Week 6 - 28th Oct 19 (P.a.C.):
Behind the Scenes Video
Reflective Evaluation
We were asked individually to produce an animation which depicted a character going over a wall. I also had to think about the backstory about why the character was climbing over that wall. I also had to consider what material I would include and whether I would use Stop-motion, 2D or 3D. I selected 3D for this animation. The backstory for this character originally included incorporating a dog chasing the character over the wall and also falling over the character, however, after speaking with the Tutor it was decided that the dog would not be used because it would have been quite difficult to animate both the character and the dog and also I had not considered a reason why the dog would be included anyway. After further reflection I decided to make the story about an army assault course which the character had to get through, therefore the wall and the use of the javelin were included as part of the assault course obstacles.I felt quite stressed when I started to make the animation because I was initially unsure about how the character would move. After attempting to make the animation and work on the characters movements, I felt quite frustrated because I was unable to produce the right movements and I struggled to move forward. I also felt that I would not have enough time to complete the animation which added to my anxieties about this project.
Another factor which impacted on my feeling able to produce this work was my feeling physically uncomfortable when sat on my computer chair, as this was distracting me from focusing on the task. I therefore purchased a gaming chair, which was much more comfortable, and this helped me settle more into the production of the work as I felt more relaxed sat in this chair.
The feedback I got from my classmates in today's Formative Feedback day was very constructive but mostly negative.
Lewis (Me): It took me ages to do this animation, I refined it a lot of times. This bit (the javelin section of the animation) was the hardest, it was only 17 seconds long, but it took 3 hours to render.
Johny: “3 HOURS TO RENDER” with shock in his voice.
Jack: When he comes up the wall, is that meant to be.... something, where he just hovers in the air for a sec.
Lewis (Me): It's to exaggerate (the fall) more, it’s just to exaggerate the movement more.
Johny: OK, this is interesting right, now we got some different acting styles happening. What was it that you were trying to achieve, you wanted the character to have a more a 2D comedy kind of reason to it.
Gaston: It looks like a windup toy in the way that it moves.
Johny: And that might be the result of your blocking process and splining. When did you decide to spline it. Did you do that from the get-go?
I don't know the question Johny has asked above about splining, so I just answered with this statement:
Lewis (Me): Yeah, I was struggling with the fall, I did an example of the fall and I had it in IK (For the hands) and the hands were like in the middle and they weren't working very well so then I tried it (the fall animation) again and it was a bit better but that fall I was struggling with.
Johny: So you think that part (walk to the javelin) was a bit like a robotic move.
Lewis (Me): It just the jumping bit. That was the hard bit.
Johny: That bit there (walking to the javelin), I think essentially he got tense hands. Remember the arm swings tend to be relative to the amount of energy you put in forward. So, if he's just walking over to that (Javelin), you know the frame rate for a slow walk, it moderate the walk as well so doesn't have to swing his arms so far. With the run at the beginning, my only comments would be a run would typically have parabolas. It's a point in a run where the character is in mid-air, he's air born. Ballistic phase… [?] When the character is landing, maybe you could emphasise the more.
[?] Ballistic phase - trajectory that includes three phases: boost phase, midcourse phase, and terminal phase. (Missile Defence Agency, 2004)
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| Figure 1: Ballistic Missile Arc (Source: Missile Defence Agency, 2004) |
I use the animation survival kit book Section on runs to help me with the run.
Johny: When we are looking at it on the screen, you could just pushed those poses a bit more. It's not reworking it, it going in a tweaking. It just looks like he's not having enough weight, I think 2D is more forgiving for that. The bit where he falls down, it might be if you going for 2D style whilst he stuck in mid-air you could have him (shock and looking around for help [F6 - Coyote]), waving his arms (scared), not like he's swimming but if it for 2D comedy, you want him to flap and fall.
Jack: Like a help sign.
Coco: Did you use the graph editor? During the run part, there's a part where it stays in the air kind of like a pause. It might be that just the graph editor needs a bit of a halt firm manoeuvre.The graph editor used used a lot in this exercise but it might not look like it from this animation but I'm still learning how to use it effectively.
Johny: It's really an ambitious sequence you got, you've got this entire situation worked out. What I would suggest at this stage is, like you said it took hours to render. Lets not think about the rough surface just yet. Don't think of the render process and just be purely interested and focused on just the movement, not the light and shadows. So if you make a change and your waiting to render it before you see a change that's impacting on your animation characters.After ever move I did in Maya I didn't just click render so I could see the movement I used the in software real time rendering by clicking the play button on the timeline.
