In this week we studied how to animate a flour sack using different controls. We have also explored how to edit the rig and change the hierarchies and constraints to make the rig suitable to the kind of animation we want to do.
We made some changes in the flour sack rig to make it more flexible. For example we have made the top controller the child of the bottom controller so that it moves with the bottom controller. It made the rig more effective.
Image showing the hierarchy in the outliner
The foot controls of the sack had FK controls and usually the walk animation is done in IK. This made us delete the already made controls and thus we made new IK controls on the feet.
Image showing the IK controls
Animation and Rendering
After adjusting the rig, I then made the animation, setup the skydome light and rendered the animation.
Understanding Production Rigs:Hand Throwing a Ball
This week we explored how to make basic rigs using basic shapes and hierarchies. In addition to that we also worked with the locators and parent constraints.
Modelling and Hierarchy
First of all we made a hand and fingers by using cubic shapes. We then adjusted the pivot points of each cube so that the finger joints can rotate along a certain axis.
Rectangular cubic shapes forming a hand
Image showing the pivot points of each shape
Video showing the rotation of fingers along the pivots
We then made the arm so that we can make the arm rotation animation. We have also made sure of using a proper naming convention.
Outliner showing the hierarchy of the arm
Locators and Parent Constraints
After making the arm, I made a small setup by using ball and a ball basket. I am planning to throw the ball through the basket. We then added one locator on the hand and the other one on the ball. We have made the hand locator the child of hand geometry and ball locator the child of ball’s geometry. We then added parent constraint on hand locator, ball locator and the ball.
Image showing the scene and the locators
Render
After animating the sequence I have put some lighting and rendered the sequence.
Today I am going to analyze an animated film, Mitchelle’s vs the Machine made by Sony Pictures Animation.
This movie broke our thread tracking system with its comedic and emotional call backs, but the way the film breaks down into sequences is refreshingly clear and precise. The plot revolves around a quirky, dysfunctional family’s road trip. It shows how their trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity’s last hope.
Story Arc
The following analysis is based on 8 Point Story Arc
1. Stasis:
We see the intro of the dysfunctional Mitchelle’s Family, their background, and interests and on the other side we see Mark and Pal.
2. Trigger:
Katie gets admission in a film school and her dad is not in favor which results in a huge family fight. On the other hand, Mark throws Pal away and releases his latest invention, a line of artificially intelligent robots who immediately turn evil and wish to subjugate humankind. Pal is revealed to turn the robots into evil.
3. The Quest:
The family takes off on a cross-country road trip to Katie’s college where the robots attack humans including the Mitchells at Dino stop.
4. Surprise:
The Mitchells work together to defend themselves against the next Robot attack. Along with Eric and DeborahBot 5000, travel to the Mall of the Globe to turn the tide by entering the kill code at a Pal Labs center there.
5. Critical Choice:
The Mitchells disguise themselves as Robots in order to infiltrate enemy headquarters.
6. Climax:
Katie infiltrates PAL Labs HQ with the help of Aaron, using Monchi to cause the robots to malfunction, as his appearance causes an error in their programming. With help from Mark, Rick, and Linda free themselves. The family bands together to fight the rest of the improved robots, with Linda leading the charge and destroying dozens. Katie eventually finds and destroys PAL by dropping her into a glass of water, freeing all the humans and disabling all the robots.
7. Reversal:
The Mitchells prevail against the Robots. Humans are free!
8. Resolution:
After saving humankind, the director ties up the loose ends with the Mitchells being a whole family.
Characters and Archetypes
A Promotional Poster showing different characters of the Film
Protagonist
Rick Mitchell (Dad). Although the story is framed through Katie’s perspective (exemplified by her voice-over narration in The Opening) and we can certainly look at the story through her perspective as a Protagonist figure. I am inclined to think of Rick as the Primary Protagonist only because he goes through the most significant character arc. Whereas Katie’s psychological journey is reconnecting with feelings she already has about her father, Rick has to develop a new perspective about Katie, who she is and what she is capable of and reimagining himself and his role as a father given Katie’s transition into adulthood.
Antagonist
PAL. The leader of the Robots with a goal of destroying or subjugating all of humanity. This puts the Mitchells in life-or-death jeopardy.
