Major Project, scene layouts

These are the layouts for each scene. 

This is the hideout. 

The main scene 

The Robot

the running scene 

Final Major Project: Final Film

This is my final film

For this project, we had to create a final piece of work of our own choosing based around a subject of our own choosing, using an animation medium of our own choosing.

Because of my preference for drawing, I really wanted to focus on the conceptual side of this piece. I created a multitude of costume designs for the characters. I also created several designs for the robot. As a result, I feel that I neglected the animation a little bit, which is why the overall piece feels unfinished. It would have been nice to witness the models fully textured. It was because of this that I chose not to render my main scene. Nonetheless, I am fully aware of the changes needed and intend to rectify them before the show in London.

However, I feel that the concept work shows in the two parallax sequences. While they could have been edited better, the artwork is still quite solid, and the second one is very colourful, as a superhero film should be (in most cases). 

The Robot was also a very successful venture. I modelled, rigged, and animated that thing from scratch, and even though I feel the scene could have had more added to it, it did at least look quite crisp.

However, I feel that my work was hindered somewhat by problems that I had with the rigs that I used. I was unable to get the textures working in time, and several times would the rig’s body customisation options show up all at once, which took time to sort out a solution for. I should have given myself more time to animate as well. The running scene was a huge problem by the end, because the main character’s skin had gone completely pitch black, and there was no way to fix it, even after looking through the rig’s Hypershade.  

Another issue that could have been handled better was the sound. Music could have been used, and I could made the news scene more dramatic by adding more explosions and screams. I could have made the voicework more professional as well. However, the three voices I got were good enough to carry the piece. I decided to use my own voice for the superhero’s inner voice because I honestly felt that this would show itself to be a personal piece of mine, which it is. Anxiety is a very serious issue for me and I wanted to get that across.       

Major Project. Animatic tweaks

This is the animatic I created after Christmas. Following feedback I was given suggestions on how to change certain angles and increase the tension.  

I also tweaked the storyboard after I decided to add the robot to the film, though I felt an animatic would be unnecessary as the robot was replacing the fire as the news report, and the pacing and camera work would remain the same. 

final project. progress pass

This is the first progression pass for the film. It includes a scene which shows a newscaster, that ultimately had to be taken out. The animation badly needs tweaking but I'm only in the keyframe stage at the moment.   

Major Project: Character rigs

Because I felt I did not have time to model the characters from scratch, I spent some time combing websites for 3D rigs that I could use for the characters. As I had more than one character to animate, the rigs had to look more or less similar in style. To that end, I have decided to use the Morphy Rig, created by Josh Burton. Professionally created to serve as a character rig to any who need it, it's unique feature is the body and facial structure can be molded to fit almost any character archetype imaginable. Given that my two main characters are somewhat different in their body types, I felt the Morphy would be the best rig to use.  

This is the rig for my main character. As my character was slightly thin-ish, the main body had to represent that too. 

This is the rig for the secondary supportive character, Crimson Claymore. He is very much a stereotypical muscle-man, so the settings on his limbs simply had to be turned up quite high.
   

This is the armor and sword that I moddeled for the big guy. 

                                      These are the UV's created for the textures. Though I didn't completely finish them, this ultimately mattered little as I was unable to get them to work in time. 

Final Major Project. All Parralax images.

These are concepts for the robot scenes. I spent more time on the Team scene. 

Major Project, final videos.

These are the fully plablasted/rendered scenes from my film 

the script

major project: Robot

As I have already pointed out, I decided to add a Giant Robot to the film, as I felt that the piece might feel more fun, and have more of a superhero feel. 

I was initially against this idea, as I knew that I would have to model the robot from scratch in Maya, which would obviously take time, and rig it, which would take more time still, especially if if the rig developed issues. But after changing my mind, I ensured the model would be a simple design, with only a few details added. 

This is the model. I based it on one of the original six sketches of Robots that I did. It has very similar in it's mechanics to a AT-ST walker from the Star wars series.  

This is the skeleton rig. This is one of the things I was worried about because I am aware of how long rigging tends to take, especially the paint-weighting. Much to my surprise however, the paint-weighting didn't take as long. I did have to re-rig the model however. 

While I was able to get the leg joints working I had trouble trying to set up the knee joints. When setting up the initial IK's, I didn't set them to the right kind of solver, (they were supposed to be rotate plane solvers, when I accidentally set them to the single chain solvers). As pole vector constraints only work with rotate-plane solvers, I had to redo the entire rig so I could add the knee controllers.     

This is the scene I constructed for the Robot to run around in. 

         

3D Showreel

This is my 3D showreel