulf, Final Fantasy Advent Children, the Jim Carey Christmas Carol.

Friends don't let friends use Poser

http://ogbog.blogspot.com/

From Richard Culver:

I would say that there is an underlying element that this brings to light. A great parallel would be bad acting. Another would be attempting to make a war epic on a meager budget at your local park with a video camera. Emotional impact relies solely on your ability to bring a convincing believability to your presentation. If done with enough technical expertise - in line with what an audience expects - it will have an impact. If it is clear that one failed to achieve a certain effect, it falls flat.

In a nut shell, if you want to have emotional impact, do something that is going to be an effect you know you can achieve without pulling the audience out of the story or message by the distraction of something not looking quite right.

That may mean doing it as a character animated rather than realistic effect. If for no other reason than the fact that it is so hard to achieve the realistic that it can be distracting of not done right.

That goes from the top down. From the story to the art direction and the choice of what genera and style, casting and on down the line.

Don't write for characters types you will not be able to cast. Don't cast an actor unless they nail it. And god forbid don't cast young people to pretend they are old. If you need an old man, find one.

And if you don't think you can find an older actor, don't write a part for one. Same goes for accents and the rest of it. A great actor can do a convincing accent. Done poorly it is just distracting.

www.richardculver.com

Meeting with John

Todays meeting went well. He is pleased with my progress. What we did discuss though, was the era of time within each scene. We have agreed that we should base the animation on the present time, but what didn't cross my mind, is that the first scene would then be about 70 years ago... so I'm going to take the computer away, and replace it with books, and an abacus.. this would be really nice... I'm going to include a close up shot with Jaime moving the beads with a really happy and excited expression... and have a look at what iconic props clothing, and hairstyles would make sure the audience would get a sense of the time era's. I'm thinking about making the bully looking like some kind of rocker... long hair etc.

John agrees with myself, that I should stick to being the voice of the narration, but to record it again in one long take.

I also have to get it into my head that there is only 6 weeks left. (there are 8) but I will need these two weeks to finish things off. :D I have been asked to make a schedule for the next 6 weeks for the practical work, I will make a seperate schedule for the dissertation. include everything... props, recording film reference, facial modelling, environments. Be very strict about it.

I also need to keep in mind, not to make the transition of emotions looks to symetrical.

Showcase Update

I had a small meeting with the infastructure point of contact today, and I have secured a spot in the HMC on the right hand side. (the left wall will be moved to open up the space.) Keith has managed to source me a toilet... :D which I think will really turn a mundane spot into something potentialy interesting. With the main part in the animation being the point when Jaime has his head put down the toilet.... it would really be relevent. Keith has also sourced me 3 colours of spray paint, and I will source the other colours myself. Now that Keith is aware where my spot is, we can get to work on the table structure, with attached MDF panels. :D

I'm also going to setencil out my main characters heads, and use watercolour paint to finish them off. I'm wondering if it would be possible to have these hanging on the ceiling... but anyway... as for the project, I am now going to continue working on the head models.

Test Renders/project Update

These are a couple of test renders of the character (which is a working progress)in one of the environemts.





I had a meeting with Keith today, showing him some test renders, and my animatic to give him a feel for what the project is about. He has secured me a table which was made last year, but I have clearence to do what what ever I want with it. I have some ideas about what I could do with my space, but will wait to confirm more details, before finalising measurments for Keith. I will get back in contact once I find out more about my spot. Hopefully will find out more at tomorrows meeting at 2pm with the infostructure group.

The class presentation went well, not to much to show, just the deadline info and specs form, which has now been emailed to Marnie to distribute amoungst the rest of the class. we also showed the showreel form a couple of years ago, so we have a sense of what has been tried before.

The next meeting with the showreel group will be on monday, time (tbc)

I also have my meeting with John on Friday at 12pm.

Environment Screenshots Continued

These are screenshots for the study room... I have tried to make the lighting such, that you can sense that this was Jaime's favorite Room... using bright colours and warm lighting.

