Some CGI comparisons

I absolutely love this movie! I think what I love about it the most is the character development,

it really works, despite very little expression or language used, the emotional impact is carried

through amazingly simply by sticking to body language and of course basic facial expression-

mostly conveyed through the eyes.

In terms of technical aesthetic the movie is absolutely stunning and at times I find it hard to

believe that this is pure computer graphics- with reference to the early scenes in which wall-e

is cleaning up around the city and the camera pans out to display the buildings etc it looks

very realistic- especially when compared to later scenes when wall-e and eve are aboard the

ship and the rubbery flubber type humans come into vision.

I noticed that the video content played within the film was actually "real life" (unless i've been

totally fooled?) which reminded me of "happy feet" which used the same method of mixing

real life humans in with the CGI, this effect seems to work almost perfectly now with no jarring

whatsoever, unlike the other way around, when films use CGI for special effects and it can

sometimes be quite jarring to go from live-action to CGI and back again.

which brings me to another technical achievement in CGI, "beowulf" which uses CGI to basically

imitate real life, so the characters are human featuring realistic skin textures, eyes, teeth etc and

cleverly made to resemble "real life" actors in order to bring about a sense of familiarity and some

sort of connection to the characters.

From what I have heard, not alot of people liked this film, and so many people couldn't understand

why it was done in CGI when it was made to look so life-like.

My response to this was budget. surely it must save them money just sticking to software?

another reason besides the obvious artistic implements, or maybe not so much a reason but just the

fact that you don't have to worry about that jarring feeling that can occur when watching real life

suddenly jump to CGI, ie: spiderman, ok it looks cool but it's also a little irritating to me to see him go all

rubbery and fake looking as he starts to jump around, although visually quite breathtaking as you are

able to see things as you never have before, you are still always aware that it is not real.

FIRST CONTACT FINISHED VIDEO AND EVALUATION

Finished "first contact" video, now with sound!

I decided to come into college today to do a bit more to the video in terms of editing as I wasn't really happy with it just as it was. I also wanted to change some of the camera angles in maya but it wasn't having it, by not allowing me to see the key frames for the perspective, so I decided to leave it alone.

EVALUATION:

When I read through the brief and discovered we were making an animation about "first contact" between two characters, I was genuinely looking forward to it as I like to create my own characters and enjoy story-writing.

I was still working on my interactive story which I was really getting into and having fun with, (although now I am wondering why I bothered? it has not been shown to the group and I can't figure out how to have it on my blog) anyway, as soon as i'd finished that I decided to get on with my maya, yes I had been dabbling in it and drawing up storyboards, but was not ready to give it my full attention until my other projects were finished.

Moving on, my first impression of maya was "oh my god! what the hell is this?" I never thought I'd be able to use it and didn't even have the heart to try to be honest, I found it visually- a total eyesore, chaotic and far too "techy" I didn't even like looking at it! never mind touching it!

It took me weeks to get to grips with modeling, I found this frustrating and feel alot of time was wasted, (looking back I don't know why I found it so hard, I think I was trying to use too many tools that I didn't need to) 

I asked for help but it wasn't getting me anywhere, I just didn't get it! but after maybe the 6th week something twigged and I started getting to grips with it and a small surge of confidence came about, maybe if the interface wasn't so hideous I would have "twigged" sooner, but nevermind!

I was happy with my finished sperm model, I did attempt to make quite a few, never happy with them so I kept trying till I got a pleasing result, in the end using a picture imported into the software to model against, (wish I'd known that sooner!)

The next stage was to use deformers and handles to make the sperms "wiggly" and to also keep their tales in a swimming motion, this wasn't so bad, it was explained to me step by step and once I had done it once I found I was able to repeat this for all of my sperm models.

I disliked the rotation tool, every time i used a deformer it would appear in the wrong position and I would spend several minutes sometimes faffing about with rotation to get it in the right place, (as when you think you have it, you turn the camera and oh you don't have it!) I realize there were other view that could be used and a graph view, but I didn't like looking at any of them, it just looked like advanced physics to me! (all those lines and dots-yuk) I much preferred working in the standard view with shaded models, not see-through liney confusing wireframe!

anyway enough of that, on to animating, again this took a couple of sessions to get used to, but i found i picked up each new obstacle quicker each time, having got that bit more used to the shiteness that is maya! (sorry i just really hate it!)

I found that the delivery of this module was a bit too fast for my liking, by the time I was coming to grips with say A, we had already moved on passed B, C and D! so most of what I have learnt has been from pestering the teacher for one on one time as I just couldn't follow the group classes, If during the classes the steps had been broken down a bit so that we had to follow them step by step I feel I would have learnt more as it would have been beneficial to have done the steps whilst they were still fresh in my mind, rather than us all forgetting as there was too much information in one gulp.

besides that I really appreciated the one on one time I got otherwise I doubt I would have been able to progress at all. 

I am surprisingly pleased with the outcome actually, I had begun to design some backgrounds in photoshop but felt they looked "tacky" and rubbish, I chose to stick to the black background in maya, and I actually quite like it, the shadowed edges of my models blend in with it, although I had to add some additional lights to add balance, and it gives it a dark undertone which I like to have in my work anyway, I am pleased with the sound effects- I chose to have the jaws theme as I did in my animatic, and some bouncing sound effects along with screams of terror as the "Egg" kills off the sperms one by one.

In the end the story-telling, idea and editing have made it shine through as always, not my technical ability!

but to say it was complete utter rubbish to begin with I am more pleased than I thought I would be considering and am happy with the end result.

