From Paper To Polygon

Ive been rummaging around on film websites today, looking up the latest trailers and news, when i came across these intriguing images in a random gallery. These stills are from the new Disney animation ‘Bolt’ which is released very soon. The following images show the progression of the graphic design for the film. Seems like quite a nice little journey it takes, yet after tackling the likes of Maya and now having experience with this field, I bet this took bloody ages to complete.

Here we have a sketchy vision of the specific shot, possibly drawn by hand first and then scanned in and altered through some sort of image wizard software like Adobe Photoshop.

Once approved, the animators can start getting their hands busy and face the time consuming task of modeling the desired sequence. I can only start to imagine how long and tiring this process actually is. Mind you since this is a big budget production, the crew would be much bigger than just one person like we did with our projects. Each animator could be assigned with a specific prop on the scene.

From this point on, it’s all about the tweaking of the scenes and overall just attaining the best possible quality. In the image above, we see that color has been textured and the models have been slightly adjusted.

The final stage of tweaking is to really bring the animation to life. This is definitely the most notable change in the process, as the entire visual definition of the piece is tweaked. The smallest details really do make the difference, such as the lighting, the individual hairs on the characters, the blazes of grass and so on.

Anyway this post is a little off topic from what is currently going on in the course, but I felt the need to post this discovery of images. I think it proves that I am still interested in the whole computer graphics area, even though I admit I’m not exactly great at it. Other people may find these pictures interesting as well so no harm in showing them off. I will also check the film ‘Bolt’ out eventually, as it has had critical acclaim from the critics and the public. Makes a change for Disney to create something good after all these dier years.

Its Aliiiivvveee!

Finally! After months of trying to get this head looking as good as i could, this is the final result.

Its not perfect as you can see, but i am still extremely chuffed with what i have produced. This is putting into fact that I never grasped a massive interest in computer graphics from the beginning. I took the project on board anyway as did everybody else, and created a countless amount of face models (or more like five or six), trying to get as fluid and natural at the program as i possibly could.

The strength of the entire project I believe is the lip syncing.  I knew my model wasnt going to be up to standard, so I wanted to reedem myself in the blend shape process. I felt more comfortable in this stage than i did with the actual modelling. I have some experience with lip syncing in programs like Adobe Flash, so this must have had something to do with it.

Anyway I have done what I can and the project is now over. Bearing this is in mind, for now I will keep Maya on my computer. I could be feeling in a Maya sort of mood one day and might fancy giving it a second chance, but for now the bookmark is in place.

Final Touches

Well I never thought this day would come, I am now just moments away from finishing my Maya project. I have tweaked the model all I can now, and unless youre blind, its pretty obvious that its not exactly perfect (down the front anyways). In the end though I believe that is the only weakness of the design. The lip sync went down pretty well I think, and when its all exported and tweaked etc, I will get round to uploading it to ol’ Youtube.

The image above is just the model in preview mode before I go ahead and render. I thought I had better get a screen snap of this moment, just to remind me of the satisfaction and relief I feel right now. For me this is one of the best moments when creating something, being at the point of eagerly awaiting to exhibit your work to the rest of the world.

Haha, Get It?

I am now at the stage of my Maya project where I can give modelling a rest, and start to think up some sort of dialogue for my head to speak. After pondering on the idea for a while, I decided to simply go with some sort of reference to the model itself. Not alot of people will understand the reference, but I think that’s what makes it interesting.

Right anyway, the idea came to me whilst going through my music collection deciding what to listen to whilst I work on the project. To my satisfaction, the answer was right there in front of me, ‘Talking Heads‘. I didn’t actually listen to them in the end, but they had served a great enough purpose at this point.

So anyway I have this witty idea for some dialogue, but the way it would be delivered was a little up in the clouds still. With my brain against me this day, i was struggling (yet again) to think up some sort of dialogue structure. I decided to look into some background info on the band and to my satisfaction sitting right in their discography list, was an album titled ‘Speaking In Tongues‘.

