I started off Dom’s session with a hot cup of coffee, a breakfast sandwich ready to go, sunlight streaming in, and my brain turned on.
The first half of the day, I followed along decently well. 3D Equalizer was big and scary, but I followed Dom’s instructions to a T and made my way through this new jungle. I was using the PLE software that I had downloaded and installed on my own Mac and had set up over the previous few days. I felt pretty happy with my ability to place and track points, and was optimistic about the whole thing, all the way up until my return from lunch.
Why was my deviation curve so incorrect? I asked Dom and he informed me that I should hide some of the points that were causing the problem, but when I did this, my deviation curved collapsed into an almost entirely straight line- one spike stayed at the beginning and the rest just hit zero. This couldn’t be right. That would mean that it’s not tracking at all. I tried again, and even started over from my last saved file, but ultimately could not figure it out and fell so far behind that I was unable to return to the lecture.
This was extremely discouraging for me. On top of that, the lecture had no audio or (for the first part) visible cursor, which made it very hard to follow. Thankfully, one of my classmates introduced me to a very helpful number of videos which explained most of the very basic tools we went over in a clear, concise series. The first one is embedded below:
Using this as well as the original lecture I was able to start over with the Camden lock footage and make my way through the beginner guidance Dom had gone over.
Home Render using both camerasRender Farm with only one camera to display the foot movement for better critiquing purposes.Render Farm with UAL HDRI Globe Asset- cosmetically most appealing (despite fractioning)My original before any fixes
Notes
When I watched the video detailing the corrections I must make, the audio did not work, but I was able to get the gist of it. My biggest issue with the first attempt was the reason for the “jolty” movement, and also was the cause of my major confusion pertaining to the root controls. I had been frustrated that there were several purple controls that were “tied” to the ground and could not figure out whether my entire animation was incorrect because of it. Turn out, I was right that the controls shouldn’t move, but I made a major mistake in assume that one of them should.
My biggest problem was that I animated the root control and moved individual parts of the spine to match, rather than animating all the forward motion directly from the motion control. This is what gave the knight a “stop motion-y” look and made it much harder on me than it needed to be. If you compare the original with the new version you’ll see that it’s a lot smoother and looks more effortless.
Another thing I focused on is overlap. I dug deeper into the graph editor and made sure that with all motion comes a secondary and tertiary motion, similar to the tailed ball exercise, and the Aang rig we discussed in class. The shoulder swings forward, then the elbow, then the wrist. The base of the spine, then the middle, then the top, then the neck.
My graph editor as I attempted to add overlap to the hip motion.
I completed the motion of the feet and legs first, trying my hardest to make my work indistinguishable from Luke’s first two steps he gave me as an example. Although that’s an extremely lofty goal for me right now, I did okay. A big part of that was making sure that my steps were not too big, and that the forward motion of the body correlated realistically with the body language and a comfortable walking pace. I edited most of my steps to be smaller and smaller. In my original storyboard, I’d drawn quite large steps, in an effort to emphasize the walk style,
-but when translated to animation, these large steps looked like jolty lunges and seemed unrealistic and unbalanced. I finished the foot motion much more conservatively, and, looking back, I decided to go in and add a more cartoony heel and toe roll, to make the steps a little bit less robotic.
I ended up toning this done a little bit, though.
When I went about animating it the second time, I was able to complete my animation within two days, rather than the five it originally took me, not to mention the fact that it looks better. This was a source of immense pride for me. There were a couple little stylistic details I went back and added in at the end just because I liked them, though somewhat toned down, like the enthusiastically respectful flair when the knight bears his shield and brings his fist to his chest as he kneels in front of….. his offscreen commander.
