Considering all the problems i had with my group i am just glad to have finished the film.
The film is no where near the standard that i would have hoped for. But this was due to lack of time.
Having a full team for only 6-7 weeks was not really enough to reach the films full potential.
I was pleased with some of my own efforts. My modeling has definitely improved by working on this project. I have also seen the animation pipeline in process, and learned from this.
I have been chucked in at the deep end and had to survive on my own for a long period of time. This did however force me to keep working as i knew the film rested on my shoulders.
Keeping motivated was the key thing for me, The help and support i received from people on the course and from tutors was very encouraging. and helped spur me on,
I can be proud that i managed to get a film made. Even though i am not fully happy with it.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Rigging
I had never made a rig before and didn't really know what i was doing. This is the reason why i used an auto-rig to make prospector rig
see technical folder.
The auto rig even set up mst of the weights, i just had to tweak them a little bit to get them to fit the character.
I was very dissapointed with the rig as a whole and would have definitely preferred to out source it. I did not know of anyone who could do it though, SO in order to get the film done i had to make do with what i could
As i didn't like the character rig i didn't attempt to use the same thing for the dog, so i got James waters to do the rig for that.
Again i just had to weight it. Despite various issues. i managed to get something that was workable.
The bird only needed movement available in its wings and eyes.
Therefore i built a very crude skeleton and painted weights to allow this.
see technical for the rig itself.
see animation for the rig in action
see technical folder.
The auto rig even set up mst of the weights, i just had to tweak them a little bit to get them to fit the character.
I was very dissapointed with the rig as a whole and would have definitely preferred to out source it. I did not know of anyone who could do it though, SO in order to get the film done i had to make do with what i could
As i didn't like the character rig i didn't attempt to use the same thing for the dog, so i got James waters to do the rig for that.
Again i just had to weight it. Despite various issues. i managed to get something that was workable.
The bird only needed movement available in its wings and eyes.
Therefore i built a very crude skeleton and painted weights to allow this.
see technical for the rig itself.
see animation for the rig in action
Rendering and compositing
I had originally planned to do all of the composition for the film. However due to time restrictions i had to get help in this area. I therefore only ended up comping one scene, This was just putting the hand with the pan in over the underwater scene.
(See animation folder.)
The shot was orgininlly designed so that the hand would go behind the plants on the left of the screen.
However when rendering layers i found that the colours had changed on the front plants. This was due to the way the scene was set up, to mimic the reflections and refractions under the water.
The colour change was too drastic from the rest of the scene and would not have looked good at all.
The only way around this problem was to keep the front plants in a layer with the rest of the scene and move the Hand away from the plants. By having it here, i could still show the illusion of the hand being in the water,
It would however have been better to get the plants to be in front of the hand. This would have show a better sense of depth.
When rendering my final shots, i mde sure that all the scenes had their own ambient occlusion. This would highlight the models better and help show detail. This was achieved by setting up render layers.
I mainly stuck to two main ones per shot, With that being beauty and ambient occlusion.
No Ambient Occlusion
With Ambient Occlusion
I would sometimes add extra layers, but this was only to sepate the layers in whcih characters would be on.
I did not really see much nbenifit in having several render passes. This was mainly due to my film being cartoony. I have found in the past that the render passes can be very affective when trying to achive photo real result as you can have more control of the final images. This was not neccessary for my film though.
(See animation folder.)
The shot was orgininlly designed so that the hand would go behind the plants on the left of the screen.
However when rendering layers i found that the colours had changed on the front plants. This was due to the way the scene was set up, to mimic the reflections and refractions under the water.
The only way around this problem was to keep the front plants in a layer with the rest of the scene and move the Hand away from the plants. By having it here, i could still show the illusion of the hand being in the water,
It would however have been better to get the plants to be in front of the hand. This would have show a better sense of depth.
When rendering my final shots, i mde sure that all the scenes had their own ambient occlusion. This would highlight the models better and help show detail. This was achieved by setting up render layers.