Accepting the fact my model isn’t exactly up to scratch, and may not reach certain standards as it is, one of the flaws is that my head doesn’t have a tongue. I don’t think were actually meant to construct interior features to the head, but in the end it’s just a bit of humour and a playful attack at my own Maya skills. I have just noted and recorded the final dialogue which is as follows:

‘Hi, I’m a talking head, but I’m not speaking in tongues.‘

Maya Gone Mad On Me!

Ok so its nearing the deadline for the Maya project, and I have just constructed myself some more distinctive lips to give the model more of a human appearance. I based the lips on my own obviously, but for some reason they look like Mick Jagger lips haha. My lips aren’t that big in real life so dont know whats gone wrong there. Anyway that isnt what this is about, or not fully anyway. Basically I am at the stage where i can lip sync my model to a bit of dialogue, and I have done an audio recording ready for syncing.

So anyway I went to blend shape the first mouth movement, and almost soiled myself out of pure terror when i glanced upon the result. As you can see below, the head just sort of deteriates into lots of polygonal faces. The blend shapes worked fine when i just used flat faces for the lips, but now ive bulked them up it doesnt seem the head likes the change.

If anybody has experienced this in the past or just knows more about it, then id be grateful if you fancied dropping a reply on this post and letting me know what i have done wrong. For now I will have to go back to the old fashioned lips, and hopefully if someone helps me out then i could always go back to the Mick Jagger look. We shall see!

Listen Up!

At least my 3d head will be able to very soon. I have just completed my secondary model alongside the head, which is of course the ear.

By following the recommended tutorial below, the process was alot easier than I had assumed. The thing about my model head is when Filippa took the photos back in October, I was wearing a beanie. I decided to keep the beanie on my model head for accessory purposes, and it also gives me more to work with.

Anyway this means overall that the beanie will cover the majority of my ears, so the model doesn’t have to be absolutely impeccable. As you can see from the image below it does look like an ear and I’m not meaning to sound lazy when I say it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just means that I can move forward sooner if I conclude with the ear as it is.

Animation Intro – Keyframing/Shape Blending

This mornings session with Liam has been tiresome, considering i got no sleep at alll the night before, yet an educational step in my knowledge of using maya. We have now progressed from modelling shapes to animation techniques. These techniques will apply to the second stage of our Maya project for modelling and animating our faces.

Liam created a humorously irritating lip sync animation by demonstrating the use of a tool called shape blending. He record his voice and imported it into Maya, and by using the soundwaves of the file as a guide, he could match the lip movements to the soundwaves and therefore create an accurate animation.

I will try this at home later on with my face and see if i can finally bring my self alive by speaking my polygonal mind!

Step 2 : Maya

After following the recommended Youtube tutorial (embedded below) and with the guidance of Elliott at our shoulders, we all cracked on and started to construct our model heads. Everyone did a really good job and prduced some strong first models. Since we are all new to the program, Elliott took us through the stages step by step, as we all worked simultaneously. Steadily paced, nobody got left behind and nobody went ahead.

I now feel a lot better about the project knowing that I have something to work with, and it looks like a face too haha. Over the many weeks to come, I will produce many more 3d heads to get myself comfortable and natural at the program. But as the situation stands for now, I would give myself a pat on the back if I could.

Study Group Session 2

Yesterday, the second study group was in order. Improving from last time, we managed to shotgun the room next door to our class from 5 30pm – 9pm for a solid Maya session. The session was run by Elliot, who has had previous experiences with the program. Elliot and I set up the projector for the lecture, and once everyone had arrived, we began the task.

For an assignment we were set to create our faces and animate them, so Elliot (who is a mile ahead of everyone else) gave us a detailed step by step guide on modelling our faces using Maya and Photoshop.

More Maya!

Today we were shown by Liam how to create NURBS curves. Quite a sophisticated tool, enabling the animator to draw a shape along one axis and then the program generates a 360 circumference around the grid. Seeing as it doesn’t take long to generate results, above are two effortless plays with the tool.

After getting bored with making simple, yet repetitive shapes, I decided to have a go at modeling my water bottle, and I’m pretty chuffed with the result.