Author: Tingyi Huang

3D Computer Animation Fundamental Week 6

Week 6

9-11-2022 Weight painting/blend shape

A new way to import file: first copy the script and save it as a ma text document and open it.

Weight painting: Replace cover information, adding is the better method

Take shape editor from animation editor part and customize the model

Final

10-11-2022 Walking Cycle

Final

Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

A Trip To Infinity is a documentary that includes a considerable amount of motion graphics to analyse and explain its ideas. I think this film can be classed as a documentary. Though it is mostly animated, the concern that animation is a “layer” that prevents the audience from directly engaging with the participants or story of an animated documentary (Honess Roe, 2016: 23) exists. The animation in this film works to enhance our knowledge of an aspect of the world and to the extent that the separation of the animation from the documentary is either impossible, or would render the inherent meaning of the film incomprehensible. (Honess Roe, 2013: 10)

Week 5

02/11/2022

Today Nick taught us how to rig a whole character.

First putting boxes in the shape of a robot

Create a new group for the other arm and put negative

Creating nurbs and changing it into a nice shape

Creating parent constrain with the controllers and boxes

Following orders for the final controller on the legs

Adding IK handle on both foot and toe.
Creating a controller for the leg IK handle and use pole vector to control it.

03/11/2022 Weight shift and posing

[1]Posing according to sketches

[2]Weight shift animation

Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 4

The Holy Mountain

I would put The Holy Mountain in the fantasy genre. Alejandro Jodorowsky created this movie in a totally surreal background with absurd settings. Almost every shot from this film has imagery related to different religions, beliefs and psychology. The way Jodorowsky presents it is comically absurd. I still remember the part of the Alchemist turns the thief’s feces into gold, and he said: You are excrement. You can change yourself into gold.

Quotes and Movies: You are excrement you can change yourself into gold

Jodorowsky divided the whole story into small sections on different planets with different characters. However, the main storyline is simple: all characters gather together to find the holy mountain. Though it is combined with so many small sections, the message is simple from this movie. At every core of each section, the film’s central themes reflect that mankind’s nature is corrupted and the happiness one can find hidden in life’s simple pleasures.

list film — The holy mountain 1973 scene film đc, mà nội dung...

Rafael Corkidi, the cinematographer, helped The Holy Mountain have a great mise-en-scene. It is crucial for surrealist films to have clarity and quality in visual representation. Jodorowsky is an aficionado of tarot cards and Jungian theory. He has written several books about it. The music from this film is extremely peaceful and spiritual. All these components and symbols make the movie so unrealistic and illusional. The truth is hidden behind the film and hard to see. What’s so wonderful about the experimental film is that it makes us think. It doesn’t push story and meaning upon us; instead, it leads us to our own answer. I think my answer is pretty clear after The Holy Mountain: You are excrement. You can change yourself into gold. I believe things are not always what they are. The illusion exists, yet truth still exists.

Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky - analysis by Al Razutis - ACT 3 The Story Unravels - Conclusion

” Goodbye holy mountain. Real life awaits us. “

3D Computer Animation Fundamental Week 4

Week 4

26/10/2022-Flour sack rigging

Today we had class about animating a walking cycle with a flour sack.

01.Using IK to make the rigging better

First download the model and set up the project

I want to set up weight for the controller on the feet, so I have to delete the original one.

Then I put Maya to X-ray model and unhide(press “H”) joints group to the bones

Then I use IK Handle to create connection between the feet and the floor(make sure sticky is on)

In the final step I firstly create NURBS circle and match the pivot point to the bottom joint. After this I create a parent constraint between these two.

02.Animating

First time animating walking cycle was hard. However, I did it with the help of my classmate. Here’s some notes that I think is important.

1. The body need to be between the feet in the beginning and ending of a step.

2. The body goes up and down during walking.

3. The body slides towards the point of gravity.

Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 3

The Royal Tenenbaums

Stasis

Royal explained to his kids that he would be separated from his wife, Etheline. His kids Chas, and Margot, who was adopted and the youngest kid Richie all achieved huge success at a very young age. They are so successful that Etheline wrote a book about how she educated them. Eli is the neighbour’s kid and Riche’s best friend.

