3D Computer Animation (Msc CAGTA) Report (December, 10 th 2004) Jason MAHDOUB Course Leader: Colin Wheeler 1
Summary INTRODUCTION... 3 MODELLING... 3 THE MAN...3 THE BUG RADIO...4 The head...4 The base...4 The neck...5 THE HOUSE...6 ANIMATION... 7 THE BUG RADIO...7 THE MAN...7 THE COVER...8 THE CAMERAS...8 CRITICS... 9 NEGATIVE CRITICS...9 POSITIVE CRITICS...9 PROFESSIONAL CRITICS...9 CONCLUSION... 10 2
Introduction (The evaluating starts at the second 5 on the video and finishes 30 seconds later) This report gives some information about the work I have done under Softimage XSI for the animation project. Parts of modelling and animation will be described. This report gives also my personal feelings and critics about this project. Modelling The man This character was simply imported from a model included in Softimage. Some parameters have been adjusted like the skin, the head, the face, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the body etc In order to simplify the model and not to make complicated clothes, some parts of the body was colorized to make a pant. 3
The bug radio The bug is the shape for which the time spent to model was the most important. The principal aim was to make the exact copy of the original Bug as detailed as possible. The head For the head, a sphere polygon mesh was used. A cube polygon mesh was added and a Boolean difference was made between the two previous models. Other subtractions to perfect the original aspect of the bug s face have been made. Behind the glass, which has some reflection properties, two funny eyes in 2D shape have been placed. The mouth is also in 2D. Its shape takes a few numbers of points to make the animation easier. For a better rendering, the shape is smoothed with the key plus. The base The bug s base was the hardest part to model because of its deformed shape. At first, a cylinder has been merged with a half-sphere and cloned to work in symmetry. Then the shape s points were moved one by one, using the proportional modelling. Lots of tests have been made. To perfect it, lots of tools which work with polygons, edges or points, were used. For the hole of the speaker, a curve by CVS has been drawn and extruded. A Boolean difference has been made between the base and the previous extruded curve. To finish, speakers and textured grids have been placed. 4
The neck The neck is a simple linear curve drawn with the snap switched on, and extruded around the y-axis. Then it can be deformed and animated by its skeleton. 5
The house Some objects have been modelled to decorate the house like the desk, the chair or the Bruce Lee pictures. The cover is deformed by a cage that is to say by a grid. We will see later that this grid is simulated as a cloth. Textures are used for these objects. Windows panes have some reflection property. The roof isn t textured and modelling was preferred to make it better. Out of the house, the lawn is also textured. At first, a simulation of lawn was decided, but it would have taken too much time for the rendering. There are about 20 same houses copied from the original, and a sky represented by a textured sphere in order to make an environment more realistic. 6
Animation The skeleton for the characters animation was used a lot. Only one way was chosen to use the skeleton: the rotation of the bones. It s a better method than moving the skeleton s effectors if you want more precise movements. The skeleton s effectors were moved seldom. However, effectors enable to have a more beautiful deformation. The bug radio The bug s skeleton is along his neck. The rest of the bug was animated without skeleton. The bug s mouth has also been animated by saving shape keys in shape modelling mode. The eyes are also animated. The animation of the bug was simpler than the animation of the man. The man As the modelling part, the skeleton of the man has been imported from an included model of Softimage. The animation of the man was particularly difficult to do. For one simple movement, you had to move lots of bones if you want the animation to feel natural. Another difficulty: it is impossible to play the animation in real time because of the scene complexity. So, the only way is to work your animation a lot. To do so, the storyboard is very important, because you know what movement you have to do. The storyboard enables you not to lose yourself in your project. When a good part of animation has been done, capture of the camera is needed to see the animation in real time. 7
The cover To animate the cover, that is to say its grid deformer, the cloth simulation was used. A gravity force and obstacles like the man, the bed and the house, were applied to the grid. So when you play your animation, the calculation of the cover s deformation is done before. This calculation can take a long time. That s the reason why the deformation of the grid was preferred to the deformation of the complete cover which has more polygons and complicates the calculation. A problem has appeared with the interaction between the man and the cover. When the cover was retired by the man, and when the man s hand returned to its place, the cover followed the man s hand. To resolve it, the man obstacle was disabled as soon as the cover was ejected. The cameras Two cameras named camera_curve and camera_curve_cl, were animated with a curve. It was done to place them on a screen divided in 2 as you can see on the animation. The two curves of the previous cameras were symmetrical. It was useful to get a perfect join of the two cameras. The division of the screen was made with Adobe Premiere. Other cameras were animated by moving them and their interest. In the principal camera, it is the focal length that has been animated to obtain a funny effect. 8
Critics Negative critics There are some things that can be improved in the animation: It could be funnier to have a more complete fight between the bug and the man. But it s hard to make a fluid animation of a body, and when the storyboard was made, the difficulty of the work was preferred to be secured by limiting the fight complexity. The cameras move too much. The division of the screen in two cameras is difficult to understand because of the movements speed. I wanted to slow this part of the animation to enable the witness to contemplate it, but the animation had to last 30 seconds. So perhaps there are too much things which are concentrated in 30 seconds. Positive critics Generally, the animation is satisfying. It has been said to me at the beginning of my project that animating a body was too hard. So I am happy now having done it. Physical simulation of the cover was managed and it isn t very easy to do because you have to choose the good parameters for a good simulation. It was tried to make the bug living by animating the shape of its mouth and its eyes. Textures have been chosen to get a realistic world. The storyboard was respected. Professional critics It has been already said that the video contains too much things. Sometimes, things have to be simple especially in a company. We have to be productive without decreasing the quality of the work. So, in my case it isn t serious because I am on a learning situation and not on a professional situation. I authorized myself to do what I wanted for that reason. I know that it is asked to us to be professional, but I preferred to work on the technical aspect of XSI and to make lots of things in my video, because I am a beginner with this software. So doing lots of things enables me to get much experience on XSI. The storyboard and the brief s outcomes were respected and it s a good point for a company. 9
Conclusion My first feelings about Softimage XSI were that this package is easy to use thanks to its good interface. Tutorials were very good and very precise, which enabled me to be very interested in working with Softimage. The thing I could reproach to it is the texturing. I have already worked on truespace from Caligari and the texturing, specifically the multi-texturing, is easier to do with it. I have worked a lot on my project, and I have tried to perfect it. I know that looking for the perfection can be a default and can move you away from the given objective. I also understood the importance of the storyboard: it is easier to animate your scene with a plan. So this module was a good experience. 10