I received some more feedback stating that I should cut the animation scenes shorter therefore I have. This is the final edit.
Nursery Model
I have produced a pan of the Nursery environment to better showcase the smaller details as some are not visible within the final animation.
Edited Final Animation
I have taken on board the feedback that I have received to improve my animation and have attempted to do so. I have also added sound which has definitely made a huge improvement on the overall animation. Here is the final edit:
I received feedback again and made some more changes and experimented in after effects with different effects.
I received feedback again and made some more changes and experimented in after effects with different effects.
Feedback
This unit is marked in a certain way where we present our work and are given feedback so that we are able to improve our work before the final deadline submission in May.
Today, we had the presentation where everyone presented their work and our lecturers gave feedback.
The feedback that I was given was that the animation within my production wasn't very strong, which I was already aware of. One of my lecturers offered to give me guidance on how I can improve the animation therefore I will be attending my lecture in a couple of days so that I am able to improve this aspect.
The other constructive criticism that I received was that the final scene with the elephant was poor and it brought down the animation, I was advised to use a photo instead. Initially, I was going to use a photo however I thought it would appear to be lazy and that I should attempt to produce a scene but I do agree that a photo would be visually stronger.
I did receive positive feedback regarding the aesthetics of my animation and the colour palettes that I have used.
As I have put a lot of time and effort into this project, I am going to dedicate more time to it to ensure that I achieve the highest quality that I am able to. I am feeling positive that with guidance from my lecturers, I will be able to do so.
I have already sourced photos to use instead of the final scene, of which are highly disturbing and add to the impact of the overall animation.
Today, we had the presentation where everyone presented their work and our lecturers gave feedback.
The feedback that I was given was that the animation within my production wasn't very strong, which I was already aware of. One of my lecturers offered to give me guidance on how I can improve the animation therefore I will be attending my lecture in a couple of days so that I am able to improve this aspect.
The other constructive criticism that I received was that the final scene with the elephant was poor and it brought down the animation, I was advised to use a photo instead. Initially, I was going to use a photo however I thought it would appear to be lazy and that I should attempt to produce a scene but I do agree that a photo would be visually stronger.
I did receive positive feedback regarding the aesthetics of my animation and the colour palettes that I have used.
As I have put a lot of time and effort into this project, I am going to dedicate more time to it to ensure that I achieve the highest quality that I am able to. I am feeling positive that with guidance from my lecturers, I will be able to do so.
I have already sourced photos to use instead of the final scene, of which are highly disturbing and add to the impact of the overall animation.
Project Reflection
This project has been a huge journey for me and definitely my favourite at this point in my degree. I have learnt so much and continuously developed my skills throughout and have surprised myself with what I was able to achieve. Firstly, I think that the topic was a contributing factor to my enjoyment as the charity WWF represents something I am extremely passionate about. I find it easier to motivate myself and to focus on a project when it is something I am passionate about or enjoy and I think this is evident within the final production.
Another positively helpful aspect was my genuine enjoyment for the creation of 3D productions. I personally find creating 3D environments exciting and gratifying and it is definitely my preferred field within animation.
The reason that I wanted to use 3D was to showcase my 3D modelling and texturing skills of which I have seen definite improvement during the course of this project when comparing to previous projects.
I think that the most significant improvement is my texturing skills. I was introduced to shaders last year and I found the concept overwhelming and didn't full understand however, I now feel that I have a good understanding and can confidently create my own shaders and textures. I do still feel that I have a lot to learn but I think comprehending the basic concept is usually the biggest hurdle for me personally.
I am also quite proud of my organisational skills and motivation within this project. I have dedicated a lot of time and effort into this project, I have slowly and properly followed the production process so that my work has not been rushed in order to achieve a higher quality. By doing so it has made me aware of the importance of the order of the process, I previously would have neglected certain aspects until after the production which renders them pointless; there is no point designing the environment after you have modelled it.
I also learnt the importance of reference, you can not rely on your memory or conceptions of an object for an example, you need to reference in order to produce something accurate.
Another positively helpful aspect was my genuine enjoyment for the creation of 3D productions. I personally find creating 3D environments exciting and gratifying and it is definitely my preferred field within animation.
The reason that I wanted to use 3D was to showcase my 3D modelling and texturing skills of which I have seen definite improvement during the course of this project when comparing to previous projects.
I think that the most significant improvement is my texturing skills. I was introduced to shaders last year and I found the concept overwhelming and didn't full understand however, I now feel that I have a good understanding and can confidently create my own shaders and textures. I do still feel that I have a lot to learn but I think comprehending the basic concept is usually the biggest hurdle for me personally.
