3DVA Links

3DVA Links

This is the link to all my 3DVA blog post.

Character Design
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/character-design.html

Spiderman Poses
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/spiderman-poses.html

Spiderman Poses II
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/spiderman-poses-ii.html

Spiderman Poses III
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/spiderman-poses-iii.html

Eleven Rig (further posing practice)
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/posing-further-practice-elevenrig.html

Eleven Rig II
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/posing-further-practice-elevenrig-ii.html

Eleven Rig III
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/posing-further-practice-elevenrig-iii.html

Rigging
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/01/rigging.html

Animation - Spiderman Weight Shift
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/02/animation-spiderman-weight-shift.html

Animation - Big Dog
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/02/animation-big-dog.html

Assignment Walk Cycle
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/02/assignment-walk-cycle.html

Assignment Jump
http://rongzong2.blogspot.com/2012/02/assignment-boxjump.html



Assignment - Walk Cycle

Assignment - Walk Cycle

For the first part of the assignment, we are required to do a longer walk cycle for around 10 seconds. It is definitely a very tedious and I would say... lots of concentration were needed for this assignment.

I had definitely face lots of problems while doing this assignment. In the beginning, I thought it would be easy to just copy and paste the previous work that I had done for the walk cycle, however, it was not as easy as I thought. Becuase the walk needs to be moved forward (Translate Z), if is just copied and paste, the model would just look like it is shuffling on the spot. Even though I tried to shift the model at the Translate Z, the legs/hands/body/etc, must all be shifted together and the timing must be right so that they would be able to move together. Any small mistake in shifting the whole model wrongly would result in the whole animation looking very weird, therefore, I had definitely learnt not to be lazy and do it the long and tedious way because I realized that when I do it using the shortcut method, I will find myself facing more problem.

The main thing about this animation, firstly, is to follow any simple reference and get the main key poses first. Thus, I have decided to use this as my reference:







It is a very simple reference and it is also quite easy to follow. After doing all the key poses, the next thing to do is the timing. I realized how important the timing is because at any point of time, if the timing is wrong, the walk may suddenly be fast or the walk may suddenly be slow. Moreover, the walk should look natural.

After doing the timing, I went to edit on the walk. For example, some of the leg might be going down lower than the "ground". Some of the legs might be stretched too long/ some of the leg movement are a little too fast. Basically, I came to an editing stage where I edit small little details on the legs, timing, etc.

While I was editing the graph editor, I didnt know how to begin because there were WAY TOO MANY graphs and it took me the LONGEST time because I have to slowly visualize the graph with the model as well as how am I going to edit it. Editing the graph is another tedious job. There are small little details like the graph going over the "point", extra frames that doesnt show on the timeline but it is on the graph.

After I am done with the basic walking, the next thing I did was to do hip movements. I was trying to do the hip rotation and when the animation is looked from the front view, there should be a "figure of 8".After completing the hips, I moved on to the hands movement. The hands movement wasnt that difficult because the hands would be moving in the oppositie direction that the respective legs. So when the left leg moves forward, the left hand moves backwards (vice versa).

This is how the final walk cycle looks!

Perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a99Sbga0qI&feature=youtu.be
Side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCcHcZoOA5Q&feature=youtu.be
Front: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6GoYmzmC3U&feature=youtu.be
Overall, it is definitely a very fun yet tedious and I have learnt alot from doing this assignment.

Assignment - Box/Jump

Assignment - Box/Jump

At first, I thought the first part of the assignment was tough and tedious enough, however, when I start to do the second part of this assignment, it was even more tedious and theres more things to do. For this part of the assignment, we are required to make the model walk up a few stairs and then jump down. It sounded quite easy, however, when starting to do the animation, it really isnt as easy as I thought.

The front part of the animation is still acceptable because is still walk cycle, however, when the model starts to move towards the "stairs", I didnt know what the next pose would be. These are some of the reference that I had searched for.

This is the main video that I referenced while doing the assignment. I noticed the weight when the character is climbing up the stairs.

Another video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTgm27EeZRI

I took a very long time to do the poses for the character while climbing up the stairs because I was a little messed up with the coordination of the legs, hands and how the waist should be like - Basically, the main weight shift while climbing the stairs.Another thing that I struggled was the jumping. It also took me quite some time as I was thinking what are the key poses.


This is how the final work looks like:
Perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5trXQ1vJVk&feature=youtu.be
Side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhdB5dam00o&feature=youtu.be
Front: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gBfmEbxcV4&feature=youtu.be

I would say, even though i struggled alot, I am still satisfied with the overall final work because I had learnt so much from all the problems that I faced.

Animation - Big Dog

Animation - Big Dog

For this exerise, it is basically to apply everything that we had learnt from the previous exercise.

