Category: Advanced & Experimental

Introduction

This week I worked on research for the maya lighting techniques and how to make the scene visually pleasing.

Renderer

I am planning to use Arnold Renderer to render the scene.

Lighting References

Introduction

This week we worked on creating blocking of our Acting shot. Our main focus was to create blocking for the body first.

Blocking

This was my first blocking pass and I made some mistakes. Upon receiving feedback I got to know that I should add key-poses first and key all the controls. Right now the body parts are keyed separately.

Blocking Revision

After the last feedback, I fixed the blocking. Here is the new blocking pass of the animation

Introduction

This week my focus was to make the 2d VFX of explosion for my animation sequence. For that I watched several reference videos and then created some sketches to get a rough idea. Later on, I painted the explosion frame by frame in photoshop.

Idea Work

Ever since I have watched arcane I always wanted to create a 3D Animation with 2D VFX in it. So, now that I have got a chance I tried to give it a shot. I have watched a lot of reference Youtube videos to help me make the explosion animation.

Reference Videos

Sketches and Animation

I wanted to make a huge explosion which starts as small but then covers all the screen in the end. For that I made rough sketches first and then I made 2d sketch animation for the explosion.

Here is how the animatics look.

After making the 2d sketch animation I put it in my 3d scene to see if it matches the camera and perspective. It looks fine at this moment. Once I will light my 3d scene and color my 2d explosion it will make more sense.

Final Look

After the sketches I added colors in the explosion and that is how it looks now. I will do color changes and compositing later on as well when I will integrate it with the 3d animation scene.

Introduction

This week we started working on our first acting shot. We had to choose an audio and we were required to make reference videos suitable to the audio.

Script & Idea

I downloaded the audio of this script from a tiktok video. The audio and the words of the scripts indicates that the woman is saying these lines is self indulge and gives a hint of being a narcissist.

So, by keeping this in my mind my idea shows that the girl who is saying the lines is a social media fanatic and she is on a date. Her focus is on taking picture rather than her date.

Video References

Thumbnails

Introduction

This week my focus was on creating animation references and making animations.

Reference video

Falling Animation 1

Falling Animation Final

Sneaky Walk Reference

Introduction

This week I worked on the feedback I received last week and worked on the further improvements of the animation.

Spline Animation 2

This week I mostly worked on follow through movements and spacing. I had knee popping out issue in previous week so I worked on different poses to fix that issue. Below is the animation and the feedback I received on spline pass 2.

Feedback

I have received feedback mostly around follow through and on spacing. I am planning to integrate this feedback later this week.

Spline Animation 3

I addressed the feedback I received in the last animation pass and here is how the animation looks. Now I will work on adding little details in the scene like lid animation. I will also light this scene.

Introduction

This week I worked on the jumping from the cliff to the ground sequence. For that I watched a lot of cartoons and come up with the thumbnails that I want to use in the animation as key poses.

Thumbnails

Animation Sequence

Introduction

This week we transferred our animation from blocking to spline.

Spline Pass

After working on the feedback I received on blocking last week I transferred the blocking animation to spline. I faced some issues in the rolling animation but then I went on 2s and 1s to make the roll nice and smooth.

In the spline I added some moving holds and deleted some keys that I added in blocking plus because they were creating jerks.

Feedback Received

Introduction

This week I worked on populating the environment in the 3d scenes. Apart from that I also worked on completing the 3d models of the environments.

3d Model and Texture of Temple Stone

For the opening scene I am showing a temple stone ruins in the middle of a forest. I have modeled it in maya and sculpted details in Zbrush.

Environments without Lighting

As I have completed the asset modeling last week, this week I focused on the world building of this animation.

Animation Test (GWEN Rig)

I have also done a quick loopable walk cycle test on the rig to see if everything is looking fine. The animation still needs a lot of improvement.

Introduction

This week we were supposed to get feedback on the blocking and blocking plus of our animation.

Blocking and Blocking Plus

As I was still on the blocking stage, I refined the blocking poses and added some in-betweens to make the blocking better and a bit smooth.

Feedback Received

I have received the feedback on adding some more frames in the beginning of the animation to make the landing smooth

Some anticipation and nice arc need to be shown before the rolling animation. Need to add overlapping action of head after the rolling ends

I need to show weight shift and adjust the spacing of these shots

Critical Reflection

This blocking exercise helped me to understand that it is always better to make your blocking as good as possible. If the blocking is good the animation will be good and we do not need to put in more effort in spline pass.