Short Story - Stop Motion

I was very excited when I found out about this exercise as it gave me a chance to be creative again such as I was with with the 'Block Interaction' in Animation 101, as I wasn't simply following an already established movement or principal, and instead was creating my own narrative. From the titles available I selected 'Dental Pain', as I felt it would be interesting to see how I could give the armature a nervous expression though it's actions and postures. 

The idea I had in mind was to have the armature worryingly pace about before impatiently sitting down waiting for his name to be called to see the dentist, followed by him/her praying pleadingly and shaking it's head disapprovingly after hearing a drill go off in the distance, ending with the armature look up as a dental nurse comes out and finally jumping out of his seat in shock as it hears it's name. 

I acted out what I had in mind myself which can be seen above, but unlike all the other video reference material, this was mainly used to analyse how a nervous mood would effect a persons movements, as well as getting a general idea of timings. I didn't feel the need to research about a specific cycle or principal this time, as I saw this exercise as a combination of all my learnings from the previous stop motion exercises, as I have it start off with a walk cycle, followed by a sit down, with the rest being emotions following other emotions, so from this I realise how essential those other animations were as they are all often typically applied within animation. From this video reference material, I drew up a bar sheet.

Bar Sheet Scan

I decided to instead produce this bar sheet with hand drawn illustrations as appose to digital illustrations, the reason being that I would be able to be more free with drawing the motions that I require, and as I've learnt from my previous bar sheets, digitally tracing around certain points from the reference material often resulted in the illustrations being although accurate somewhat unclear, so I though it would have been more beneficial to draw them as I want the armature positioned. Several elements were altered from this plan to the final animation which I will bring up later. As I am already familiarised with the walk cycle, I listed each key pose instead of illustrating them under the frame I wish them to appear. 

https://vimeo.com/217222527

This is the final result and I am very satisfied with how it turned out, although there are some minor quibbles which I will assure not to include in any similar animation in the future. I had never animated anything walking in anything else other than a straight line, so I was very pleased with how convincing and accurate I managed to animate the armature walking around aimlessly in a circle, the only thing I had to keep in mind, was that once the foot contacts the ground, it shouldn't move until it's lifted up, and the body tends to start turning before the legs. The pacing I feel was very well done, as it's got enough pauses and rests that the movement feels natural, but not too much that the activity looses that nervous and panicky feel. However, the things which I was not impressed with are as follows;

- I wanted to add a little bit of humour in the animation, which I tried to do by making the armature jump out of its seat at the end, however I feel that it may have come off as overly cartoony, which would have been fine if the rest of the animation were in a similar style, which it was not.

- Due to me slightly adjusting the path of the armature's wander whilst in production, it didn't reach the seat in timing, meaning I had to improvise the armature reaching out to the seat and pulling it closer, which turned out to be fairly decently animated, but I would have preferred for him to sit at his seat more naturally 

- The story wasn't entirely clear to the people who were shown this animation without the title, therefore next time I will ensure to add a few more clues into the performance about the context of the situation

Despite this, I am still satisfied to have this as my final short story, as I feel it communicates the emotion of the armature in this situation well.

Run & Jump - Maya

For this animation, I gathered as much primary and secondary research as possible, as I am unfamiliar with animating running and jumping. As images which present illustrations of key poses of a walk assisted me well with my walking animations, I collected the same with the run. 

Secondary Source

From this material, I have gathered some noteworthy elements of this cycle that I will have to keep in mind when animating the run;

- The 'up' and 'down' poses appear to be a lot less extreme as they are in the walk, as the head stays relatively level compared to the walk

- Both feet are never seen on the ground within the same frame

- Body is more forward facing than it is on the walk

- Arm swings are more noticeable

Secondary Source

This is some secondary material which I found for the jump aspect for the animation. However, there are several reasons as to why I feel this material would not be suitable for this animation, one of which is that is very cartoony, therefore may look out of place if the run isn't animated in the same style. This will still help me in ensuring that I include a variation of each pose however. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any drawn and decent material which chains a run and a jump together, and although I found plenty of illustrations regarding the key poses of a jump, they mostly started with both feet on the ground, therefore it would be complicated to chain these two movements together, so this is where I had to refer to video reference material.

