This week is the final video export, as well as a reflection and summary of the first nine weeks of content.
First, there is the final video.
Reflection on Project 1
This project one lasted for ten weeks. I actually didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do for the first three weeks, I just knew roughly that I wanted to do an animation preview and that I needed to learn storytelling. I also didn’t have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with the story, and it took about four weeks before I finally settled on my story content and storyboard. After that, it took about 6 weeks to build the scenes, animate the characters, set up the camera, etc., and it was revised many times during the process, and each time I needed to check and connect the front and back shots. This was a very different attempt for me than before. In the past, I paid little attention to the skill of transitions and the charm of storytelling, but now I found that these two points have greatly improved the quality of the film.
This week, we basically decided on the final version of the video, reviewed it again based on the previous changes, and made the final adjustments and edits.
In my discussions with George, his feedback focused on the ending section, and a significant rotating overhead shot.
The main character’s final ending part of the animation changes
The following shot switches to a closer view
The main character turns around and smiles
In the previous version, the view size of this shot and the previous shot were not the same, George suggests not to modify the view size of these two shots, keep the same to make the shot more coherent.
Session with Nick
Overall, the rigging part of the arm is complete and I now have movable fingers, forearm, elbow and large arm. The next thing to do is to do more texture and material details.
Demonstration video of the movement of the robot arm
I wanted to make a very minimalist looking robot arm, so I basically used only two basic colors, pink and black. I make more adjustments to the material in terms of metallicity and roughness.
My material sphere is Arnold’s Ai standard surface, with five different materials and colors.
First give a sky light, now there is no sky light a suitable
hdr , so the current light is relatively flat.
When given a suitable environment map, you can clearly see that the lighting has changed very much. At the same time, the basic color, roughness, metallicity and highlights of the material surface are more obvious and easy to see.
Therefore, the material of the robot arm has to be adjusted again.
One of my design highlights for this robotic arm is to make an electronic screen mapping to its forearm, making it more intelligent and technological.
This week’s task is to make changes to the feedback from last week. In addition, I have made new adjustments to the animation and shots in the ending section. It’s worth coming to a well discussion.
Once again modified the model’s face direction, this time you can clearly see the front.
The last version of this shot, the angle of the face when crying is too low, resulting in the inability to see the character’s expression, so this time when crying did not keep the head down very low
The second character’s model adds a frontal shot
In revealing the psychological activities of the main character, George looked for overhead shots from the movie as a reference, which greatly inspired me.
Since I didn’t take a picture of that reference shot during the class, I had to find a similar shot reference to illustrate. I learned the terminology for this shot, called a Trial Shot
Film reference from-[I Am Legend]
This place is, in my opinion, the best change. Following George’s suggestion, keep getting closer and closer while shooting the character from above, then close up. Such a process can express a state of deep thought / falling into.
For this shot, I added animation to visualize the process of the character’s mental struggle.Video – In front of the door, the standing animation of the feet is modified to a natural state.
I’ve added a new look at the Door Handle shot here, divided into two. One is a static shot of the handle of the door. The other is the main character reaching out to twist the handle of the door.
Video – The second shot of the door handle, the main character twists the door handle.
Feedback！
Maybe I set the character standing problem, George suggested that I change a hand to open the door handle, so it would be more reasonable.
This week’s assignment was to make modifications to the feedback from the last week, along with the addition and deletion of new animations and shots.
About the modification of the animation&Camera
In the initial version, the action of this shot was too far off, so I rotated the model’s face a bit to the right and brought the depth of view closer.
Now a closer view
In the previous version, both feet were shaking in sync. Now the movements of the left and right feet are done separately, with alternation.
The previous shot of this head bowed and crying was taken from the left. Now switch the camera to the right, and the first shot is the same direction, so that the shot is more coherent.
Video-Modified crying actionThis shot removes the part where the camera moves and stays static.This shot also stays still and adds motion
This shot, the right model changed three times, is to show the different images of the main character in the eyes of others. But no animation has been added yet.
Video-Switching of roles
Here the two shots are edited together because it is a coherent shot. The main character opens his eyes first and finds himself in the sea.
Video-Transition of the camera
The character in this shot walks from the left side of the camera to the right side, and then disappears completely in the shot. In my previous version, the character did not finish walking up this staircase, and the body was very straight and the animation was not natural enough.
The main character bowed his head and sighed, took a deep breath, and raised his head again for a long time I modified the action. The previous version is the following two pictures like this.
There may be a problem in adjusting the controller
At first I did not find this problem, after the feedback feel the model face is strange
Here is the animation video of this shot modification
I adjusted the face controller and now there are no strange facial hollows.
I Modified the action of deep breathing for a long time, but still feel that it does not show very vivid.
Feedback！
George suggested that the action of this shot changed to a foot shaking all the time. This better reflects the tension of the character, the current feeling is still too casual.
The place where this shot is switched needs to be changed. It is best not to pause, but directly from the opening of the eyes to the camera pulled away. Such a change is more visually appealing.
This shot should have the character go up the stairs from left to right. I did the animation of the right side going up the stairs until it disappeared, but the left side was not finished. It should also go from off-camera to on-camera from the left.
In fact, the ending part also has new feedback, because the ending part I have to redesign and modify again, so I have to modify the new ending before the next discussion.
This week I finished the animation preview and shot setup for the main character. Based on George’s suggestions, I also made some changes to the shots and movements of the two supporting characters.
