Mat's VIZA Blog

Final Animation

2009-12-07T05:39:00.000-08:00

Doh!

2009-12-06T20:54:00.001-08:00

So I totally spaced and forgot to put my to-do list up here. I had one written down, but never posted it. Oh well, it all got done. I am finished and am uploading my final animation currently, I will post the link tomorrow!

Updated Lighting

2009-11-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

Shot 1 Lighting

Shot 6 Lighting with Occlusion

Lighting

2009-11-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple stills from the first shot. These are actual Maya renders, no photoshop.

Updated Lighting Keys

2009-11-13T14:30:00.001-08:00

Here are a couple updated lighting keys. They definitely look much better than they did before. Still not great, but they definitely portray what I am going for better than the last ones.

(VERY) Rough Lighting Keys

2009-11-11T06:59:00.000-08:00

Here are two rough lighting keys for the first shot. Sorry they aren't very good, I'm still learning how to use Photoshop and a Wacom tablet.

I mainly just wanted to get across that I want light streaming in through the left window and falling on the cheese platter, and softer light coming through the right window while casting shadows from the blinds on the floor (but not on the counter with the cheese as that could get confusing since its where the action happens). I want it to feel like it is taking place during dusk or at night, so the rest of the room should be darker.

One more rough color image

2009-11-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

Because I like it. I am working on 'combing' the mouse's hair, which will take care of some of the seams that are visible in this shot. That, and the back of the mouse's head will be much darker once I get actual lighting in there, making the seam less noticable.

Rough Color

2009-11-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some stills from my rough texture work so far. All of these contain default lighting with no occlusion, lights, shadows, etc. yet. In some of the shots there are areas that don't seem like there is enough contrast (particularly in the bad mouse against the canisters) that will be corrected once I get lighting in there.

And heres a link to a .mov with still images strung together (doesn't represent actual timeline of story, but it is 30 seconds long). (Note, this .mov file is kind of picky on which players it will and will not play on, it will play on RV though, I know that much).

Updated Animation

2009-11-01T22:21:00.001-08:00

I've updated the animation to add secondary motion in several shots, mostly in the tails and arms. Click the link below for the animation (currently a fairly big Quicktime file, I'll get a smaller one made soon and post that link for the bandwith deprived). All shots are still in default lighting, and they are all in varying stages of texturing in the animation, so just pay attention to the animation for now. The last shot has what I think will be the final version of Pete the good mouse in it though if you want to take a look at that.

Animation

Fur Tests

2009-10-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with fur. After much frustration and banging my head on the desk, I think I finally have it figured out. Heres some examples for the good mouse. I think I like the light gray color better than the brown.

Now I get to do it to the bad mouse too!

More Color

2009-10-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Another still, this one without occlusion. It's way too dark in spots, but I haven't done much with lighting yet.

Color

2009-10-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with basic lamberts and blinns in renderman on my scene to try and figure out what I want to do for lighting and colors. Here are a couple stills I have so far, I'm still working on them, they are very much a work in progress. Also, both characters to this point are still lambert1 shaded, I'm working setting up their UVs currently.

Heres an example of an image using the Renderman Enviornment Light Occlusion (first image), and without (second image). The first image looks nicer, but takes alot longer to render, so we'll see if I have enough time to render it all with occlusion or not.

Animation

2009-10-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here is my updated animation that I will be showing for class on Monday. There are still some things that I want to tweak later if I have time, but I think its pretty decent.

Animation

Another Animation Update

2009-10-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's where I'm at with my animation as of Saturday night. Not great yet, but it's getting there. I'll be working more on it tomorrow so stay tuned for another post soon.

Animation

Animation Critique

2009-10-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

Instead of calling them 'good mouse' and 'bad mouse', I finally decided on some names. 'Good mouse' will now be known as Pete, just because I think he looks like a Pete. Or maybe 'the mouse formerly known as good mouse'. 'Bad mouse' will be known as Black Beard, because he reminds me of a pirate and will be darker in color than Pete.

As per the constructive critique, here are some of the changes I plan on making.
1) Shorten the scene where Black Beard taunts Pete by speeding up the taunting motion.
2) Add something to show Pete first walking up to the cheese tray. I think I will combine this with the suggestion of showing a wider close up shot of the cheese, and show Pete walking up to the cheese tray in this shot.
3)Add a shot to show Black Beard's desire for the cheese. This will be a P.O.V. shot first focused on Pete, with a quick rack focus to the cheese on the sword.