Here is a video which I captured myself, I found it interesting how different this jump looks as appose to the drawn jump I shown earlier, so I decided to gather some more secondary reference material from YouTube.

Along with this secondary and my primary research, I produced a bar sheet.

Bar Sheet scan

This was my first attempt at this exercise in Maya, and although I found the run fairly simple to accurately portray, the jump I found to be very difficult to make, which was most likely due to the lack of drawn secondary material to use as reference, the arms were especially problematic, as they often appeared as though they stayed perfectly still in the air whilst the body moved on. Though on the whole I was satisfied that I make Buckid perform a moderately accurate a run and jump, being especially pleased with the foot movements and utilisation of the anticipation and follow-through animation principals, there were still several things that I think needed a touch up in a updated version, these being;

-  For the run leading up to the jump, the jump seems relatively weak, as Buckid should travel further and higher, though I was hesitant to do so as I didn't want the action coming off as overly cartoony

- As I used the same number of keyframes separating each key pose as I did in the walk cycle, the run looks very 'floaty' and slow

- As I have previously mentioned, the arm movements seem unnatural

For these reasons I have decided to remake this animation.

https://vimeo.com/217222101

This is the updated version, and I am happy that I have successfully fixed all the complaints that I had with my previous version, and also added a few more subtle quirks and additions. The speed of the run was very easy to amend, as all I have to do was shorten the amount of frames between each key pose. The height and length of the jump however, was very difficult to fix, as each keyframe for the feet after Buckid's initial contact with the ground had to be altered as they each had to be positioned further than they were initially. I also experimented with some 'squash and stretch', which can be seen on Buckids head before and after he sets off for the jump, and his expression towards the end, which adds a very subtle yet expressive sense of character. Overall, I am very happy with this outcome, and had the most fun making it out of all my past Maya exercises due to its dynamic nature.

Push and Pull - Stop Motion

Before perfecting my walk cycle, I first wanted to attempt some other one of the exercises. Below is the Primary resource which material which I used for my 'Push and Pull' animation, I acted it out myself whilst recording it, I assured not to make the same mistakes as I have previously done in my primary material in the following two ways;
- By having the camera positioned so that I am the direct approach as appose to a low angle such as seen within my 'sneak' primary material, thus making it easier to determine my posture
- By having my full body in view, especially feet, as it was essential to see how the force of the body affect the positioning and movement of the feet, something that wasn't captured in my 'Emotion to Emotion' piece.
I am satisfied with this source material and along with the bar sheets I think it should be enough to produce a good animation from.

Below is the bar sheet which I created with reference from my source material. The pacing is relatively the same as is seen in the video, however certain movements and postures are greatly exaggerated in the diagrams on this bar sheet, this was due to the fact I couldn't exaggerate many of my action whilst recording them due to the cramped space, and I really wanted to have a clear representation of what position I want the armature to be in when it came to animating. Due to past experiences in the stop motion room, I decided it would be best if I put the push and pull into separate animations created within separate sessions, the reason being that I often panic about the amount of time I have left, therefore am more likely to rush the last lot of frames within the animation. By doing this I am assuring that I can remain all focus onto either the push or the pull, and work on perfecting them instead of worrying about time, hence why the bar sheet provided only shows the 'pushing' aspect of the animation. 

https://vimeo.com/216015313

This is the final result. As you can see a lot changed in-between the planning and production phases, as the final animation features both the push and pull, contrary to what was planned. This was improvised whilst animating, as the moment when the armature grips the object was meant to be followed by a push, but I tried to incorporate the animation principal known as 'Anticipation' before the armature pushes against the object by pulling itself back in order to gain more momentum and force, as observed from my primary material. However, I felt that I went overboard with this principal, resulting in the armature appearing as though it is pulling the object, so instead of restarting, I decided to run with this by having the armature's arch away from the object extended and becoming slower and slower as the arms stretch further and further out, thus showing strain as it attempts to pull it. The video reference material was very useful at this point. 

