Terry Brunt - Computer Animation Arts

Thursday, 29 October 2020

Art Jam - Session 1

New to this year, tri-weekly art jams.

This week saw the return of an art challenge from first year, Monster Mash.

Starting rules were simple, roll 3 numbers between 0 and 6 and this would determine how many eyes, arms & legs your monster would have.

I rolled:

Eyes: 2

Arms: 0

Legs: 6

Then you had to roll another number between 1 and 7 to get a character role.

I rolled a 4, which was goth.

Once you have you starting numbers, you are tasked with drawing 8 thumbnails for different monster designs.

To run with the goth type style, which I'm not super familiar with, I tried to think of things that are typically associated with the gothic style. Designs 1 & 3 are cthulhu, octopus type things. 2 & 4 are spiders, 4 specifically is shaped like a skull. 5 is dinosaur looking thing, but with spiked armbands, King Bowser was the main inspiration for that one. 6 is a 6 winged bat. 7 is a strange pug looking monster, but with fangs. 8 is based on the vampire squid.

After that, you have to pick 3 monsters you want to take forward onto the next stage, and then you need to roll a new number between 1 and 10 to select a personality type.

I rolled a 2, which was angry.

With this new bit of information, you redraw your 3 chosen monsters with more detail this time.

I decided to continue with monsters 5, 6 & 8. Monster 5, the dinosaur, wasn't originally meant to have sunglasses, but everyone in the session said it looked like it had them, so I ran with it. I also changed its pose to seem more angry. For monster 6, the bat, I just made more detailed. I think I went a bit overboard with the spike bands on monster 8, the squid.

Once you have done that you have one task left: Chose 1 of your monsters to finalise.

I decided the monster I should finalise would be the bat, because I felt like it was the most gothic out of all of my monster designs.

Maya Tutorials - Squash and Stretch

Final year, no graded toolkit, that however doesn't mean the lessons stop.

In this first session there was three tasks to do, starting with a five minute pose challenge with moom. Unfortunately I was unable to do this challenge due to technical issues, but the situation was sorted as we moved onto the actual lesson.

Part 1: Basic Squash, Stretch & Volume Preservation

Starting with an already rigged toadstool. Geometry layer hidden to show only the skeleton. Using the distance tool to measure the total length of the skeleton coming to 8 units. The locators in from the measure are then to be parented under the controls.

Import all 6 joints in the rig as well as the distance shape into the node editor. From there add 4 extra multiply/divide nodes. The first multi/divide node is used to control the squashing and stretching. Use it to divide the total length by itself to feed back into the joints. To create the volume preservation, the 3 other multi/divide nodes are needed. The first node is the "normaliser", it's used to create a value of 1 by dividing the distance by itself, just like the last multi/divide node. The next node is the square root, this is achieved by updating the output from the normaliser by the power of 0.5. The output from that node should then go into input 2 of the final multi/divide node. This node is to divide the input by 1, resulting in the final number that can be connected into the joint nodes, scale Y & Z.

Normal Toadstool

Squashed Toadstool

Stretched Toadstool

Part 2: Conditional Squash & Stretch

Starting with this pre-made arem, measurement is taken from the shoulder to the wrist. This time the locators are to be constrained rather than parented, this is to prevent a feedback loop.

Only the distance tool shape and the shoulder & elbow joints are imported into the node editor. From here a multi/divide node and a condition node are needed. Connect the distance to the multi/divide input 1X, this will give you the tools length, however it is not the true length of the arm because of a slight bend required for rigging. To get that number add the translate X values of the elbow and wrist together. This total distance should go be written into input 2, then the output X should be connected to "Colour if True R" on the Condition node. The distance should also be connected to the condition node's first term. From ensure that the condition node's first term is the measured distance and its second term is the true distance, once that's in place set the condition node to "Greater than or Equal to". You can then connect the Out Colour R to the Shoulder and Elbow nodes, Scale X.

Normal Arm

Stretched Arm

Retracted Arm (No Squash)

Friday, 23 October 2020

Minor - Updates (Script V3 & Some new ideas)

After my Jetpack Jones submission I took quite a long break for numerous reasons, but alas here we are back again and it's time to kick the 3rd year into gear.

A few things.

1. I was planning on getting my animatic completely finished before coming back, but I was unable to due to mental health complications. Not that it matters now anyway, the script is being updated.

2. Speaking of the script, Tom requested that I give him an updated script so he could have a better understanding of my idea. I have now done this. I've only update a couple lines here and there, but I have completely overhauled the ending. I'm hoping this version will be funnier.

3. I need to change the name of the title character. "Epic Man" is really only a placeholder until I can think of something much better. I was thinking of something like "Captain Klepto", which plays into the joke of the ending, but I'm unsure of it.

4. I have also been thinking of removing one of the henchmen, which would mostly be helpful in saving time when character modelling/rigging. But I am aware this would require a bit of story rewrite to effectively combine the roles of two of the henchmen.

5. And lastly, for the character designs in 3D I had an idea about how to do the eyes, eyebrows and mouths of the characters. I'm wondering if it's possible to animatable planes that I can move around the heads. I think if I can pull of this idea correctly, it would lend itself excellently to the heavily stylised and cartoon art style.

If I haven't explained an idea very well here or there is something wrong with the script, please do let me know.