Per these suggestions, here is my new shot list, with frame numbers for each shot included. Assumes 30fps.
1) 120 frames - Establishing over the shoulder shot of Pete from hole, no change from previous
2) 90 frames - New shot of Pete walking up to the cheese tray
3) 120 frames - Shot of Pete grabbing sword, and revealing the bad mouse
4) 75 frames - New shot, from the point of view of Black Beard. Rack focus shift from Pete to the cheese on Pete's sword. Pete is scared in this shot
5) 90 frames - Shot of Pete shifting mood from scared to determined as he decided he wants to fight for the cheese
6) 90 frames - Shot of Black Beard grabbing a sword and taunting Pete. This shot is shorter than it was previously.
7) 30 frames - Short shot of Pete and B.B. clashing into one another with swords, this shot is shorter than it was previously. This shot may be removed completely later if it is rushed, but I think it is needed.
8) 90 frames - Pete swipes at B.B., B.B. jumps to canister. Same as before.
9) 30 frames - Shot of Pete swinging on pendulum. Same as before.
10) 90 frames - Shot of Pete knocking B.B. off of clock. Same as before.
11) 75 frames - Shot of Pete eating cheese from sword. Same as before. Potential sound effect of B.B. landing and cat hissing. These sound effects may also be pushed to the credits.

Thats a total of 900 frames. Time to get animating!

Animation Update

2009-10-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the progress I have done in my animation to this point. The animation is still very rough (virtually non-existent in a couple shots), and there are some definite problems with skin weights and other stuff that I have discovered along the way, but it is coming along.

I unfortunately didn't follow instructions very well as this is in 720p, 16:9 aspect ratio and the requirements stated 720x540 with a 4:3 aspect ratio. I will be fixing this in the next couple of days, it should only have a large effect on the blocking of a few of my shots. I also did it in 24 fps instead of 30, which will also be fixed soon. I am usually good with reading instructions, I promise....

The current animation works out to about 27-28 seconds, leaving me a little room to extend some shots as needed.

Click here for the somewhat large quicktime file

I also rendered out the first few shots with super basic lighting just to get the feel on how the shadows and the canisters are going to work, here is a link to that somewhat large quicktime file. This lighting won't be anything close to my final lighting, I just wanted to see that bad mouse come out from the shadows.

Also note that I did texture the eyes, because with a flat gray lambert shading on them you can't see what is going on with them. I can remove this if needed Ann.

Shot List

2009-10-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of my shots
1) Over the shoulder establishing shot of mouse looking out of hole.
2) Low camera shot of mouse picking up piece of cheese, then bad mouse coming out of the shadows to vie for cheese.
3) Medium shot of good mouse's face as he goes from scared of bad mouse, to determined to keep his cheese block.
4) Medium shot of bad mouse's face as he taunts good mouse.
* May combine shots 4 and 5 as a split screen if time necessitates
5) Medium shot of swords clashing.
6) Shot of good mouse swinging sword low at bad mouse, and bad mouse jumping over swing onto the canister, and then continuing onto the clock. Good mouse runs to grab clock pendulum.
7) Shot of good mouse swinging on pendulum
8) Shot of good mouse flying around other side of clock and kicking bad mouse off right at 1:00.
9) Medium shot of good mouse eating a satisfying bite of cheese.

Previous animatic has shots 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I feel like shot 1 and 6 are both definitely rushed.

Animatic

2009-10-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a rough animatic with some primitive animation in it for key movements. It is flat shaded with the default Lambert shader, with no lights.

It's right at 20 seconds right now, but I'm missing some shots of faces since I don't have my blendshapes working yet. Also, some shots feel a bit rushed and need to be extended a bit, so I will have no troubles filling up the 30 seconds. Here are two links for a higher quality (18 MB) or lower quality (5.8 MB) video.

Higher Quality
Lower Quality

Anyone have any comments on the timing of it?

I will be working on blendshapes for the face and to fix the 'rubber hose' effect on arms and legs bending next.

First Walk Cycle

2009-10-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here is my first shot at an upbeat walk cycle for the good mouse. The animation could obviously use a bit of work, and I still need to work on the deformations. For a first animation on my first rig, I think it's OK though.

Good Mouse Walk Cycle

I won't actually be using this walk cycle in my animation, but I will have a run cycle, so that will be my next piece of animation to work on after I fix deformations and improve the bad mouse rig and skinning.

Rigging Progress

2009-10-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here is my progress on my rig so far for my 'good mouse' (I still need to think of a name for him). I am making sure that I have all the controls and movements that I want in place before I bind my skin. Basically, I have IK and FK control for legs and arms, some set driven keys on the hands for grabbing and pointing, an IK spline to control the tail, some IK on the ears, and various other controls in places to move and rotate as needed.

Since both of my characters are similar, I plan on using the same rig structure for each, except for moving the joints and reorienting to fit the shape of course

This is my first rig to do and I am quite enjoying it, with the exception of a few frustrations here and there, but that comes with the learning curve.