I mainly stuck to two main ones per shot, With that being beauty and ambient occlusion.
No Ambient Occlusion
With Ambient Occlusion
I would sometimes add extra layers, but this was only to sepate the layers in whcih characters would be on.
I did not really see much nbenifit in having several render passes. This was mainly due to my film being cartoony. I have found in the past that the render passes can be very affective when trying to achive photo real result as you can have more control of the final images. This was not neccessary for my film though.
Lighting
Having never had much experience with lighting i was keen to learn. However it quickly became apparent that although i could get good results some times, it was proving hard to keep the same look over the whole environment. My main lighting tests were with the tent and i felt like i was producing some good results.
The story of the film relies on the fact that the prospector has had a hard day at work before we see him, this would imply that our scene needed to reflect lighting that would show it was the end of the day and coming towards the evening. the sky would play a big part here but that was to be comped in, and colour corrected. I went for long shadows as the sun would be getting lower in the sky.
I used a fairly basic three point light system to get the highlights on the tent , but added an ambient light in to soften it all up and give the shadows. Looking pretty good i thought.
However when it came to rendering the scenes we were left with some slight issues. The lighting was not consistent all over the scene. The lights were only really set up for this area.
I was there fore left with inconsistent renders, where some scenes were lighter than others.
image1
In image 1 the lights were far too dark and compared with the next shot (image2) were not consistent. This was no good.
image 2
image3
The only was i could get the lights to be consistent was to light for each shot. This meant going in to the scene and moving the lights around so that they would match the other scenes.
I kept the basic set up still, by leaving the ambient light alone, this would act as the sun and then just having three directional lights placed to show highlights of the model, and to try and replicate real lighting.
Im sure there must be a better way to do things but i did not have the time to spend days or weeks learning lighting techniques. Although moving the lights took time it was probably quicker this time around. With a deadline approaching fast i had no time to spare,
Lighting is definitely one area that lets the final film down. If i was to do this project again i would either spend alot of time learning ways to light an outdoor scene, or i would outscource this part of the film
One scene which was completly different from the rest would require its own unique lighting.
The under water shot
(See Technical Folder.)
This scene required me to find a way to get an underwater look. Lighting was key here. There would naturally be a thickness to the water which would mean that vision would be limited. To start with i experimented with environment fog to try and achieve this.
I kind of like the look so decided to put some different props in, that would be more liek the final thing.
although it looks a little like underwater it does not look nearly good enough for hat i wanted.
instead i opted to go down another route. I attempted to approach the scene i a more technical way and decided to look at examples to help me see what i would need.
The main focus in each of the is the lights reflecting in the water. The Caustics.
I would need to get the ripple effect on the floor as well as having the light highlight the underwater plants and rocks as well as the seabed.
For this i created a spot light. I then made the light so it would only emit photons. but no lights. these photons would be what we see as the reflected light.
I would need somethig for it to pass through to show up and moce though. Fo this i just created a ocean shader and played with the settinguntill i got the waves looking how i liked.
When projected through the ocean shaer i was getting the Causics effect that i wasted, howver it was only on the floor.
To solve this i had to line the scene with more of these ocean shader planes so that the light would hit more to pass through.
Im very happy with the way this scene came out, considering this is the first time ive ever made a shot like this i was pleased with my results.
I t was interesting to see how certain lights reacted with different surfaces in this. I had never really considered this concept before.
Lighting is definitely something which i feel i would like to experiment more with. Im sure there is plenty for me to learn too.
My only slight criticism if this scene is the highlights on the plants, it would have been nice to get a better spread of light moving around. I think i would have to play with the surface i was sending the photons through to get this to change. if i was to do it again.
The story of the film relies on the fact that the prospector has had a hard day at work before we see him, this would imply that our scene needed to reflect lighting that would show it was the end of the day and coming towards the evening. the sky would play a big part here but that was to be comped in, and colour corrected. I went for long shadows as the sun would be getting lower in the sky.I used a fairly basic three point light system to get the highlights on the tent , but added an ambient light in to soften it all up and give the shadows. Looking pretty good i thought.