After living in a hotel for twenty-two years, Royal went broke and got kicked out. His kids are all in a post-success slump. Riche was a tennis prodigy, and now he just travels the world on a cruise ship because of his breakdown. He writes to his friend Eli to reveal his love for his non-related sister Margot. Chas lost his wife in a plane crash and has become overprotective of his kids. Margot is married to neurologist Raleigh St. Clair, who is conducting research on a subject named Dudley. Margot follows extreme secrecy; she has never revealed her smoking and checkered past. Eli just recently won himself a reputation from his recent novel.

Trigger

Etheline’s longtime accountant, Henry Sherman, proposes to her. Learning of Henry’s proposal, Royal claims he has stomach cancer to win back his wife’s and children’s affections.

The quest

They all returned because they wanted to fix their issue and relationship with their family members.

Surprise

They found out Royal’s lie and Margot’s secret(smoking and sexual promiscuity).

Eli, high on mescaline crashes his car into the side of the house Before Henry and Etheline’s wedding.

Critical choice

Royal decides that he wants Etheline to be happy, and finally arranges for a divorce. Eli and Chas agrees to both take therapy. Margot tries to quit smoking.

Climax
Richie attempted suicide. Everyone gathered at hospital.
Etheline and Henry got marries
Chas paunches Eli.

Reversal
Royal finds a job. Everyone tries to solve their problems instead of avoiding and escaping.

Resolution
Some time later, Margot releases a new play inspired by her family and past events, Raleigh publishes a book about Dudley’s condition, Eli checks himself into a drug rehabilitation facility and Richie begins teaching a junior tennis program. Chas becomes less overprotective of his children. Royal seems to have improved his relationship with all his children, and seems to be on better terms with Etheline. He has a heart attack and dies at the age of 68. Chas accompanies him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and is the only witness to his death. The family attends his funeral.

Archtypes:

The Tenenbaums family are hero/shadow (my understanding that is this story doesn’t have the clear line between line between good and bad. Everyone in this story is a sinner and their own saviours)

Eli-Trickster (He is the embodiment of a clown. He wants to try to fit in and impress the Tenenbaums so much)

Henry-Herald (His propose to Etheline reminds Royal)

Pagoda-ally (A good servant)

Raleigh St. Clair-ally (A nice husband)

Royal before the film start:
Born in and raised neglected( One of his parents, or maybe both are very rude, uneducated and racist)—climb his way up hard and become a lawyer

3D Computer Animation Fundamental Week 3

Week 3

19-10-2022 Parenting and constraint

Today Nick taught us about doing animation with constraining. I complete a short animation of picking and throwing a ball by setting up a parent relation between the locator and the object.

Firstly I create the first finger. I set up the group between the bottom and the top so I can control the animation better. Also, it is important to keep freezing transformation.

After finishing the first finger, I build up the whole hand.

Nick also told us a quick way to rename objects faster.

Adjusting the size of the forearm and posing the arm.

Parenting the hand locator, ball locator and ball (following by order).

Final animation after adjusting the keyframe to make it more physically accurate.

20-10-2022 Anticipation

Today we had class about anticipation, George gave us the squirrel video as a reference for animating a ball with tail.

Real squirrel reference

Other helpful reference

Final animation:

On 27th I had my feedback from George through syncsketch:

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/dccac5cb5ae7/#/13453954/14066547

I fix my animation accordingly:

3D Computer Animation Fundamental Week 2

Week 2

12-10-2022 Deformers

Today we had class about making animation using curve, which is one of the basic forms of doing 3D animation in Maya.

Nick firstly taught us to pull a dark from Maya’s assets, then draw a curve as the trace of shark swimming.

To animate the tail of the shark, I need to use sine deformer from the nonlinear part to imitate the movement. To make the deformer move together with the shark, I had to parent it with the shark
object.

In order to capture the shark animation from a nice perspective, Nick taught us to set up a camera with camera aim. I need to parent the aim with the Shark as well, so the aim moves together with the shark.

For the rendering part, I put an aiSkyDomeLight as the overall lighting. Then I create a gradient environment to make it look more like the ocean. I also replace the texture of the shark to standard surface.