Animation References

2009-10-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

We talked about the 12 Principles of Animation in class today. Here are some references I found that I think will be helpful for my animation.

Here are a couple really good sword fight references that I liked. These encompass most of the 12 Principles.
Sword Fight 1
Sword Fight 2

Here is a reference from Ratatouille I like on secondary motion of the tails and ears. Skip to the 0:38 mark for a good example.
Ratatouille Teaser

And finally, heres a clip from The Matrix that I want to incorporate for anticipation, where Morpheus taunts Neo during their fight. Skip to the 0:58 mark.
The Matrix Teaser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3cpHQEQ9w4

HDR Imaging

2009-10-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Assignment 1 for VIZA654 was just file i/o and image display, so I didn't put anything up here about that.

Assignment 2 was to create a high dynamic range (HDR) image, and that assignment is complete now too. If you are curious about it, you can check our results here.

More Set Modeling

2009-10-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Here's an updated set. I actually did this last weekend, before we started working on our rigs, I just haven't had the chance to post it up until now. I basically added another window with some blinds on it so I could have more fun with lighting later, and added some more detail in the parts I already had. The kitchen table and chairs were models I had done for a previous project, and since I already have my 4 props modeled I figured I would reuse these.

I've been working on rigs this week, so hopefully sometime this weekend I'll put something up here to show for that.

Turntables

2009-09-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

Here are the turntables for my character and prop models.

Character Models (links are to Quicktime files)
Hero Mouse
Evil Mouse

Prop Models
Canister

Cheese Tray

Wall Clock

Plastic Toothpick Sword

Some Model Shots

2009-09-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

Heres a few quick renders of my models in a rough environment that I will improve later, with rough lighting. I'm missing the 'bad' mouse currently as I am still working on it. I will post turntables of my character and prop models and put the bad mouse up here in the next day or two hopefully.

Modeling Break

2009-09-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking about working this into my animation somehow. What do you think?

Initial Mouse Model

2009-09-15T23:24:00.001-07:00

Here is what I have for my generic mouse model. I'm almost done with it, and then I'll start modifying two versions of it for each of my mouse characters. I still have an n-gon or two I'm trying to get rid of first. Not too bad for a first character model though I think.

Cheese Tray Model, Part 1

2009-09-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Here is my first stab at a cheese tray model with cheese on it. Models still need some work...

I slapped some simple shaders on there for now as well, those will be improved later too.

Concept Art

2009-09-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a little character study/concept art I've done so far.

Concept of what the hero mouse will look like:

Evil mouse:

And a rough color/lighting study for the cheese tray and surrounding set area:

First Animatic

2009-09-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's just my storyboard images strung together to get a rough estimate for timing.

Storyboard Part 1

2009-09-08T10:37:00.001-07:00

OK, so I changed my story up. ALOT. I was afraid I would get bored with the other one halfway through the semester, and this one seems much more interesting to me (and hopefully the audience!) I'll post a more detailed description later, but for now heres my new storyboard. Quick and dirty animatic to follow.

I didn't play with lighting at all in the storyboard, which I regret. I have an idea in my head for it that I will have to convey using the concept art. It doesn't follow my previous post about lighting. The 'Visions of Light' movie interested me in the use of shadows as a key to the story, so I'm going to try and replicate that as well in this. I plan on using light coming through the windows (one window in camera, and another simulated window off camera to the right) and very little, if any, ambient light.

Establishing over the shoulder shot of mouse looking from his hole into the kitchen.

Storyboard Part 2

2009-09-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

Mouse is sniffing as well while looking. Whats it looking for?

Quick zoom into item on kitchen counter. It's a tray of cheese block snacks. Target acquired.

But wait, the mouse isn't after the cheese, it's after the toothpick sword in the cheese. Must be a 'mouseketeer' *rimshot*.

Pulls sword from cheese and plays with it for a little bit.

Another figure steps out of a shadow in the background and appears on the other side of the cheese tray. Use depth of field at first so we can't quite make out what it is, we just know there is something there.

Storyboard Part 3

2009-09-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

As mouse notices this 'something', it comes into focus for the viewer as well. It's another mouse taking one of the other swords, except this one is obviously evil because it is wearing an eyepatch.

Que the 'Hickory Dickory Dock' music to begin. It starts as the mice start their battle.

Hero mouse swipes low at bad mouse, bad mouse jumps over it and backflips onto nearby clock.

Storboard Part 4

2009-09-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

As bad mouse is in the air, hero mouse starts running towards the clock.

Bad mouse lands on top of clock. Hero mouse jumps and grabs pendulum of clock underneath.

And rides it to the other side, propelling him up the other side of the clock.

