FOR THE RESIT:- THE SHORT BUT SWEET MAYA MOVIE..

 The maya movie,Of norman taking gaming to far... 

I do have alot to say about this video,for one it is very short but i couldnt work out how to over lap animation without deleting the previous animation i created, I'm proud of the fact i learnt how to use cameras,lighting,and rendering in the time i had to resit the project because before i didn't no how to do any of lose things without needing alot of help, Either way i've forced myself to learn alot in these last months and i'm hoping that can help me towards the future...

FOR THE RESIT:- THE FINAL TOUCHES...

I batch rendered out my group of images into my maya image folder and then imported them into premier pro:-

For some reason each image was set at 5 seconds each so i had to work out how long each image should be by timing out my maya file and audio, I mostly had to change each image sequence one by one as they would not select as a whole at first, I re-imported my audio from audacity into premier pro,and then from memory exported the short movie into a quick time file.

FOR THE RESIT:- LIGHTS,CAMERA,ACTION!

Add caption

Next up was to add area lights on the side of my arcade and two spot lights within the aracde to light up normans face and light up the "game over" screen, My render view was for some reason not working so i had to get a code off the interent to fix the problem because i could not see how the lights were affecting my scene. I add one camera to my scene and used resolution gate to create my animations border. I keyframed out my camera the best i could, I went over its keyframing 5-6 times because i couldnt work out why the camera wouldnt move from the same spot from frame 1, I added a new audio from my star wars cut with my sound program audacity:-

FOR THE RESIT:- finishing off the lip sync and adding a eye brow movement

Afrer finishing off the lip sync from the star wars dialog,i added a slight expression to the ear-brows as normans face looked together to flat, I struggled to find away to over lap animation layers so in the end i had to leave it as just the lip sync and ear brow movement....

norman with sound and lipsync maya file:-

Norman Lip sync 2D (with sound) and 3D image:-

From looking at the keyframes from my 2D lip sync with SOUND i have started to keyframe Normans Lip sync out in maya which is proving effective,I still need to add the sound to maya to see if the lips and timing are efficient,at the moment the maya lip sync is quite fast and i will need to slow it down.

starting the animation:-

I started the animation of the norman rig,we had to create a walk cycle to get rhe hang of controlling him,my walk cycle is far from perfect so i will keep working on it. My scene actually doesn't have any form of a walk cycle or standing of any kind,my norman will completely be sitting down,with arm,head and facial movements.

UV Mapping in Photoshop,texturing and ideas:-

UV mapping in photoshop,still unfinished,still working on what images and textures to use,found this process to be very confusing and difficult to understand,only just got the hang of UV mapping with help from the tutors.the blue image is a lazar image from google images,and so is the 'game over' image i am using for the TV.

Interier UV Mapping

I started to UV Map the interier of my Arcade with the checkered pattern.

Third:- UV mapping

Third:- I began UV mapping the exterior of the Arcade,I placed a white and black checkered pattern to check if the mapping was neat and consistent.

Secondly:- The Wheel

Secondly i added a wheel using a Polygon Torus' then added less subdivisions,i then selected certain faces and extruded them OUT to create the star shape in the centre.

First Arcade Developments:-

first developments of my Arcade,i created the shape my using Mesh>create Polygon tool' then extruding the flat polygon,then i extruded parts of the polygon IN to create the TV,The seats are a separate Polygon that was also made by using the 'create polygon tool' and extruding it OUT. I imported the Norman Rig to make sure the  Arcade was to the right size.

soundtrack file MPEG4 MOV arcade and fair ground rides

Lip Sync without sound,with eye movement:-

Lip Sync without sound:-

the lip reads "red five standing by" ive had trouble converting the sound file for now so i wil update the lip sync with the sound as soon as possible.

norman arm movement 2D:-

instead of the walk cycle,i have created arm movement, my 3D scene will have norman entirely sitting down with only arm,face and upper-body movements.