When given the task to break down a film I’ve seen and enjoyed into its story arc, the immediate one that jumped to mind was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which I saw last night and was completely breathtaken by, but it’s not the best example as it takes place all in one setting with only 4 characters. I considered one of my favorites from childhood, like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, but ultimately landed on a movie that I was made to watch many times in French class during high school: Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. This movie teeters on corny, with a somewhat ridiculous fantasy world, but I recently rewatched it this summer and was surprised by how much I actually still enjoy it. It’s lighthearted and immersive. As we discussed, the trademark of a movie with a good story arc is one that you will watch and rewatch and enjoy every time, and I do that with Midnight in Paris.
If you’re not familiar with Midnight in Paris, it is a comedy-fantasy movie about a successful Hollywood screenwriter who is on vacation with his wealthy fiancée and her parents in Paris. They are all very mean to him, constantly mocking his eccentric, philosophical attitude and dreams of being a fiction novelist. He wants to move to Paris and pursue a more artistic direction for his career path, whereas his fiancée, Inez, is insistent that they live in Malibu and that he continue his lucrative screenwriting career.
Gil is further challenged by Inez’s friend Paul. Paul is very annoying, described both as “pedantic” and “pseudo-intellectual”. He has a need to explain everything (incorrectly) constantly, and analyzes Gil’s “problems” to his face. Inez sees Paul as a genius, though, and on days when Gil doesn’t want to spend time with him she abandons him for Paul. Inez, her parents, and Paul all belittle Gil incessantly, but he simply says nothing, wanting to remain polite.
When Gil leaves a wine tasting after midnight, drunk, lost, and tired of a whole evening in Paul’s presence, he is offered a ride from a group of partygoers in a Tin Lizzy. They somehow take him into 1920s Paris, which is his favorite era of art history. There he meets his literary idols like the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein, as well as other artist like Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Josephine Baker. Gil’s pitiful self esteem is revolutionized when all of his heroes support his work and offer to read it for feedback. He goes to get his manuscript and somehow makes his way back into the present.
Gil wants to share his adventure with Inez, but after waiting at the same spot the next night, she leaves angrily, calling him “crazy”, to go spend time with Paul instead. Gil, though, returns to the 20s, where he meets Adriana, a model posing for Picasso. Adriana herself is an artist- a fashion designer who studied under Coco Chanel. Gil is thrilled when Adriana reads his book and seriously flatters his talent. He believes he is in love with her now, but is conflicted about whether he is in love with two people simultaneously or whether he simply isn’t in love with one of them. He is beginning to question whether he loves Inez.
A couple days later, Gil discovers an antiques stall at a street market. He bonds with the vendor, who shares his interests, and she sells him a journal, which was owned by Adriana. In the journal, Gil finds the page she wrote the day she met him, and she has mentioned that she had a dream that night that he “brought her a pair of earrings and then they made love all night long”. After a hilarious scene in which Gil is caught trying to steal Inez’s earrings to take to Adriana, he succeeds in bringing her the mentioned gift. They kiss, but then a horse and buggy appears, and escorts them to the 1890s (“La Belle Epoque”), which is Adriana’s favorite era.
Gil and Adriana are taken to a can-can show at the Moulin Rouge, where they meet Gaugin and Degas. Adriana is thrilled to meet her artistic idols and expresses to them her love for the era, but is confused when they themselves reply that they want to live in the Renaissance. Gil has an epiphany and pulls Adriana aside to tell her about it.
Gil (in an awkward Owen Wilson kind of way) tells Adriana that he knows now that everyone romanticizes the past and very few are happy with the present they live in. He needs to go back to the present and embrace his life there, fix his mistakes and live the life that he wants without blaming it on the time period. Adriana doesn’t agree, and leaves to take a job in the 1890s. Gil returns to the 20s to pick up his manuscript from Gertrude Stein, who mentions that Hemingway found it odd that his story’s protagonist “doesn’t realize his fiancée is having an affair with the pedantic one”.
Gil confronts Inez about the affair with Paul. She admits to it but begins blaming Gil, saying it’s his fault because he’s so boring and weird. Gil, now a changed person, realizes that he and Inez have nothing in common, so he casually breaks up with her and leaves. In the last scene he is walking in the rain alone, but then is joined by the street market vendor from earlier, and they begin talking about their shared interests.
