3D bouncing ball

https://youtu.be/WFe4gEW4-1Y

This weeks assignment was to create a 3D bouncing ball animation in MAYA showcasing two of the twelve principles of animation. These were arcs and squash and stretch.

For this I started by downloading the ball which came with a rig to make animating it all the more easier. From there I went back and referenced my previous work which is the 2D bouncing ball animation. I studied the curve that it would follow and when it needed to squash and stretch. So from there I went and key framed replicating the bounce cycle in 3D software. The animation itself follows the arc principle as it follows a circular path whilst also showing squashing and stretching which occurs throughout the animation.

Overall i did quite well but I put that down to the synergy between this task and the 2D cycle I had done earlier on which really put me in the right frame of mind. However if I had to make improvements to it I would do more with the squash and stretch aspect by providing more accurate looking to really demonstrate my knowledge of the skills.

VFX post production

The final phase of post production required the use of MAYA. This part was to incorporate the robot I had built into MAYA. It started when I imported my last shot onto the software with my robot. From there I used the camera to focus on the last shot showing an accurate perspective. Afterwards I added a 3D plane into it which would map out the floor so I could map out where the robot would be. From there I animated the robots movement across the shot key framing it so it follows its path. Next I went on to adding lighting into the shot by adding directional and ambient lights parallel to it. After that I made an image sequence showcasing the robots movement.










The next part required me to go onto Nuke. This was to to track and rotoscope the footage. Firstly I tracked a line across the buildings roof line to track the part of the shot were the camera pans the shot. Afterwards I went onto rotoscoping. The rotoscoping I had to engage in was the building. I needed to cover the whole building so the robot would look like it is coming from behind the building. This took longer than expected due to the panoramic shot. Because of the shot it resulted in the rotoscope not always covering the outline so I had to key the last frame and the midpoint in the shot to make sure the rotoscoping consistently stayed attached to the buildings outline. From there I exported it as a video and headed to premiere.

Premiere was the video editing software we had originally used to put together the production footage and where I used color correction to darken my sequence. So I then removed the original footage in order to place the new edited shots in. The final part was exporting it to make a video.

From this project I would like to work on the rotoscoping more. This is because there are parts where the robot covers the people running past because its out of the zone which was rotoscoped. As well as this if provided with more of a lenient time frame I would of like to have included more special effects as well as improve my robots look to give it a more realistic look.

VFX post production

Carrying on with the VFX project this phase of it required Nuke. Nuke is a video editing software which I needed to use in order to composite the two shots showing the phone screen. For this I would have to use tracking and rotoscoping.

When I loaded the shots into Nuke I needed to track the phone. Tracking follows a set point across every frame following the position. This is require as I would need to add the phone screen into it so tracking the phone would fit the animation into the screen. My tracking went extremely well despite the persons hand shaking slightly which can sometimes cause the tracker to drastically move away from the set point. A big factor to incorporate is light and as my shots were darkened tracking the screen made it all the more difficult but it succeeded. 

Afterwards I moved onto my second shot with the phone which would be more complicated. I did the standard of tracking the whole phone but now I had to rotoscope. For this I had to go frame by frame highlighting the thumb so in the final product the thumb would be placed over the phone screen. Another additional thing was keeping an organized node graph just to make editing footage all the more easier.

VFX post production

Continuing the post production my next task was to create a phone screen that would be shown in 2 of the shots. I then also needed to make the same screen with a notification which would have to be animated.

To start things off I went on my phone and took a screenshot of an app. From there I went into Photoshop and changed the settings to match the phone screen of  a SONY phone  so at a later stage it would be the same when edited in to the shots. Afterwards I went on to creating a realistic notifications. When doing this I encountered a large issue. This was to look out for where the person swipes their thumb so i had to carefully watch to estimate where the notification would occur on the phone.

Then i went onto after effects to animate the notification. Again timing was an important factor because I had to precisely animate it so that when the thumb swipes the screen the notification should be animated out of the shot.

On the whole this has been a turbulent part of post production as personal errors caused me to fall behind but luckily I have managed to catch up.

VFX post production

For this part of the post production I was on Adobe premiere. This was to edit the shots, specifically using color correction for my shots. As the whole group has the same footage I decided to make my shots more distinguishable so I darkened all of my shots as well as to give it a more gritty perspective. Additionally I used color grading with Lumetri color.

Afterwards I exported shots in the form of PNG sequences to send them to NUKE. This is to use them as VFX plates.

Overall this has been a time consuming process  as exporting the last shot took over an hour to render. This has been the main issue as it is just a case of waiting for the shots to render.

VFX Post production

For this I have to complete making my robot in MAYA for the VFX project. For this I need to model and texture the robot as well as rigging it so it can later be animated. For this project i based my robots design off of the training bot from 'Overwatch'.

For this a complex model wasn't required because the main part of this is implementing it into the VFX project. Therefore the robot's chest is very boxy. Additionally I made the design a very low poly model so MAYA will run more efficiently. I went on to texturing it which was rather quick and easy. For this i simply just colored it different adding a blinn to give it a metallic use. I went with the color scheme and I didn't need to texture it using Photoshop.

Additionally due to the robots design I don't need to rig it because it doesn't rotate its body parts.

Art fundamentals moodboard

Following with the art fundamentals final assignment i have been tasked with creating a mood board from the brief. The artwork itself has to be a toxic jungle so this board contains derelict buildings as well as the jungle itself.

Overall i'm more inclined to favor a more derelict city environment instead of a jungle. This is because i want to clearly show an overgrown environment and the toxicity of it so basing it in a dilapidated city better shows the transition from a concrete to a toxic jungle. The mood board itself contains many pop culture notices so understanding it more will be easier. Additionally some settings are familiar with the video game environments to really show what i'm after. Something i want in my final piece are monsters and the truly inspiring ones are the prehistoric ones. The bottom left shows two actual monsters and shows the type of inhabitants i want to roam around in the piece i'm going to create.