However when it came to rendering the scenes we were left with some slight issues. The lighting was not consistent all over the scene. The lights were only really set up for this area.
I was there fore left with inconsistent renders, where some scenes were lighter than others.
image1
In image 1 the lights were far too dark and compared with the next shot (image2) were not consistent. This was no good.
image 2
image3
The only was i could get the lights to be consistent was to light for each shot. This meant going in to the scene and moving the lights around so that they would match the other scenes.
I kept the basic set up still, by leaving the ambient light alone, this would act as the sun and then just having three directional lights placed to show highlights of the model, and to try and replicate real lighting.
Im sure there must be a better way to do things but i did not have the time to spend days or weeks learning lighting techniques. Although moving the lights took time it was probably quicker this time around. With a deadline approaching fast i had no time to spare,
Lighting is definitely one area that lets the final film down. If i was to do this project again i would either spend alot of time learning ways to light an outdoor scene, or i would outscource this part of the film
One scene which was completly different from the rest would require its own unique lighting.
The under water shot
(See Technical Folder.)
This scene required me to find a way to get an underwater look. Lighting was key here. There would naturally be a thickness to the water which would mean that vision would be limited. To start with i experimented with environment fog to try and achieve this.
I kind of like the look so decided to put some different props in, that would be more liek the final thing.
although it looks a little like underwater it does not look nearly good enough for hat i wanted.
instead i opted to go down another route. I attempted to approach the scene i a more technical way and decided to look at examples to help me see what i would need.
I would need to get the ripple effect on the floor as well as having the light highlight the underwater plants and rocks as well as the seabed.
I would need somethig for it to pass through to show up and moce though. Fo this i just created a ocean shader and played with the settinguntill i got the waves looking how i liked.
When projected through the ocean shaer i was getting the Causics effect that i wasted, howver it was only on the floor.
To solve this i had to line the scene with more of these ocean shader planes so that the light would hit more to pass through.
I t was interesting to see how certain lights reacted with different surfaces in this. I had never really considered this concept before.
Lighting is definitely something which i feel i would like to experiment more with. Im sure there is plenty for me to learn too.
My only slight criticism if this scene is the highlights on the plants, it would have been nice to get a better spread of light moving around. I think i would have to play with the surface i was sending the photons through to get this to change. if i was to do it again.
Textures
To stick with the cartoony look of the film it was important that the textures were done correctly.
I was left to texture everything in the film except for the prospector, the dog and the cliff face.
Whilst doing this i had to make sure i kept with the style of the film.
For the tent i wanted to have a fairly real looking texture, so i found this canvas texture. However, to make it more cartoony i decided to add patches to it. For this i painted it in Photoshop. Once i had that i was able map the file onto the tent. The only problem i had here was that i only wanted the patches on the outside part of the tent rather than all over. This meant that i had to uv map the outside part separately in order to add the canvas texture with the patches.
For the rest of the tent it just used the canvas texture without the patches.
To get the material to look natural i had to add a bump map. In order to get the material to look correct i found the best was was to simply make the canvas image into a black and white image and up the contrast. This meant the whites would stand out more and therefore help create the bump depth i was after.
As mentioned in my post about UV's, For the cooking pot i wanted a scorched look. I had tried to find a texture that would work but was not really finding anything that would fit with the cartoony look. I therefore decided to modify an existing texture. I took the brushed metal texture and using the uv map painted the black scorch marks into the right place. This then left me with the pot looking more like what i wanted.
I would have liked it to look better. I dont feel like it properly looks like a burnt pot would do however i had to make do, as i did not have anyone else that could do it. and this was the best i could do with the time i had available.
As you can see, up close it is definitely nothing special. However in the film there are no shots where the pot is seen close up, so from a far i think i can get away with the texture i made.
