major project- the carnival of the animals- art of

- An Art of -

Joey Ku

About Me I am currently a third year student studying for my

degree in CG Arts and Animation at the University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, Kent (UCA).

The idea of creating an animated short as a year

long project is because of my interests in creating unique characters and worlds from 2D to 3D. With this in mind and also having an interest in developing my production and animation skills, this led the project being divided into two sections.

This specific Art of document shows the progress

made so far for the first half of the project: Character Design and Modelling along with some extra work made in preparation for the animation.

The Project ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ is a year long project divided into two parts, ‘The Minor

Project’ and ‘The Major Project’. The main intention of this year long project is to create awareness about animal extinction in a scenario similar to a wildlife campaign as a 1-2 minute animated short. The Minor Project is the first half of the project which comprises of 14 weeks focusing on character design, modelling and early stages of pre production. Because character design and performance as well as improving my skills in creating an animated short are the main focus , environments will be kept simple to help add more emphasis on the characters. Mission Statement: Once The Minor Project has been completed, the next stage is in The Major Project. This would focus on the Production stage and Post Production to create the final animated outcome as intended within the space of 15 weeks. This includes, refining the animal’s rigs, animating, compositing and editing.

Art Direction To help create awareness, the

short is inspired by the colourful yet unique animals leading to be further inspired by the likes of Charley Harper and Eric Carle by their use of textures, colours and simple shapes. This led to the idea of the animals being emphasised by their strong bright colours in a world that darkness never exists.

With the art direction chosen, music was needed to aid the animation. Hearing French Romantic Composer, Camille Saint Saëns’s piece ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ in particular the finale, this helps create an atmosphere of celebration along with the character’s vivid colours. Shock impact in the music would help aid in making the animation more serious.

Pre-Production: Storyboard

Heading into the pre-production stage helps plan out what steps are needed or developed to make a successful animation. This includes storyline, storyboards and concept art surrounding the characters, environments and the art style.

To create the story, I’ve listened to the music piece and quickly made

rough drawings and taking notes on how the story goes. As the storyline became more clear, this was laid out onto a storyboard for visual guidance which went through several rounds of development and made into an animated storyboard or an animatic.

Storyboards

Characters

Choosing what animals to include in the animation was tricky as the common animals that we know are extinct such as the Do-do or the Tasmanian wolf cannot be used as this would result as a straight giveaway to what the animation is about. I’ve decided to research some animals that we’re well known between 16th and the 20th century due to either hunting, pollution or due to nature itself . Overall, I have chosen six animals from different environmental areas: land, sea and air.

Animal Thumbnails

Chosen Selected Animals

Creating the look Using the influences of Charley Harper and Eric Carle, I’ve scanned and used two candy wrappers as my base textures for all the animals whilst using various blending modes between layers. I’ve also decided to use various brushes as stamps with blending modes to make the animals more interesting.

Final Concept Art

Character Turnarounds

Character Expressions

Modelling

Modelling each character proved quite a challenge since each character is different from each other. This would begin by using the turnarounds as an orthographs (2D image references) and begin to block out the shape of the head using a cube before moving onto the body, limbs and tail. It is best to keep the character as simple as possible to avoid future difficulties in particular in the skinning stage. Once the blocking is complete, the body parts would be fused together ready for the next stage.

Modelling Steller’s Sea Cow The Steller’s Sea Cow was the first to be modelled due to the simple body shapes. Unfamiliar to modelling a Sea Cow’s head, the best way to approach this is to imagine being a clay modeller and which areas should be stretched or smoothed. With that in mind, and upon closer inspection, both human and animal modelling have similar topology which became more clearer and easier to model this and other characters.

Modelling European Sea Sturgeon

Unlike the Steller’s Sea Cow, this was slightly difficult at first as the arrangement of the nose and mouth were completely different to the Sea Cow’s and a humans. But upon closer inspection it is noted that the flow of the lower jaw is the same as a humans.

Modelling Haast’s Eagle

Getting into the grips of modelling and getting more used to topology, modelling the Haast’s Eagle was slightly easier. The wings were slightly harder to make and plan out where the vertices or edges should go whilst bearing in mind where the joints could be placed when it comes to rigging the character at a later stage. However, thinking of a bird’s skeletal structure helped plan it out.

Modelling Xerces Blue Butterfly

The Xerces Blue Butterfly was comfortable to model as it does not require any facial modelling or limbs but just a body and a pair of wings instead. This model was one of the quickest models to make.

Modelling Eastern Elk

Creating a quadruped model was a bit difficult at first in terms of edge flow and how or where the edges should go. Again, treating it like a human’s modelling, modelling the Eastern Elk made things a bit clearer.