Story Arc:
Gil’s external conflict is his unhappy engagement, not feeling satisfied with his career, and his entire social circle being made up of people he doesn’t like. The resolution of his external conflict is him breaking off all of his relationships (romantic or otherwise) and deciding to stay in Paris as well as pursue his dream career.
Gil’s internal conflict is his low self esteem and romanticization of the past. This is resolved by him realizing that he must stop running from his problems and that the “friends” who treated him badly don’t represent how he should feel about himself- there are others who support his work and his ideas.
The chaos is his time spent returning to the 1920’s every night, sneaking around, and debating whether he wants to be with Adriana or Inez, whereas the order is the time he spends staying in the present and living in reality.
Gil’s Character Timeline:
The biggest points here are Gil starting low- being unhappy but not having the willpower or motivation to do anything about it. Then he reaches a high point- being inspired and encouraged to pursue his dreams by his new friends. Finally he uses this to make a change in his life and reach a new order.
Character Archetypes
Heroes
Hero– Gil is the hero not only because he’s the protagonist, but he also displays the classic “death and resurrection”. He is the only character who seems to be able to willingly travel through time, and none of the other characters fully understand his experience. Thus, he is now separated from the ordinary world in both time periods.
Shapeshifter– Though Hemingway sometimes takes on the role of Mentor, he is primarily the Shapeshifter. Gil admires Hemingway, but Hemingway states multiple times that he does not necessarily like Gil or his work- he feels threatened by good writers and he has disdain for bad writers. He implies a few times that he doesn’t think that Gil is very masculine. Hemingway is often drunk, unpredictable, and can randomly become violent. Hemingway also has a brief affair with Adriana before losing interest in her, reinforcing the idea that he is able to do things that Gil can’t. One could argue that in this sense he also takes on the role of Shadow. However, he provides excellent insight on Gil’s work and their philosophical conversations shape a lot of Gil’s ideas. Hemingway seems to do what he wants for the sheer enjoyment of it rather than in the interest of Gil’s career of wellbeing.
Herald– a 1920s car always appears to take Gil to the past if he waits at the designated spot at midnight. It is always a different car with a different person inside. This car is the “call to adventure”. When Gil and Adriana travel to La Belle Epoque, it is a horse and buggy.
Mentor– Gertrude Stein is the mentor. Gil holds deep admiration for her. While he also admires Hemingway, he reveres Gertrude Stein as kind of a god and he takes her advice to heart. She is wise, but intentionally removes herself from social drama and primarily influences his career path. In some senses she could be the Threshold Guardian, as Gil must commit himself to finishing his book and rewriting all day long in order to impress her. He must commit to his work and make sure to get himself back to the past in order to keep his meetings with her.
Trickster– Zelda Fitzgerald is one of Gil’s Allies, but she’s also unique in ways that separate her from her husband Scott’s role in Gil’s journey. Zelda is chaotic with a loud personality, but also fun and rebellious in a charming way. Hemingway does not like her. She can be her own worst enemy when she gets wrapped up in her own wild ideas.
Ally– Although F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the first people Gil meets, he is not much more than an ally. He introduces Gil to others and is the kindest and most helpful person on Gil’s journey, but in the story he doesn’t shape Gil’s experience much more than being a friend.
Ally– it feels as though Adriana’s role in the story should be more than Ally, but she doesn’t fall into any other archetype. She helps Gil get to the realization that he does not love Inez, and she provides some insight for Gil, but ultimately she suffers from the same weakness he did at the beginning of the film and is not able to overcome it. In many ways it seems like she is merely a romanticization of what Gil’s “dream girl” would be, before he gains the insight to realize that pursuing her was just another way to run away from his problems. She was part of his old mindset. She is just like Gil, but rather than being a dynamic character, she is static.