Johny: Do you know with the javelin? Did you actually rig that as well. I would be attempted to put a lot more anticipation for the step back, if you watch people throwing a javelin, the body the pose, is really dramatic pose. Because he's not running with the javelin, in a standing position, to get enough force to really throw it, he got to wind himself up first and maybe even step through like he putting all that energy forward, he might start to tumble forward, you might want to put a step in there to catch himself after.I didn't rig the javelin to buckid hand but I tried to parent it to the rig but had some problems of the javelin being move into the air then causing a shadow on the plane for me to find like the 'Where's Wally' books. I should of looked at a lot more reference into athletes throwing javelins for reference but that's my fault when I wanted to chose a throw that was harder to do than just a ball which I've done a bounce for last year so wanted to challenge myself this year, which I definitely did.
Caroline: I think you should put a little more wrist movement in it because right now it looks like its some rocket in someway being repelled out of the hand.This exercise was design to challenge all of my skills and I had to make it harder by using a different object to the generic bouncy ball most of the past students have used. Making me use all the 12 principles of animation. So it won't be an easy feet to overcome and should frighten me to the core to make me a better animator. I just need to chose where to put the most effort in to make my skills get better and better over time.
On reflection I initially experienced issues around the character’s movement, whereby I was unable to visualise how the character would move. Williams (2001) highlights that animators should always try to escape from realism and tap into their personal world of imagination. However, as I sometimes find this difficult to do, I asked my mum for her feedback about my animation because I acknowledged that I was experiencing difficulties in visualising the characters movements. My mum suggested that I watched her move so that I could gain a deeper visual insight into movement in general and apply this to my work. This worked well for me and with my mum’s verbal feedback regarding using the software controls I was able to produce more realistic and exaggerated movements in my character.
I also carried out additional research by reading the book ‘Animation Survival Kit’ by Richard (Williams, 2001). I learnt how to make the character run by following the instructions within the book and found this very useful and successful for my work. I also gained knowledge in relation to making my characters move more naturally, which I had been unable to do before reading this book – See Image.
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| Figure 2: A.S.K. Book Cover (Source: Williams, 2001) |
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| Figure 3: A.S.K. Leg Positions (Source: Williams, 2001 [P.192]) |
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| Figure 4: A.S.K. Exaggerated Leg & Arm Positions (Source: Williams, 2001 [P.193]) |
In relation to my character climbing the wall, I experienced difficulties with this aspect of work and therefore decided to use reference footage from YouTube. My doing this, this enabled me to produce animation of my character jumping up the wall, climbing and pulling himself up and also swinging his legs over the wall. This task was very difficult because I had not done this before, however, referring to the video enabled me to follow visual instructions in a step-by-step manner and a pace which worked for me (TappBrothers, 2017)
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| Figure 5: Muscle Man Climbs Wall (Source: TappBrothers, 2017) |
Action Plan
On reflection I now recognise that I need to carry out further research around natural and exaggerated movement within animation to extend on my new skills in this area.
I also plan on working on my tutor feedback which suggested that I work on the fall part of my animation as this was too rigid. I will therefore use more movement such as arms and legs flailing and the use of captions such as ‘help’ when my character is falling off the top of the wall. I could also use signs within my animation such as ‘help’ mirroring the cartoon from Warner Brothers such as the Coyote and Road Runner (Hunter, 2014).
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| Figure 6: Wile E. Coyote The Canyon Fall Gag (Source: Looney Tunes Wiki, 2019) |
References
Hunter, M. (2014). The Many Falls of Wile E. Coyote [Video file]. Retrieved from https://dai.ly/x20me30
Missile Defence Agency, (2004). Ballistic Missile Defence Challenge. Retrieved from https://media.nti.org/pdfs/10_5.pdf [- Figure 1]
TappBrothers, (2017, 23 Dec). How To Climb Walls Without Upper Body Strength - The Military Heel Hook [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/pSdx6fU_Nf4 [- Figure 5]
The Canyon Fall Gag. (Last Updated: 2019). Looney Tunes Wiki. Retrieved from https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/The_Canyon_Fall_Gag [- Figure 6]
Williams, R. (2001). The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators (pp. 346). Retrieved from http://index-of.co.uk/Animation/The%20_Animator%27s_Survival_Kit.pdf [- Figure 2,3, 4]