About the main character’s shot
These are the shots of the main character in the viewing room
This is a static shot that will be cut in between shots of other characters.
A shot taken from the top overhead. I wanted to show a sense of pressing.This shot is taken from the side, reflecting the psychological play of the protagonist and the egoThis static close-up shot is a transition shot that connects to the next scene.
These are the scenes of the main character in the sea
Connect the last shot, but have changed the scene.A momentary pull-out shot shows the environment the main character is in.In the long shot, a door appears from the sea. This shot pays respect to my favorite movie, The Truman Show.For the last shot, I edited several shots together and the main character disappears behind the door.
This is the first version of the main character’s animation preview and shots. I designed the general movements and camera positions. The viewing room scene has 5 shots. The sea scene has a total of 11 shots, and I dropped two shots that did not work well in the editing.
This week I started basic scene building in Maya, and did camera design and previews in three different scenes. My scenes are built according to the story. Since it was for animation preview, I didn’t give the scene a very elaborate shape and texture. My three scenes are a conference room for interviews, an observation room with a digital screen, and an ocean that symbolizes the inner world of the main character.
I mainly finished the scene building as well as the animation and camera production for the two supporting characters.
About the three different scenes：
This is the first scene, the conference room
The second scene, the main character’s viewing room
The third scene, the sea, the stairs and the door
About the character model：
The first role, he is a supporting role
The second role, she is also a supporting role
This is the main character
My story is more on the feeling side and somewhat abstract. My story doesn’t have a lot of character lines or narrative. So I needed the models to have facial expressions, so I went looking for model materials that could animate the characters’ faces. The character models were downloaded from the website for the purpose of action acting and camera learning for the animation preview.
This is the website address of the model ：https://www.wmiao.com/forum-cgmodel-1.html
The next is about the role of the camera and animation
Medium ShotClose up shotClose-up of feet and close up of face
There are nine shots of the two supporting characters, and I have selected four of them to show.
This is the first version of the shots, and I’m not quite satisfied. There may be some connection issues, but I also want to intersperse these shots with shots of the main character’s reaction. This needs to be adjusted together after I finish the main character’s shots.
Since I wasn’t very specific about the previous story, I was still a little unclear about what I wanted to do with the story. So I rewrote the script about the second story. And re-storyboarded the shots that I wanted to show.
The script
Scene 1 Studio
Medium Shot of a woman being interviewed in a studio
Close up The woman is telling what she sees as the main character is a mean person
Medium The woman who is the daughter of the main character
“When I was little, he wouldn’t even pay for me to sign up for a hobby group or take me to a restaurant to eat”
Scene 2 Information Cocoon Room
Medium The protagonist is sitting in a dark and quiet room with his back to the camera. He is facing the digital screen on the wall, watching the interview with his daughter on the screen, and he still does not speak.
Close up The daughter continues to be interviewed on the digital screen in the room.
The camera advances
“I sometimes wonder if I might not be his own daughter and that he doesn’t love me at all.”
Medium The main character bows his head and sighs
Scene 3 The studio
Medium The interviewer is replaced by another male who is wearing a prison uniform and claims to be the main character’s boss.
Close up Man sitting in a chair telling the protagonist is a greedy man.
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here dressed like this, this sickening guy.”
Scene 2 Information Cocoon Room
Medium shot Back shot Main character looking at the interviewer on the digital screen.
Medium shot Back shot The main character changed his sitting position, from hands on knees to hands around the arms
Full lens shot Side shot The main character sitting on the left, the middle is a layer of glass, the right is also the main character himself.
Full lens shot Side shot The main character sitting on the left is static without changing his posture The main character on the right has been changing from his original appearance into various kinds of characters, but they are not himself.
Close-up A light shines on the main character’s eyes, and he closes and opens the eyes again.
“It’s not me.”
Full lens shot Back shot The wall around the main character disappears from around him instantly like a series of digital codes.
Scene 4 The sea of the mind
Full lens shot The main character is sitting on the beach, with an endless sea and blue sky in front of him. The beach behind the main character is covered with large pieces of diamonds.
Full lens shot There is a white staircase in the middle of the sea that connects to the sky.
Medium The main character is standing on the white staircase steps, one step forward.
Close-up The main character twisted the handle of the door.
Close up The main character looks back and smiles
Close up The main character opens the door, behind which is a dazzling light, and the main character goes into the light.
This week I told George about three of my ideas. I made three 3D storyboards.
story01
story02
story03
All the stories are still in preliminary attempts, three different topics about kinship, self, and exploring the unknown respectively. After discussing with George, I was most interested in the second story, about self-awareness, in which the main character gradually comes to know himself and releases himself between the conversations of others.
My mood board
Session with Nick
We’re doing mechanical fingers in this class, and it’s a fun way to start. Since Nick tells us we’re going to end up making a great looking robotic arm, I’m looking forward to what I’ll be making.
This lesson introduces about the rule of third and the camera lens. My goal was to build a scene and worldview on my own and to tell the story as a director. I needed to come up with three different ideas and do the initial set-up.
To better understand the creation of the story and the construction of the world view, there are some basic introductions.
Understanding mise en scene and compositions help define our stills/shots. To get to that point where you can communicate what you want you first need to establish the world.
• Where is this taking place?
• What era?
• Future, past or present?
• Space? Western? East Asian? Steam punk?
• What governs your world? Laws? Gods/religions?
How do these things effect your story?
point of knowledge is about telling the story with camera shots/angles
