Category: Collaborative

Summary

I am thrilled that this project has been completed successfully. This is the result of the efforts and labor put in by every member of our team. Although there were difficulties and impediments along the way, the outcome is unquestionably satisfying. The final render of the animation still lacks some polish due to time constraints. In the areas that I was responsible for, such as character modelling, texturing, rigging, and animation, there are still numerous detail-related areas that can be enhanced.

The model’s overall appearance and the degree of authenticity of the character design are relatively high. As this production was created in the lowpoly style, however, there are still control issues with the style. Due to the excessively smooth of the characters, when using solid-colored textures, the lack of sufficient reflection angles during rendering caused a lack of detail in the characters, preventing them from reaching the expected level of sophistication. Due to inexperience, the material and texture renderings in the UE4 engine were slightly oversaturated. The overall tone of the characters and scenes deviated due to the omission of layered rendering, a subject that also requires additional study and adjustment.

Regarding rigging, there are few glaring concerns. However, it is essential to take special note to the wireframe’s setting. At the joints, additional rigging lines should be added to make the model’s skin weights appear more natural.

Finally, for the character animation section, this was the aspect where I spent the most time. The actions were based on the 2D layout as a reference, but when creating the 3D animation, some pose adjustments were not aesthetically pleasing, and the transitions between key poses were not natural enough, leading to a lack of overall fluidity in the actions. Although a large part of this is due to time constraints, having a proper animation production process would greatly increase efficiency. Additionally, I underestimated the time it would take to create the animations. I created about 30 seconds of character animations in total, and my initial expectation was to complete them within a week, but it ultimately took more than two weeks to finish them, which undoubtedly delayed the progress of the entire project. This is something I need to pay special attention to in the future, including when making FMP animations.

Final Animation

Work In Progress Showreel

Hero Image

Portfolio

This week, I began keyframing our rabbit character’s animations. I created camera animation in Maya, even though it is not compatible with the UE4 engine. However, having a basic camera allowed me to check whether the character’s movements are aesthetically pleasing and follow the laws of motion.

I set up a basic scene layout in Maya, which helped me to have a rough understanding of the character’s orientation and the overall scene layout. After completing all of the character’s animations, we importted the animated character into UE4. Then, we set up the camera and match the character’s position with the scene in UE4, and finally complete the rendering process

Shot 01 (Work in Progress)

Shot 02 (Work in Progress)

Shot 03 (Work in Progress)

Shot 04 (Work in Progress)

Shot 05 (Work in Progress)

This week, I began preparing for character animation and needed to consider which movements would effectively convey the emotions of the characters. Using the storyboard provided by Jixuan Chen, I analyzed each movement in detail, noting the duration of each motion as well as the intended emotion that the character should express. This information will guide me as I proceed with the animation process.

Upon completion of the analysis of the characters’ intended emotions and movements, I created a 2D layout for each shot that identified the key poses for the actions. With this information in mind, I began animating the characters using Maya.

Storyboard by Jixuan Chen

Animation Test

Additionally, I created a simple walking and running cycle animation test using the functions of the advanced skeleton plugin. The purpose of this is to import the animations into UE4 for testing, ensuring that the completed animations can be efficiently and seamlessly integrated into the engine, thus avoiding any unnecessary problems.

2D Layouts

Shot 01

Action: The rabbit pushes open the door and joyfully hops down the steps.

Shot 02

Action: The rabbit stares at the small sapling, with a look of confusion on its face. It blinks a few times and shakes its head.

Shot 03

Action: This is a continuous sequence of shots. The rabbit looks at the small sapling with confusion, looks around to its left and right, and then shrugs with an open palm gesture.

Shot 04

Action: As time passed, day and night came and went, the little rabbit watched as the seedling grew taller and taller. he walked into the frame, looked up at the growing seedling with a mixture of confusion and joy, and then walked out of the frame.

Shot 05

Action: The small seedling grew into a massive tree, adorned with twinkling stars that made it look breathtakingly beautiful. The rabbit looked up at the enormous starry tree and felt a great sense of joy.

The character models are pretty much done this week. My next step is to set up the character’s textures and character riggings.

Texture and Material

We had a group discussion this week, as the final characters and scenes need to be rendered in UE4, so if the materials maded within maya are most likely not available. And therefore my main job for the textures was to draw the color tuexture without adding extra nodes in the maya renderer, as this is not needed to be used.

Character Turntable Animation

Character Rigging

The character rigging comes next, and I am confident in its production because I have done a lot of rigging work, including two-legged characters, four-legged animals, and some cartoon creatures rigging.

It is worth noting that I was rigging with the advanced skeleton plugin. It is really convenient for me to rig this rabbit since I don’t have to rig its face separately; instead, I can use the advanced skeleton plugin for some accurate and quick rigging. This capability was included to the most recent update of the plugin.