Modelling- Sea Mink

Referring back to the Eastern Elk’s modelling, it had gave me a rough idea on how to model the last character of the group, the Sea Mink. The head is slightly similar to modelling the Sea Cow’s with the exception of the lower jaw and including eyelids for the mink.

The Six Models

UV Process Applying UV’s to my characters were vital especially when it comes to making textures onto another software. To UV the characters, some of the models had to be taken apart before reattaching them back together again.

Texturing the Characters The textures made in the concept art consists of many layers with different blending modes. To retain the look, it was better to have the textures ‘painted’ onto the model using another software, Mudbox. This was far more easier to work with in particular when working with seam lines, which could be painted overlay. I’ve made an experiment beforehand texturing on Maya, however seam lines were noticeable and it did not give the desired look. With the idea of using a rim shader, it was necessary to create a dark copy of the texture map to make it look more vibrant.

Lighting the Models Lighting is an important aspect for this animation. With the world being only restricted to colour and no shadows are shown, the only way to make the characters stand out from one another was to create a rim shader. This creates the effect similar to holographic paper that emits a lighter colour when lit or bent. Using a colour based on a different animal helps define it as a group.

Top: Rim shading applied Below: Without shaders

Steller’s Sea Cow’s Texture Maps The Steller’s Sea Cow was one of earliest characters to have textures applied on. Before the other characters had their UV’s completed, the Sea Cow was the experimental model to have test painted textures, leading up to the use of this method.

Normal texture map Dark texture map

Steller’s Sea Cow Textured


European Sea Sturgeon Texture Maps

European Sea Sturgeon Textured

Haast’s Eagle Texture Maps


Haast’s Eagle Textured

Xerces Blue Butterfly Texture Maps

Normal Texture map Dark Texture map

Xerces Blue Butterfly Textured

Eastern Elk Texture Maps


Eastern Elk Textured

Sea Mink Texture Maps


Sea Mink Textured

Rigging and Skinning

In the early stages of rigging, it was best to research about various animal anatomy and how their movements work. This involved going to The Natural History Museum in London and from there took reference images as well as sketching some exhibits.

Rigging and Skinning-Sea Mink

Although the Sea Mink was already rigged and skinned during the Minor Project. Refinements and new rig parts were needed for a better animated character. The mink is the only character that would have a unique skeleton rig. The spine would contain a ribbon spine for squash and stretch, the body overall would have a quadruped skeleton, and as for the legs, they’re slightly humanoid. Skinning the character was slightly easier through using painting skin weights.

Rigging and Skinning- Sea Cow and the Sturgeon

• The Stellar’s Sea Cow and the European Sea Sturgeon were fairly easy to rig as their only purpose throughout the animation is to either swim in a zig-zag route or simply vertically. Skinning the two characters were fairly simple to assign the geometry to the rig.

Rigging and Skinning- Haast’s Eagle

From the group, the Haast’s Eagle was more difficult to rig and skin due to the amount of geometry within the character. Even though the character only performs its wings flapping, animating claws, eyes, beak and tail made it more lifelike.

Rigging and Skinning- Xerces Blue Butterfly

The Xerces Blue Butterfly was the quickest characters to be rigged and skinned. This was simply due to the amount of geometry in the character and how it performs which only the wings move.

Rigging and Skinning- Eastern Elk

Like the mink, rigging and skinning the Eastern Elk seemed slightly easier to do except for some parts of the rig, which are a bit different to the Mink.

Creating Cycles

Preparing the Music

To create some dynamics within some parts of the music, Adobe Audition and GarageBand were used to apply effects such as reverb and delay. This would be later exported as an mp4 and imported into premiere pro to go along with the animatic. This would be used as a rough guidelines as to where and when should the animals be performing. Once the animatic is perfected, the animals would be modelled, textured, rigged and skinned, ready for animating.

•

Adding reverb effect onto a selected track

To add a metronome on GarageBand, just select the little icon on the right

Metronome can also be activated on Audition by going to multi-track mode, select the track> multi-track>enable metronome. There is also an option to change the tempo of the metronome within the menu.

Understanding the movement

Using references and creating drawn cycles helped understand how animals move like from how a butterfly flies to how an elk walks. The timing of each animals’ movements were taken into account as well to dance in time to the music. For each individual animal, they are designated to a specific instrument and using its rhythm, a metronome would be added for beat emphasis and as a rough timing for each body part. To do this, the music had to be taken into Adobe Audition, edited for the specific animal’s part and later export the music into an .aiff file format. Doing this allows Maya, which can only read .aiff, .wav and sometimes mp3 formats to be able to use sound as well as displaying the music along the timeline.

Importing sound into Maya

Once the music file is imported into Maya, the timeline will display waveforms of the music in green based on the music’s dynamics created from the beats of the metronome and the emphasis effects (3). Using the music on the timeline can help indicate the timing of the piece as well as providing audio and visual playback.

