DONE!

3D Character Design

3D Character Design

Motion Graphics

Animation Practice

Industry and jobs

Although this type of animation could be and is used in films, my primary industry for this piece focused on games, so I have been looking on the website gamesindustry.biz. There are many animators jobs on the site and it seems to be one of the most sought after professions, this example at Rockstar North particularly caught my eye

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/jobs/rockstar-north/uk-and-europe/character-animator-id40987

Whilst animations for things like explosions and falls down the stairs are often handled procedurally, there are certain situations within a game that require a keyframed animation, such as a cutscene or scripted event within a level.

Animators often also use blended animations or inverse kinematic methods, which still require animation to be present, they will then use the physics simulator to make sure the model isn't clipping with the enviroment. Therefore skills such as key frame animation are still used within the industry.

Some of the experiments I have done such as different walk cycles could be useful as an in game animation for a controlled character, as would the run cycles.

Motion Graphics

These screenshots show how I put the audio together in logic

Here I am opening the video file within logic

Here I am adding the music to the project

  

Here playing with levels and setting up separate channels for music and effects

 With the channels set up I started to add the sound effects, here I am adding the typewriter sound to the initial shot. 

These shots are similar except I am adding the "scribble" sound effect to give the noise of a pencil. Note the levels had to be played with to give a reasonable mix of sound 

These shots show the sound with everything added apart from the voice. Notice the ambient battle sounds and truck sound effects, as well as explosions

This shot shows the track in its final state, with the voiceover and all effects added, the only thing to be done now is use a radio preset and modulator to affect the voice.

Motion Graphics

Motion Graphics

These are all images used in the animation, some are broken down into their compentent parts.

This is the plane outline used which goes across the night sky.

This is the image I used to animate the thrown grenade, each grenade was given a mask which then had its opacity animated in sequence.

This is the sketch of the jeep without the shading or colouring

Colouring without the outline.

The exploded jeep image complete.

German troops complete.

SAS Rifle squad outline

Colouring

Running SAS troops, shading and outline

Colouring

Train outline

Train colouring

Animation Practice

Here is my final edit of all the animations and shots



Im happy with this overall but there are several things I would change were I to do it again. The landing in the bomb scene could do with tweaking as the upper body seems to fold in on itself when it lands at the end of the scene. I would have liked to add more scene elements such as a sightly more realistic bomb or textured walls. overall I think the camera angles are good although I would like to have done something slightly different with the slo-mo shot if I had time by adding a second camera.

Were I to change the stairs animation the first thing to change again would be the landing. Although I have managed to get the somersault into the fall and body does bounce slightly as it hits its final resting position, however the legs are not perfect as they come to their resting position before hitting the ground, again i would have liked to add more scene elements, aside from this I think the animation is solid, although the slo-mo shot could perhaps have been more elaborate.

I am fairly happy with the final scene, however i did have trouble getting the lighing in the scene right, as it was the biggest scene and needed mental ray lighting in order to show shimmer on the water, the light had to be reasonably close to water whilst aso lighting the character. The final effect is not terrible, however had I had more time I would have made the lighting better. Movement wise I am still not entirely happy with the run up, as the knees are still slightly too bent, the jump is good as is the initial fall but the body could perhaps be doing more as it enters the water.

I rendered all shots out from Max in .tif sequences and then imported these to After Effects, I could then edit the shots as I wanted them and add transitions such as fades. I also added mental ray lighting to the scenes to produce shadows and better light the scene.

Animation Practice

A final edit of my cliff jump here, I still need to play with the lighting slightly but the animation is pretty much there.

Animation Practice

Here I tried a few different run cyles, its quite hard to see from the video, but there are slight differences in each. The heand and shoulder movement is lightly different, as is the tilt of the hips.

I used this to help me decide on a run cycle to be used before the jump. putting each beside each other helps you recognise minute differences and the overall effect they have.

Animation Practice

This render shows I've got a little further with the fall, however the main reason for this render was to test the water. I don't have a mental ray light in the scene yet so the water isn't shimmering properly yet.

I took a render here to show the initial jump, its quite difficult to see as there is no scene elements, but I'm trying to 'squash and stretch' the character as he jumps.

Animation Practice

A final render of the fall, I'm particularly happy with this one as the character looks down just before he trips, the landing is also good as he bounces slightly. I need to add lighting to the scene but aside from that I'm pretty happy at this point.

Animation Practice

This render shows most of the movement finished, however it will still need polishing. need to look at lighting and camera angles too.

Here is most of the fall without the landing, this perhaps looks a little bit fast, also some of the hit points with the stairs need playing with. overall I'm happy with the flip over though as this was quite hard to achieve.

Animation Practice

This shows the scene in its current state, I'm fairly happy with it at this point. The scene needs lighting properly, I like the flight and how the body reacts to wall, however the landing could probably do with a little bit of bounce as the character appears to fold to the ground.

Animation Practice

This shows the animation at quite an advanced stage, however I have not tackled the body hitting the wall yet.

Here I put the walk cycle into the scene, however you can see I'm having trouble getting the character to move across the floor realistically, this is something which takes a lot of tweaking to get right.

At this point I was going to have the character kneel down and touch the bomb before the explosion, this is an idea that I later scrapped and had the model bend at the waist. This is to save seconds for the walk cycle at the beginning of the scene as well as create more natural looking movement.



I have managed to get the walk cycle looking better here, the bend at the waist has also come into the scene, the bomb looks fine and the blast radius is where I want it. Now to finish the movement!





I started by working on a couple of walk cycles, these were created using the copy and paste features n 3DS Max.

The cycle on the left is perhaps more feminine, in the end I used a mixture of the two for my bomb animation which creates a nice balanced effect.  

3D Character Design

Animation Practice

This shows the walk up and the trip, up to the first connection with the staircase. The animation is coming along but I'm having trouble getting the body to flip and still look convincing.




Here I have the initial walk cycle up to the trip, it still needs polishing.

Motion Graphics

3D Character Design