This improvisation resulted in both a positive and negative, the positive being that the push and pull are both successfully chained together, resulting in more of a natural progression. The negative on the other hand, is that the 'push' aspect of the animation isn't as expanded on as much as I intended to be. I am very satisfied with the initial push thanks to the 'follow-through' of the body as the hand stays stationary against the object, showing that the armature was unaware of the weight of the object, resulting in the body falling through, as acted out in my source material. Despite this, there is no further progression in the force of the push, as the armature isn't seen going into the push with more force by changing its posture and using both hands, and instead goes straight into the pull. Regardless, I still feel enough force, effort and reaction is shown in what I animated of the push that I am satisfied with it.

My main concern when going in to animate his was the position of the hand as it is either resting or pulling against the imaginary object, as if it moves position at all, the illusion that the object stays stationary will be ruined. As I did previously with other animations, this was heavily assisted via the 'onion skinning' feature, however as subtle movements may built up overtime, the hand may move ever so slightly, but still enough to ruin the effect, which is why I decided to mark the position of the imaginary object by gently sticking a sticky note on the monitor, therefore I will always have reference for where the object would be.

I wanted the armature to succeed in moving the object in his much more forceful second pull. The forcefulness was shown through a faster speed in the beginning of the pull by using fewer frames, which leads to a more noticeable slow down as the strain begins, and also more anticipation. The second pull ends with the hands coming closer to the body, making the armature step backwards as the object hypothetically is moved closer towards it, clearly showing that the armature has succeeded in it's attempts.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the final result, the only complaint being the lack of push development, therefore next time I will think carefully about whether or not I am over-exaggerating an anticipation effect, thus not having to improvise where to take my animation next. But this animation process has shown me that even if things do go wrong during the process, sometimes running with the mistake could create some interesting and successful results.

Update on Making of Project #3

In order to become further familiarised with team based projects, for the next making of project I was paired with two other individuals. Unlike the previous two projects, this time my team was faced with a specific brief, though it was very familiar to what I have done previously, as we had to obtain and record our own 'Outsider Story' and then provide a visual addition to it. Though at first misinterpreting the brief, mistakenly thinking we could animate any pre-recorded story as I have previously done in this module, I still was highly anticipating tackling this brief after realising we had to obtain the recording ourselves, as it gave me a chance to try something new, an area of production which I have yet to explore in this module. It also well allows us to make something that is entirely the project of my team, as although I was still proud of the work I've created previously in this topic both myself and collaboratively, as I didn't create the audio I never had the feeling that it was entirely mine or my teams creation.

After getting a full understanding of the brief, there was one idea which stood out to me a lot. I have been watching a lot of the BBC television series 'Would I Lie to You?' recently, and I find the format of that show so entertaining that I wished to create one myself, but using people that I know personally. The idea I had in mind, was gathering three students from my animation course (therefore giving the show a theme) and task them to write down an amusing truth about themselves on a piece of paper, and mix it in with a written lie which will be fabricated by my team, then record the outcomes as each of them as they unknowingly pick up either their lie or their truth, and have to convince the others its the truth regardless of whether or not it is. This would have hopefully caused some humorous outcomes which a visual addition could potentially emphasise.

BBC's 'Would I Lie to You?' Panel regulars

This would gain me a whole new experience which I have always been interested in, and there would have been a lot of opportunity for documenting the production in live action for the making of aspect, something that I felt has been lacking from my previous making of's. As there would be three stories to animate from this, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to have each person in my team animate a segment each, each in our very distinct and varied animation styles, such as my modern 2D animation, Dale's 3D animation, and Rowena's animatic and typography style.


However, this was when I considered the learning that I gained from my previous making of, and took into further consideration the time we have available, as I would prefer one perhaps shorter but complete outcome than a half finished more ambitious project, so I instead decided that we should instead pick one of the three stories that we found the most entertaining, and work as a team to animate that one segment.