It's a shame we will probably have to use maya again at some point, I have no interest in 3D animation whatsoever, but at least next time we have to do this I will have some prior experience- if I don't forget! 

First contact finished movie

Here is my finished video "first contact" for maya.

To say I am not happy with it would be an understatement!

EVALUATION:

Maya scene 2

This is the 2nd scene in which the sperms are making their way toward the egg!

5 Sperms!

this is it now, I can't make hundreds, so here are the final 5, each with own color and swim style!

I will only have next week now to animate them and provide the interaction with the egg. I stopped doing my flash animatic half-way through because it was taking up too much time, and i'm not working "exactly" to a storyboard anyway, this is because I am such a novice with maya, anything could go wrong, and due to my limited "skills" and time limit more importantly I am just going with the flow, if something works then I'm leaving it in! if it doesn't it's going! I am not expert enough to stick 100% to my storyboard, I just have to do what I can, and if that means I can't make them have a fight, i will have to do something simpler, etc etc.

Anyway gotta go! here's a screen shot! all the animation for next week! 

This is wicked!

I wish I could produce something like this! it's awesome! 

it's the opposite to my idea, as my egg ultimately kills the 

sperm and doesn't let him in!

I like the way they turn their heads to look at him, it's brilliant! 

and the way he moves in a sophisticated swagger, excellent. 

It has made me think about the sizing, I was having my eggs 

and the sperm almost the same size and a sperm to an egg, 

but in fact the egg should be massive in comparison, with

hundreds of sperms around it. 

so that's something to think about. 

I might make it more realistic...

3 swimming sperms!

Just thought I'd upload a picture of my 3 swimming sperms! I am very pleased with them and never thought I would make it to this stage! I have hope that I can get a bit further, but 2 weeks! gah!

well I will just take it one step at at time and get as much done and to the best of my ability, that's all I can do!

Characterisation maya

Here are 2 Sperms swimming along in maya, the one on the left has a lazy side to side swing and the one on the right, 

(not far right) moves fast and is more squiggly! I noticed how this gives them different charectoristics, (I keep spelling that wrong I know!)

the fast one has an almost cute appeal because of the way it is scurrying along, whereas the slower one seems more dominating and has

a "jaws" kind of creep, it seems more menacing!

I am going to make a few more giving each a different movement, different shades in color and I may alter the shapes slightly.

Then its on to making them swim around on the screen and moving on into other scenes!

Maya Animated Sperm!

well I have finally come up with a sperm model that I like, I got an image and imported it into maya which I then used to model the sperm off of. This has worked out much better than previous attempts! (see images below)

I have added a sine handel and altered the wave length, amplitude, low bound and high bound and then have animated it by keying the offset in various positions.

The above screenshot shows the animated sperm on the far right and 2 duplicates which I am going to animate the same way giving them slight differences for characterisation.

I am not too worried about the egg yet as it will just be a sphere that will turn and bounce. the final scene will be the trickiest as I will have to flatten the sperm as the egg jumps on top of it!

previous models: 

Final Maya Storyboard

Here is my final storyboard for maya, I decided not to go with the others as this one will be more simple, and in the amount of time I have left and my non-existent skills in maya I think this is a wise decision.

I thought of the early scenes from the movie look who's talking in which there are talking sperms going for the eggs, my narrative is straight forward and simple, the sperms come after the eggs, the eggs run away, except one who stays to battle with the sperm that is lingering around her, he tries to make a few moves on her but fails and in the end she squishes him.

short but sweet, with the perfect ending! 

so far I have been working on modeling the sperm as the egg will be relatively easy, after seeking some help from a 3rd year student I finally got to grips with modeling and have managed to make a few sperm! now it's just getting to grips with animating them, although I have basic understanding as matt went through it with me, i lost track a bit taking notes, so got a bit lost, but I don't think i'll bother asking him the same thing again, he's shown me twice now but the first time i didn't take notes and it was too fast to remember anything! 

I will focus on this more next week when my Flash assignment has been finished, I don't know why they give us so many briefs! it would be so much more beneficial to our learning if we only got one at a time but less time to work on them, i'm sure we would all focus more, be under less stress and produce better results, and the teachers might find they have more time too!

Of course I understand that they are trying to give us the feel for working in a studio, but surely that would be better saved for year 2 or 3? we are still learning after all! hardly on the same level as a professional working in the industry! 

Tachikoma from ghost in the shell stand alone complex

As we are animating simple objects in Maya and giving them expression and emotion without the use of complex facial expressions, environmental props etc I thought I'd reference the Tachikoma from ghost in the shell.

Although they are essentially fighting machines, they convey personality through their voices and gestures, but even without the voices and no facial expression whatsoever you can still detect some form of emotion from these machines, (they do appear to have "souls" or some kind of personality in the series) simply by the way they move, despite their bulky appearance they are very adept at moving around, cat like if you will, and have pet-like mannerisms, in fact although I watch mecha, I never really "feel" anything for the machines, (except a little in eva when I realized the eva's were part biological) but in this i felt annoyed by the tachikoma, then even more annoyed and then I started to like them and even sympathies with them! 

A great achievement if you ask me for an animator to make the audience connect with his/her characters as it is, but expressionless machines? well I guess just about everything to do with GITS must just be pure awesome then.

some more maya storyboards

Everyone else is prob animating by now and I still can't come up with some characters.

Maya storyboards

Some ideas for Maya, however as I am the worst person in the world at using maya, I doubt I will use any of these, I will never be able to create any of these characters in 3D, I might just settle for the ball meets the square, if I can even do that.

The Cow thing and the giant Cigerette.