Evaluation - 3D Animation

The brief set us the task of putting us in the role of making a zero gravity scene in a space shuttle that has just exited the safety of Earth’s atmosphere, for a scene in a game called The Last Voyage. This would be a key moment in the game and should create wonder and shock the gamer. This gave me the idea of having relatable objects that the audience could relate to and also add a slight back story or in this case just propose questions and so I used lots of common objects and some children toys. This would keep the gamer thinking and wondering why there are these children toys in a space shuttle.

At first I was very stuck for ideas about what I should include for my animation and so I looked online and at different medias for inspiration and one thing I found is that a lot of space games are either horror or very complex/ niche such as Dead Space, Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. And so I wanted to make a different scene so that going into space wasn't scary or set thousands of years in the future and so I came up with the idea of having noticeable objects and random things to fulfil the brief of creating wonder such as a picture frame and bottles floating which are common round the house objects.

To make sure I was slightly more organised I did some planning before so that I had a structure to ensure that I wasn't just writing it and make sure I was always staying on track to the brief and task.

Additionally, I started to draw and shade in some assets that I wanted in my scene so that when I actually started to model I had ideas already sketched and could follow them as my own inspiration. This allowed me to move swiftly as I always had something to make but also, it meant that that I had already started planning what tools I would use or certain techniques. An example of this could be the Teddy Bear that I drew and wanted to make its limbs move and therefore knew I needed to make a pivot and could prepare form this.

I think that to improve my planning I should have drawn my assets from different angles to give me a better look at what to model from different sides after all it is a 3D model. Furthermore, I didn't do much when it comes down to time planning and I could have made a time plan and or structure earlier on as it would allow me to evaluate my situation and if I was on track or behind.

My original plans can be seen on my drawn assets where I made a few assets and constructed a basic theme of relatable slightly child/ memory related objects. Firstly, my teddy was an idea that I came up with as often in video games there are Easter eggs or the narrative relates back to clues and my teddy could be symbolic to either a child or childhood. My original idea for it is that it would float out from behind a chair or wall and into shot which could also create quite a creepy or eerie mood but would also be humorous depending on the situation. Another asset I have is a picture frame which could give a little insight into the past of the characters in the video game but also is a common household object that would be interesting to see in space. One of my more basic assets are my children's blocks however this showed my capability of filling a scene and texturing as I had to Photoshop the texture and also select individual faces. My globe is one of the assets I have personally wanted to see float in a space situation as it is ironic but also wondrous seeing a miniature Earth float around. Originally I wanted it to be on a rotary device like a normal globe but every time I tried it would bug out the sphere and the SV Curve tool wouldn't work. I also had ideas of floating tools that would float around such as a hammer or screwdriver. Along with this I wanted to have money floating around that would be 'wavy' and not have much structure. Finally, I wanted to have a tooth brush once again as a relatable object along with some pop cans/ general trash.

Honestly once I had started my assets and added a few of them in the same scene I realised that all of these different assets might be a bit too random and so I only kept the ones that could be related a little bit. For example, I kept the photo frame, teddy and blocks as they can interlink into a family situational vibe but not the tools. I also changed the Pop cans to bottles as I wanted to make the bottles clear and add in a liquid which I have found to be extremely difficult to do but I’m slowly progressing through watching tutorials online and testing my ideas out in a separate scene. My teddy bear is very similar design to my original planning and thanks to the planning I was able to plan ahead with the invisible bolt system. One thing I didn't plan out which held me back a little bit was my actual scene. Although this is not the most important thing, I needed something to work with and my scene has the look of a room in a spacecraft from the future but not too far which is what I was aiming for but the inside won't allow me to add a texture to it. Finally, I added in chair that I hadn't originally planned for with cushions as my scene looked a bit bare and so it needed some bigger assets that I could play around with and so I made the seats out of a single block as a self-set challenge and also just to try and improve my skills. One problem that I came across is the restrictions that come with applying fields such as gravity and so I had to use key framing instead. This meant that a lot of my time was essentially wasted.

I used a variety of tools for my Maya creation. For example, I used heavily the extrude tool and this is partially because I have gotten more confident with using it and find that it can make for some really interesting shapes. I made my chairs using this tool alone from a block. I selected the faces and extruded at different angles, added some more divisions and selected some more faces that I could extrude a smaller portion.

