More images of initial Character rig

Playing around with rigging

Today we were introduced to the 3D human rig. We were told to take a inspirational/ iconic image of a pose and recreate it using the 3D rig. Ut was really interesting as it meant we could see what kind of poses we can and cant achieve with this rig. I found that i can not do any positions that have the legs high up vertical to the body as it creases at the hip to much making it look like the leg is disjointed from the body. It is a perfect rig for the walk cycle which we will we doing later in the course as you only need to lift the knees to a certain joint. So i would like to do some more poses with maybe a squat or something and maybe change the face a bit. I think from what i have seen from doing this pose i cannot move much of the face but i think i can move the eyes and also stretch the head, which could be quite fun!

Animation work flow

This is a diagram that Jon showed us to help up break up out time efficiently when approaching a new project.

Croquet 1 & 2

We were given these two tasks as homework to use and demonstrate

Ball roll 3D

3D Ball roll - Softimage

The link above will take you to my clip of a 3D ball roll.

The task was to create a 3D ball roll in softimage, the previous weeks work - making the potato heads was set to help us get familiar with the software before we started on the 3D work. I am a visual learner, so when i am in a class and being shown what to do on a screen in front of me, i learn much quicker then if i was to learn by myself. So i found this task to be relatively easy.

Once you open the softimage programme you go to the left hand side of the programme and click the primitive menu. Once you have done this you click onto the shape sphere.

This will appear immediately onto the grid display. To make it easier to see you can change the viewing of the 3D sphere by clicking the drop down button just to the top right of the screen and changing the menu from 'grid' to 'shaded'. This makes the sphere opaque and therefore you can not see the background grid.

Once you have the sphere ready and shaded, it is pretty much like AfterEffects. You have to key frame the ball in different positions in the time line to make  the ball move. You can also manipulate the ball to fade in and out of the roll to create a smoother look.

Learnt short cuts:

vertical pan = S
Slip forward = ctrl + shift + left arrow
Slip backwards = ctrl + shift + right arrow
Zoom tool = Z
Hide grid = G
Nudge forward = ctrl + right arrow
Nudge backwards = ctrl + left arrow
Horizontal pan = X
Undo = ctrl + cmd + Z
Clear all transitions = E

Mr. and Mrs. Potato head - Attempt 1 & 2`

This is the first time i tried to create mr and mrs Potato head. I struggled a lot when creating the first image above. It took a good two and a half hours. I look at it now and laugh as i have learnt so much in the last week. The main thing that shouts out to me is that the objects are all unrefined and angled. If you use the (+) key you can smooth out the individual pieces to reveal what they are actually meant to look like. I learnt from doing the task that if you are wanting to make realistic eye balls (for example on Mrs. Potato head, it is easier to do it bit by bit. I tried to make its easier and quicker by making the eyes before putting them onto the head. However, once i had assembled the eye and started moving it to put it on the head, the individual pieces started to move away from each other. I am not sure why this happened, and i am sure there is probably a button in softimage somewhere which can anchor all the individual pieces together like in after affects, but this was now and has not been obvious to me as of yet.

After the second lesson with Jon, i decided to have another go at creating the two potato heads.  I decided to concentrate on one before i started the other. I decided to concentrate on mrs potato head. I felt much more confident making the 3D Mrs Potato head then i did the previous week, i have smoothed the individual pieces out and i have noticed a massive decrease in the time spent on creating it.

ECO CHALLENGE

FinalCut Pro Document.

Writing and evaluation to come soon - Link below

Film no audio

I just realised i exported it with no sound on AE when compressing it so i shall have to do it again. OOPS.