Textures, have never really been a huge strong point for me however i am always happy to have a go, and will often get pretty decent results. However there was one prop for the film which proved particularly difficult for me. This was mainly down to me not knowing how to go about it. The texture in question, was the for the branches of the trees. I decided very early on that the trees would need to fit the style and therefore i did not want to go down the route of using photos as Alpha maps. This left me with a problem, initiallally i decided to have a go at painting atexture for them and try and use brush strokes to give the illusion of leaves and blend colours to try and get a mox of tone. However, i have no real talent for painting and this left me with poor results.
I was not happy with the results, the trees seen on the left were what i was aiming for when modeling and texturing the trees. i was hoping to have the detail on the trees in the texture.
To try and achve this i decided to use a fibres effect from photoshop.
By making the colour green i got a look that i liked, it looks cartoony, bit also as if there are many pine needles in the texture.
I therefore went with this. If doing trees again i think i would have like to have the properly painted. I have seen excellent cartoony looking results using this method I just didn't have the resources to do it myself.
I was left to texture everything in the film except for the prospector, the dog and the cliff face.
Whilst doing this i had to make sure i kept with the style of the film.
For the rest of the tent it just used the canvas texture without the patches.
I would have liked it to look better. I dont feel like it properly looks like a burnt pot would do however i had to make do, as i did not have anyone else that could do it. and this was the best i could do with the time i had available.
Textures, have never really been a huge strong point for me however i am always happy to have a go, and will often get pretty decent results. However there was one prop for the film which proved particularly difficult for me. This was mainly down to me not knowing how to go about it. The texture in question, was the for the branches of the trees. I decided very early on that the trees would need to fit the style and therefore i did not want to go down the route of using photos as Alpha maps. This left me with a problem, initiallally i decided to have a go at painting atexture for them and try and use brush strokes to give the illusion of leaves and blend colours to try and get a mox of tone. However, i have no real talent for painting and this left me with poor results.
I was not happy with the results, the trees seen on the left were what i was aiming for when modeling and texturing the trees. i was hoping to have the detail on the trees in the texture.
To try and achve this i decided to use a fibres effect from photoshop.
By making the colour green i got a look that i liked, it looks cartoony, bit also as if there are many pine needles in the texture.
I therefore went with this. If doing trees again i think i would have like to have the properly painted. I have seen excellent cartoony looking results using this method I just didn't have the resources to do it myself.
Fluid simulation
A couple of shots in the film feature a waterfall.
I had used fluid effects in the past, after looking at the results that could be gained i decided this would be the best way to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=356PMFKY904&feature=related
I found a useful tutorial to help me out, http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/duncan/waterfall_using_fluids_and_nparticles
I used the basic from this and then just played around with the settings to get the look i wanted.
I was going for a smaller waterfall than the one show and one that was a bit less vicious looking.
starting with a fluid emitter i was able to start getting the fluid to flow in the correction direction.
something similar to this. as i feel it is similar looking to what we have in the concept art and storyboard.
See technical folder for simulation test and final render.
I had used fluid effects in the past, after looking at the results that could be gained i decided this would be the best way to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=356PMFKY904&feature=related
I found a useful tutorial to help me out, http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/duncan/waterfall_using_fluids_and_nparticles
I used the basic from this and then just played around with the settings to get the look i wanted.
I was going for a smaller waterfall than the one show and one that was a bit less vicious looking.
starting with a fluid emitter i was able to start getting the fluid to flow in the correction direction.
See technical folder for simulation test and final render.
Dynamics
Within the film there were a number of scenes which would require dynamic simulations.
This includes the title scene, which was there to simulate rocks and sticks being shaken in a pan.
I made simple shapes and moved them into place to spell out the title of the film.
These are to represent sticks and rocks tht would have been taken from the stream.
I thought with would be a nice way to show the titles of the film, as it ties in with story and theme.