Another tool I used which assisted me when it came to adding textures and extruding is the insert edge loop tool which allows you to create new faces and vertexes. I used this tool as it can allow me to create faces of my own shape and is less that adding lots of divisions which could slow my animation down.

I also used the Boolean's tool. This tool is where you select a shape or polygon and get another shape to overlay it and it will delete one of the shapes and whatever it was overlaying allowing for some smooth edges, cut outs with edges in which all round makes for a more professional aesthetic.

Finally, I used UV mapping for the faces of my blocks as I had to align a different number with each face of the blocks and I had to make sure they were all centred to give it a more professional look. I used the UV mapping also for my pop bottles but realised that this is a legal and ethical constraint and so I had to remove this. When using this tool I also used the shell selector which allowed me to move just certain faces and areas of the shapes, in doing this I could align up all the faces individually.

During my animation I a key stage was my key framing. I used key framing instead of just gravity as i chose where I wanted my object to be and how it looked including rotations and if I wanted even the size to change and at what time. This meant that I could suddenly increase pace and poisoning whenever. The key framing was a bit difficult to start with as my scene had so many polygons that it made it very laggy to move between frames and so I had to key frame in new scenes and then place them back into one scene. This gave me lots of freedom however and I was able to make my scene how I wanted it to look rather than trying to adapt gravity to make a situation in comparison to key frames which are more for animations. I left the objects stationary to make it all look normal for 40 frames as this is about 2 seconds to allow for the audience to take in the scene and then they objects float around up until 480 frames where I created new key frames and moved the y axis down close to the other key frame at 483 so that it suddenly drops and then rises by adding another key frame. I done this to create a bit of doubt and slightly scare the audience as if you were in space and you thought your spaceship was faulty then you would be slightly worried!

One thing I think is aesthetically pleasing in my scene is my chairs as they are all made of one block and the way it looks when I make it a smooth mesh it looks clean and well done as there are no overlapping of shapes, no combined edges or out of place vertexes that might have distorted the faces of the shape but instead looks in place and well fitted. I did this purely by extruding and moving all vertexes in place and together so that there wasn't one out of place such as slightly lower down creating a dip or ridge in the shape. In my scene I am particularly happy with the look of my globe. The reason being is that it is so satisfying when you make a asset that once applied a texture it fits perfect and this is the case for my globe. It is simple yet even the stand seems to fit and when it floats away and interacts with its environment that is very aesthetically pleasing. Although it is just a sphere the actual globe itself, the shimmer effect also makes it look very pleasing and sleek. Another feature that has a nice aesthetic look to it is my bottles. when modelling my bottles, I used the SV curve tool and this allowed me to make the shape of the bottle unique to how I want and then revolved around the middle so that it made a 360-degree symmetrical asset. To make it more smooth and less edgy I made sure to place down a vertex very frequently and this ensured that when on a curve it doesn't go gagged but rather a smooth curve.

I used lots of different textures some of which I couldn't use in the end due to legal reasons and so I only used it to during my planning and piecing together. This was the label around my bottle that had the original company's logo on it and so I couldn't use that. Another one that I used just for piecing and visualising purposes until I had my own photo was the picture in the photo frame that I simply got from Google but will have to change this as I didn't have their consent or permission. For my chairs and cushions I wanted to portray a futuristic vibe but not too futuristic and so I used fairly simple built in Maya textures such as Blinns, rather than a lambert, and this is so that it had a little shine and reflective to it to make it aesthetic.

Going through my work flow I will go in detail some of the problems I ran into. I started off with planning and so I used computers and the Internet to research lots of different video games, videos and films that are based around space so that I found common trends and conventional objects, colours and textures so that my scene doesn't look out of place. I also had to sketch some of my assets that I would want to include in my scene and so I started to think about what I want to include in my scene. Therefore, I had to base it around a theme or situation that it centred around. My production of my main scene, I modelled my first few assets in separate scenes and once I was happy I imported them into one. I still needed to add some more assets and so I just modelled them in that scene to the side away from the main focus until I was happy. When I started to animate I went through it all applying a weak gravity force to all of my assets. This looked effective but didn't give me much freedom with the assets movement. I then researched some more and found out the key framing allows me to be in control every movement.