I am also quite proud of my organisational skills and motivation within this project. I have dedicated a lot of time and effort into this project, I have slowly and properly followed the production process so that my work has not been rushed in order to achieve a higher quality. By doing so it has made me aware of the importance of the order of the process, I previously would have neglected certain aspects until after the production which renders them pointless; there is no point designing the environment after you have modelled it.
I also learnt the importance of reference, you can not rely on your memory or conceptions of an object for an example, you need to reference in order to produce something accurate.
Final Animation - No Sound - Edited version
Here is my final animation, I still need to put sound to it but I thought I would upload this version so that you are able to see the contrast and how much of an effect sound has.
Editing
I am now in the final stages of the production, the editing stage. As I have been thoroughly checking each scene and editing after it has been rendering, I do not have too much to do at this stage. I am using Adobe After Effects as I find it is my preferred choice as I find it enables you to carry out a range of techniques.
In my previous projects, I tend to neglect to give myself enough time for the editing process, I have learnt that it is just as important as all of the other stages of production therefore I ensured that I would have a comfortable amount of time to edit my animation.
I need to put sound to the final piece and I think I am going to experiment with the shot cuts as I feel that they are too sharp, I am going to experiment with fading the shots.
I have already found some sound effects that I think are appropriate, I will be testing them to see which ones suit the best as I find sound does have a huge impact on the final piece.
I think the most challenging aspect of editing is the timing, it has to be right otherwise it could ruin the animation.
In my previous projects, I tend to neglect to give myself enough time for the editing process, I have learnt that it is just as important as all of the other stages of production therefore I ensured that I would have a comfortable amount of time to edit my animation.
I need to put sound to the final piece and I think I am going to experiment with the shot cuts as I feel that they are too sharp, I am going to experiment with fading the shots.
I have already found some sound effects that I think are appropriate, I will be testing them to see which ones suit the best as I find sound does have a huge impact on the final piece.
I think the most challenging aspect of editing is the timing, it has to be right otherwise it could ruin the animation.
Final Scene - The Elephant Environment
I have finished all the scenes, I just need to produce the final scene of the elephant and its baby. I haven't been looking forward to this scene, just because I thought that I would find the composition of this scene challenging as I didn't want to produce an elaborate environment for such a small scene therefore I had to be clever about the positioning of the camera and characters. From observing my research and my concept drawings, I decided what I would need in my scene. I produced the appropriate objects and textures, such as the 'muddy' floor and the vegetation. I did download and elephant model to use in this particular scene. I sculpted the landscape in Mudbox and duplicated it. I put grass texture on one landscape and mud on the other and positioned them so that there appeared to be areas terrain with different textures.
I played around with the composition, the position of the camera and objects to recreate a scene similar to that in my storyboard.
As you can see, the small patch of grass on the mud looks better than the first method therefore I decided to use paint effects.
I then imported, textured and positioned the mother and baby elephant.
I then noticed that the shadows from the trees had disappeared at some point, I then realised that I had imported the elephants from a different scene which had its own physical sun and sky therefore I deleted the other sun and the shadows returned.
I played around with the composition, the position of the camera and objects to recreate a scene similar to that in my storyboard.
I experimented with a grass texture, I have always had problems producing a high quality realistic looking grass. I attempted the method of projecting an image onto a flat plane with the results below.
I think it looks pretty terrible so I experimented with paint effects to see which looked better, the results are below.
I then imported, textured and positioned the mother and baby elephant.
I then put in a pool of blood using the method I had previously used in the final nursery scene.
It looked a little 'straight' so I sculpted the plane more.
This is the final result of which I am happy with. Each frame is taking ten minutes to render therefore I have decided against animating this scene at this stage. I had planned to have the baby elephant raise it's trunk but I do not think it is necessary, if I do feel that it is needed, I will add it in.
That's all my scenes rendered! Now it's time to start editing!
Production update and reflection
I have animated and am in the process of rendering all the scenes except for the elephant scene which I am yet to begin. Luckily, I have not had any rendering issues apart from the fact that the final nursery shot took thirty hours to render..
I have surprised myself with my animation skills, they aren't by any standards amazing but they have definitely slightly improved since the last time I animated. One thing I have definitely learnt from this particular production process is that I need to not be intimidated or daunted by the tasks I am faced but I should embrace them and learn from them. I have dramatically developed my confidence with my skills during this project as before I would have shied away from a challenge whereas now, I attack it with my knowledge and expertise.
A good example of this is the final nursery scene, I spent hours researching the best way to produce the effect that I desired and explored complex and lengthy methods. I didn't feel these methods were working for me therefore I used my initiative and quickly and successfully produced the scene using the methods that I thought were most appropriate. This showed me that I should have trusted my instinct initially.
