Final Video + Evaluation

Here it is the final animation

Evaluation

Our task was to create a character animation that includes expression and body language to convey the idea and concept of our animation.

The ideas for my character have been conveyed in the animation and include everything I intended to use from the start when I was imagining it.
The skills I have learnt from the module have helped me be able to complete the animation and make it to the way I wanted it to be.

Overall the module has been very interesting and I have learnt a lot of new skills of how to create a character, how to skin a model to a biped and bones and the ways to animate a character successfully.

The module has been a good way being able to stick to a task and develop an idea into a fully working animation, with help from the lecturer I have been able to show a character showing different emotions, body movement and persona.

Throughout the module there have been a few problems with animation and rendering such as the Hair & Fur modifier took so long to render that I had to scrap using it and make hair for the character that didnt look particularly good but did the job.
Some of the movements werent fluid enough so I had to redo a lot of them to make them work properly.

As some of my animation wasnt quite good enough I had to change it at week 11 to make the animation better and more effective, this was difficult to do but with patience and hard work I got the animation finished with sound added aswell.

I enjoyed the module a lot and hope to continue using the techniques in work when I leave university.

A few areas that I would have liked to have changed of the animation would be to make the character move more to show the intensity in which he plays games and smooth out the animation with the characters hair and body movements.

I would have liked the hair to look better and to not look so solid on his head but that is due to not doing enough test renders with the hair and fur modifier at the start. When I had noticed the problem with rendering alot of the animation had already been completed.
If I had kept the hair and fur modifier it would of taken a very long time rendering as there was over 2,000 total frames used for the final animation with each frame taking 40 - 60 seconds to render each with the modifiers on.

Editing The Video

To edit the video and make it move smoothly and effectively I placed all of the rendered videos into Windows Movie Maker.

Some of the renders where a little slow and was expressed by many people when watching the first rendered video back so I changed some of the speeds of the videos so that it moved smoother and looked effective.

After looking for a long time for music that was suitable for the video I decided to use a song called Attack by 30 seconds to mars, the reason that this song was picked was the mix from calmer guitars and drums to a stronger more agressive tempo to give the effect of the anger and pain he feels. There is a very well timed pause in the song that is used well in with the video to give a better effect.

I rendered the video in 1280 x 720 with HD Xbox 360 quality so that I dont lose any quality on the video.

Final Changes To The Animation

When gaining feedback from Jo in last weeks lecture the animation was discussed and Jo recommended that I should change some of the animation so that the character isnt so static, more realistic and more expressive.

So the job was to make my character do all of these things, the first section that I decided to do was the start of the animation where Billy is sitting playing computer games.

The idea was to make his movements look like the video of myself playing games so I decided to move his shoulders around for the first scene, I selected the two shoulder sections of the Biped and moved them with the "AutoKey" setting as on so that I could save the movements to the frames.
To get a realistic effect I dragged the shoulders back, then moved them forward asthough Billy was stretching his shoulders. I then rotated them round to make it look like he was doing a circular motion with his shoulder blades.
The next step was to make his eyes more animated so that it looks like he is actually playing a game staring blankly into the tv wasnt a good look as it was too static so I changed the movement so he looks around the tv more and isnt so focused on one point.
The last part for the starting scene was to make Billy look a bit happier playing the games so the scene looks a bit more realistic.
To make Billy smile I selected the face and changed the option to Editable Poly and Vertex selection and moved each area of the face to make him smile. I then moved his teeth to follow the action I had created.
Starting Smile
Enjoyment Smile
Now that the starting scene was complete, it was time to start animating an area that Jo noticed was missing from the video I had shown her, this was the movement of looking up and tilting the head back with hands going behind the head in horror that the tv was falling.

To create this I selected Billy's biped head and rotated it backwards so that it moved in the right way, I then had to select his hair so that it followed the movement of the head.

The last thing that had to be moved was the arms and hands, I selected the top area of the arms first to get a smooth motion, then I selected the forearms to make the movement more realistic.

Then it was time to move the fingers so that it looks like he is gripping his head.
Once his head was at a suitable angle it was time to move the eyes so that it looked like he was looking up in the sky, to do this I selected the reference points I had created with the iris and moved them so they were above the head making him look skyward.
This is what the character looks like from the side when he looks to the sky.
The final area that I decided to add to the character animation was to make Billy throw himself onto the bed and rub his head to show his sadness at destroying his television.

By moving his arms out to the sides it gives the effect of him throwing himself down and by throwing myself backwards whilst sitting it gave me the right movements for animating my character.
To give the effect of Billy falling I selected the Biped and rotated it from the middle with the keyframe tool making sure that it moved fluid and smoothly.

When making billy fall backwards I had to try and make the hair follow perfectly which was very difficult to do as the angles changed for nearly every frame.
I tried my best to make the hair follow but there are parts that are a bit too quick for the hair movements.
When billy hits the bed I made the character bounce back up a little so that it looks like he has hit the bed with force.

I then thought about what I could add to the movements to make it look like he has realised what he has actually done.
To give the effect of realisation of what he has done I made Billy have a sad face but open his eyes and look straight up to the ceiling.
I then animated the movements so that Billy puts his hands on his head then moves them slowly down to his ears in shock of what he has just done.