I feel like I have more of a confident approach with Maya as this project I have not only learnt new skills but also adapted and challenged the skills I know, for example, I knew I could extrude but I wanted to see how creative I could be with just using that and from this I learnt new techniques that work. I would definitely say that my extruding skills are one of my strengths along with my texturing as I know how to use UV mapping and I can visualise how to texture an object if it has a difficult surface. For my first time actually animating a scene I feel like I kept to the task and showed my ability to manipulate gravity and its directional force. However, I still found it fairly hard and confusing and so I feel like I could develop these further.

I think that although I got off to a sketchy start and might have spent too long on certain things that didn't exactly contribute to or make my final scene better, having said that I have been consistent and stayed on track to the brief with trying to create a wondrous space moment. I think that adding my turbulence within my scene creates a little bit of second guessing and that it links into the title we were given in the brief being The Last Voyage as its a bit scary and puts people on edge as the title connotes danger and so small things like that makes the gamer aware and foreshadows the fact that not all is well...

Proposal for 3D Animation (with list of resources)

The brief for the assignment is that a company has came to me and asked me to make a scene for part of their game called 'The Last Voyage' and the scene is just as the space ship breaches the Earths atmosphere the first time and so the environment has to go into zero gravity casing wonder and amazement to the audience. Therefor I have to create assets that will float around or have the appearance of zero gravity.

The setting have created is a room inside the Space shuttle that would be like a starting area in the game. Its a small room that has personal belonging and things relating to children and youth proposing questions to the audience. The assets have to have a vague link and mine are all everyday objects. This can be seen as my assets consist of a photo frame, building blocks and some drinks to name a few. The reason I have chosen these assets are that they are all around people and noticeable objects and so seeing them float would hopefully be amazing as it is so random. Some of my assets are a photo frame, some building blocks that are numbered, a basket ball hoop and ball,

Some legal and ethical considerations I need to be aware of and look out for is that the textures I use such as my Coca-Cola and water bottle cannot be have the same company logos as it is copyrighted and trademarked. Additionally, if I copy anybodies work such as downloading or duplicating others as it will go towards nothing as I didn't model it. I can ensure this by researching my assets and see if any are similar.

The target audience for the game would be aged towards younger audiences such as 21 and below purely from my scene but if I could continue the game it would 'turn bad' and say crash but for my scene along I have chosen these assets as it will act as a nostalgic throw back for the player. This will affect my target audience as it could make it either scary or a bit shocking and so only the older teenagers might like this and actually be able to take in what is happening and adjust to it. Additionally, Space games often have similar narratives being either a space ship gets lost, invaded or stranded amongst various other paths and so the people who have played other space games and can relate are likely to buy another. The majority of gamers has changed over the years being from male to now more of a balanced spread, therefore I have tried to ensure that I will not be one gender biased as my target audience can have a wide spread by having relatable objects and not 'gender biased' colours such as just pink walls and glitter which would be a common stereotype for a females girls room. Having said that, typically males are likely to buy a space game especially if it is horror orientated. Whilst modelling I will have to take into account my audiences interests and so one thing I found out is that a common thing to do in a space game is exploration and so I adapted my assets to have multiple things flying as my audience would be fans of minor details and little add ins almost like 'Easter eggs' which can once again market to an older audience as well as being interesting for a younger audience. This is another reason why I will create objects relating to youth as it can allow for the audience to start making connections and reading deeper into what could be a complex story line or just tell them a little bit of a back story or fill them in/ set the scene a little bit so they can expect children and know that the space craft is 'fairly' secure otherwise they wouldn't have these so what unnecessary items in there. This is also something that would only really be looked into by a slightly older age group who have a real passion for games, too young and they will just enjoy it and possibly older than say 21 it might be a bit confusing and so that is how my scene will have a audience based around 21 and under.

