Isabel Raymond's 3rd Year Animation Blog

Here is my final year showreel I made which consists of all my best work that I produced in Year 3. Overall, I am very proud of all the work I have done this year and I hope that what I have achieved gets noticed, and eventually gets me a job in the modelling/texturing industry.

Here is the video that inspired some of the shots produced in my skills showcase as well as inspiring the initial idea. The reason I love this style of animation is because it proves you can create animated sequences that show a persons character within a scene, without needing to actually animate them. I also really like how it allows you to focus more on the visuals of the surroundings too as you're not being distracted by what the character is doing or saying as they aren't moving.

Here is the final outcome of my skills showcase once I had edited all my rendered scenes and turnarounds together. Overall, I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve in this project, as well as my resilience to get it done to the best standard due to starting on this idea halfway through the unit. However, I was a bit sad that I ran out of time to develop my other character, so if I had more time, I would have included my female character. I also would have created a scene which showed my character wearing the suit I created for him previously, but didn't know how to take it further.

Here is the final outcome of my Collaborative film which Ben shared with us once he had finished editing it. Overall, I feel it turned out really well and I am very proud of the work that I was able to contribute towards the final result.

Initially, my intended outcome was to produce work for a short film that would be used in my final year showreel as well as possible film festivals. Overall, I feel I have achieved that goal of creating work to a standard I feel is showreel-ready and I don’t think there is any other way in which I could have resolved or presented my work. The final resolution of my work engages the audiences by looking aesthetically appealing, for example, lots of people said my Hedgehog model looked “cute”. The project also clearly communicates my intentions as my main focus was to show off my modelling skills which is exactly what this short film does!

Here are the final outcomes of each of my scenes. Overall, I am really happy with how they all turned out as I feel I have definitely managed to show my skill in modelling and texturing, even though texturing wasn't something I was initially going to showcase. Due to this, I feel this project has definitely helped me to improve both my modelling and texturing skills.

The only things that didn’t go to plan, was that one of the frames in the first scene rendered with an ‘Arnold’ watermark all over it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to re-render the frame before the deadline, however, I might be able to resolve the issue by either re-rendering the frame for my grad showcase, or removing the single frame and hope it doesn't make too much of a difference to the speed of the animation at that point.

The other issue is that I hadn't realised that the HDRI (when rendered) doesn't move with the camera unless the camera is rotating (which is why the HDRI background rendered fine in the first scene, but not so much in the other scenes. However, it did seem to move with the camera fine in the Maya viewport when playing the animation back, as well as when 'playblasting' the scenes, so I'm not at all sure what went wrong there or if it is fixable.

Scene 1:

Scene 2:

Scene 3:

Here are my animated sequences that I rendered in wireframe which I then edited in after effects to invert the colour scheme. Overall, I feel they turned out really well.

The only mistake I made however, was that I rendered the first scene before deciding to add in more trees to the scenes. Due to this, the first scene has a lot less trees in it compared to the others. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time left to re-render the first scene in wireframe, so I will need to work out how I can show a wireframe to texture transition of scene 1 without it looking too obvious that there are trees missing.

If I were to render the scenes again, I would make sure I used the updated versions which contained all of the environment so that there was no set missing. One final improvement I would make, would be to make sure the scenes were all the same shade of grey, if not black and white, so that they all matched In colour scheme.

Scene 1:

Scene 2:

Scene 3:

Upon getting feedback from my tutor, here are my animated sequences once I had responded to that feedback.

Scene 1:

For this animation, I iterated it by making it slower as well as making sure the character mesh wasn't penetrating the ground for when I rendered it in wireframe.

Scene 2:

For this scene, I iterated it by changing the HDRI lighting source (the background), so that there were no other trees visible apart from the broccoli trees I had modelled, but still made sure the background gave off the impression that my character was in a secluded forest.

Scene 3:

For this scene, I iterated it by having it start on the other side of the gravy river as well as slowing down the speed at which the camera panned across the screen.

Here are the first animation tests I did for my showcase. The reason I filmed them was so I could easily send them to my tutor for feedback.

Scene 1:

I decided to see what my first animation would look like in wireframe so that I could get an idea of what the final wireframe render would look like. The feedback I got from my tutor was that he thought it was fine but I should make it a little slower and to make sure the character mesh wasn't penetrating the ground or any other mesh.

Scene 2:

The feedback I got for this scene was that "The speed seems fine. However, the background having regular trees will not tie-in with your concept of the broccoli forest". Due to this, I will need to find a HDRI that looks like it's in an enclosed area, but doesn't have any trees visible, so that I can still use the image from the HDRI as my background.