Villains
Bully– all of the antagonists fall under this category. Inez is a bully in that she is often verbally insulting Gil, rejecting his ideas, telling him that she will never allow him to pursue any of his dreams, and actively trying to hurt him. Paul does the same thing. Both of them actively discuss how much they dislike Gil in front of him, and Paul goes the extra mile in helpfully offering to “fix” Gil and rid him of his pathetic ideas. All of Gil’s reasons for not doing what makes him happy are rooted in Inez and her family and friends discouraging his growth. None of them are evil though, necessarily, they’re just mean. Realistically mean.
I started by creating a storyboard for my stylized walk cycle, plus a little animation at the end.
Above is the video footage that I used to create the storyboard.
Making Friends with the Rig
After I’d gotten a good reference to use and created my storyboard, it was time to move on to the rig and getting used to the controls. The first thing I noticed was that in this particular rig, translation will move the mesh out of place, and I’m meant to rely on rotation instead. I was also grateful to find that the rig had a scale constraint, so that I couldn’t accidentally cause obvious errors by having pieces of the rig enlarge or shrink. Every good rig will have a scale constraint. Other examples would be a point constraint, which constrains translation (not something a rig would usually come with, but one that you could use yourself when animating), orient constraint (rotation) or an aim constraint, which ensures that the child points at the parent, often used for eyes.
Another thing that I noticed regarding this rig was that when I use the waist control to bend the legs, the knight squats in a weird bow-legged way rather than straight down.
This is just something to be aware of when I use the controls further- I must always make sure that the knees are pointing in the correct direction.
It took me an unexpectedly long time to get the rig into the first pose. Many of the controls, I found out, actually move pieces of the armor and not the body itself. I spent some amount of time considering just accepting that this rig is beyond my skill level and choosing a different one in shame, but I’d already made the storyboard. After a bit of work, though, I got the hang of it and put my knight into his first pose:
Something else I hadn’t realized about this rig is that there is no way to adjust the toe roll that I can tell. There are controls marked toe roll but they affect the foot position. Perhaps this is because the armor is supposed to be very heavy and stiff, rather than leathery as I had drawn it in my storyboard. I also couldn’t seem to understand why many pieces of the rig appeared broken or disjointed like this:
In this gif, there is no key set on the wrist, but even if there was I can’t understand why it wouldn’t move with the elbow as the other arm does. I attempted to parent the joints and realized that it is the mesh that is not moving, while the skeleton itself has no problem:
I decided to employ my common tactic of starting over, on a hunch that I myself had broken something accidentally while struggling to figure out the rig. Controls were everywhere, things weren’t working, and I noticed I’d made some mistakes early on anyway. Sure enough, the controls worked fine. I try to keep my starting over to a minimum, but at least I was going back in with new knowledge and was no longer held back by my own mistakes.
Much to my frustration, though, I found that there was no way that I could see other than to let some of the controls get messy. This small- as I like to think of it- vertebrae, for example. It does not seem to move with the rest of the body and when I try to “put it back” it disrupts every frame.
Starting over still had merit though, as I could make sure my knight was moving forward correctly. Maybe I’ll be a little more kind to myself and make it a much-less-polished pass. It’s not the time to worry about fingers, toes, fabric, and breathing yet.
Against all odds I finally made it through my first two steps (24 frames).
You can see that I’ve brought the confident, puffed-up march from my storyboard one step further in most of my keyframes, giving it more arrogance and bounce.
You can also see in this playblast the “messy” controls” I meant that have been frustrating me so much. There are two that stay put in one spot and can’t be moved without damaging the animation. As I said before, I believe that these are similar to the root control and are not supposed to be animated, as I can’t see any way to effectively do it, and they are labelled “Root Part 1” and “Root Part 2” (with 2 being a subset of 1) in the Outliner. I know that the sword and shield both have similar purple tangents that ensure the object continues to point in the same direction while the character around it moves. It is possible though that I am entirely mistaken. For one thing, the piece of spine is the most vexing to me. I can’t understand why the spine would need a stationary root like this, but when I open the rig up untouched, sure enough, that piece of spine does not move with the rest. Furthermore, when I try to move it, the action oddly can’t be undone, and seems more like some kind of pivot point. I have much less doubt in my assumption that the yellow controller at the starting point is also not meant to be animated, as when I experiment with it, it stretches the mesh unnaturally.
