Key poses

Today, our tutor talked to us about key poses, explaining to us the meaning of extreme poses. He also showed us examples using a bouncing ball, which makes it clearer to us. However, having extreme poses is not enough for a good animation. We need in-betweens.

Example, for a bouncing ball, having three extreme poses to form a bounce will not make it realistic at all. We need to add in-betweens to form the arc of the bounce.

Straight-ahead VS pose-to-pose
Straight-ahead is not flexible to changes, basically we have to change everything just to cater to one change. Hence, pose-to-pose is preferred.

The graph editor is very useful to control the curve of movement.


Stages of animation:
Key poses -> Timing -> Graph editor

To make the ball more realistic, create 'weight'. Things to consider will be inertia and gravity. It's about easing in and easing out. Using the graph editor, a gentle slope gives a slower motion to the object.

Character design

References:

Buzz Lightyear:

The name of my character is Lightyear, which I drew inspiration from the existing character, Buzz Lightyear from ToyStory. I find the name Lightyear pretty relevant to my character as it suggests speed, as if one can travel several lightyears effortlessly. I also adapted Buzz's tagline as it is one of my favorite lines.

The Flash:

The general outlook of my character is similar to my favorite superhero, The Flash, as my character will don the same colors, red and yellow. I admire The flash's speed and would like to implement it into my character.

Captain America:

Captain America is my second favorite superhero. I was quite upset when they decided to remove the wings from his head in the later versions as he looked better with them. Hence I decided to implement the wings on my character's head as a "tribute".


Little Green Men: 

Little green men from ToyStory is my favourite cartoon character as they are so cute and adorable. As it was inappropriate to implement their most distinct feature which is their three eyes, I decided to make their logo my character's logo, which is a planet with a ring.

Initial sketches:

Final character:

Name: Lightyear

Tagline: "To infinity, and beyond!"

Introduction: 
Introducing Lightyear, a child superhero that I have created by merging parts of my favorite cartoon/superhero characters to form one. Lightyear is part of a superhero team, the Zius League. Together, they will save the day, anyday. He has several superpowers, such as:

• Lightning speed
• Elasticity
• Flight

Story:


Millions of lightyears away from Earth, there exists another planet crawling with liveforms, planet Zius. Zius was once a peaceful place, a haven, you may say. Until now. Evil forces from neighboring planet, planet Crix, have invaded Zius, to take control by force, and to claim their land. Who will stand up to these forces, who will save the day? The Zius League of course.


Driving force:
The driving force of Lightyear, is the same as that of the Zius league, to maintain peace in planet Zius, and fight the bad guys, of course!


Appearance:

• Lightyear has a small build as he is a child superhero. I gave him limbs without details such as hands and feet to make it more cartoony and casual.
• Lightyear dons a mask like most superheroes and has two wings on his head to symbolize flight.
• Lightyear dons a planet logo on his chest which signifies his planet Zius.

Behavior:

• Lightyear is the youngest and fastest of the Zius League.
• Lightyear is mischievous and full of pranks, the joker of the Zius league.

Short dialogue:
-Over the communication system-
Zurk(Captain of Zius League): "Lightyear! Where are you?! We have a meeting in 5!"
Lightyear: "Knock knock!"
Zurk: "Sigh....  Who's there?"
Lightyear: "Disco!"
Zurk: "Disco who?"
Lightyear: "Disconnected."
Zurk: "Lightyear...?"
Zurk: "LIGHTYEAR!!!"


Reflection:
This exercise taught me how to brainstorm for ideas and draw inspiration. Usually, when I draw characters, I only draw the basic pose, which is the front view. This exercise taught me that different views and poses are hard to draw as we have to consider the positions of every body part. I had fun researching on my favourite characters and combining them into one character.

Three poses

Pose 1: Girl sitting down and smiling

Reference image:

My model:

This pose was quite manageable. The only problem I had was to figure out how to nicely position the legs and hands so that they will not intersect one another! I also played around with the facial features to make the model look happy.

 Pose 2: Girl posing with her hands on her hips

Reference image:

My model:

This pose was harder than the first, as I had to consider the flow of the body parts, especially the curve of the hips and waist. I had to do trial and error several times to achieve a natural look, with a properly curved back. I also tried to make the eyes smaller to mimic the reference image! A huge problem I encountered was the arms and wrist. Due to the rig provided, it is very hard to achieve a similar look to the reference image as the hands are too large. If I were to position the wrists like those in the reference image, the arms will be stretched too much.