An essential aspect of the brief was the term 'outsider', as that was meant to be where the story comes from. My interpretation of this term, was that the story had to come from someone who has views and experiences which are vastly different from our own, as we are an 'outsider' from their way of thinking. Interestingly however, in a discussion on Facebook with the other members of the group, it appeared that we each had a different interpretation of what an outsider is here's what the others said;

This has shown me that it's discussing this aspect of the brief further with the team, in order to ensure that each of our own interpretations of an outsider are implemented into the project somehow.

Our group arranged to meet to discuss the ideas that we've developed so far, and unlike the previous making of projects, which had all the audio scripted and recorded in reflection, we decided to record our discussion as our ideas initially developed, thus providing more material for the making of and a more in depth look into our thought processes. As I previously have been using rather amateur ways of recording audio in past topics (using my mobile phone), this time we wanted to record it in a professional manor, so Rowena arranged for us to have our discussion in a recording studio at Media City. This was new territory for all of us, and I felt it very beneficial for me to have this experience, especially as I have yet to delve into audio production in this topic.

Me, Rowena and Dale experimenting with the software available

There was a lot of things that went wrong during this session, but fortunately we made some interesting compromises for some of these problems, which would be interesting for the future making of documentary;
- There was a mix up of the rooms meaning we had to wait for the guys in the room to leave
- We didn't realise that there was only one mic, meaning we all had to be stood close together in a cramped space in order to get good audio quality
- As we wanted some video reference of this discussion, we booked out a camera. However, we soon realised that there was no decent vantage point where we all could be seen within frame, meaning that we had to move a chair and the camera into the already cramped space, and due to the low angle, we then needed to sit down whilst recording.
- This then lead us onto yet another issue, where being sat down meant that we were too far away from the mic, and as we couldn't get the tripod to stay level to us, I had to hold it in place whilst assuring not to obscure any of us in frame.

A screenshot from our recorded footage in the recording booth

Despite all these issues that we ran into, we still managed to gather both an audio and a video clip of our discussion. The discussion itself had some interesting thoughts shared, though unfortunately we weren't able to compromise with what our outcome should be, as we all were going into completely different directions. For example, I wanted to continue my trend of animating comedy, whereas Rowena wanted to go for some darker and more serious subject matter.

This is when we developed our final idea, which was to animate our individual ideas in our individual styles from our initial conversation, as well as any other aspects which could have an interesting visual aspect implemented into them. This meant that we could each develop on our own ideas, and still have a unified final piece which would implement all our skills and abilities. As this discussion was originally going to be for the making of, and we wont be creating any project outside of this discussion and the visuals we put towards it, we decided to experiment with ways in which we could combine our project and the making of together, though we will have to wait until we have finished our project to see further into how we would go about this. If we do eventually decide to go down this route, it will be refreshing for me as though I felt the format of my previous two making of documentary's was effective enough, I am interested in experimenting with alternate, more imaginative ways of presenting our ideas and the production process. This would still fit the brief perfectly, as we are all outsiders from one another, as shown clearly by our different preferences and thinking patterns, and we are still effectively showing each of our stories.

Now that we all settled on an idea, I then began selecting my audio from our conversation that I wished to animate, which was where I discuss my 'Would I Lie to You?' idea. I decided to stick with the same animation style that I have developed over the course of this module, but due to the time-consuming method of lip-syncing (as experienced in the previous project), I wanted to limit it as much as possible, not only for time reasons, but also because it would give me more options to be creative with the visuals, as appose to just animating me talking, I could instead show what I was thinking. I've talked previously about how 'The Ricky Gervais Show' inspired my first making of, however the way I planned this animation was even more reminiscent of that show, as the conversations aren't just animated, but visuals are shown to better communicate what they are thinking, and it is done in some very clever ways, such as in this following clip -

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3oBQ7YRjEU

Character models which I drew digitaly for all the people who will be seen within my animation
(from left to right): Me, Rowena, James Lawson, David Mitchell, Jeff and Lee Mack