Mentor
While there are several moments in the script where a character don a mentor “mask” in providing insights to Rick, including some of the videos Katie has created which allows Rick to see things in a new light, I am going to lobby for none other than “Monchi” as a key Mentor figure. Yes, the lazy-eyed dog. Monchi provides the key for Katie to plow through the sea of Robots with Monchi strapped to the front of the car. Indeed, Monchi provides the key moment in the Final Struggle which saves the day
Tricksters
The Posey’s feel like Tricksters who for much of the story function as “enemies” in their perfect family lifestyle, but by the end embrace Rick and his family.
Allies
The members of Mitchelle’s family are also the allies in the film. They worked together with the help of Eric and Deborah to save humankind.
Shapeshifters
Eric and Deborah Bot 5000 initially the bad infected robots turned to provided key assistance to the Mitchells vs. Pal and the Robot army.
Timeline of the Character
Concept Art Sketches of the Protagonist of the Film
Rick is a nature-loving man who finds himself exasperated by his family’s phone usage. When Katie, her daughter, prepares to leave for college, he decides to take her and the family on a road trip to spend the time together before she leaves home.
In the beginning he is shown to be emotionally immature. He breaks Katie’s laptop, and his idea of making it up to her is to cancel her plane tickets without consulting her, making her miss orientation week at college, and dragging the family along on a week-long road trip. His wife tries to bridge the communication gap between him and Katie, but notably it is usually Rick’s feelings that she most needs to soothe. The misunderstanding between him and Katie was the one causing the family trouble in this movie.
As the story progresses, we see the whole family coming together to fight against the robot apocalypse. We see that Rick tries to bridge the gap between him and her daughter. As the story unfolds her daughter Katie gets to know how her father has made a lot of sacrifices for her and the family. What makes Katie finally understand him is when she learns he sold his personally made home in the woods just so she could grow up in a better environment.
In the end, Rick accepts Katie’s dream. He verbalizes his fear of his daughter’s future but soon corrects himself by saying, “no matter what happens, her family will always be there for support.” The father and daughter accept each other finally. They might not understand each other’s ideology, but they promise to at least try. Katie joins her California film school college, meanwhile, Rick spends his time trying to understand computers. A horror, but that is the least he can do to watch her daughter’s crazy videos on Youtube.
Apart from research approaches and strategies we have studied mise en scene this week. Mise en scène is the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play. In film analysis, the term mise en scene refers to everything in front of the camera. Mise en scene in film is the overall effect of how it all comes together for the audience. The elements of mise en scene are
Sets
Props
Lighting
Costumes
Actor blocking
Shot composition
We always saw some video references and it made the concept more clear to me. The video reference showcased the importance of mise-en-scene in film. I have learned that if is properly used, it elevates film from a series of moving pictures to an art form with purpose. Something bursting with atmosphere and emotions that pulls viewers in and doesn’t let go.
FilmExample: Titanic
A shot from the movie, Titanic
James Cameron’s epic romance and disaster film is largely memorable for its bewitching use of key mise-en-scene elements. The biggest challenge is that it is completely set in a ship sailing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, deep space is often used where even the far view of the ship is in clear focus. The setting in this film has created the contrast between higher and lower classes. The vivid acting style by several main and supporting characters has enhanced the storyline, and also made the story run smoothly. Lighting in this film has created meaning in all scenes, the mood has enhanced through different lighting in several scenes. The costume in this film is functional in telling audiences that the different characteristic of the characters in the scene. It has also enhanced the contrasted class level in this film. Space arrangement in this film has giving the meaning to the particular scene through different camera placement and camera shot. It wasn’t the tragic love story alone that made Titanic the success it was. The awe-inspiring visuals played an equal role. Now, that’s the power of a meticulously designed mise-en-scene
This week we studied different methods and strategies of research. We were asked to come up with a potential research topic or a question and write a brief paragraph about it.
The research topic I have selected is “Objectification of Women in Kids Cinema”. I chose this topic because the portrayal of Woman’s body in cartoons and animations has always irked me. It always made me question myself that why do woman are overly sexualized and to answer my curiosity I decided to research on this topic.
Research Topic:Objectification of Women in Kids Cinema
Cartoons play a significant role in children’s development. With young children spending so much time engaging in these forms of media, the messages they promote are especially important. When you turn on some light-hearted cartoons for your elementary schooler, the last thing you hope to see is an oversexualized and unrealistic female character. Most of the times the women are shown as an unattainable ideal, with huge breasts and an hourglass waist and their sole purpose is to entertain the leading male. Although most characters are not as extreme as Jessica Rabbit or Lola Bunny, it is evident that all women in cartoons are representing the unrealistic standards of beauty. The ideas of young people who have not yet developed a high level of thinking can be easily molded by the media they experience every day. The purpose of this research to investigate the streotypical representation of female characters in the animated cartoons and films and how they are affecting the development of our kids.