Whilst I am waiting for the final scenes to render, I have also begun to put them together in After Effects. This is mostly so that I am able to test them and ensure that there aren't any issues but I thought that I might as well start editing it at the same time to ensure that I have enough time for all stages of production.
I have surprised myself with my animation skills, they aren't by any standards amazing but they have definitely slightly improved since the last time I animated. One thing I have definitely learnt from this particular production process is that I need to not be intimidated or daunted by the tasks I am faced but I should embrace them and learn from them. I have dramatically developed my confidence with my skills during this project as before I would have shied away from a challenge whereas now, I attack it with my knowledge and expertise.
A good example of this is the final nursery scene, I spent hours researching the best way to produce the effect that I desired and explored complex and lengthy methods. I didn't feel these methods were working for me therefore I used my initiative and quickly and successfully produced the scene using the methods that I thought were most appropriate. This showed me that I should have trusted my instinct initially.
Whilst I am waiting for the final scenes to render, I have also begun to put them together in After Effects. This is mostly so that I am able to test them and ensure that there aren't any issues but I thought that I might as well start editing it at the same time to ensure that I have enough time for all stages of production.
Animating, Rendering and issues (as always)
I have been animating and rendering each the first few scenes. I ran into some issues when animating the mother as I am not confident in my animation skills. Reference is of the utmost importance and substantially helpful, I had admittedly forgotten the basics of a walk cycle animation but when I acted out the movements, it reminded me of the process. As walking is such a natural action we aren't even aware of the cycle of movements, I had forgotten about the slight up and down movements we make which makes a significant difference to the appearance of the walk cycle. Eventually I ended up with a scene that I was fairly happy with:
I decided that with the sniper scenes, I will compose the scene to make it appear as though he is hiding behind a bush:
I have decided to add the sniper scope during the editing stages of the production as I feel that it gives the scene more depth as I have experimented with this.
The only major trouble I have encountered so far is the scene with the blood. I have attempted many ways of producing the blood moving across the floor as if it is pumping out of the character as she has been shot. Initially I found a tutorial using nDynamics which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQsTbuH6jns
I played around with the attributes and such things but I was unable to achieve the effect that I wanted, it looked too unrealistic. I saw on forums that many people had suggested Realflow, however, I believe that it is a plug in which you have to purchase and it looks rather complex therefore considering the short amount of time I have left I decided to see if the simple idea I had would work. This would to be to create a polygon 'puddle' shape and just key frame it and move it. This seemed to work but now I need to find the right texture for the blood. I have tried a few different suggestions and have even downloaded a shader but at the moment none of them are looking right. Blood has similar qualities to glass therefore I am going to attempt to make a dark red glass shader.
I smoothed the mesh and played around with the attributes however it just wasn't looking right.
I have finally done it, its taken me a lot longer than I would have liked especially as it was rather simple, I just assigned the dielectric material and changed the colour to red which looks like this:
I decided that with the sniper scenes, I will compose the scene to make it appear as though he is hiding behind a bush:
I have decided to add the sniper scope during the editing stages of the production as I feel that it gives the scene more depth as I have experimented with this.
The only major trouble I have encountered so far is the scene with the blood. I have attempted many ways of producing the blood moving across the floor as if it is pumping out of the character as she has been shot. Initially I found a tutorial using nDynamics which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQsTbuH6jns
I played around with the attributes and such things but I was unable to achieve the effect that I wanted, it looked too unrealistic. I saw on forums that many people had suggested Realflow, however, I believe that it is a plug in which you have to purchase and it looks rather complex therefore considering the short amount of time I have left I decided to see if the simple idea I had would work. This would to be to create a polygon 'puddle' shape and just key frame it and move it. This seemed to work but now I need to find the right texture for the blood. I have tried a few different suggestions and have even downloaded a shader but at the moment none of them are looking right. Blood has similar qualities to glass therefore I am going to attempt to make a dark red glass shader.
This is a screen shot of the nParticles with no changes made.
I then changed the colour of the nParticles but it looked really flat.
The tutorial that I followed stated that you could convert the nParticles into Polygons which is what I have done here, I think the tutorial is more based around the blood coming from the wound which in my case isn't visible.
I decided to use a polygonal shape and downloaded a blood texture from here: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/shaders/c/beavasoft_blood_shader
This is definitely too light, i tried to change the colour but didn't really achieve good results.
I have finally done it, its taken me a lot longer than I would have liked especially as it was rather simple, I just assigned the dielectric material and changed the colour to red which looks like this:
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