The project itself is made up within lots of stages and so I will be demonstrating lots of different skills. During the planning I had to show I had an understanding of what was possible within my abilities and that I had a solid idea that I was going to create and that I didn't just make up random things when it came to modelling. The modelling itself will be a large portion but the scene I will make will mostly demonstrate my animation skills within Maya. Within Maya I will animate my created assets to make them move in the direction and pattern that I choose. I will show this by applying a 0 gravity effect to my assets to highlight the fact of being in space, I will have to add rotary points, collisions and various other components to give it an overall realistic look. Additionally I will have to show skills of applying texture for the assets to look complete and in general show problem solving skills to show my comfortable nature with a computer and a crossing of programmes.

(1) I will need a lot of resources in order to successfully complete the task. Priorities are a good computer that is able to run the software that I need to use so that I can create my scene swiftly. I will have access to Macs and also my home computer. I will need various software's such as Maya itself to construct the scene, Photoshop I will also need to edit and create my own textures. Blogger is what I will use to display and keep track of my progress as it is readily accessible and fairly simple yet practical. For my planning stages I will also need basic equipment such as paper, pencils and access to the Internet throughout for lots of reasons such as finding textures and inspiration. One resource that I would have liked to have is a Graphics Drawing tablet. This would have allowed me to be much more swift and had lots of practical uses but wasn't a necessity. To work on my project from home and on different I will store it on a USB but also have it accessible on a digital folder that can be accessed on all of the available Macs. I will also need to be able to watch videos such as YouTube tutorials for learning new skills. (1)

The timing for my project will be fairly organised so that I can evaluate if I'm on track or not. I would have liked to do a fully time plan before we started however the time scale I had was not clear and I was also unsure about how long certain areas would take me. However I know a large part of my time would be needed for the animation and the modelling. The Modelling I think would have taken up a lot less time however I know I need to create a asset that has 'limbs' or hinges and so I will need to allow myself a large amount of time, a few lessons, in order to complete it with all of the fields/solvers.  I also have to remember that whilst 3D modelling might run smoothly at first it can get slowed down very quickly the more I add to it and so loading, rendering and animation preview time will increase as I progress. My planning I will spend only a few hours doing as it doesn't all have to be 100% the same and like an actual building plan but rather stimulants for ideas that I can create from. My timing schedule sheet helped me as I could plan ahead a few weeks and set my self achievable goals and so have a sense of visual progression.


(1)  By writing a list of resources and then writing them up in my proposal, this allowed me to see what I needed to complete my brief. From this I could review the possibility of my ideas and make sure I was being realistic. Furthermore, if I came up with unique ideas or special pieces of equipment I wanted to use, I could write it down/ write the resources needed and when I look back I could see what I needed to jog my memory. One thing I didn't do but feel like in a work environment would of had to take into concideration is assess the resources I need and search for either cheaper alternatives or ways to save money. This further made me think about my target audience as I had to think about production stlyes. So beacuse my target audience were young adults I knew I needed to use an uptodate piece of software rather than a more clay type model structure or animation style. I knew that I couldn't make it to 'soft' as then it wouldn't be as interesting to an older group and might appeal more to children. (1)

Progression of Animation Assets Journal

20th September 2016

In these two lessons I was trying to make more assets and add them into my scene mainly. I started off very slowly as I opened my Maya to find that my chair and cushion and a few alterations did not save for some reason. So I quickly re modelled them and made them from scratch to just get back to where I was. Once again I extruded from a single block selecting different faces every time. This was a slight problem as it also meant that the teddy bear that I started to model at home wasn't their either. To prevent this from happening again I'm going to always save it to my USB and then at the end of each lesson replace the old files with the new updated ones from my USB but additionally I'm going to model all new assets in their own project so that if one doesn't save for any reason I haven't lost everything.

I also touched up on my older assets that I created before summer one being my globe. I had an idea of it being on the desk and the bottom remaining stationary but the actual earth detaching from the base and floating away. To make it more realistic I wanted a hole to be made in the base to act as where it would slot in and to do this I had to select the earth and then the base and go to 'mesh' and then booleans and had to select 'difference'. This worked but also got rid of the shape so I had to duplicate the asset.

 

The bottle I also added in to sit along side my cola bottle but I made it tilt in preparation for if I am able to add in a liquid. To import them in I simply pressed cmd+I and then selected the scene in but I then had to alter the size and scale.

