Final

Light Experimenting

I have stumbled upon a big problem which I hadn't though of. I wanted my scene to be lit up in a way where everything was very clean and bright crisp looking but when using a dome light like in the first picture the render time for that one image was 34 mins and the second picture when I put GI on also gave me a look I wanted but again render times are way to high to I am going to either have to find another way to get this effect with less render times or make a change to my lighting idea.

Walk cycle: 1

First attempt at walk cycle, I only animated the legs at this point I know need to put in hip rotation arm movement and maybe take a video of myself walking how I want my character to walk for reference. 

play-blast hand in

After handing in my play-blast I realized I have a lot more animation to do and I'm not sure how I forgot about making a walk cycle so that's the next thing I have to get done before starting my animation again.

Controls done for character

This will make animating a lot more easy. I made controls for elbows as well just in case I want to animate them as well. Took me a little while but I figured out how to make knee controls as well as eye controls to control one at a time and to control both of the eyes at the same time. Now I just need to put this into my nearly complete scene and get started animating for the play-blast hand in.

Character complete.

Weight painting all done and very happy about the play-blast extension not sure how I would of got that done in time with other projects as well. Now that this is all finally done after so long I can start my walk cycle and put my character into my scene.

Modeling practice

This was just a bit of modelling practice and render experimenting with HDR 

Scene

First attempted at scene, I know its fairy basic but for my animation I think I am going to keep it very basic. I am still not sure what I am going to do with the very end bit of the scene because I want a sort of play room to be there so I just need to figure out what it should look like.

Progress with the weight painting

After hours and hours of looking at YouTube videos on rigging and weight painting I have come across something very helpful which is the component editor where I can select the vertex of my mesh and see which joints are effecting them and I can edit and control that. This should make the weight paining a lot easier. 

Skeleton finished

I think now most of the skeleton rig is done. I figured out the problems with the skin moving in the wrong direction and everything moves roughly how it should do. Now I need to get onto the weight painting and I recently found out about the controls and a master control you should have for your character so you're not moving the the joints just the controls which connect to the joints? if that makes sense.  

Problems.

Weight painting not as easy s I thought and I need to make it so the eyes move with the body.. hmmmm

Progress with rigging.

I have solved the problem with the skin binding and I have now started the rigging with the bottom half of the body first. I think my IK handles are correct but the leg seems to bend backwards when I lift it up and forwards when I pull it down which is the opposite to what I want. I might need too tweak it a bit and then weight painting will hopefully help solve this.

Start of the rigging process

So I've been working on my rig for a while now trying to get it to work but for some reason I cant seem to connect the joints to the body as you can see. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but its something I need to get sorted asap.

Slight remodel

I decided to remodel my main character so that his arms are connected to his body, he has a proper mouth which can be edited later on and eyes with eyelids and a pupil. I have left the legs the same though and now I need to start the rigging.

Renders of Character

These are some renders I did of my main character to show what sort of materials I'm looking at using and the simple, shiny and clean look that I want to give. 

Script For Animation

Two blobs are playing a game of tag one day. There is a younger and an older blob the older one has legs where the younger one doesn’t because he hasn’t grown any yet. After the older blob tags the younger blob he knows it’s a game and tags the older blob back after that the big blob tags the younger one he then runs up some stairs where the younger blob can’t get him. The younger blob tries to get to the older blob but fails every time. Then suddenly a secret room or door comes up out of the ground. The younger blob cautiously goes into the room and then suddenly the doors shut and he tries to get out, it goes all quiet and then the doors suddenly open and he has legs and arms and is really happy, after that he easily goes up the stairs and tags the older blob and then jumps across some swings where the older blob can’t get to. The younger blob smiles in victory and then the screen goes blank and you think that the animation is over but then It cuts back to a quick scene of the older blob outside the secret room with a smirk on his face and then it ends.

Character Description

My Character for the second project is Bob and Rob the blobs. My idea came from “banana” from a short animation of the minions from the movie “Despicable me” and for my concepts I got my inspiration from Eva from the movie “Wall-e”. I like how both these things were very playful and simple with the animation and character design.

My Characters Bob and Rob, who are brothers, are not born with legs or arms they get them over time or with “upgrade” rooms which speed their grown up which is why Rob the older one only has legs and Bob does not have legs or arms. Although the main body of Bob and Rob is blob like material the legs and arms of these blobs are a lot stronger and robust because they normally get them at an older age. Bob being the main character is a child blob who typically likes to play childish games and doesn’t like to give up but has always been known to get upset when he loses therefore, Bob is a sore loser. Rob is very similar but being older and a little bit more mature he is not as over reactive.

With my character I wanted to show a lot of different emotions when reacting to different situations like how a child would. I wanted to have Bob go from a happy little blob to a sad little blob in an instance. To help give more attention to their facial expressions the design of the characters is very basic, this also fits in with what age they are as well.

 The blobs are in an indoor playground place where there is lots of room but not a lot of activities because there isn’t a lot a Blob can do even  for the older kids since there is only hand swings there for them. 

Storyboard.

Open publication - Free publishing - More a

Character modeling

Development of modeling the different parts of my character. At first the legs where just a simple oval but I added simplistic details to make the overlook of the legs better and more believable to be some odd cartoonish like characters leg. For my joints from the legs and arms to connect to the body I have decided to make it the joint with a ball so it has a wide rang of movement and it is nearly completely hidden. With this model I have basic eyes and mouth because for my animation I am going to have to be rigging up a wide range of emotions so the base model had a very plain look and/ or expression. Also the parts of the body connect with the body so the joints are quite flexible with the design if I wanted to tweak them a little bit.

Environment.

The environment in my animation is a very basic and simple which fits well with the character and has a very clean look to it. I haven't added it in but I was thinking to make the environment seem a little bit less barren that I might put in extra random blogs in the background,