Advanced Production Spring

Final Post

This week I honestly didn't have much to do, I was on standby for any adjustments I would need to make to the design of the bag or to any animations, but none were necessary.  For the most part this week I was just there to help give feedback on animations other parts of the project that other group members were working on.

I'm very happy with how our project is going and where the new edits to the render have been,  all of our group members have been working hard and I am happy for our progress.

Overall throughout the project I had many shots to animate that all had different aspects to them and different focusses that I had to implement the skills that I have learned as an animator.  This project wasn't a massive challenge or a project that made me lose motivation to animate, the rigs and characters were very fun to use and figure out what I wanted them to do.

There were a couple scenes and shots that I would like to have improved, either from simply spending more time cleaning up and working on the animation to changing up how I would have liked the animations to play out.

The shots that I had were a blast to animate and the progress I had with my group throughout the semester was something I enjoyed, there were a few times where we felt behind compared to other groups but we were able to pull together and make an amazing final product.

Week Eleven

In this week I didn't do much on the animation side, due to being nearly done with my shots.  I made slight adjustments to certain shots but they were very small.  The main thing I focused on was exporting my shots as alembic caches to help speed up the process of getting them into unreal.  Another thing that I did this week was creating the design and logo for the chip bag.  We wanted to keep the golden color that we used as the placeholder so I used yellows, oranges, and golds for my color palette.

We are also finding more props to put into the unreal scene to make it feel less empty with items such as dynamite, an anvil, and other props the Wile e. uses throughout the show.

Week Ten

For this week I finished polishing up the animations for the coyote jump scene.  Our main issue was the new camera changes and having to adjust most of the roadrunner's animations to play with the new camera angle.  I gave the roadrunner a fun run off camera with his head peaking out from the next aisle before zooming out of frame.  This was the main challenge for the week, with those adjustments and additional polish to the roadrunner and coyote's animations.  I have also began exporting my shots into alembic caches to help and speed up the process of getting everything into unreal.

These animation changes also required additional adjustments to both playing towards the side camera on the run out of the scene, but we moved the initial camera to the opposite side of the aisle to not cross sides of the characters.  So I had to adjust at least some animation to face that camera instead of the original that I animated off of.

Week Nine

This week I continued to work on the shots that I believed still needed work.  The main shot was the Coyote jumping into the shelves and the roadrunner runs away.  I had to adjust the positioning of the impact due do a mismatch in the unreal scene and the props that I had been using as placeholders.  A suggestion that I was given was to make the coyote stretch further up as he scorpions against the wall, which needed a bit of reposing and adjusting to timings to make look correct and fun for the viewer.  I also made the body fall down faster and more straight down compared to the large arc that it previously fell in.

Another change that I made was adding the camera sequencer to add an additional camera position to help play to the bit of the roadrunner doing its iconic jump before bolting off camera, as well as my personal dislike for the current way the scene was viewed at the end.  I liked the angle of they coyote jumping but didn't like the way the roadrunner would run away so I added a different camera to combat this.

Week Eight

For this week I continued to adjust the speed of the walk of the coyote going through the aisle, having to adjust my keys to fit the speed that he is moving at while keeping the movement of the coyote still looking smooth and aggressive towards the chips.

I'm continuing to work on the adjustments for the other scenes that I am working on, such as holding poses for longer as well as exaggerate them even more than I already have.  I believe that I am done with the shot that I am currently working on and am ready to clean up the other shots more.

The movements of the roadrunner will be adjusted in other shots to help with the camera, while making sure to keep the movements smooth and fluid and able to be adjusted with the camera changes that are suggusted.

Week Seven

For this week I continued polishing a few of the shots that I have been working on, as well as completing a new shot involving the roadrunner running up to the shelf.  That shot, Scene 2 Shot 5, was pretty quick to make epically with the leniency of working with the roadrunner's super fast movements and overexaggeration of the body with its speed.  The majority of what I did to make the movement was using a motion trail to help get the body and head movements to move in arcs while making a rudimentary walk cycle that I shortened over and over to make the movements feel smooth while being almost too fast for the eyes to see.

After sending the shot originally to my team they commented on the roadrunner's hair ant tail feeling stiff, so I went in and created subtle movements to make the hair bounce and move as the roadrunner's head comes to a stop as well as bounces when the head comes up from being so low.

The only changes I may want to make to this shot is giving Wile e. Coyote some more movements, because at the current lack of movement feels a but jarring compared to the movement of the roadrunner.

In class when we were going over the critiques most of the criticisms have already been completed and now are sent over to Danielle for importing into Unreal.

Week Six

This Week I worked on the facial animations for shot 6 for our commercial.  I went through older loony toons animations to try to get the gestures as accurate to the cartoons as I could.

