3D Animation Project

                               Having discussed about the animation principles in the last blog post, I have done some more research and stumbled upon a book called ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’ by Richard Williams. I have spent some time reading the book throughout the week and found several interesting topics that I will be taking notes on today. Although the book is aimed mostly at 2D animation and hand-drawn animation in general, some of the topics presented techniques that are still used to this day. Greek pot illustration found in the book                                 In the first several chapters of the book up to page 41, Williams talks about his career as an animator and his experiences. He also takes on the history of animation and how animation progressed since ancient...

             As I have mentioned in the last blog post, I will be discussing about the set of animations I intend to realise by the end of this project and the main principles that I will have to focus on. The principles will be used to determine to what extent were the animation sets done well, or poorly. The set of animations             When I was still deciding on what type of animations I should go for, I kept in mind the fact that I have no experience animating a 3D model yet. That in turn led me to think about how I should start with the core animation cycles rather than go straight into, for example, a fast paced Kung Foo fight type of animation. So I have decided to learn how to animate by starting with an indispensable animation for game characters – and that’s the walking and/or running animation cycle. Essentially, an animation cycle is ‘used to create a sequence that can be rep...

Last week I have met with the specialist tutor from my course and had a chat about what the overall scope for this project is and to what extent can the final artefact be assessed as meeting the criteria given the current circumstances. For example, in my proposal document I am talking about qualifiers such as ‘convincing, compelling or versatile’ animation, albeit the information was never discussed or mentioned on this blog. Additionally, I have not given any particular reason for choosing to animate a bipedal human model either. As such, in the following blog posts I will be discussing about the questions that I have left unanswered until now, admittedly rushing into the development of the final artefact too soon. The model The overall scope of this project is to successfully prepare and animate a biped model in 3D Studio Max. I have chosen to animate a bipedal 3D model based on the results of my research that I have conducted prior to starting the project. Upon ch...

            In the last post ‘ Rigging – Part 1 ’ I have concluded that the basic biped rig system 3DS Max has to offer is not suitable for this type of project, so I’ve decided to build my own custom rig (skeleton). Doing so has several advantages over using the pre-set rig, such as the ability to assign custom controllers, custom IK and FK chains, constraints and more.             Using the ‘Bones’ systems tool, I have first created the body skeleton of the model starting with the first spine bone and moving up towards the head. Although you can have as many as 6 spine bones in total, during my research I have found out that 3 spine bones are usually enough for animating a human character model, such as mine. As such, I have given the spine a realistic curvature that follows the posture of the model, as it will help with setting up the IK chains at a later point. I did not forget to accurate...

Having already sourced the model and applied the corresponding textures, I have decided it’s time to take on the rigging aspect of the project. The rigging process started by creating the basic ‘biped’ (human) rig using 3DS Max’s option available under the ‘Create -> Systems -> Biped’ menu. The said option allows the user to create a full human-like rig with already set IK (Inverse Kinematics) chains and such. After creating the rig, I had to move it inside the mesh and scale it so that it fit the said mesh. To do that, I had the mesh frozen into place and then turned on the ‘See-through’ option in order to make the whole process more convenient. As the rig essentially represents the internal bone structure of a character, I had to rescale and reposition each bone to fit within the sizes of the mesh. I have started by rotating and scaling the pelvis bone and moved up towards the head of the character, as seen in a video tutorial by the content creator ‘BitHalo’. I have...

I have begun my search for a 3D model as soon as I have finished researching everything I needed to know beforehand.   As I have had the privilege of learning 3D Modelling to a decent level during my previous years at the university, I knew exactly what to look for in a bipedal model. What I was searching for is a free 3D model of a human male character with great mesh topology that facilitates animation. I have to mention that at first I thought sourcing the model will be a fast process taking into consideration the vast amount of 3D assets sites available at my (and everyone else’s) disposal, but I was quickly about to be proven wrong. My first stop was a site titled ‘Turbosquid’. They had an enormous amount of both royalty free and paid models to choose from. However, I have soon come to realise I wasn’t really happy with the free available choices. A lot of the models were representations of various cartoons characters, and a lot of other models were already rigged, sk...

After establishing the necessary skills for a 3D Animator job role, I had to get a better understanding of what the processes involved in animation were and how do they work. Upon research, I have found out that there are two things that needed to be done in order to prepare the 3D model for animation. Those two processes are, in order: o    Rigging the model o    Skinning the model Rigging a model of any kind, be it a bipedal human or a different kind of creature, implies creating a ‘rig’ for the said model. A ‘rig’ is in its essence the skeleton of the chosen model. So, 3D rigging is ‘the process of creating a skeleton for a 3D model so it can move’ (Pluralsight, 2014). The process usually takes place first as without a rig the model can’t be moved or deformed, so it cannot be animated either. In order to create and enable control of a skeleton, the users are able to use a variety of tools. The tools I am interested in are: 1.   ...

In order to get a better understanding of what the people in the industry are looking for, I have started searching for job adverts from different studios or companies that needed a person to fulfil the role of a ‘3D Animator Artist’. The searching parameters were set to cover the whole England for the results to be as varied as possible, although the majority of adverts or job offers came out as based in London. Upon conducting the research, several key skills kept being listed in most of the job adverts I have gone through. Those skills are as follows: ·          Strong knowledge of major 3D software packages (such as Maya or 3DS Max) ·          Animating a human bipedal figure as well as other organic forms ·          Experience with rigging inside Maya or other 3D software equivalent ·          Understandin...