Pose 3: Guy dribbling a ball

Reference image:

My model:

This pose was quite challenging as it did not provide a proper view of the person. However, I did my best to make my model look like the one in the reference image. I think I did a pretty good job with the curve of the back as well as the feet. I shifted the hips down to make the model look like it was slightly squatting. I also added a ball for effect!

Reflections:


After this exercise, I learnt that a good rig requires much thinking and appropriate joints. And due to some constraints of the rig, it is very hard to achieve a total similar look as the reference image. Posing also requires quite a bit of trial and error to get the position right.

Spiderman Pose 3

Reference image:

My model:
   

This is my third pose for spiderman, and also my favourite. I think I did quite a good job with this pose as it is very dynamic. My positioning of the limbs and body are also well done and natural. ^_^

Spiderman pose 2

Reference image:

My model:

This is the second pose for my spiderman exercise. I am very satisfied with my work as it is quite similar to the reference image and the curves of the shoulders are appropriately done. However, limitations of the rig caused some problems, such as the thumb isn't able to twist more and small issues with the feet.

Spiderman pose 1

This is the final result of my exercise. I had much difficulty with the arms (elbows) part as it was difficult to accurately place the arms without cutting into the body. I had to make several adjustments to achieve the above. Overall, I am quite satisfied with my work as it looks well-balanced.

Modeling a cow - body

Starting off with a cuboid and extruding faces for arms and legs, I get the above as shown. I adjusted the vertexes to create a more realistic body, such as the belly and the back. 

Next was the neck. I encountered problems with merging the vertexes due to carelessness. I accidentally merged the vertexes with those of the hooves unknowingly. I only realized it later and was too late to undo. However, luckily I had saved my previous versions of the body separately and  was able to redo it on an older version.

Next was the hands. It was fairly simple, with extrusion and moving of vertexes to create a more rounded look. However, the first time I did it, there were small unwanted extrusions at the side after converting the polygons. Hence I tried my best to fix it and achieved the  results below.

I then placed the hands accordingly and merged the vertexes.

I also scaled the head to a suitable proportion to the body and merged the vertexes to the neck. 

And this is my final cow.

This exercise has taught me the importance of saving multiple versions of a project in-case an error occurs. I have also learnt to create more realistic and rounded edges. Extrusion is also very useful in modelling and does not increase the polygon count. Overall, I am quite satisfied with my work. (:

Modeling a cow - Completed cowhead

Upon redoing the cow's head, I was definitely more careful with extrusion. I followed the tutorials provided closely. My cow's head was a little different, due to the proportion. However, this is fine, as it makes my cow look more cartoony and unique.

In this exercise, I've learnt several functions in maya. I have learnt to use vertex mode to adjust the vertexes to create a more rounded look. Another important feature I have learnt in the cow head exercise is to sculpt and shape one side of the head, and then use mirror geometry to create the other side, such that it is symmetrical. I find this extremely useful, if not I would have to try to make both sides the same, which would be near impossible and very tedious. However, I encountered a problem after mirroring as my vertexes in the nose's middle were not correctly adjusted and were affected after sculpting. Hence, after mirroring, there was a gap between the noses. I solved the issue by moving the vertexes towards the middle and then merging them together.

Another thing my tutor has taught us is to save multiple versions of our project such that we can go back to a previous version if any errors occur.

This is the final look of my cow's head.

Overall, I am quite satisfied with my work. I redid it quite a few times as I encountered several problems with the eyes. If I were to redo it again, I will probably make the ears larger as they appear to be very small after smoothing.

Modeling a cow - Problem 1

The objective of this exercise is to model a cow, starting with the head. I have learnt basics of modeling in my previous IN3D module, but modeling a realistic object proves to be a difficult task.

I encountered many problems when I started to model the cow's head. When I got to its eye, I realized that there were multiple edges on a single edge, which caused severe problems when extruding. I tried to delete the edges but couldn't. (From the image, it can be seen that there are multiple edges present.)

Hence, I approached my tutor for help. He taught me how to open up a window where I could see the number of edges selected, as to determine the number of edges present. He also taught me to use the vertex merge function to merge the two vertex such that the edges would merge too. However, even after knowing the solution, I found out that the task will be quite tedious as I have many parts with the same problem and it will be difficult to correct all of them as the vertexes are all at the same spot. Hence, I have decided to redo the cow's head.

My tutor has also told me that careless extrusion might have caused my above problem, and so I will be more careful with extrusions in the future.