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...