Remodelling the shark

Adding the eyeball and use extrude to make the mouth.

It is a shark so sharp teeth is necessary, I made it a bit cartoonish because of my personal preference.

I add a tongue and a party hat to make the shark has more personality.

Animating the tongue using sine deformer.

I put the tongue on the side because it is swimming. There is resistance under water.

I then set up octane to render it. I use octane because I forgot to cancel my subscription, and I don’t want it to go to waste.

Final render with octane daylight and simple texture.

I also did some underwater light effect with Cinema 4D so I can use it for compositing.

Final result.

13-10-2022 Pendulum animation

After fixing the bouncing ball animation, I started the pendulum animation:

Besides the animation assignment, I also need to sketch people for posing characters next week. I went to the gym on Friday and did some sketches based on gym workout.

notes from class:

I don’t really know 12 principles of animation so I will put it here.

Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Research Blog

Week 1

I want to research more about post-colonialism. It has been a fascinating topic for me ever since I left my home country through a recent history of movies and animation as well as literature work. I start to develop a more comprehensive view of it. In fact, I want to take a deep look and research it. If everything goes well, I want to use this big topic for my thesis as well.

Therefore, in the next few months, I would like to form a critical report by looking at the history of animations from east Asia as well as east Asian descendants.

Week 2

Mise en scène

Mise en scène is a way of visual story-telling in theatre and cinema. It combines storyboarding, cinematography and the director’s artistic interpretation. Overall, Mise en scène includes all the creative aspects of a movie or theatre production.

Now it has become clearer to me that for the subject of my research, I will focus on a smaller one regarding the relatively big topic: post-colonialism. I would put my effort into nostalgia and remembrance in a specific type of animation. Still, I need time to evaluate and research more about animation and its theme.

After thinking about it, I decided to focus on nostalgia in the family rather than east Asia as a whole. I think the topic is far too big for me.

Here what I got:

——

nostalgia and family in cinema

Nostalgia is a common yet tricky topic. It is restorative, reflective and sometimes sensible to touch. Nostalgia is more than a feeling for certain characters in some films. In Wes Anderson’s movie The Royal Tenenbaums, nostalgia invokes the characters’ yearning to rebuild and reconstruct what they missed. In my research, I’ll mainly focus on this movie about how nostalgia is presented through the film and what it means to be nostalgic in the context.

Key words:

Nostalgia Family Cinema narrative simulacra

Research of works:

Violating Time: History, Memory, and Nostalgia in Cinema. (2008). United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Stefano Baschiera (2012) Nostalgically man dwells on this earth: objects
and domestic space in TheRoyalTenenbaums and TheDarjeelingLtd , New Review of Film and
Television Studies, 10:1, 118-131, DOI: 10.1080/17400309.2011.633030

Banash, D., & Spain, A. (2022). Professional Life, Childhood, and Fantasy Solutions: Middle-Class Alienation in the Fiction of J. D. Salinger and the Films of Wes Anderson. Retrieved 18 October 2022, from https://post45.org/2021/06/professional-life-childhood-and-fantasy-solutions/

3D Computer Animation Fundamental Week 1

Week 1

5-10-2022 UI and basic workflows

We had a few introductions to the course. I met everyone in the class and had my first class about Maya. Friendred told us about the arrangement of our course. Nick gave us an introduction from polygon modelling to basic animating. Since before the class I only learned a bit basic about modelling in Maya, I was excited to learn the animation interface. The comprehensive teaching gave me a lot of insight as a Maya beginner.

note:

important project setup before every project

6-10-2022 Introduction and reference: bouncing ball

I was sick on Thursday, so I didn’t go to uni. I watched the recording of the class on Thursday. I learned a bit more general knowledge of fundamental animation rules, which was nice since I didn’t come from an animation background. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this course.

My weekly assignment is the bouncing ball animation. George briefly went through the bouncing ball animation during class. After class, I did the bouncing ball assignment myself as practice.

Week 2 update:

On Thursday I went to uni and show George my bouncing ball animation. George pointed out the problem with my animation as shown on the note. I improved my animation according to his advice after I got home.