To import a sound file, first go to file>import and click on the options box beside it (1). This brings up a pop up window (2). The only setting that needs changing is in the general options tab. Click on the drop down menu in file type, select audio, click on import and select the sound file.

1.

2.

3.

Getting the timing Once the beats are familiarised, there are some things to take note when it comes to animating a character in sync to a piece of music: • The duration of the legs from being raised to landing on the ground. • If the character has more than two legs, the number of legs it travel on.

As The Carnival of The Animals piece is slightly fast pace (99 bpm), the metronome beats once every fifteen frames. With this in mind combining some specific horse dressage movements like the passage and piaffe, and looking at how the quadruped travels on two legs, the timing of when the feet touches the ground is taken account. This comes to a rough timing of six to seven frames which once one cycle of a leg is complete, it can be looped. Each key frame from various parts of the character's body should be roughly or be kept at the same time.

Because the music is played throughout the animation, some animals may travel quicker or slower than the others. As the Sea Mink travels in sync to the music, the beats could be doubled or halved, to harmonize the other animal’s movements.

Getting the timing

Once all walks and or dance cycles are completed, the metronomes sounds can be taken out and be

replaced with the original or edited music or be added in post production.

Animating a Run Cycle-Sea Mink

Research was made as to how the animals move using their living closest relative as a guide. However for the mink, a reference run had to be created. Looking at a squirrels, cats, ferret and even a pole cat’s run cycle as a rough guide helped create an energetic character run. With the sea mink having the ribbon spine applied and with the right timing using a metronome, this helped create a squash and stretch movement on the model.

Animating a Flight Cycle-Haast’s Eagle

For the Haast’s Eagle, looking at its modern day relatives, the eagles gives a rough guide as to how the Haast’s Eagle should fly. Similar to the mink, I’ve had it movements play in sync with my music piece.

Animating a Flight Cycle- Xerces Blue Butterfly

As the Xerces Blue Butterfly only has its wings flapping, timing is important to ensure it mixes well with other animal characters when performing together.

Animating a Walk Cycle- Eastern Elk

Just like the Mink, the Eastern Elk has its cycle made to go in time to the beat of the music. However, as the Elk is performing a combination of the passage and the Piaffe, a horse dressage movement which the horse performs a collected trot. This movement suits into the animatic as this could emphasize the dynamics of the music. As there isn't much reference to dance, a classic walk cycle is made which will soon become the dressage movement.

Animating a Swim Cycle- European Sea Sturgeon

The European Sea Sturgeon swim cycle was much quicker to animate as it swims only from side to side. However to make it more lifelike, some extra controls were made for secondary animation in particular the tail, where each joint has a slight delay from one another.

Animating a Swim Cycle- Steller’s Sea Cow

Much like the European Sea Sturgeon, the only swimming movement the Steller’s Sea Cow makes is swimming vertically. Meaning that as the tail goes down, the chest moves up and vice versa. With that in mind and the timing of each stroke, the Sea Cow was fairly quick to animate.

Pre-Production: Environments As the carnival world is made up of vibrant colours, shadows and dark colours do not exist. Therefore to give the animals some area or environment to depict the carnival journey like from the animatic, various experiment designs are made. Paper cut out trees are made along with some testing of various materials with pale colours of grey or cream for appearance.

Pre-Production: Environments - Water

Just like the trees, the water is created using a deformer along with a slightly darker hue of the tree texture. To give off the idea of splashes, in particular a sequence where the Sea Cow rises from the water not before long making a dive back under, an image sequence was used. To achieve this, the images were drawn and animated on Photoshop and later export as separate image files forming a sequence. Once the sequence is imported in to Maya, the images can be key framed for controlling the visibility and translation purposes.

Production: Timings Before going into animating the final animation, I have taken account of timings of each sequence based on the animatic. The purpose of this is to find and attempt to have the animation play in sync to the emphasized beats from the musical piece. To do this, a shot list is made with the duration of the sequence included.

Pre-Production: Making a Schedule

Setting up Turnarounds Having a plinth for a character to stand on helped create space for the characters to perform their turnarounds in rather than just a white space. To retain the look of Eric Carle and Charley Harper’s colourful yet textured appearance on the models, ambient lights were used to whiten the background and also brighten up the characters and eliminate any shadows. Rim lighting was also added onto the characters, using colours taken from other animal models to make them feel more of a group.

Rendered Concepts

Sea Mink

Rendered Images

Eastern Elk

Rendered Images

Haast’s Eagle

Rendered Images

European Sea Sturgeon

Rendered Images

Xerces Blue Butterfly

Rendered Images

Steller’s Sea Cow

Rendered Images

Minor Project CD and Front Cover

Major Project CD and Front Cover

major project- the carnival of the animals- art of

Documents