3D Character Animation

This is the final rendered animation with audio.

Evaluation and Reflection

Over the course of this semester I created my character and animation. The idea was to create a character to portray emotion whether in body language, facial expressions or both. Furthermore the character had to develop a personality that suited his visual presence. To create realistic emotive expressions and body language, research had to be conducted into how real people move and emote.

Generally the modeling stage went without much trouble. It was time consuming and took a while to become adjusted to modeling an organic character with clothes. The model of the head was recycled from an earlier project which helped significantly.

The most trouble during the project I found was during the bone structure and bi-ped stages. I used bones within the hands of the character but came into a lot of trouble with getting the points to respond properly, however these problems were fixed and the characters hands worked very well.

The rest of the body was a bi-ped system which saved time and enabled me to think about how to animate the character.

Once the modeling stage was finished I created storyboard images of what I wanted the character to do in the animation and noted what type of environment I wanted and the sound effects I’d need to create the full effect.

When creating the environment the use of lights within the environment was something I was happy with. The omni lights used created a gritty atmosphere and enhanced the aesthetic of the textures. Using omni lights was important in making a more realistic glow for the characters light sabers as well. The glow of the lights moving with the light saber and casting the character in its coloured glow was something I was pleased with.

I was happy with the characters movements during the animation. The cut throat expression and the light saber throw movements I was particularly pleased with as I thought initially it would be hard to pull of realistically.

Also the characters facial expressions I was quite happy with, although I would of liked to create some more diverse facial expressions.

The part of the animation that I am least happy with was in the way the character walks with the bi-ped system. While there are a lot of different parameters the user can change to adjust and tailor the characters walk to a more desired result. However after a lot of experiments the result was the best I could come up with. As the character walking is only used to introduce the character to the scene and at the end of the animation I thought it was not a top priority to have the character walking totally perfect.

Further improvements that I would implement would be to improve the environment and more diverse facial expressions.

Overall the project was very beneficial to me and was something I found interesting. Reflecting back on previous projects I believe that I have improved my work and have developed techniques that will have a positive effect on my 3D work.

The time spent trying to get the right facial expression and body movement was worth the effort when the final result was just how I wanted it to be and although there were aspects of the animation and modeling that were difficult it is very satisfying to have the whole animation come together as planned. I hope to be able to work on another project similar in the near future to further improve my character modeling and animation skills.

Animation

My character has been given his personality and has been fitted with the ‘Bi-Ped’ system and so he is now ready for animating.

The animation is based upon my earlier storyboard sketches. The character will appear from a doorway with the lights behind him casting him in shadow for a dramatic entrance. Mickey will retrieve a lightsaber from his pocket but will struggle in actually turning it on and so will become angry and impatient. Once he has managed to switch it on, after fiddling with it, the lightsaber illuminates Mickey’s face in a red glow as he bears a manic grin of happiness.

Mickey then encounters a foe that he is none too pleased to see. He glares furiously at his opponent and they both draw their light saber’s ready for battle. Mickey points at the nameless adversary and insults him by depicting a cutting throat motion.

Mickey is revealed to be a bit of a misfit in his biography, although he looks like a dangerous maniac that you wouldn’t like to meet in a dark alley, he would much rather be writing hit songs for his debut album. His physical ability has been described as a “crushing disappointment”, and so now preparing to engage in a fight with a person who is undoubtedly going to win, Mickey decides to launch his lightsaber through the air and kill his enemy in a desperate and unfair victory.

Mickey is now free to continue his journey. He leaves his thrown lightsaber on the floor as he walks away swearing an oath never to use force again.

The animations took some time to finish so they were at a standard I was happy with. Rather than concentrating purely on facial expression or just on the body movements to express his emotions I felt it would be better to try both. Using the head model I made from my previous semester I changed the face map and went back to making the model pull horrible faces. I came up with a fierce glare and an evil grin for my character. The body movements took more time because there was more to think about with how bodies move when they perform different poses. Working with the animation and key frames became quite tedious but in the end I managed to create the poses I needed.