All I can find online regarding this subject is a thread on cgsociety.org that insinuates purple controllers mean they are hidden and I should make sure visibility is on; however, under the show tab in Maya, everything is selected.
This is one of those things that make learning something new somewhat embarrassing. I feel that I am correct in my assumption but at the same time wouldn’t be surprised in the least to learn there’s a simple answer I’ve overlooked.
I put my theory to the test in a simple way:
When I stretch every object far to the right, Root Part 1 and Root Part 2 stay put. Thus, I can conclude that this piece of spine will not prove to be an issue later down the road and that it is in fact not meant to be animated.
End of First Full Day Animating
This is as far as I got by the end of the day- as you can see I incorporated one more little gesture in for even more stylization. I’d say that the biggest issue is the choppiness, but for the purposes of this project, splining isn’t necessary yet. That said, if I have time I would prefer to go back in and get that resolved. Although there are some clear issues that must be addressed, I feel that I’ve made incredible progress throughout the course of the day, considering when I first started with the rig I was unable to find many controls. I also am proud of my progress in contrast with the walker: this first day is leaps and bounds better than that whole first week.
Second Day Animation
This is my progress at the end of Day 2, just finishing up the rest of the base animation I had planned on my storyboard. I had a much shorter day today, only working on it for a few hours, just enough to get to the end. By no means does this mean I’m done, though. Not only is the animation quite choppy, but there’s significant toe dippage beneath the ground plane, and I haven’t yet animated the fabric or the fingers. This is about as unpolished as it gets. The longer I look at it, the more mistakes I see, but it doesn’t stress me out as much as it does just interest me in fixing it.
Plan: Complete the main animation → fix errors → polishes (fabric moving, fingers, etc).
Third Day: Fixes, Fixes, Fixes
Looking at my animation fresh, the first thing I did was move the chest forward a little in the walk that comes between the salute and the kneel- the knight’s back looked broken there. As I did so I realized that the leg actually moves through the shield during this segment.
(slowed down to show this better)
Sure enough on closer inspection the shield also passes through other objects (such as the hilt of the sword) during the animation. So the first thing I will do is fix any object phasing like that, and then after I will work on the toes dipping through the ground plane.
Object phasing fixes were relatively easy. Not wanting to make anything too messy, I simply allowed the left arm to come a little bit further out and sideways for the duration of the animation. As I was doing this, I noticed that the shield handle is loosely resting on the knight’s arm rather than him actively supporting it, so I rotated the wrist to always be slotted into the shield grip in a way that follows the laws of physics. While I was doing this, I decided to go ahead and key the finger positions for the left hand, which stay gripping the shield handle throughout.
This was followed by me staring intently at the hand in each frame to make sure the necessary wrist movement doesn’t upset this. It only became a problem at the end, when the pinky phased through the handle during the knight’s kneel to the floor, but I keyed a separate movement for the pinky to accommodate this.
The next thing I wanted to fix would be harder. Due to the knee controllers being separate from the legs, I’d been frustrated by the knee armor pointing the wrong way.
When I mentioned before that the knight seems to squat oddly when the waist is moved down, it is a direct result of this; although the legs seem to move perfectly fine, the knee guards seem to be set to move side to side and only point forward when the legs are bent out in a bowlegged way.
You can see here that although the knees guards are facing the same direction as the foot, the leg is bent oddly out.
I tried simply rotating the mesh, but it caused this:
That’s when I realized it was even worse than I had thought.