I used basic textures to make them look slightly more like rocks and sticks. And added a dirty bronze texture to the pan. To make it look heavy used, rather than clean and new. Then added a bump map to show detail.
To stick with this i wanted to show the objects moving when the pan was shaken. This was fairly simple to do. I just had to make the pan a passive rigid body and the objects within it active rigid bodies. i then had to apply a force which would cause them to move. For this i used Gravity. This meant that the objects were being affected by the scene . and as such would move when hit by the pan. I had to animated the pan moving, this then made the effect i wanted. The main issue with this however was weighting the objects correctly so they were natural. I struggled with this, but after trail and error i was left with a scene i was happy with.
(See Tech folder- Titles Simulation)
Water Plants
The opening shot of the film is set underwater. For this i wanted to have plants that would move around. as if affected by a current. I started with very basic shapes for these.
I then had to make joints, with an ik handle, that would make the plants move.
Because i wanted the plants to be floppy i added lots of individual joints.
As you can see here they bend nicely, and help give the illusion of the plants moving naturally.
Joints buy them selves would not move.
Rather than having to animate each plant moving separately, i decided to have them affected by dynamics.
i made this choice as i felt i would be able to get a much more realistic look. As i am not a confident animator.
Joints are not affected by forces or dynamics. So i had to make a hair system which is affected. i then had to connect the hair system to the joints. This meant that the joints would follow the hair curves. And therefore now be affected by the dynamics.
See technical folder. Underwater shot for final piece.
Im actually very happy with the movement. i feel it looks natural. There is no way i would have been able to get the same results by animating the plants. i dont think i could do much more to make it look better to be honest.
I didnt really find much useful reference. that looked like the storyboard. so had to do it based on what i wanted it to look like.
With this image i was able to see how the plants should at least bend.
this lead me to add extra joints to my plant rig.
Plants moving underwater.
A fluid simulation to show a waterfall.
This includes the title scene, which was there to simulate rocks and sticks being shaken in a pan.
I made simple shapes and moved them into place to spell out the title of the film.
These are to represent sticks and rocks tht would have been taken from the stream.
I thought with would be a nice way to show the titles of the film, as it ties in with story and theme.
I used basic textures to make them look slightly more like rocks and sticks. And added a dirty bronze texture to the pan. To make it look heavy used, rather than clean and new. Then added a bump map to show detail.
To stick with this i wanted to show the objects moving when the pan was shaken. This was fairly simple to do. I just had to make the pan a passive rigid body and the objects within it active rigid bodies. i then had to apply a force which would cause them to move. For this i used Gravity. This meant that the objects were being affected by the scene . and as such would move when hit by the pan. I had to animated the pan moving, this then made the effect i wanted. The main issue with this however was weighting the objects correctly so they were natural. I struggled with this, but after trail and error i was left with a scene i was happy with.
(See Tech folder- Titles Simulation)
Water Plants
The opening shot of the film is set underwater. For this i wanted to have plants that would move around. as if affected by a current. I started with very basic shapes for these.
I then had to make joints, with an ik handle, that would make the plants move.
As you can see here they bend nicely, and help give the illusion of the plants moving naturally.
Joints buy them selves would not move.
Rather than having to animate each plant moving separately, i decided to have them affected by dynamics.
i made this choice as i felt i would be able to get a much more realistic look. As i am not a confident animator.
Joints are not affected by forces or dynamics. So i had to make a hair system which is affected. i then had to connect the hair system to the joints. This meant that the joints would follow the hair curves. And therefore now be affected by the dynamics.
See technical folder. Underwater shot for final piece.
Im actually very happy with the movement. i feel it looks natural. There is no way i would have been able to get the same results by animating the plants. i dont think i could do much more to make it look better to be honest.
I didnt really find much useful reference. that looked like the storyboard. so had to do it based on what i wanted it to look like.
With this image i was able to see how the plants should at least bend.
this lead me to add extra joints to my plant rig.
Plants moving underwater.
A fluid simulation to show a waterfall.
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