Video and Audio

Scene and audio i am hoping to use:- 0.50 seconds to 1.02 seconds

change in maya chair set,from two characters to one:-

My change in story board to make the 10-20 second short more effective i have changed from a two character scene to one character scene and also changed my refference dialogue to the seen from star wars x wing fighter pilot scene, image refferece above for my internal maya arcade cockpit

(un-finished) story board as i am unsure what panels to do next:-

simple room layout for animation 3d project

scene from independance day reference

YEAR 2: MY IDEA FOR 3D ANIMATION SHORT

INDEPENDENCE DAY SCENE:- (ABOVE/5.10-6.50 SECONDS of video) Scene where Captain Hiller and David are inside the 1950's alien craft inside the mothership,they sit down questioning and then finally giving in and lighting a cigar, they pause for a moment almost expecting their fate that their trapped,then the emotion in David's face changes,he smiles and says "only one thing left to do", "are you ready",steve replies "YES SIR!" they both stand up back to their seats and wave goodbye to the alien then fire the nuclear missle. i admire the suttle twist in the scene were it turns out they do have a way to escape, but the audience is unaware of it until Davis surgests they have a plan of action,the scene has a clear view of a strong emotion change,from sad to happy,a noble sacrifice with a painful realisation to a confidence and thoughtout happiness knowing they will survive,how this scene plays out is what i will be using in my 10-20 second animation. my scene idea is to create a room that appears some what like a aircrapt cockpit and my two male characters playing out their scene where it appears their going to crash or the plane has something wrong with it,the characters under take a similar dialogue to David and Captian Hiller,they have the same emotion change and turn confident,both look forward and they the camera changes and you see our two characters are actually playing PACMAN trying to get the cherry and succeeding.

FINAL STING (end of project)

final sting  by joel,conor and myself,conor placed the animations and sound together on final cut and after effects. (end)  I noticed that over half the animation used in the sting is mine, backing up my personally believe that i was given alot to do,and developed alot through out this project,i am very pleased with our result.

END

'THE REVIEW' on this project is below 'last minute animations',the animations i produced at the start of the project are on 'OLDER POSTS' at the bottom of this page,which may spread over another page after that,   'thanks'

LAST MINUTE ANIMATIONS:-

this is the same scene as below,only with added colour and the button from the robots stomach for the snowmans nose,i coloured and did the button myself,the imported snowman was my directors clean up which i did not draw,i just pasted it into a layer.this scene will have a background created by my director for the final scene.

Hands

These are the hands i had to draw for the scene below,they were drawn on flash,the mitt to the very right was my directors drawing and also the drawing to the very left,the rest are my inbetweens. this is the first time i have ever drawn so smooth,i am quite pleased with the result.

this is a last minute scene i personally animated that is not quite finished,i need to add the colour and snowman to the scene,even though i am not meant to be on clean up duty,i had to do this clean up myself, which i had to change 3 times until my director was happy with it,i am proud i managed to produce a clean up animation from a model sheet created by my director,the different hand movements at the start of the scene are drawn by me. THIS SCENE IS PLACING THE BUTTON ON THE SNOWMAN.

