3-D Class Project- Animating a Fish
I liked animating the fish, but I had a few problems with it. From painting skin weights to forming it into a polygon to creating bones to make certain parts move to rigging, it had been a while since I modeled in Maya. I have not animated in Maya since Sophomore year, so it took me a while to figure out what I had to do to make it the way I wanted it to look. (I drew a picture of a fish before animating for reference) One of the troubles I had was trying to make the tail move back and forth and make the fish look like it was actually swimming. I also had to UV map the fish, which means I had to color it in Photoshop and import it to Maya to place on the fish. Sometimes when I imported it, the map would not appear on the fish or it would completely disappear. I had to ask the teacher for help a lot of the time, but I ended up figuring it out. Then, after the UV mapping step was done, I had to rig it, which allows you to move your character. That also took me a while to figure out how to move both of its fins and tail. If I had to redo it over again, I would take more time to animate the fish. I felt like I rushed through it, but that was because we had to start a new project of our own soon.
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| Before the color of the fish. (Pic found on Google) |
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| Completed UV map of fish, which was then textured to animate. |
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| Before the UV map of the fish (Colored in Photoshop) |
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| Fish complete with skin and bones to rig. |
This is the completed fish. You can see from the pictures
above that the UV map was textured to look like the fish
I made in Photoshop.
Individual Project- The Rotoscoped Music Video
Oh boy, do I have a lot to say about this one. Lots of repetitive work, but so much fun. As stated in my previous blog posts about this animation, I filmed it like an actual music video and then drew over the clips frame by frame in Photoshop. I used the song "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by the Crash Test Dummies and Ellen Reid. I had my cinematographer, Jason McFarland, my main actor, Drew McCall, and various extras. My teacher also told me that since my idea was original, I could draw a pumpkin on his head. I had found that the original video already had a character with a pumpkin for a head, but he told me to go ahead and create the rotoscoped pumpkin head anyway.
It took me about two months worth of work.
I outlined each object in black and colored in various details. (I realized later on in the project you can use the Paint Bucket Tool as a shortcut to color an object in. It saved me about a couple days of work.) I also learned an object with minimal movement, like a wall, can be positioned or scaled to where you want it in your scene. You don't have to rotoscope too many details, which saved me a bit of time. But an object, like me for example, had to be drawn over every single time I moved. Yep, it was a crud load of work. I was going to try and finish 2 verses of the song, but I realized later on I wouldn't have time for it. My goal was to finish the first verse, but I wouldn't have time for that either. I had to skip a couple shots, but it the other shots I completed went with my story. There were a few problems, but nothing major, but since I was new to rotoscoping, I asked my teacher for help several times to see what I can do to make it look a little bit better. I remember in my third shot I had to copy and paste my main actors' arm and put it on the other side of his body to follow his original arm. (While filming, the mask kept breaking off, so I told him to cover the mask with his other hand so one arm could be free for various gestures.) I also had help with my fourth shot where my main actor is moving around in a circle. That was where it got a bit tricky with the pumpkin head. My teacher told me to make it look like a 3-D layer and move his eyes and lines from the pumpkin head to different positions frame by frame. I moved the lines with each new frame.
In all, the project lasted barely a minute. That's what rotoscoping can do to you. I edited it in iMovie and some of the shots got cut off because of transitions, but that's okay. The point is this- I worked hard on this project and I am happy with the results.
Speaking of which, here is a before and after of a scene. See the differences in filming and the 2-D world? The background characters were not moving very much, which led me to draw over them with a regular layer and position them anywhere in the scene. But with Drew, I used a video layer which allows you to draw over all the frames and make your character come alive.
Since I wanted to give enough time for my character, we filmed the video for 16 seconds. That would determine what gestures would work with the line in the song when I edited it. The line was "spreading wisdom and..." The next shot cuts to "cash around." Look to find my final video in my other blogs.
After
As you can see in this video, this particular shot was only 6 seconds long. I felt that my main actor's personality would fit with the line in the song during post-production.
Individual Project- A Christmas Card
I'll start with some new animations next semester.
It took me about two months worth of work.
I outlined each object in black and colored in various details. (I realized later on in the project you can use the Paint Bucket Tool as a shortcut to color an object in. It saved me about a couple days of work.) I also learned an object with minimal movement, like a wall, can be positioned or scaled to where you want it in your scene. You don't have to rotoscope too many details, which saved me a bit of time. But an object, like me for example, had to be drawn over every single time I moved. Yep, it was a crud load of work. I was going to try and finish 2 verses of the song, but I realized later on I wouldn't have time for it. My goal was to finish the first verse, but I wouldn't have time for that either. I had to skip a couple shots, but it the other shots I completed went with my story. There were a few problems, but nothing major, but since I was new to rotoscoping, I asked my teacher for help several times to see what I can do to make it look a little bit better. I remember in my third shot I had to copy and paste my main actors' arm and put it on the other side of his body to follow his original arm. (While filming, the mask kept breaking off, so I told him to cover the mask with his other hand so one arm could be free for various gestures.) I also had help with my fourth shot where my main actor is moving around in a circle. That was where it got a bit tricky with the pumpkin head. My teacher told me to make it look like a 3-D layer and move his eyes and lines from the pumpkin head to different positions frame by frame. I moved the lines with each new frame.
In all, the project lasted barely a minute. That's what rotoscoping can do to you. I edited it in iMovie and some of the shots got cut off because of transitions, but that's okay. The point is this- I worked hard on this project and I am happy with the results.
Speaking of which, here is a before and after of a scene. See the differences in filming and the 2-D world? The background characters were not moving very much, which led me to draw over them with a regular layer and position them anywhere in the scene. But with Drew, I used a video layer which allows you to draw over all the frames and make your character come alive.
Before
After
Individual Project- A Christmas Card
This is the last mini project I made for the semester. Since I would not have time to animate a big project, I decided to get into the Christmas spirit and make a greeting card. I made it in Photoshop, colored it in the usual Christmas colors, and converted it into a PDF to print out. (I had to ask my teacher for help to get a quarter inch crop around the page.) Later, I animated the snowflakes and the lettering on the banner to make it look a little festive. You can take a look at my previous blog post about my card and see the video there. It only took me a few days and it was meant to be quick since we had finals coming up and I wanted to take it easy. Here is the final video again.
I'll start with some new animations next semester.
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