I used the recent Tim Burton film ‘Sweeny Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ as my main inspiration for my character within the animation. The general style and feel of the film is macabre and grim. I found the characters facial expressions and body movements to be similar in how I wanted to portray my character. The lead character Sweeny Todd himself is shown almost permanently with a scowl and never really looks happy. It was difficult trying to replicate the same appearance for my character. However I successfully managed to create a rather nasty stare and grin.

I wanted to create a dark gritty environment where my character exists. I used some metallic panel textures for the floor and walls which I thought would suit the ‘space station’ aesthetic of the animation. The props and the environment were fairly unimportant during this process as they were only needed to support the character. With more time I would create a more believable environment with perhaps some windows which look out into space showing planets and light beaming through from the sun. I used some key placed Omni lights to create an atmosphere for my scenes, which I thought worked very well on the high specular metallic surfaces.

The main prop for the story is the characters Lightsaber weapon. This item was created simply, using a cylinder with enough height, length and width segments so I could manipulate the vertices’ into a handle shape then applying some bevelling at either end. A turbo smooth modifier is added for the smooth finish. The blade part itself is just another cylinder with a lens, glow effect added. To finish the handle I added a ‘Raytrace’ map on the reflection map to create a realistic metallic finish.

I also added an Omni light to the lightsaber so that it gives off a red glow wherever it is moved to which works very well in the animation. I had to change the near and far attenuation so the light didn’t travel far and only effected what was close.

For rendering the scenes I decided to use the ‘Quicktime’ MOV format because I have always had good results than compared to the AVI format. I used a resolution of 1200x800 for a good quality wide screen render at 25 frames a second.

Using ‘Adobe Premier Pro' I edited my animation and added some suitable sound effects before rendering out the final animation. Premier Pro scaled down my animation to a lower resolution.

Bipeds

In some of the scenes for my animation I want my character to walk. The best and most effective way to achieve this was to use the Biped technique.
Under systems I selected Biped and created the skeleton Biped system. I selected the motion tab and with Figure mode turned on I could scale and fit the skeleton into the characters body. I then switched Figure mode off to finalise the skeleton .

The biped is now in place and the next stage is to attach the mesh to the skeleton. I started off by selecting each body part in turn and applying the Physique modifier, then within the modifier I clicked the small figure which allows me to 'pick' which part of the biped to the selected body part. For each body part you apply the Physique modifier to, you always attach it to the BiP01 which is the parent of all the biped bones. this selection always attaches the right bone to the right body part.

Once all the bipeds have been initialized with the body parts the limbs will now move more or less like a real body limb should move. However in some cases when parts of the body move, some stray vertices will be left behind, this is because the physique modifier's envelopes haven't completely covered all the vertices and is fixed by selecting envelopes under the physique modifier's stack and using the scale tool to make the envelopes bigger to cover all the vertices.

Now with the biped system finished I can make the character walk. Under the Biped parameter within the motion tab I clicked on the footsteps mode. Inside the Footstep creation panel I selected Create multiple footsteps and 'walk'. This box allowed me to select everything from how many footsteps to the length of stride and pace of the characters walk.

After several different attempts I was settled on the render below. The character has a slight limp which I think suits his eccentric personality. I also quite liked the effect of the characters robe shifting along the shoulders.

Storyboards

Whilst creating my character I was also thinking about what sort of scene the character would be used in. I drew out some storyboards of the camera shots and basic movements I wanted within the scene. Furthermore there will be close up shots of the characters face which will portray the expressions.

Along with the storyboard images I have also included some 3DS MAX rendered images of the environment used within the storyboards.

Character enters.

Character cannot get his light saber to work, so becomes angry. Eventually it works and he is happy.

Character continues to walk on.

Character bumps into another man and becomes angry and points at other man.

Character throws his light saber at the other man. The man screams and will have a close up shot of terror.

Character walks off out of room leaving the man behind.

Below are rendered images of the environment and light saber which will be used.

