Final Animation

After compiling the frames in Adobe premiere and setting the audio, I exported the project as a 1080p .mp4 file and uploaded it to Youtube as shown below.

Rendering

The final task inside of Maya was to render out all 275 frames of my animation for compilation in Adobe premiere. To do this I tweaked the MentalRay renderer inside of maya to render a series of frames at a specific using one of the 8 cameras I had positioned and then batch renders the section. For example I would render out frames 1-25 using camera 1 and frames 26-56 using camera 2 etc.

Here is what the folder containing all the rendered frames looks like.

Camera placement

In order to shoot the scene I wanted to have a simple series of cutbacks similar in part to the original source material, it would help maintain the quick pace of the dialogue, so I set a series of cameras 1-8 to capture each significant action and line of dialogue as was laid out in my dope sheet.

Below are two examples of camera angles from cameras 2 and 5 respectively. I tried to go for an over the shoulder kind of angle to keep both of the characters in the shot where possible in order to ground the brief piece of animation and to keep more of the set in the background.

Lip syncing and facial expressions

Throughout the animating process I left the faces and mouths alone for the most part, getting the body language and actions finished first. Then made use of the Max rig's inbuilt facial camera view which positions the viewport camera directly on the face of the rig, allowing the user to manipulate the face. The first step was lip syncing and I made it a priority to complete the basic mouth movements first. I simply opened and closed the mouth to varying degrees in time with the words to get a basic lip sync down.

I then went back once all of the basic mouth movements were complete to add greater detail and definition to the words that were being said, for example pursing the lip when 'o' sounds were being spoken, such as 'do' or 'your'. Aside from this I changed the angle of the lips when certain hard 'T' or 'S' sounds were made.

Lastly I did a final facial pass for each rig altering the facial features in order to convey emotion, such as worry on the privates face when the officer gets annoyed with him, or the anger on the officers face when the privates admits to having no love for his king. Due to the Max rig's fairly simple controls this was merely a series of eye brow and cheek movements to convey the correct degree of each emotion, I also made use of the upper and lower eye lid controls for this purpose.

Animating

When animating my workflow began as thus, I would load the audio file into the frame viewer and listen to it a few times to get a feel for the timing of certain actions in my head, I would also refer to the dope sheet for this. I would then proceed and block out the basic movements for my rigs throughout the animation, making sure that the major key frames were in place. I then continued to animate in passes adding greater and greater flow and detail to each movement, making them more natural and flowing.

I did this firstly for the officer character as he was the 'lead' in this scene, dictating its pace and determining the Private's reactions, so it was easier to animate him first and then animate the private in passes allowing the timing of the officers actions to dictate the privates reactions. Aside from order, the animating process for both characters was much the same and it involved referencing many time to the reference material collected, especially on how the arms moved when the officer would bring his arms out from behind his back or for how his feet would move when he turns around.

Locators and props

One of the hurdles I had to overcome when animating was keeping the props, namely that hats, glasses and mustache, attached to the characters when their heads moved. To achieve this I used a system by which I created a series of locators and parented them to a specific control on the rig, namely the head control. I then parented the locator to the prop I wanted to remain fixed.

Secondly I wanted to make the private character at one point reach behind him and reveal a picture of the king, to do this I locator bound a modeled frame with a photo texture to his hand and then hid the model, creating a key frame at which I would re toggle its display options, making it visible again. This gives the illusion that the frame is not in his hand until he reaches behind him, when it then appears.

Scene reference

As a setting for my scene I decided to create a room styled after a WW1 dugout, I took a look at some images of dugouts and selected a few prominent items that appeared in each. These ranged from bunk beds to book shelves but it still made for a convincing setting.

I also made use of the crate and spellbook models from my texturing module for some amusing cameos.

Prop reference

My animation will consist of two characters, namely the officer and the private, however the Max rig has little in the way of appearance customization so I will need to create my own props to distinguish the characters. Firstly I will create a hat and a large handlebar mustache as is customary of the upper classes of the period. I will also use the character General Melchett from the source material as reference for the appearance.

I will also create a similar hat and a set of glasses for the private, again using Private Baldrick as source reference.

Expression reference

In order to better get a feel for facial expressions with my chosen rig I took it upon myself to experiment with the various facial controls and try to create some reference images for various types of emotions.

Anger 

Disgust 

 Happiness

 Sadness

Suprise

Scene reference

In order to get a better feel for how the scene should be animated in terms of the subtlties of things such as expression and stance, as well as physical things such as reference as to how the body carries itself in certain stances, I filmed myself performing the lines with actions from my scene. Even though the rigs are a great deal different than my own body and how it operates, I think it will be a helpful starting point for these aforementioned qualities.

Bouncing ball task

In order to learn how to animate in Maya we were tasked with animating a simple bouncing ball, nothing too difficult as it was simply a case of key framing in vertical motion, however the difficulty comes in when adding in the principal of squash and stretch, which is the visual consequence of the transfer of kinetic to potential energy and then back to kinetic. (Science yay)

Then the issue was adding in forward motion while also preserving the squash and stretch rule. I feel as though it turned out really well.

Auditioning a rig

The rig I have chosen to animated for the module is the Max rig v1.14, I chose this rig due to its simple controls and wide range of movement. Its controls are intuitive and its smooth mesh is has not glitched or bugged at all during my testing sessions.

 Finally it has a good array of facial controls which allow the rig to display a high range of expressions

A criticism I can level against it however is that the finger controls are too simple and especially the thumb controls are very restrictive. However overall I think the balance of ease of use to restrictive controls is acceptable.

Dope Sheet

Another step in the planning process is the creation of a dope sheet, which allows me to plan out the animation in terms of sound and action on a frame by frame basis, or rather in this case plan out what audio and animation will take place where, and shown by which camera.

Animatic

An animatic is an important step in the the animation process as it allows the animator to have reference for how the characters will actually animate from a stand point of timing, which is one of the great principals of animation. I have also added a few extra frames to emphasise certain actions or to break up long periods of inaction.

Animation storyboard

The next stage in the planning process is producing a storyboard which shows how the characters will interact and animate. Pictured below.

Animation script

The next step in creating the animation was to script out what the characters both say and do. Below you can see the finished script for my 11 second animation. I believe that I have deviated enough from the source material to be fresh, however I am still maintaining some similarities to the original, such as the military setting as it helps add context.

Soundtrack for the animation

When considering what soundtrack my animation should have I felt as though it should be rather self contained, if only for impacts sake. By this I mean that the sound clip should start and finish within the 11 second time slot and this limited my choice of audio to things such as witty one liners or iconic moments from film, games or television. I decided that I should go with the classic british comedy Blackadder for my sound clip as every other line of dialogue is a witty one liner which gave me a plethora to choose from. My first instinct was to go for Blackadder's quote about a plan as clever as a fox from oxford university, which is the last joke they ever told in the fourth season before its incredibly poignant ending sequence. However for the quip to make sense I would have had to chop it in half and I thought that it would not do the sequence justice. Finally I settled on a rather humorous exchange between General Melchett and Private Baldrick concerning Baldrick's dedication to king and country. The exchange lasts precisely 11 seconds and also has a few milliseconds of laugh track at the end for added effect.

Golden Age of Animation

The first task set to us was to make a presentation on the 'Golden age of Animation'. My group for this task was Bryan Devenish, Tsanko Tsanev and Allan Lilley. Pictured below are the slides from said presentation,