Then to act as a filler as I felt that my room was a bit bare as my assets are fairly small so I duplicated my chair twice and one other cushion that I altered a little bit. I also then changed to texture by altering its colour and refractions ect.

Progression Update Animation

My scene is finally coming together with my assets all being placed into one scene apart from my teddy one. This has allowed me to have an actual view on what I need to change, alter or add to make and overall 'Wow' atmosphere. I have now been mainly working on FX rather than modelling as this is where I play around with the gravity and the actual animation of my assets where I make the objects float and look like a zero gravity scene. I am happy with the way my assets move as I think I have made a good effort when it comes to the way in which they defy gravity in different directions. One problem I have recently came across once again is not being able to view my assets and how they look with the animations all together because it is so slow to the point where it only loads 2-3 frames and then doesn't seem to load any more. This problem I have had throughout but not exactly to this extent and to resolve this, once I was completely happy with the way my asset looked I have to delete its history. By deleting an objects history it means that you cannot cmd+Z which is a short cut to undo or redo things and so you can't go back. This meant that I have to completely finish a asset before I do this and make sure I am happy with its looks but also see whether or not it is practical and work when I add gravity to it. An example of where I have done this is for my photo frame. Once I had modelled it and tested out how it looked I combined all the separate polygons so that it was one shape or object. Once it was all one and combined using booleans union, I could then delete its history. This decreases the amount of memory used and allows Maya to run faster.

To delete your history you have to select your object and then open channel editor, which can be opened in the Windows tab, and it shows the oldest 'nodes' first and you go over to 'edit' and then click on 'delete node'.

Another problem I came across in this lesson is that my teddy started to bug out a little bit for some unknown reason. So what I did was go to where I made hinges to allow its limbs to move and re-made them. This seemed to fix the problem and so next lesson or at a later date it is ready to import into my scene.

Having said this, I have done this to allow my assets within my master scene and still continues to have this problem and so I have had to work through it the only problem is that I am estimating (Hoping!) that the fields and solvers that I'm adding are correct and actually work however sometimes Maya can be funny so what I'm going to have to do is try and export my scene multiple times as a way to see how my assets are floating and what needs changing. This will be a lengthy process but no doubt ill be able to see how they actually look.

Final Touches 

Once I felt I was happy with the overall out come having changed a lot of things throughout its fair to say that I have come a long way. One of the biggest changes being switching from the hard to work with gravityapplication which I understand is good for certain things, but when it comes to trying to immitate gravity in a video game situation I feel like keyframing allows me to have full control of where something is at any given time and I felt like I had a lot more freedom.

Some smaller touches that I made were actually having some of my objects appearing to bounce off each other. This is something I forgot about on the change over as when applying a field and or solver which is where the gravity was, you make the assets such as my blocks all active or passive meaning that when they collide they use physics and actually have a cause and effect. This however was not the case with keyframing but wasn't much of a problem as I could simply go to the keyframe where they meet and change their paths. An example of my first export where I didn't do this can be seen below on the cube that manages to go through the wall!

Another thing I did was just re arrange some of my assets, this required me to re export the selected assets and then change its position as it still wouldnt let me move anything that was key frammed and so once I had moved it a little I re imported the assets and they were fine. The reason I did this was to give my room a slightly fuller look as originally I wanted the room to be spacious to appeal to the target audience as science fiction games I feel are usually modern and efficient with space but when it came down to it, it looked empty and so these adjustments still kept it clean but also more intresting.

 

Production Journal of Animation

8/9/16 - This was our first school lesson working on our space scene and so I started off with a rough model of my exterior and setting to add the objects into. I made the shuttle from a sphere that I extruded and distorted. I made some of them see through to act as a window also. I had problems texturing however for example because the setting is the inside of a sphere it is black and doesn't allow me to add a texture to it. I have done some research and might be able to reverse the polygons but if not then this could be a problem. Additionally, I made a photo frame that I want to add in and used simple textured such as see through faces to make it like glass but when I tried to add in a photo file texture on the selected faces instead it applied a texture to everything else but them... I tried the reverse but it didn't work and remember having this problem in my futuristic city environment and was unable to resolve the problem.
I successfully imported 2 of my assets with the animations that I tweaked a little so that the cola bottle would bounce and collide with the centre of the space craft.
I also added in a table that is rounded off to give my scene some layering and allowing myself the ability to add different distances but also makes the scene more appealing. I used a wide range of tools such as the extruder, UV mapping, gravity settings along with adding in polygonal shapes in general.