REFLECTION ON GROUP PROJECT

At the very start of this project i was excited to work in a group for the first time on this course. I was very nervous and unnsure whether i personally would handle group pressure and the amount of work,because i wasn't as skilled in Animating and producing 'clean' lines.
In the first few days of the project my director Joel decided to give me and my team mate the job of animating 10 seconds each after i requested not to be on clean up,of the main animation, he personally would be on clean up.I found i was given little information on how to do each scene of my 10 seconds so i decided to follow the animatic the best i could.
 One of the first mock up animations i did was to follow the animatic scene by scene adding inbetweens to produce more of a animation, it proved difficult because at the time i only just started to use a wacom.From this mock up i produced individual scenes to start animating the best i could such as the 'robots face expression' which my director approved of alot.
Most of the scenes i created where used and cleaned up by my director but over the weeks i personally felt that me and my other team mate were given a unfair amount of animation each,half and half,as my director was waiting on us to cleam up.
My other team mate did not for most of the project produce any work and my director had to begin animating his scenes for him,this put pressure on me because my director was clearly a faster and better animator then i.i found at my skill level that half the animation was alot to handle although i decided to stick with my job because the weeks ticked on.Over the weeks i committed as much time and effort as possible to my job in the group,i was slow at animating and did struggle with how to go about a somewhat 3D character in 2D animating.
Watching my director over the project animating the scenes my team mate didn't along with cleaning up i questioned why he did not at least split the whole animation three ways? it was clear at his personal skill he could produce work more effectively.
Eventually the inevitable came and i was harshly targetted by my director and someone who wasn't in our group,calming i was lazy and not skilled enough be be on this course,it was unfair and effected my confidence in the group alot, i defended this statement saying it was far from laziness and it is actually not personally being as fast or as skilled as them.
Regardless i continued my work consistantly.Nearer to the deadline i found my director nit-picked to much on accepting my work for him to clean up, i also asked the question- if you are not happy with it,please replace it yourself,as i had alot of other scenes to finish that he persistently kept adding and adding to. Eventually my director employed people outside our group without me knowing until little bits of my work were replaced without asking or my consent,i personally wouldnt of minded if i was told first,though nearly all my work was used in the end.
Over all the animations i am most happy about are my robot walk,robot face expression and snowman because i animated them the smoothest,all my animations were produced on Flash,i produced 2 clean ups,1 with help from my director. my job was to do the second 10 seconds of the sting roughly to be cleaned up,i feel i have done this job to the best of my ability regardless that i had little to work with and lack of information, As for my Director i personally felt he was constantly confused on what he wanted and who produces what making my job difficult,it is vital to be a leader if it is your animatic which is chosen to become a animation.
the last minute animations i had to do were clean ups from two of the scenes from my original 10 seconds,these were not meant to be cleaned up by me,but regardless,i completed these clean ups myself and was happy to do so for the sake of completing the project, i am quite happy with the result of all my work and feel confident that i have done enough even though i was at first given alot to take on,it has opened my eyes,so i feel i should not complain if this amount of work has helped me,which it has. ON completion of our final sting i noticed over half the animation used was mine,backing up the fact i was personally given a large amount to do,but im pleased i did do alot of the animation now as it has develpoed me more as a animator and person.
ive learnt from this group project that i personally have made progress and realised that you cannot simply be left alone when you should have guidance when working for someone else,but its also taught me to get work done faster for the sake of a team as i did make the mistake of being a perfectionist.

please go on 'older posts' to see the previous animations.

robot arms and snowman screw scene with hand i (with help) cleaned up and animated over a scene from 'robot arms and snowman'. It was quite a challenge to animate this scene perfectly to make the movement realistic. My director cleaned up the missing colour and line work. also this model is from my director.

snowman roll and collapse animation.

animation of snowman roll and collapse,this was one of my animations that did not need to be changed before my director cleaned it up.

arms and snowman animation cleaner.

arms and snowman animation slightly more tidy and easier to clean up.
(2 days before our extended deadline my director realised being as i animated from the animatic half the scenes where in 3D which from lack of information i animated to the best of my knowledge,so he had to animate them himself from going over my scenes the best he could on clean up)

first mockup of robot kick,early on animation.

this animation was replaced early on by my director because he did not approve of the movement i gave the robot for the emotion he needed.

robot puzzled/bored arm movement animation.

for this scene the movement in the arms had to be semi-loose and puzzling as if the robot is bored.
In my diectors final animation of this scene,he has kept my arm movement but rotated the body fowards so he is no longer 3D.

robot face expression animation.

for a scene where he is expressing happy to depressed, this scene was cleaned up and coloured by my director. he was very pleased with this scene and it didnt need adding to before cleaning up.

second animation of robot walking forward with arm movement.

just one of the arms i animated to save time as my director requested. but i was then told later on that he wanted both arms animated so someone outside the group animated the right arm. the director cleaned this scene up.

first animation of robot walking foward.

my scratch animation which will be cleaned up by my director once i am finished.

2D LEVEL 1:
i was given the task of the second ten seconds of our group string.to complete it as clean as possible so it could be cleaned up my the director.

attempt of arms with snowman scene 1.

first mockup of animation from animatic.

this was the first animation i did from my directors animatic,beginning animations with no inbetweens.

Maya Level 1 cameraroom with Camera.

Maya 2012 Camera Character level 1

not had the best time due to being unfairly treated in our group assign by joel who is favoring him still because hes now doing sound,this is a Animation project not a audio project,that shouldnt count towards his grade with the animation.

due to lack of programs on my laptop,i could not recreate my chracters and layout in photoshop,i am not skilled in photoshop at the present time,and i struggle to use a waccom.