Online Forum update

Another Online Forum, to gain feedback on the project and dissertation research:

http://forums.awn.com/showthread.php?p=69100#post69100

I also had joined up with blenderartists.org... and had started obtaining feedback from other users... but at the moment the site is undergoing changes.. but will hopefully be back up and running soon.

Log Update Continued

The Schedule for this week:

12/02/2011: Write up showreel specs form, gain feedback from the group at our next meeting which will be either this monday or tuesday (tbc)

13/02/2011: Work on environments/finish environments

14/02/2011: Work on facial modeling

15/02/2011: Meeting with Showreel Group/Continue Facial modeling

16/02/2011: Meeting with Keith / Showcase preperation presentations (class)

17/02/2011: Continue Facial Modeling / email to Robin to gain feedback

18/02/2011: Meeting with John (12 noon)

20/02/2011: Continue Facial Modeling

21/02/2011: Work on Disseration Intro and lit review

22/02/2011: Meeting with Robin (11am)

Narration or no Narration?... that is the now the question...

I'm going to show you my current refined animatic, one with Narration, and one without the narration. While I prepare for the final animation I would be interested to find out general opinions on what version do you think makes the most impact in terms of emotional response... and why? Any feedback would really help towards disseration research.... :) (sorry about the quality.. it was the only way I could post them on here.)

Animatic with Narration:



Animatic without Narration:

Pitch Presentation

pitch went very well today, and I got some good feedback to think about. One of the main things to think about is that the animatic is very powerful with the narration, but could also be very powerful with just the music, much like the theme of the famous Pixar's UP sequence through time. Lynn provided a good idea of providing people with one animatic with just the sound, and one with the narration, to gather feedback of opinions of what they think works best. I have to say, that when I got home I took the narration away, and was surprised to see that the advertisement could still make an impact! :D it's very hard now to choose between the two versions, but if I did decide to go with the animation with just the sound, I'm going to make up a pocket sized prototype childrens book showing some key shots from the animation, to give the narration it's due. This will only be if I have the time left to do that.

I feel good about where the project is heading, I'm going to post up both animatics on the online forums to gain feedback from (hopefully) a lot of different
backgrounds. I was also advised to get Edd Hooks Acting for Animators, so that will be the next book on my list.

Wire Deformer Tool

This will be really useful for selecting small parts of the face to deform without to much work of creating complex controls... I will test this out once my facial model is complete.

Refined Animatic

This is my animatic which I have refined again, (sorry about the quality on here.) showing only the key shots. It is a lot shorter now than intended when submitted for Pre - production. I'm pleased, and confident, that there is enough content there to make a good animation, with a focus on facial animation. I will just need to wait and see what the time constriants have in store for me.

I will be showing this at my presentation later on today, so will just see what feedback I recieve.

Project update

Pitch powerpoint is now complete... I think I'll have plenty to talk about, and plan to show my refined animatic as well.

I have made some progress today, in terms of building a simple head that I can transition into the man and old man of the character using blendshapes, and the soft modifier tool.

A lot of work still has to get done on it, but I'm happy with where the progress is heading now.

Here are some screenshots:

Jaime (Victim)



Bully:



I also now have a working rig which was attached today, after a few hicups, and testing.. things seem to be working well now.

I'm going to work on facial heads which have already been made and rigged, just to look at the movment and emotional expression, and gain more practice as part of my dissertation research. There is a good example of this on the Stop Staring CD.

Meeting with Robin

Today's meeting with Robin went well. He showed me some modelling techniques, that will dramaticly change the way I have been modelling my trial faces. The thing that is lacking at the moment, is making sure I have my face models finished soon, to allow me to get on with the facial animation. I think I'm trying to hard to make it look like the referenced drawings which means it is slowing progress down. As far as the dissertation goes, I'm making real progress with producing case studies, and gathered in depth references. The plan is to use blendshapes to help with the transition of the age of the Bully and the Victim. This will cut down on the amount of modelling, and will allow me to focus on the child faces. I just need to make sure I have provided enough edge loops around the eyes, cheeks, and mouth.

