Senior Portfolio Spring Week 8

Senior Portfolio Post 8

3/28/19

This week, I really wanted to keep going with my previous brick build animation.  Now that I am familiar with what to do to get the visual I am going for, I carried through to finish off the rest of the sign.  Overall, the process took quite some time, and was pretty repetitive, but now that that is over with, I can present and then add more finesse to it all.  There is still a lot to improve on, and I am excited to go to the next phase.  Next up I plan to add color to the pieces, variety in movement to the individual bricks as they move from point A to point B, and tweaks to the camera to get the best visual representation of the animation.  I will also add more objects to fill out the immediate scenery and background.

I have set up three videos showcasing the animation.  Two are from the same cameras as the initial tests.  The third demonstrates a rough draft of how the final product might look.  I may end up splitting the scene into two or more angles to portray the scene rather than one continuous view.


https://youtu.be/XWhX3HMLCVM


https://youtu.be/Gv6Q_pRef14



https://youtu.be/XQioVxYIKvY

Senior Portfolio Spring Week 7

Senior Portfolio Post 7

3/14/19

For my work this week, I decided to continue on with the brick build animation.  Expanding into the full project, I am not currently grouping and individually animating pieces as they appear, move and scale to their proper alignments.  Overall, the process is not too complicated, but more time consuming and repetitive.  I have made most progress on the beginning and ending.  I may take a break for the following weeks to avoid burnout and come back to this for further progress later.  If not, I want to keep going on this brick build until finished in some capacity.

I had to redo my previous test animation from last week.  However, I was able to get a better understanding of the process I was aiming for, so recreating the project was faster and better thought out this time.  With the end position established beforehand, it was easier to know where to aim with translation coordinates.

https://youtu.be/8OtxIBVPr-Y




I also began work on the tail end of the project, where the brick-built signage does a final spin and hop to show the overall build for the camera.  This segment was also not particularly tough to make, but was time consuming to divide up and streamline across each build.  In addition, the many moving parts did cause some lag for my computer.

https://youtu.be/PT89NoBkJWA

Senior Portfolio Spring Week 6

Senior Portfolio Post 6

3/7/19

For this week, I began work on a new project experimenting with LEGO brick building.  Not much animation takes place in this project, but it focuses more on the visualization of bricks appearing and moving into a formation.  This process takes quite some time to outfit, and will be important for future projects of mine.  This first iteration has a tool forming, mainly utilizing the visibility of objects.  Then, more pieces appear and move into place as part of the final build.  The project mainly revolves around translation and scaling of objects.

This was a project I began early concepts for last semester, and now I want to create the full proper animated scene.  It will be further fleshed out and diversified once the basic animation is figured out.

https://youtu.be/EjAXGpqWels

Advanced Production Progress Post 2

Advanced Production Progress Post 2

3/5/19

Following the previous post, as an animator I have been tasked with continuing block-out animations for the non-playable characters for the game.  Since the rig was not ready just yet, I along with other animators have used the Bodymech rigs to get a brief idea of how we and the project leads want the animations to look further down the line.  A preliminary rig was created and used as a further testing ground.  So far things have gone well in the beginning process.
My individual work focused on the "happy," "angry," and "nervous" personalities.  Each was mainly building upon previous weeks of work, adding in certain traits to differentiate one personality from another.  The basic animations consisted of a walk cycle, idle, sitting idle, sit down, stand up, drinking, and eating.  Each of these were to be completed for all personalities as rough animations.

I was also tasked with animating the front door for the tavern.  This job was simple and fairly easy to manage.  Through communication with the lead and modelers, I set up a preliminary set of open and close animations to be implemented into the game prototype.








Moving on from this batch of work, I will be moving forward with the personality animations.  I will be finessing each animation, as well as bringing them over to Unity for implementation into the official game build.  The official rig should be finished soon as well, so once that happens, my work will be dedicated to translating the movements of each personality animation over.

Senior Portfolio Spring Week 5

Senior Portfolio Post 5

2/28/19

For this week, I had a bit of "animator's block" and had a bit of trouble figuring out what to work on.  I was not quite motivated to continue work on previous projects early on, and instead opted to start a new animation first.

This new animation focuses on a single character going into a slide underneath a barrier.  This was created more haphazardly without much reference to go off of.  That is certainly one thing I will focus on later if need be.  Once critiques come in, I hope this could spark some new ideas connected.  One particular challenge was the multilateral transition from upright standing/running down into the actual slide.  As the LEGO character doesn't bend like a normal humanoid, rules must be broken, and illusion of motion must be utilized.  Certain pieces also have to be put in unnatural positions to make the movement readable.

https://youtu.be/NY1W9PdMrO0


After starting on the previous animation, I decided to go back to my project from a couple of weeks ago.  The boot-up of the mech with the character entering was a good start, and I wanted to go further with it.  Taking in critiques from the last session, I made adjustments to animations in places such as the arms, character entrance, cage fluctuation, and arm weight.  I also wanted to work on a better rig system for the legs, as they are not in inverse kinematics.  Applying new knowledge from rigging, I did a preliminary setup for the feet and leg movement that is somewhat independent of the main build, while still functioning with the mech as a whole.  It will need much more work, but so far it works better than expected.

https://youtu.be/W4k6vNcQ-Ng


https://youtu.be/nvxLj3aO6ns

Senior Portfolio Spring Week 4

Senior Portfolio Post 4

2/21/19

This week's work was primarily put towards blocking out animations for the 495 Advanced Production game project.  I continued work on different personality animation cycles happy and angry.  For each I prepared initial ideas for actions including idles, sitting down, drinking, walking, and more.  These are all meant to be early developments to be improved later when ideas are finalized, as well as when the official rig is completed.  Once that takes place, the blockouts can be referenced and proper, more streamlined animation can be focused on.

https://youtu.be/IbTMiM6T9AE



https://youtu.be/Maifynh4ksM



https://youtu.be/_4tYSMefeO4

 https://youtu.be/ZVxOkRtdu5Y

 https://youtu.be/c4bWvhmPPE8

Senior Portfolio Spring Week 3

Senior Portfolio Post 3

2/14/19

This week, I have continued experimenting with the mechs and characters from the previous week.  I have tried to create an animation merging the two styles.  The main focus is having them interact within the same environment, working together.  The character will hop into the mech, which will then power up and prepare for some sort of following action.  This was a test of constraints knowledge and knowing how to maneuver two sets of controls at the same time.  If all goes well, I plan to move forward with larger scenes with even more characters and such to keep track of.

https://youtu.be/2SaTMprS8fM

For my other animation focus projects, I have continued blocking out animations for Advanced Production NPCs, and their different personalities.  I began work with the new custom character rigs being produced for the game.  A different personality was the focus of this week, and I have compiled a few blockouts.  These will be further tweaked as the rig is updated, and I have established a better idea of how the respective personalities will look later on.