Olivia Thomas

more animation - good progress with the scenes - main work on character’s body actions - will focus and add facial expressions soon on another animation layer to really tie it all in

This week was a case on continuing the progression on the animation. generally this was going well, however I did encounter an issue with animating the Grandma character. Every time I attempted to create a key frame on her rig, Maya would freeze and then crash - shutting itself down. This obviously wasn’t good, however it was odd that it seemed to work fine with the other character. After various attempts at fixing it, I decided to try download Maya 2020 to see if that had any impact. This seemed to be a success and I was able to animate again. Having spoke to Adam, it appeared that Maya 2019 version sometimes didn’t like IK rigs. 

With that sorted I was able to continue 

This week I was well underway with the animation process - experimenting with the use of animation layers to help potentially make my work flow more organised and effective. I haven’t actually used these before but am enjoying the efficiency they can create through reducing the amount of frames keyed on the timeline throughout.

This week I completed the xgen of the character’s hair. Overall, I’m quite pleased with the results and think that the look is effective. Having completed a first draft I sent off what I had for some feedback and it was suggested I look into some references to help shape the hair and make it look less ‘neat’. This was a valid point and I looked into the idea. I found lots of great references to help the development of my work. However, even with the guidance of this the look didn’t change that much. This was mainly because I preferred a slightly more polished look and didn’t want my characters to become too realistic from messing the hair up a bit. I tried to adjust the flow but struggled a bit and felt is would have helped to start from scratch, however, I didn’t have time for this and wanted to progress.

If I were to do this again I would like to have been able to get a better sense of hair flow and clumped strands, rather than one large collective as the hair. This of course it a learning curve and is something I’ll look to improve in the future - but for now I’m happy with what I have and am ready to move on.

This week I also received my first draft back of the music from my composer, Erica. I’d already briefed her with what I was looking for and feel I wanted - how I wanted to music to effect the overall film. But I was also quite relaxed with the approach and wanted her to have some creative freedom as well. The first draft was great - I’m really pleased! There is a bit to work on and I have a few suggestions so that it fits with what exactly I’d like, but it’s definitely a great basis and start. 

Having completed the xgen for my characters, I seeked some feedback and to see if there were any ideas to help improve what I have. The main advice was to look at some references to help them look a bit more interesting and less straight. This was a fair point and is something I’m going to explore - however, part of their design and style is to have rather neat hair. I don’t want it to become too realistic, but I do think the addition of a bit more dynamic elements will help. 

I’ve been able to work okay so far this week, however, I’ve encountered some issues with my project. Firstly Maya is playing up a bit at home and being quite laggy, but with some patience, this isn’t too bad.

This week I did some posing tests in Maya with my characters to see how they look and work in their environment. This process was really helpful as it revealed some poses that didn’t work great for the mesh and deformed the characters. This is a shame, but not the end of the world. I’ll need to rethink how to pose them in some instances so that the characters are still acting and moving correctly, while still being appealing.

One of the biggest issues I had this week was with Xgen. Having added the eyebrows and eyelashes to my characters, I found that during the posing tests, once the character was moved the xgen went crazy and totally messed up. This was a problem. After attempts to resolve the issue with the guidance of technicians, the conclusion was to simply import the characters into each scene rather than reference. This is okay, however, means that the xgen hair I was going to do at the end of the animation process will have to be done now since it won’t update in all the scenes. Therefore animation has been pushed back again for this to take priority. This also means that everything else (eyebrows, blend shapes, general look) will need fixing and touching up now as well.