Brief Update: Dissertation

I think my abstract, intro, and character performance chapters are now complete, I made changes from the feedback Robin gave me before, but have sent it back to him anyway, just to make sure. The changes to my case studies is almost complete, and aim to start my bully & interactive media, and discussion chapter next week. The learning contracts are complete, and Robin will be signing these at some point nearer to the deadlines in case I have to make any further changes.

major lack of power... Project Update

today has been a complete washout for completing any more dissertation work due to my unexpected power cut that lasted 7 and a half hours, but it could of been worse I suppose. I did however manage to add a bit more to the bar scene this morning, and have a barman that's not a robot! the next couple of days will be continuing work on the dissertation, and starting my final piece which is really exciting. :D

Log Update Continued

This weeks schedule

week 11:

27/03/2011: Work on dissertation structure and updates to case studies

28/03/2011: Continue to work on dissertation/ send to Robin for feedback

29/03/2011: Dare to be digital meeting 11am/ Lecture with Colin 2pm

30/03/2011: Showreel meeting 11am/ Showcase prep class meeting 1pm

31/03/2011: Work on animation tests - first old man sequence

01/04/2011: Meeting with John

The Victim: 3D Animatic with Narration

I'm quite pleased with how this animatic turned out, (go to youtube link) it's nice to see progression from the original sketches and and animatic, to what I have now. I will now be focusing on some dissertation work for the next couple of days, before continuing to work on the animation.

- Please note that the robot standing behind the bar is only a placeholder.. I'm still deciding whether or not to have him actualy standing there.. or just have jaime trying to get his attension to be served after the bar man saying no more, and going to serve someone else.

Any feedback you can give me on this would be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO-HheaBd0s

3D Animatic (No Narration)

Here is the link to my 3D animatic which replicates my final piece. (to big to place on blog) I'm going to focus in on the aimation of Jaime (old man) and the bully. (old man) The black and white flashbacks will stay as still images which will ensure I create the best quality of animation possible. I also think the images are powerful, which means I can tell the story better than having moving animation all the way through, which could result in to much going on. I have also changed the ending slightly to the original narration. I will have another version with narration posted soon... any feedback you could give me on this would be great...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW9MxqJGk28

Ping goes the Lightbulb!... *ping*

I've just had a brainwave today that may enhance the quality of my animation, and make more of an impact to the anti bullying message. I'm now nearly half way through my 3D animatic, and some of the still shots are looking nice. the good thing about them, is that they ensure the audience should be able to understand whats going on.

I've decided to keep the flashback scenes as black and white still images that tell the story, and show the emotions being felt, almost like Jaime has these images etched into his brain every day, of what the bully done to him, and his life. This means that the facial animation can be focused on Jaime (old man) and the bully (old man) I can focus on the reaction shots, posing, and staging... then going into the flashback still shot sequences... I'll be posting up my 3D animatic very soon.

I'll see what Robin and John think, but this way it will make more of an impact.. and will ensure that I have a good quality piece for the project submission, and showcase.

Brief update: It's getting there...

so... working on this 3D animatic is allowing me to get all the technical stuff finished, such as making sure the root joint in the head is connected to all features on the face, which then moves together easily while still being able to move the seperate elements.. and all the eye controlers, and finally parenting these to the rig. A few days ago, I made a small animation test for the child in black and white which looked fine, an served it's puropse... but a lot of things were going wrong with the face. I had made the blendshapes before making sure that the face was fully connected, which was my own mistake. It's a great feeling to say that this is not the case anymore! :D and after going another visit to the hospital today, I aim to get every character ready by 12am tonight... then I can make a start at finishing the 3D animatic, and piece it together on premiere with the narration and sound! :D I still have a good bit of time to focus on the animation... I WILL pull this off! - and make my prototype pocket book containing the full narration with still shots taken from the 3D animatic.

Keith has emailed me to say that my tables are finished! :D so going to see him some time tomorrow. - if all the stuff with my aunt wasn't happening.. I would say this is a great day! but things can only get better.. and you have to believe that, or you would go insane!

Log Update Continued

Upcoming schedule: week 10:

20/03/2011: Finish the learning contract for both the dissertation and practical work - send to Robin for feedback

21/03/2011: Meeting with Robin/ Begin my 3D Animatic

22/03/2011: Lecture with Colin 2pm/ Continue 3D Animatic

23/03/2011: Showreel Group meeting/Continue 3D Animatic

24/03/2011: Continue 3D Animatic

25/03/2011: Finish 3D Animatic

Meeting with John

John is pleased with my progression from the last meeting. He saw a couple of animation tests, and we spoke about camera angles. John has advised me go down the less is more route. I'm going to really slow down the camera movement. John thinks that what I need to try and think about, is to produce empathy for the character, without a great deal of character animation. This is very difficult to produce, but all the hard work will be worth it in the end...