A screenshot showing my animation process along with a showcase of my keyframes

Logo which I created for the show I idea I had

Below is a link to what I managed to animate for my segment of the piece

https://vimeo.com/216014762

I am very pleased with what I have created for my piece, as I feel I have had some imaginative ideas for how to put visuals to my speech such as; animating me showing my mobile up to my phone to the screen to swipe through examples as I mention them, the set of the show adapting as new suggestions are made in the audio, and ending the video with a zoom out from my sketchbook as I hold it, showing the audience that they have just been witnessing my ideas. Though I tried to leave animating people talking as much as I could, I still used enough of it to incorporate my learnings from the previous two making ofs, and I feel as though I have shown even more progression in this technique, as this is the smoothest and most professional looking example of animation and lip-syncing which I have produced during this topic. Another thing that I am very satisfied with, is how much my caricatures have improved, seen within the many models which were made especially for this animation, this progression in quality was possibly due to what I am achieving in my daily project, but I feel I am truly developing my own style of caricatures which. One concern I have with this outcome however is the length, as I was worrying about running into the same issue as I did in my previous making of where I run out of time, this meant that I couldn't squeeze in some of the more humorous aspects of the conversation, and instead just animated the essential aspects that were needed to communicate my idea, but fortunately I managed to animate what I started to a high standard. I am highly anticipating combining this with the rest of the teams outcomes.

Walk Through Space - Stop Motion

https://vimeo.com/214024414

This is my first attempt at a full walk cycle in the stop motion room, and in many ways it has been a success, but there are a lot of things that need adapting and changing, so I will revisit this animation in the future to perfect it. Unlike my other animations in this module, I didn't use my own primary resource for reference aside from my bar sheet, this was because I first want to master a simple, regular walk cycle before I can start adding my own personality and tweaks to the animation, and there is an abundance of secondary sources on the internet regarding the walk cycle, and one in particular which I based my animation on - 

Secondary source material

My Bar Sheet Scan

I found the secondary source material very helpful as it listed the 5 key poses in a step, and shows the amount of keyframes in between each of them. The only thing missing from these diagrams is the movement of the arms, so I had to improvise how they moved using my excising knowledge from the Maya animations. Each key pose within this diagram suggests that there is two keyframes in between each pose, meaning that they are on thirds, my final animation sticks to this rule completely, and I found it relatively easy to space out each pose for the armature. The things which I am please with in this animation include;

- The up/down movement of the head is clearly incorporated and accurate according to my source material

- Legs pass and bend accurately

- It is timed so that every two steps is equal to a second of animation

However, as I previously mentioned, there are also some aspects of the animation that I was not happy with, which include;

- The starting and ending pose was a 'contact' pose, meaning that I didn't get to animate how the armature would start and stop the walk. This was because I wanted to purely focus on the cycle, but I feel as though on my next attempt of a similar animation, I will definitely do research into the start and finish of a walk prior to the animation and attempt to incorporate it into it into future animations.

- Due to the lack of arm specifications on the diagram, I feel as though the arms are somewhat over-exaggerated and don't move realistically. So I will make sure my source material has this information next time.

- Each step is varying in length, and makes some steps look overly cartoonish than they should be, and due to the pacing between each step being the same, the speed seems inconsistent. If were to ever to incorporate a walk cycle in the future, I will bring a ruler so that I can ensure each step will cover the same distance.

- The body appears to be too far in front of the legs, which would be more suitable for a running animation

I am glad that I made this animation now, as I feel a lot more confident for using a walk cycle in future animations. After reevaluating this walk cycle, I decided to go back and re-shoot this animation, keeping in mind all the things that I have learnt from it. I attempted to shoot in twos, meaning that each frame is shot twice, meaning it will be played in half the frame rate, thus making me have to cut down the amount of inbetween frames from each key frame in order to prevent the animation from seeming too slow. I wanted to see how this would effect the animations smoothness and appeal.

As you can see there are a few minor improvements that I have made, such as presenting the armature come to a gradual stop, appose to it just freezing as was the case with the original, and getting better control of the arm movements. Despite these very minor improvements, I feel that the original should go as my final submission, as due to the frame rate, the video doesn't seem to flow very well.