Character Update & Profile

With the additions and updated details of the character I thought it would be an ideal time to provide a work in progress. The next stages of the character will be to fill the rest of the body with bones so his arms can move and also to get the character walking using the biped technique.

In the image below, the characters sleeve has been updated and also the characters fingers are fully functioning with bones.

This image shows the characters new eyes, they do look slightly larger than they should, however I think it will be ideal to have them this size as the characters expressions will be slightly more dramatic and easier to see.

The image below shows the whole character thus far.

Along with the model, the character should also be given a name and a personality to make the character appear more realistic and have a background.


Name: Mickey ‘El Loco Candyhips’ Funshine.
Age: 38.
Height: 6'4.
Parents/Lineage: Jeevan and Francois Funshine.
Occupation: Space Cowboy / Connect 4 Extraordinaire.
Interests/Hobbies: Lewd Behaviour, Thrash Punk, 5-a-side Football and Alcoholism.
Dislikes: Tuna and games of ‘Twister’.
Favourite Food: ‘Italian B.M.T’ Thursday’s ‘Sub-of-the-day’.
Favourite Drink: ‘The Cheeky Vimto’ Which is thought to be a cocktail of harmful and illegal liquid substances.
Place Of Birth: Mickey is thought to of materialised in a wheelie bin outside Francois’s nans house.
Fun Fact: Is believed to have created the popular 80’s ‘Nu-Wave’ movement after a hosting a disco in his parents house. 

Short Bio:
Plays ‘Midfield General’ in his 5-a-side football team ‘The Dreaded Rear Admiral FC’. His football skills are thought to be the origin for the term “Crushing Disappointment”.
Became incredibly angry after losing the rights to his hit number 1 singles  “Tonight, Im Gonna Rock You Tonight” and “Gimmie Some Money” in a game of ‘Pop-up Pirate’.
Mickey now spends his time searching the universe in his 2 door 'Star Destroyer' saloon finding the inspiration and funding to write his debut Irish folk album. Will stop at nothing to reach this goal.

The Eyes

Making the eyes is quite a simple and straightforward task and can add a lot of depth and personality to the character.

I start off by creating a sphere, naming it ‘Iris’ and changing the colour to white. By cloning this sphere and decreasing the Hemisphere we can create a lens shaped object. I changed the colour to black and named it ‘Pupil’. I then reduced the radius to form a good sized pupil.

The next step is to create the skin which will form the eyelids. Again we start by cloning the first sphere and reducing the hemisphere to create a sphere cut in half. I increased the radius slightly and rotated it into place to form an eyelid. Also I changed the objects colour to skin coloured. I then cloned the first eyelid and placed it on the opposite side under the eye.

The model of the eye is now finished but the next step will allow us to manipulate the vertices of the eye to form expressions. Under the ‘Space Warps’ panel I selected ‘Geometric/Deformable’ objects from the drop down menu. Within this menu I can select ‘FFD(Box)’. I dragged this box out to cover the eye with the number of points set to 2x2x2.

With all the eye objects selected I use the bind to space warp selection to connect the eye to the FFD(Box).

Now under the FFD(Box) modifier list I can select ‘Control Points’ to pick points of the box to move which will move the vertices of the eye object.

Below is a short video example of the FFD(Box) controlling a pair of eyes.

Another important way to control the eyes is to use helper points. Using helper points we can set up the pupils to follow the points which can be useful when you’d like your characters eyes to follow something.

Under the Create panel I selected the helper objects and chose Point. I placed the point helper on the stage in front of the eye, this will be the object that the pupil will follow.

With a pupil selected I went to the motion control and within the assign controller parameter I clicked the Rotation: Euler and then clicked the small ‘?’ box to bring up a list of controllers. I picked the ‘LookAt Constraint’.

Further down the assign controller parameters the ‘LookAt Constraint’ becomes available and will now allow us to select LookAt Target to pick the helper object. The pupil will now follow the helper object when it moves. However be sure that the Select LookAt Axis is set to the right axis, in this case it’s the Z axis.

Below is a short video of a pair of eyes moving with the help of two separate helper objects.