The black and white effect animation test produced this week, really works well within the flash back scenes. I do however, have to much going on at once, and agree with John that this really is not needed. John thinks I should focus recording my final take of narration, which will help with the pacing, and facial animation.

For the next meeting, I'm going to put together a 3d animatic, which will show still shots with an overlay of the final recorded narration,(which I plan to finish tonight.) that should replicate the final animation. This will really help to move forward with the animation stage.

I also want to beable straight after our next meeting to say that I can get straight onto focusing on the final animation, considering all the research and advise so far.

Showcase/project Update:

brief update...had some bad news last night, that my aunt was taken in an ambulance to hospital. I needed to go in and see her today, she has done so much for my mum, brother, and myself... and we have found out this morning she has a collapsed lung.. she is going to have a drain inserted in her side, to try and inflate it... so will just have to wait and see what happens within the coming days...

With all this happening, I've missed this weeks showreel group meeting, and the class meeting this afternoon. I did however let Dave know that I wasn't going to get in today, so we had a chat online last night about what was going to be discussed today, and allocated each other roles. I've been assigned to animating the robot that will introduce the courses in the promotional showreel. The animation will mostly feature within the camera, but it makes sense to work on this, with my project being about facial animation... I will then edit the sequences, and slot them into the promotional showreel.

I have to say that this week has been tough... but have still managed to make a bit of progress... last night I worked on blendshapes for Jaime (child) there not finished, but getting there slowly.

3 sec Placeholder (promotional showreel)

This is my 3 seconds for use within the promotional showreel. It's very simple, and I'm very pleased with how this has turned out.

The animation will be a lot smoother once it's placed in the showreel, if you see the camera looking a bit jumpy, it doesn't do that when viewing the actual file.

This weeks Schedule:

Schedule: Week 9:

14/03/2011: Photo shoot Hive: 3pm/

15/03/2011: Prepare blendsahpes / Jaime (old Man)

16/03/2011: Showreel group meeting 10am/ Showcase Prep class 1pm

17/03/2011: Prepare blendshapes/ Jaime (child) Bully (child)

18/03/2011: Meeting with John

19/03/2011: revise aims, and activities within the learning contract to make sure they all relate to my research question.

20/03/2011: Finish 2nd draft Tim Burton/Pixars's Up case study/ send to Robin for Feedback

Screenshots: Current Practical Progress

I have been working on scaling the characters into their environments, and making sure I can actualy get the characters into the poses required for the animation.

Here is the current screenshots... I'll soon be able to start the blendshape work.

Spirit - empathetic character performance

I loved this movie, the horses have real life emotions, and yet have so much emotion within within virtual characters, all the little details, the movement, the expression, the music, the naration and the narrative all comes together to tell a story that really captivates the viewer.

Examples of empathetic character performance

What I love about these examples, is the fact that the emotion is what is focused on, and the audio assists in evoking emotional response from the viewer. These are elements I need to consider for my animation. It would be wonderful to generate this much emotion within an anti social advertisement message. Perhaps this is what lacks within other anti bullying advertisements...

Crit week feedback

So... crit week went well, my group has all made a lot of progress since pitch week, and mostly everyone in the group, including myself, now feel a lot easier giving feedback to other group members.

The thing I liked about the pitch and crit experience this year, is the fact that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years all look to you, hoping to get as much feedback as possible.(apart from one person, who was either unconfident of showing work, or just didn't have the work to show, (I did try to give him a pep talk...) It is very comforting to know that you can give them advise, and them be greatly apreciative of it.

This has made up my mind, that I do enjoy helping people, and some point in the future would like to take up teaching 3D modeling techniques, and storytelling techniques to college or uni students.

As far a this years pitch and crit sessions go, they have all been great for feedback, and critical evauation. I have had four good presentations which evoked discussion, which was always a good sign. I still get so stressed out over them, even though I am very passionate about my project, and know what I'm suppose to be saying. However, I manage to pull it off in the end, and this weeks crit presentation was no exeption.

The tutors like my research question, they think I'm looking into a lot of structured and relevent research, and one guy thought I did an overall good presentation, and he didn't have any clue what my project was about, so that was good. (I just wish I had caught his name :( ) He has however gave me his email address, so he can get me a contact who tackled bullying advertisement last year, and is now working in the industry doing this sort of thing, so will be interested to get in touch with this guy.

The last bit of feedback I got, was to make sure that I have left enough time for animation, which I think I have. I happened to mention about my backup plan of making a mini showreel with the development, facial models etc. I think John really wants me to make sure I try and get the animation finished instead, rather than mentioning any back up plan at this stage, which is fine. I let him know, that I have every intension of finishing the animation. I just wanted to point out that I do have a back up plan in hand in case anything drastic goes wrong.