15/09/16- during these lessons I tried to fix up the textures of the photo frame and did so successfully as I managed to get a photo on the glass area of the frame. I did this by adding a plane behind/ in the extruded area and added another file texture to that. I then had to re-create a gravity field and merge the objects so that they would float away together. To add to my general environment I included a chair that I set a challenge of making it all just from one block to improve my extruding skills and this this was done successfully. This was also a practical as my scene wasn't allowing me to play the scene with gravity and would just freeze. This was a problem as I can't see how the animation its self is going have have to just assume and judge. This also slowed me down as i made a cushion for my chair which was basic it took a very long time to allow me to start editing or even using Maya again. I also did some further planning for more assets, one of these which I completed were children's building blocks that I got a texture off line, used photoshop to align and crop out some numbers followed by me then UV mapping so that the extruded faces on my blocks had correctly aligned numbers.

 

Anti-Gravity practice blog 3D Animation

Over the summer I was tasked to create basic objects that reflect a anti-gravity scene. This was to help me be more confident with my Maya skills and so that I had prior knowledge so that I could maximise the time I had in school. The start was sketchy to say the least as the computer I had wasn't the best but as I went around and finally managed to run the software I could start modelling simple assets that I could add gravity to. I made a Coca-Cola bottle that I tried to mess around with liquid particles with and I found out that this was a very difficult challenge to make all the particle become a liquid let alone float! so instead I added a top (lid) and just made the bottle itself defy gravity. The textures didn't carry across but the shape still remained the same and can be seen in the image on the side.

My box that held some bouncy balls in was an idea that I wanted to implement into my scene as I think it would really clearly show the different directions that gravity takes on each of the balls making it having a spreading slow motion 'explosion' effect. Although it is simple at the moment I think it will allow me to play around with the gravity even more, But I need to add textures and make them spin to make it more aesthetically pleasing as well as making more of them.

Another model I made was the Basketball hoop and ball. originally I had the ball fall through the hoop which I would want to happen at the start but I would then want the ball to float away as the 'shuttle' exits the atmosphere. I made the net dynamic but would have the back board stuck on the wall. however the net only seems to move once interacted with and so it doesn't look like its waving or flowing and so this is something I would need to work on to show the 0 gravity. This is what I gained the most feedback on and saw that the colours were relatable and the scene its self with the idea was original and interesting. However, I need to try and once again make the net move more freely, Add texture onto the ball rather than it being just orange.

Another asset I made was the metal chain which I wanted each link to have its own sense of gravity but before I even started this for some reason the links wouldn't all connect so what I am going to have to try is duplicating the first two and trying to assign each individual link its own gravitational field but still have the going in a general direction so that it floats away. I made the chain using a path I created and having two links at the start and then getting it to follow the SV curve but unfortunately it didn't go to plan and kept on bugging out and freezing.

My last model I created was a slinky as I think it would be really cool to see a slinky floating around however I stumbled across many problems. Firstly the object is a coil that is just heavily dense but is a solid shape as when I applied gravity the slinky fell and held its shape. This is not what I want as it wouldn't look realistic. To try an simulate this during the summer I made a stair set to try and make it fall down and bend but still couldn't get it to work. Additionally, due to its high polygon count I can see it being a problem in the near future but will just have to delete history and hope that it runs fine.

Unfortunately during the summer I was unable to get all of my objects into one scene which might have set me back and was one of my EBIs when I received feedback, but also because my computer cannot run Maya that well every time I added gravity and changed it to FX it would become really slow until the point when I pressed play and it would freeze the whole thing. I tried to counteract this by going round a friends but where the files couldn't fully save it wouldn't load them up but when they eventually did it showed up with just the model and was really slow. When I brought them into school I was able to see that as a matter of fact the gravity fields were there and I could alter them then but at home it just wouldn't show up or allow me to edit them further.