1. If engineered or programmed badly, BigDog would fall over. Watch the full video again, and describe how BigDog’s legs move while walking– ie. what is the sequence of leg movements for one complete step? Use the terms BL, BR, FL, and FR for the back-left, back-right, front-left and front-right legs.

Basically, the sequene of the leg movements are FR -> BL -> FL -> BR

2. Explain how this sequence of movements manages to balance BigDog’s body weight.

When the body is being pushed to one side, the centre of gravity would have been shifted and in order to not fall over, the legs would cross over to the other quickly (as shown in the video) to balance the weight of the BigDog and balance the centre of gravity.

3. Look at BigDog_kick_slow_motion.mov. Draw a storyboard of BigDog stabilising itself after being kicked.

 

For this exercise, the main thing is to get the sequence of the leg movement to be right. In addition, the shifting of the weight after it has been kicked. To start of the animation, the first thing is to get the main key poses. Compared to the previous exercise, this exercise is more difficult as you have to check that at every key pose, the bigdog is balanced, and when it moves on to the next pose, there is a weight shift.

This is the first attempt of my animation:

I was quite satisfied with my work, however, there wasn't a proper ending at the end thus, i tried to add and give it an ending. What I had included in this animation is when it finally comes to a stop and I tried to make it shift back a little because it should not stop immediate, it should show a slight ease out.

Afterall, there were lots of things to take note for this exercise, such as: Key Poses, Weight Shifting, Ease in Ease Out, Timing and anticipation.

Overall, I believe I can do better for this animation and it is definitely more challenging than the previous exercise.

Animation - Spiderman Weight Shift

Animation - Spiderman Weight Shift

This simple exercise had taught me how to do weight shift from one leg to another and to also remember to apply the principles of animation.

Zoomed in:





Before doing, visualization of weight shifting on a person is needed as you need to know how does the weight actually shift when you change the leg. I would say that this exercise would require observation. Moreover, references would definitely help to make this exercise easier.

In my opinion, as for this exercise, I would not say that it is easy, nor do I say is difficult. The principles of animation must be applied and making the weight shift more realistic. Such as using ease in, ease out.

Here are some of the references:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu_jgIfi7SQ

Rigging

Rigging

For this lab, it is teaching us how to do rigging on the model. Basically, in order to start the animation, we need to rig the model first to give it like a "skeleton".

For the past few labs, rigging has already been done for us and we just have to use the rig to make the model do some poses. However, now, we have to start to learn to rig our models!

This is how the model looks like, without any rigging. So basically, we need to follow the video tutorials and start to rig this model.

In the beginning, I thought it would be easy to rig this model because we had done rigging before during Introduction to 3D. However, we never did rigging on human character, instead, is just a simple "robot". After going through some of the videos, I realized it wasnt as easy and there were lots of things to take note of!

There was one part where I got totally stucked and it took me LOTS of time! The part that I got stuck was at the hand.

In the video, the person mentioned that once you click on orient, the fingers/hand should not move, if it moves, something is wrong, however, I have no idea which part I was wrong! But what I know is, after I click, the skeleton of the rigging went wrong and it seem to stretch longer!

I ended up redoing from scratch and the problem was solve, however, till now, I wasnt sure what went wrong that causes that to happen!

After doing the exercise, I realised that rigging is really tough. It need full concentration to get it done and any small mistakes must be solved first before moving on if not there will be more problems that might arise!

Overall, I think rigging is quite complicated and it definitely take me the longest time to complete. In addition, I find it hard to understand and difficult to digest the informations and the final rigging wasnt that good either.

There were still some problem with the rigging therefore, it can only do simple poses. This is just a random poses that I did using the rig.

Posing - Further Practice (ElevenRig) III

Posing - Further Practice (ElevenRig) III

Pose 3:

Reference Image: http://cruiseweb.com/rci-imagelibrary/RCI_Jewel_BasketballGame-w540.jpg

For this pose, I manage to do quite fast as I already know what are the things to look out for after doing so many poses. HOWEVER, I had accidentally shifted the skeleton of the model and thus, I decided to redo the pose again.

I didnt really face any problem in doing this pose, cause I know where the weight should be on and how the body position should be at. But what I failed to do so is to make the hand look more straight. In the reference image, the hand is more straightened rather than bend.

Thus, after shifting the hands and do some other rearrangement, this is the final work of the pose!

After doing so many poses, I start to realise on the small little details such as adjusting a little angle here and there to make it more realistic and ensure that the action that the model is doing is smooth and natural!

Moreover, balancing the model is really important if not, it would look weird!

After doing so many of the poses, I learnt that rigging is not that hard, but it takes lots of concentration and theres lots of thinking involved. In addition, I understand more about human body/proportion and how small little changes in the model can make the character looks more real!