Key Word
Objectification of Women, Animation, Cartoons
Bibliography
Nelson, A. 2021. Pixar’s Objectification Obsession in “Inner Workings” and Beyond. 15 January. Gender Depiction in Pixar. [Accessed 16 October 2022]. Available from: https://medium.com/
Gilmore, S. 2021. The Harmful depiction of Women in Children’s Film and Television. September 6. The Objectification of Women in Children’s Television. [Accessed 15 October 2022]. Available from: https://yourdream.liveyourdream.org/
This week we had our introductory class. We received an overview of our course outline, assignment brief and got essential information about the blog.
We were also given some knowledge on how to do critical thinking, idea brainstorming and finding a research topic of our interest. We also discussed some key elements of choosing a research topic.
At the end of the session, the students were divided into groups for some collective brainstorming. Some of the potential ideas we produce were:
We received the feedback on the bouncing ball animation and we were assigned a new task to plan and animate a pendulum.
Challenges faced in the Process
The animation was a little challenging as we had to animate the linked parts. According to animation principles, we are supposed to use overlapping actions to make it real and believable. The timing and movement is the one thing that challenged me the most while doing this animation.
We explored Maya’s ContentBrowser this week. The Content Browser is the one-stop centre for finding example scenes, human and creature models and other content used to build your scenes. You can navigate for files in your project, local and network directories.
Basic Shark Model taken from Maya’s Content Browser
Motion Path and Deformers
We learnt how to attach an object to a motion path. Any object that is assigned to a path can only move along that path and we have done the same with the shark. After that we put a sine deformer on the shark to animate the body and tail of the shark.
We put keyframes on the offset control to animate the shark.
Image showing the deformer properties in Channel box
Shark Animation
Our task was to create a shark animation and for this purpose initially we used a pre-existing shark rig but then we were given the liberty to add and modify the geometry, paint new textures and make it look personalized. For this purpose I painted new texture for the shark. and made new geometry to give it a more cinematic and polished look.
Attaching the final render of the shark animation with improved geometry and new textures below.
The agenda of today’s class was introduction to a 3d software, Maya. We discussed the user interface and basic navigation i.e. panning, scrolling, tumbling and tracking. We discussed some essential controls like move, rotate, scale and explored how to use channel box, tool bar and attribute editor for basic modelling.
Maya Interface
Basics of Modelling
In addition to the interface we also explored basics of modelling and how it is done. A 3D Model is a mathematical representation of any three dimensional object (real or imagined) in a 3D software environment. Unlike a 2d image, 3D models can be viewed in specialized software from any angle, where they can be scaled, rotated, or freely modified. 3D models are comprised of faces, edges,and vertices. Any model you make is made from the basic polygon primitives like Sphere, Cube or Cylinder etc. Later on we use some modifiers like extrude, bevel or sculpting to transform it into a complex model.
Image showing the face, edge and vertex
Like I said any complex shape is made from a basic shape. I am making a minion from a basic spherical mesh and then will build up on it using extrude.
Image showing the basic modeling
By using soft selection tool I modified the geometry to give it less rounded look. Later on I added some basic textures to the geometry to give it the final look.
Image showing the model in progress and the final model
Basics of Lighting and Rendering
After making the model, I used the sky dome light from the arnold tool shelf to take a pleasing render. I have used the environment texture from Polyhaven.com. Skydome lights act as a circular light, surrounding the scene. It also has another added feature. Skydome lights can use Image Based Lighting to give your scene/model a background and specialized lighting.
We used the Arnold renderer to take some final renders.
Render
Collage render
Image showing a photographic render
I have done some editing on the renders to give them old photographic look.
Slug Race
Apart from understanding basic modelling, lighting and rendering we also touched some portions of animations and introduction to graph editor.
Image Showing the curves in graph editor
I have adjusted curves of the speed in the editor so that all the slugs move in different speed.
Slug Race video preview
Conclusion
Today’s lesson was helpful to give an understanding of the basics of Maya. It has also given me a basic understanding of modelling and how the modifiers of extrude, and bevel works. Moreover, it gave us an idea of how lighting is done and how we can use the Arnold renderer. In the end we also explored the graph editor which is a significant tool for animation.