So now that I have the presentations out the way, I can concentrate on the project fully, and get ready for the end of year presentation in may... eeeeeeeek! :)

Working Progress - Bully (boy - old man)

I've made progress in terms of the Bully final heads... I decided to put the big 'mushroom' hat on his head so that the audience would be able to tell the difference between the two characters.. and also so he looks a bit different... and perhaps wears the hat thinking that it makes him look cool...

The Render basicly shows you the age progression, I think they will a lot better attached to their bodies, and within the scenes, I've also kept the style consistent within Jaime and the bully. The only things that will be changed, is the size of the eyebrows, and may sink the eyes of the old man into his head a bit more.

Meeting with Robin

Todays meeting was quite brief, but got my feedback for the dissertation lit review. There are some changes to make, but I'm heading in the right direction. I'm half way through making corrections to the Nightmare before Christmas/Pixar's UP casestudy, and have started my formats case study. Originaly the formats case study was going to be 3 seperate case studies, but agree with Robin that I need to focus in on the more relevent dissertation research which also fits in with the honours project research. I would however rather be having to condense stuff down, than have nothing to write about.

As for the practical side of things, Robin is pleased with my progress. I now have to finish off the 3 stages of the bully character, attach hair to the Jaime (man) head, and prepare my blendshapes. Robin thinks that I should focus on the blendshapes for the moment, so I can aim to be ready to start animating in the next few weeks. This is fine, because I'm quite far on with the dissertation work.

So tomorrow after I lead my crit group, I'm going to get to work on finishing the bully facial models. On wednesday I'm having to miss out on the showcase meeting because of a docters apointment, but aim to get started on the blendshape testing. Thursday will be creating my crit presentation, and continuing with the blendshape work.

Robin agree's that I should aim to at least have finished the blendshape testing for the next meeting, and finish the 2nd drafts of the case studies.

I'm just hoping that my crit presentation goes alrite, and Lynn, Gregor, and Gordon can see progress from pitch week.

Current models for Jaime - child - old man

Here is the Final head models for Jaime - Child to old man. I just need to attach hair to the middle head. I also need to finish off the age progression of the Bully character as well.



I have also scaled the old man into his scene, and will soon have the blendshapes complete, and can begin the animation stage. I will make some tests as soon as possible. I may have to fiddle about with the lighting more, but am pleased with the progress made so far.

Online Forum update

Here is the links to the current forums I'm posting on at the moment, there has been some more response, so thought I would re - post the links. I'm glad I started posting these threads up a couple of months back, as it does take more time than what you might think to get the replys that help.

AWN Forum:

http://forums.awn.com/showthread.php?p=69211&posted=1#post69211

Polycount Forum:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78363&highlight=character+emotion

Acting in Animation Forum: (3dmd.net)

http://www.3dmd.net/forum/3d-discussion-6274.html#10749

Blender artists.org:

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

Log Update Continued

Schedule for this week:

04/03/2011: Continue to prepare blendshapes

05/03/2011: Dissertation formats case study - talk about 3 formats in one case study, and make comparisons on the emotional resoponse/how the bigger vision of my idea could be implemented.

06/03/2011: Finish Lit Review chapter/ send case studies and lit review to Robin for feedback on monday

07/03/2011: Meeting with Robin - 1pm/photo shoot 2pm - The Hive

08/03/2011: Lead Crit Group/Continue blendshape work

09/03/2011: Meeting at HMC cinema 2pm/test blendshape work

10/03/2011: Make powerpoint Crit Presentation

11/03/2011: Crit Presentation

Meeting with John

Todays meeting went a lot better than I expected. John thinks that the style I have for the characters could really work in well, and he doesn't want me to get boged down on the perfect head modelling, partly because of time, but mostly because with the environment style, and the fact this will also be suitable for children and adults. This has made me feel a lot better. I will now be testing blendshapes, and fixing the small details of the eyes for both facial models. I'm really excited at the prospect of begining the animation stage. We discussed crit week, and John feels that this will be the point of letting people no where I am in terms of the practical, and dissertation work. So I'm going to try not stress out about it to much. The next few days will be focusing on dissertation work, and will discuss this with Robin on monday.

Final Bully

Final Jaime

So much happier with the way he is looking, and the mouth is more flexible. :D Even though I may need to make a few more tweaks on the edge loops, I'm getting nearer to what I wanted.

Eye Control Tutorial

Revised facial structure

I'm happy with how the models are looking, but relised that I was going to come into conflicts within the blendshapes, so, with this in mind, went back to the original base head, and made sure the mouth is constructed properly before doing anything, I will now move on to the eyes, nose and ears, and it will just be a matter of attaching these, as they have already been modeled. I thought this was going to put me behind schedule, but all it's done is made me feel better having been able to spot these mistakes, and fix them using the tecniques I have learned from the tutorials. Here is the screenshot of my new base head, which will be used for both the Jaime and the bully.