I feel that the opening animations still need some work, however the angry animations I feel very happy with.  Luis told me about a IK toggle for the head controls so I used that to squash and stretch the head more than the FK rig allows.  I tried to have the ears bounce back and fourth quickly to mimic the smoke coming out of the ears in the cartoons.

I plan on continuing to work on the initial reaction to seeing the roadrunner, as well as the shot leading up to it, the roadrunner walking up to the bag of bowlerios.

Week Five

For this week I was working on scene 2 shot 4, I had the scene blocked out but had not refined the animation at all.  I created a walk cycle for Wile e. walking down the isle pushing the shopping cart, as well as created proper timing for the roadrunner's foot to come into frame and then slam down onto the floor.  The main issue I encountered for this week was when I was trying to scale up the models to fit into the unreal scene, however the rig scale option on the Wile E. rig makes his tongue grow much faster than the rest of his body so I had to scale the unreal scene down to just have the proper spacing.  I wanted to keep the shot with the low angle that we have had it at to emphasize the foot stepping into the isle, where the watcher knows that Beep Beep is here but Wile E. doesn't.

The refining for this shot went relatively smoothly, and I plan on working on the facial animations for Wile E. next in the upcoming shots where he gets angry at seeing the roadrunner.

Week four

For this week I once again kept working on the shot of Wile e. jumping into the shelf, this week I focused more on the portions of the roadrunner's dodge.  I made him move in a arc, leading with the feet to spring back into standing position with a cartoony wobble.  The roadrunner then does his iconic jump and "beep beep" sound before speeding out of frame, with the running I only had him appear for a couple frames to show the speed, as well as leaving his head behind for it to be dragged along.

The biggest difficulties I had this week were attempting to have the roadrunner's movement feel quick and fluid, in a short amount of frames.  I wanted the roadrunner's movements to be very quick which led me to key single frame changes to make sure the arcs and motions would be at the correct speeds.  There is a small amount of polish I would like to add to the feet before moving on to other shots that I believe will be less complicated compared to the one I have been working on.

Week three

For this week I kept refining the shot of Wile e. Coyote diving into the shelf,  moving to splining, adding more holds and fixing some posing issues on Wile e. and also adding more animations onto beep beep the roadrunner.  Beep Beep now ducks out of the way to avoid Wile e's dive in a very cartoony way, dragging the rest of the body behind the feet and in very much a wave motion.  Wile e's body falls much faster and collides with the ground better than when it was simply blocked, the poses were too far apart as well as the controllers too exaggerated so they messed with the rig in unintentional ways. 

This next week I plan on improving Beep Beep's animations on the turn around, as well as extending the shot slightly to have him make the iconic beep beep sound and run off camera to give the next shot more continuity and make more sense.  I also want to work on improving the timing and move to splining on my other animations for the next sync sketch check in, hopefully being able to get those shots into unreal in the next few weeks.

Week two 

This week we worked on blocking out the animation in Maya to resemble the animatic that we had created, I was tasked with shots 8-12 of the animatic where the roadrunner is seen by Wile e. Coyote an he dives after them.  The timing of my shots could use some work to slow it down, because some of the shots felt far too fast for what they were there for, this would also allow the commercial to be closer to the 30 second limit, at the moment our edit is closer to 20 seconds.  The rigs are very nice to work with, the only issue is bringing the roadrunner into unreal with its secondary legs, we will have to export them as a separate alembic cache to align with the roadrunner in unreal.  The unreal scene will be given out to the group soon so we will all have equal proportions for not only the models but for the space they can move around in as well.  

This next week I will work on aligning the models with the unreal scene as well as making the animations more into an animatic than a blockout.  I believe the project is going smoothly other than some struggles with importing into unreal but I believe those will cease soon, especially with the unreal test due soon.

Week one

    For this week I mainly worked on testing out the rigs and finding assets for the scene, I was able to use the Wile E Coyote rig into unreal and have the animations play out as intended while also having a pretty decent range of motion.  The roadrunner rig I was also able to test out its animations in Maya, however I haven't tested to see if the rig works in unreal yet.  Both rigs seem to be perfect for the concept that we have, especially the roadrunner rig which I found a way to switch its legs from normal into the cartoonish circle to represent the running.  The only problem that I can see us having with that rig for unreal is the complex control of switching the mesh for the legs.  I believe the way to remedy the problem would be to simply have multiple alembic caches that switch in one frame for the swap.  I was also doing searches for unreal assets to use for the scene as well as a reference for the animation style of the characters in a 3d animation.

This week I am planning on testing my theory to have a seamless swap of the two animations as well as test the roadrunner in unreal.  I will also be using the rigs to block out the 3d animatic to show to the class and get suggestions for camera positioning and framing.  If we do not have a scene prepared to bring out of unreal and into Maya for the block out, I will simply make very rudimentary 3D scenes to help show the environment.