Storyboard Part 5

2009-09-08T10:21:00.001-07:00

Hero mouse knocks the evil mouse off the top of the clock as it lands, right at one o'clock as per the nursery rhyme.

Hero mouse sheathes sword and rejoices.

Yep...

2009-09-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

Everything is way too rushed...time to scale back.

VIZA654: The Digital Image

2009-09-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Probably won't be too many posts under the VIZA654 tag as the VIZA613, but I'll try and keep this updated for that class as well. No assignments yet so nothing to post.

Story Ideas

2009-09-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

So heres my thoughts for the 'Hickory Dickory Dock' story so far. Like I mentioned before, I'm going to go for a fairly conventional rendition.

We start out with a hybrid over the shoulder establishing shot of a mouse looking out of his hole/home into a kitchen. There is just enough of the mouse and hole in the shot to make out what it is, but a majority of the shot is the kitchen. The mouse is sniffing, implying he/she (haven't decided on that yet, I'll label it as an 'it' from now on in this post) is hungry. Then, there is a quick zoom to an item on the kitchen counter (maybe cheese, maybe not), implying that the mouse just saw this item and is excited about it.

We then cut to a shot outside of the mouse hole, showing the mouse scurry up a storage type thing to the top of it, and then making a short jump over to the kitchen counter. It then scurries over to the cheese/item, and begins to partake in the goodness. This shot starts out as a close up of the mouse eating, then starts to zoom out as we see a shadow come into view over the mouse. We then cut to a shot of (maybe) an older lady (could change this character in the storyboarding) wielding a net. The mouse notices, becomes visibly scared, throws the cheese in the air, and scampers off with a net crashing down right behind 'it'.

If time allows, I'd like to have a shot of the mouse scampering across the counter and moving behind some liquid filled glasses to get some cool refraction effects, or maybe even knocking the glasses over if I'm ambitious and want some fluid effects.

The mouse ends up jumping on a nearby cuckoo clock, which is coincidently at the time 12:59:55ish seconds. The mouse gets comfortable, the clock 'strikes one', causing a cat figure to come out of the cuckoo clock. There will be some interaction between the mouse and this cat figure, and I want the mouse to go inside the cuckoo clock, and then get launched out of the cuckoo clock when the cat shoots back out.

While in the air I think it would be somewhat cool to have the mouse dodge the net in slow mo 'Matrix style'. Hopefully I can fit this in as well.

The mouse lands, scampers back to its hole, and we're done.

This is probably too much to fit into 30 seconds, I'm going to get the storyboard done and create a rough animatic to see if the timing feels too rushed. If so, I'll take some stuff out.

As far as music, I'm going to try my hand at creating my own soundtrack on a keyboard and drums. Right now I'm thinking I'll start out with some mellow piano music. Once the mouse starts scampering from the human figure, I'll play a somewhat upbeat rendition of 'Hickory Dickory Dock'.

So thats the plan as of now. I'll post my finished storyboard once I'm done, and maybe a simple, basic animatic to get the feel for timing. Any thoughts, comments?

On Second Thought....

2009-09-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

I have decided to use a kitchen as the scene setting as I feel that it has more potential for interaction with the characters (kitchen utensils laying around, potential use of liquids if time permits, etc.). The setting will be light and cheery, as opposed to the dark and dreary office setting I thought I would use earlier. This image shows a general idea of the mood I am going for (but doesn't reflect what the actual kitchen models will look like, it only reflects the mood/lighting ideas I have).

Image Source: hgtv.com

The overall look will be cartoony in nature. The look of the mouse will be similar to this reference of a cartoon dog, except in mouse form of course. I haven't decided yet, but I may use the Maya fur system on the mouse.

Image Source: simplymaya.com

Also, after discussion with Ann I have decided to abandon the Kit Cat Clock idea and go with a potentially more interactive solution such as a cat cuckoo clock. The kitchen will also be decorated with other cat related items to reflect the decor preferences of a cat crazed inhabitant.

More details and storyboard images coming soon!

Initial Thoughts

2009-09-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

I have decided to go with a somewhat traditional representation of this nursery rhyme, with a mouse eventually ending up on top of a clock. When the clock strikes 1, an alarm will sound and scare the mouse off. Initial thoughts are to have this set in an office with a somewhat dark and dreary atmosphere, and potentially use a variation of the famous 'Kit Cat Clock'.

Image Source: Amazon.com

VIZA613: 3D Modeling & Animation

2009-09-01T15:40:00.001-07:00

For VIZA613 I will be creating a short CG Animation based off of the nursery rhyme 'Hickory Dickory Dock'. Stay tuned for my work, including reference images and storyboard coming soon!

'Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down.
Hickory Dickory Dock'

There are also 11 other verses, but in the interest of keeping this to 30 seconds I will just animate this one.