IK Lock

This is post is really from last semester but I thought it would be fun to share here.  Inevitably when working on any long form project in CG, particularly in Maya, things like to break.  I haven't done a good job cataloging all of my  digital fumbles thus far but this is certainly the worst I've encountered.  We've discovered that something got changed between Maya 2014 which the character was rigged in and 2015 which I'm animating in causing certain rigging nodes to behave in strange ways.  So for some reason, my poor girl's leg IK locks up and won't bend at the knee.  Fortunately I found a work around but it does create some funky walks.

Creating Grass

This week has been dedicated to working out my pipeline for creating the complex environments for my film.  It takes place in a fantasy forest clearing with involves lots of plants, which in turn involves lots and lots of polygons.  Millions of polygons -- dare I say, Billions of polygons!!!

Muah-ha-ha

This process involves using a particle emitter to generate particles on my ground plane and then using a geometry instancer to replace each particle with a grass clump allowing the scene to render with a relatively small RAM foot print.

A similar process is used on the trees which are Mental Ray proxies to allow me to render a whole forest with little to no extra impact on my working scene.

This process involves some clever coding, of which I can take no credit for.  I simply found the right pieces of expressions I needed and copied them into my workflow.

After a long two days of this I'm coming to the realization that it may not be feasible to use this approach for the entire film and get it rendered in time.  I'm going to do a test on a radically different non-photoreal approach as a quick alternative.  I'll report back soon with my findings.

Blocking Animation

I've been working on the blocking animation this week.  This process has been slow because I'm starting to lay down all the ideas I want to convey in a shot but the bodies aren't moving properly yet so it's not pleasing to look at this stage.  Angie describes this process as the "heavy lifting" of the shot -- once I have the general motion and timing worked out, I'll do another pass where I address the body mechanics to ensure that the weight and balance are correct.  Then I can move onto the fun part of adding details and polish to make the motion smooth.

Here is one of the more difficult shot in the film that involves to two characters interacting.  I feel confident it is headed in the right direction.

Character Design

The film focuses on the relationship between a young scavenger and the elemental earth golem she awakens in her search for a meal.  My goal with these characters was to represent two different scales  and styles for the animation.  She is small, nimble, capable -- while he is somewhat slow, dumb, singularly focused.  I also thought it would be an interesting challenge to design a character made of earth and stone.

Here are the original style guides for what I wanted to achieve with the characters.

Here are two action frames of the characters.

Here are the final character turnarounds.

Style Frames

The film takes place in a lush and mysterious forest with magical elements woven throughout.  I'm drawing inspiration heavily from the descriptions of the old forest and Mirkwood in The Lord of the Rings.  I want the environment to have a striking screen presence and set the stage for the action that takes place in the film.

Here are some of the style frame I prepared for the art direction of the environment.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my MFA thesis animation blog.  Over the next 17 weeks I will be feverishly working to complete my thesis film.  I am creating a 3 minute film called "The Golem of Eridell" in 3d animation.  My primary focus with this work is on character performance animation and cinematic layout.  Currently, I am 2/3 of the way through the rough animation phase and hope to soon move into refining and polishing the animation.  Check back soon for updates.