I'm currently working on refining my animatic again, to allow me to show progress at my pitch presentation on friday. So the schedule to finish environments has been pushed back to allow me to do this. I still don't feel this will take long.

My pitch group session today went well, and it was nice to review the progress everyone has made since Crit week last year, all with equally good work to show. I also feel the group are a lot more relaxed to engage in conversation with each other, rather than me just giving each person feedback.

I also had a meeting with the showreel group today. We are currently in talks about file formats we want the work to come in, and will hopefully find out more info from other groups in the meeting tomorrow at the HMC cinema. I also had confirmation from Wendy by email that the submission drop off point will be fine, I will confirm the work deadlines, and inform everyone that they just have to put Professional Practice Showreel as the module name, along with the submission deadline.

so.. with all areas of the dissertation covered, the agree'd action points to work on for my next meeting with Robin are:

write up 1st Draft of dissertation intro and lit review, and gain feedback.

Continue facial models/work on child of bully and victim/test blendshapes (expressions and age deformer.

Finish Environments

Books Intended for my Dissertation

I'm gradually gathering relevent books that will really give my dissertation references some more depth. The books added to my reading list are:

The Complete Animation Course
How to Cheat in Maya 2010: Animation
Animation Now
The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation
Animation in Progress
Advertising Now: TV Commercials

I'm also awaiting 2 more maya books on order which will help with modeling techniques.

Lerning Autodesk Maya 2008
The Art of Maya

Project Log Continued

This weeks schedule:

5/02/2011: fill in and send back end of year showcase form/ Create pitch Powerpoint/continue to look at character modeling tutorials, and looking at the stop staring, and blender character modeling and animation.

6/02/2011: Finish Environment Models

7/02/2011: Continue character modelling

8/02/2011: Meeting with Robin 11am/ Lead pitch group 12 -2pm

09/02/2011: End of year showcase meeting (hmc) 1pm

10/02/2011: Continue character modeling/finish off pitch presentation

11/02/2011: Pitch Presentation (2-3pm)

Meeting with John

Todays meeting went well. John is very confident that I'm progressing well. He agrees with me that the main objective for the next few weeks is producing the modeled faces, trying to make sure that the character of my 2D sketches come through. I have made a test model of Jaime as a child, with a couple blend shapes which do work! :D so I'm confident that when it comes to the facial animation I will feel a lot better about the end result I'm hoping for. For next friday (pitch presentation) I'm going to aim to refine my animatic more by just including the key shots I'll need with the intended narration. This shouldn't take me to long. John likes the environments set up so far. I just have the study room to create, and Jaime's office, which will be very simple... shouldn't take me any longer than a day.

For next time we have created action points that include:

Character model progress
Environments finished (one more to model)
Refined animatic

I am going to start looking at more books that demonstrate the facial modelling process, which will help me to build on the skill's I'm continuing to learn.

I have put my dissertation research on hold for the next week or so, which will still giove me time, as I have started to type up some of the abstarct and intro already.

Case study work is almost there.. I just want to make sure I have covered all the bases... and will produce my animatic for this once I'm happy that I have my characters prepared for animation.

So as John said... "Model like the wind!... and all that!" :D

Up coming log for next week will be posted soon.

Setting the Scene...

these are some screens shots of planned environments for within my animation (colours subject to change), so far, there is the bar, which I'm still working on, the toilets, and Jaime's home. I have setup the lighting for the Jaime's (old man) home, which is very simple, which I think provides a nice effect.

I plan on finishing the enivronments tommorow night. (saturday at the latest) This way, I can always fiddle about with the lightning more, once the charcater is imported into it.

Planning the 2011 showcase... log 3

Today's presentation went well, we got some feedback to consider, and the form has been turned into a generic form for all groups to gain info which will be uploaded onto the Wiki. Things we need to consider now are:

What res the work should be exported to

Starting to think about the flow of the showreel

Fill in the form myself, this will also get me thinking about how I would like to present my project.

Gained new point of contact Keith, he will help with building plinths etc to present work on.

Next meeting time: Wednesday 9th Feb at the cinema (HM)

Next showreel group meeting (tbc)