Sneak Through Space - Maya

After completing a walk cycle which I was satisfied with, it was then time to experiment with the walk cycle in alternative contexts. I started with the sneak, and due to complexity and my inexperience with animating this movement, I decided to record my own primary video to use as reference material, I tried to keep the cameras focus on the feet, as I feel they will be the most important aspects to master in order to distinguish this from any other type of walk.

From this footage, I then compiled this very simple and quick illustration of all the key stances within the sneak, along with a bar sheet.

Primary Source

Bar Sheet Scan

However, after analysing the simple figures in this, I felt I needed to exaggerate their movements when it came to the animation itself, specifically the way the body leans back when lifting up a foot, and then slowly tilts forward as its then placed on the ground, as I think that along with the feet movement, that is one of the most defining properties of a sneak. This may be as I was perhaps a bit too subtle in my video reference, which won't translate too well into the cartoony figure of Buckid. Thankfully, I found some very helpful secondary sources, which break down key stances of a much more cartoony sneak cycle. I decided to combine elements from both sources to create my final cycle. An aspect that wasn't specified in my primary illustration, was the length of time both feet spend on the ground, as that again is essential to making the type of walk clear, but thankfully it was shown clearly in the secondary source which I gathered.

Secondary Source

https://vimeo.com/212127985

This is the final video for now, and I am impressed with how it has turned out. I made sure that as the leg stretches out, the foot slowly is placed down, with the hip following through shortly after the foot drops, not simultaneously such as in my previous walk cycle. I made sure to add a 5 frame segment after each step where both feet are on the ground. If there was anything I would improve with this animation, it would be the speed, as I was under the impression that a slower movement would have been essential to convey a sneak, however I later discovered that this isn't true, as if all the key poses and sequences are accurate (which I feel as though I have accomplished for the most part in my animation), then the illusion of a sneak will still be made, so if I ever re-do this animation, I will make sure not to spread out the keyframes as much, but for now, I am pleased with my result and it is interesting how remarkably differently I went about animating this than the usual walk animation, due to how vastly different they are from one another.

Walk Through Space - Maya

After getting used to posing and moving Buckid, I then felt I could finally start animating him, starting with a walk through space, however in order to better understand how specifically the feet work and move in a walk cycle, I first animated simple cubes representing a foot each, which moved from A to B in a similar fashion to the way feet would. The main area of focus was the rotation, and after looking through some secondary sources, I realised that as a foot lifts off the ground, the heel kicks slightly behind, before rotating in the opposite direction outwards before making contact with the ground and flattening. Making each step even was also essential to giving a realistic feel for the animation, which the grid visible on the ground assisted me with. After completing this animation, I feel more confident to work with more complicated rigs, however one amendment that I would make in following animations is the final step of the foot, because as it covers a smaller distance than the other steps, the rotation and lift of the foot also have to be reduced, something which I didn't take into account in this animation.

https://vimeo.com/207766381

After that I applied the same principals to the 'Buckid' rig, however this time with the increased complexity of having the rest of the body react accordingly to the foot movements. I started off with a very simple and emotionless walk, which I could then implement some character and life into later.

https://vimeo.com/207780510

This is my most recent addition the the Maya walk cycle experimentation, and there are a lot of improvements and additions from the previous one. 

1.  I realised that as I am no longer dealing with simple cubes, the feet should realistically bend at the heel before lifting off.

2. There is a very subtle 'bob' of the head as the body comes down, which is following the 'Follow-through' animation principal, which I feel gives it a more lively and less robotic feel.

3. The body now reacts more realistically to the movements of the leg, as the lift side of the hips raise with the left foot and vice versa. The shoulders also move with the arm movements more realistically. These adjustments I feel prevent the body from appearing as one big inanimate entity tagging along with the legs.

4. The final step is fixed by having the decreased distance compensated by a reduced rotation and lift from the foot.

5. Arm movement has been slightly reduced, as I felt they were too exaggerated when compared to the leg movements

https://vimeo.com/212127108

These amendments have combined to make a walk cycle that I am relatively pleased with, however I will likely come back to this animation to adjust the mood of the subject during the work, after analysing how mood may effect the walk, as well as making some overall improvements to the walk itself if I feel that they are necessary.