Scene 3 - Idea 1:

For my next animation, I wanted to see how a birds eye view sequence would look. However, the feedback I received from my tutor was that I should "omit a bird's eye view" as it wasn't "a very flattering angle for the environment". Due to this, I decided to try the sequence from a different angle.

Scene 3 - Idea 2:

Here is my second iteration for my third scene. I really liked the idea of the panning shots that started with the character off screen and then have it emerge at the end. The feedback that I got for this sequence was that it was "Much better" but it "could be a bit slower or can even start on the other side of the water instead of crossing over". Due to this, I will start the animation on the other side of the water and also slow it down a little more.

Here is a little turnaround I created consisting of the set for my environment as I wanted to see how well they fit together to create the world my character lives in. overall, I'm really happy with how everything is looking as I feel all my models work really well together. I also like how the grass in this turnaround unintentionally has patterns in it created by how it was groomed.

I also decided to do a turnaround of my model posed as it would show my models character and personality better. I also felt it would look more exciting compared to a boring t-pose where my model is showing no emotion. As my character is sniffing a cauliflower in one of the style frames, I felt it would be a great idea to have a turnaround of it happily eating one, whilst perched on the toadstool to make the scene look more exciting.

As I am doing a skills showcase, I felt it would be a good idea to also show my models in wireframe so that people can see the mesh as well, as a look into how each model looks beneath the colour and textures.

Now that my character was in the scene and I was happy with how the grass looked, I decided to do some render tests of style frames to give me an idea of what camera angles would be best to use for my animations. I also did the tests to make sure I was happy with HDRI light source I was using as the background for my scenes.

Style frame 1:

For my first style frame, I decided to do a close-up shot of my character sitting by a tree looking like he's just enjoying the scenery.

I really like how this first test turned out as the lighting isn't too dark but it is dark enough to give the impression you're in a forest and not out in the open. I also like how the background looks in the render as I feel it helps to give the feeling that the character is in an enclosed area. However, I needed to make sure that any trees that were in the background were out of view to keep the idea of the food based forest.

Style frame 2:

For my second style frame I wanted to test a wide-angle shot of my character to catch his curiosity in the environment. In my opinion, this frame is my favourite overall as you can really take in all the vibrant colours of the environment, as well as the quality of the models, texturing of the grass and the posing of my character. I especially love how the grass that is closer to the camera turned out as you can easily tell what it is.

Style frame 3:

For my final style frame, I wanted my character in a position where I could also showcase the pond and I felt having him sit on the edge dipping his legs in would fit his character perfectly. The reason the river and pond are brown, is because I wanted to give the idea of them being made of gravy to fit the theme of the food forest.

After changing the colour of the grass to a more realistic looking light green colour, I then did a third test render. Overall, I feel this render turned out the best as I much prefer the new grass colour to the other darker version. Now that I'm happy with how the grass is looking, I can finally start animating my different camera movements to render in both colour and wireframe mode to show what the topology of all the mesh looks like.

For my next iteration, I began by lengthening the grass as well as widening each spline. I then went to edit the render settings before doing a second test render.

Test Render 2

As you can see below, the definition of the grass is a much higher quality as it is looking a lot more like grass than felt. I also really like how it is quite stylised rather than realistic looking as this is more like the style I was looking for. The only problem with this grass is it looks a little too dark, so I shall do another iteration and make the grass lighter in colour.

To begin the process of creating the grass, I first created the splines using the xgen interactive grooming editor. Once I had gotten the grass to a length I was happy with I then added my character back into the scene.

First test Render:

Once I was happy with the positioning of my character, I then did my first test render. As you can see from below, there were numerous issues with my first test. For starters, my character doesn't look as soft as he did in the final rendered turnaround that I recently did, which means I haven't altered the render settings for this scene yet. I also feel the grass should be a bit longer as it is looking more like felt rather than grass in the image below.

To make sure my model needed no more weight painting, I tested the rig once I had referenced it into the scene by putting it into different poses. When I felt confident it could move into the positions I wanted, I then posed it for my first camera animation before adding grass. The reason it has no fur in these images is because I turned them off to increase my computers response time so it wouldn't lag as much.

After trying and failing numerous times to get the fur to look more realistic by changing settings in the xgen editor and the lighting, I then spoke to my tutor about it and he told me the quality was bad due to the render settings. So, after altering the settings I did another test render which turned out much better.

Render Settings: Left (Default), Right (altered)

Second Render:

After altering the settings, I then did another test and the results were much better as the fur was looking a lot less grainy and ‘softer’. As you can see below, my character's fur looks so much better now that I have learnt just how much the render settings can affect the quality of the scene in a final render.