After attempting to straighten the knee guard, the knee aim was all over the place. I deleted every key I had set early on trying to combat the issue and was left simply with a bowlegged walk. But when I place the aim straight in front of the knee, I get a nice, straight walk, and this is what I see:
As you see here, the leg and knee itself are completely fine, but it is the knee guard that is the issue. The problem is when I try to adjust the knee guard, the rest of the leg moves with it, throwing off the animation. Before jumping to the conclusion that the rig itself is broken, I popped open the untouched version of the rig once again to make sure that I myself hadn’t caused this issue.
This is what I’m attempting to communicate in this gif. I opened the software and the knee aim is set to the sides of the knees, but they face forward. I try- and confirm- my belief that the leg itself cannot be animated from the knee aim. When I move the foot up, the knee guard stays straight, with the aim moving to accommodate, but the thigh is in the wrong position. When I move the knee aim to get the thigh to face forwards, we lose the knee guard.
All I can think is that there must be something to move the thighs other than the knee aim that I’m unaware of, but I can’t find anything else.
In addition, I just find it weird anyway that the legs would be made to automatically bend outwards rather than straight down. I haven’t seen that on a rig before.
I believe I have exhausted my efforts on my knee controller analysis and all I can think is that either the rig is made incorrectly, or there is some setting or outliner asset I am meant to understand that is simply beyond my skill level. This and the rig not appearing to have a toe roll are both the biggest issues with this rig for me.
The next fix I tackled was the toes dipping through the ground plane- easy enough, I just watched the plane from below and moved the foot up on each keyframe it dipped, as well as took a look at the graph editor each time there was an issue on an in between.
After that I decided I wanted the nose to remain pointed snobbily skyward after the salute rather than straight ahead (my original intention was that he is looking towards the person he will kneel before), because I felt that straight ahead took a lot out of his puffed-up chest and made him instead look like he has scoliosis. I did also make it a little less extreme.
Next I added hip and shoulder movements for a little extra effect, the hips “carrying the leg” and the shoulders sloping down on each step left and right.
I’m feeling pretty good about obvious fixes and may be ready to polish, but first I just want to make sure the left leg isn’t snapping on the first step-
-and fixed.
Before I finished up for the day, I spent some time animating the fingers on the left hand.
Although the changes may be small and unnoticeable to most, they are very important. Comparing this with yesterday’s, it’s satisfying not to see that toe dip. Here is my progress update for this day. Also- I came to the conclusion that my original was simply a bit too fast for the confident strut I’d created. That speed was more suited to a brisk running walk. So here I’ve slowed down the frame rate. I’m considering keeping it slowed down, but maybe not to this extent; I’ll find a middle ground. This slow frame rate does give me a really good opportunity to see some of my errors a little more clearly though, and now I’ve got a good idea what I want to go in and fix tomorrow. Specifically, the last down-pose looks a little bit too extreme, and the chest jiggles oddly immediately after the knight gets back up. Lots to do tomorrow!
Day Four: Fixes & Fabric
Here is a gif showing the changes I’ve made in regards to what was mentioned before. The easiest way for me to see these mistakes is by upping the frame rate and rendering with a tracking camera, but that takes too much time to do over and over again.
Now that I’ve made these changes, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of the fabric animation, which I am less than comfortable with, so I’m not trying to get too fancy with it.
And here it is, my first attempt with the fabric on the right side of the body. Maybe I’m speaking from naivety, but I’m very happy with the results. I animated all three fabric controllers as one piece in order to keep things simple for myself, and simply had the fabric follow the motion of the hip, swinging back and forth. At the very end I had the bottom half of the fabric move outwards separately, so that instead of phasing through the floor it flows out as the body moves down and comes to rest folded around itself.
For the fabric hanging down from back, it was a bit easier. I acted it out with a cardigan tied around my waist and found that the fabric moves outward on contact poses and inward on passing poses. An easy way to think about it was simply just having the fabric follow the motion of the leg that is moving farthest back, but slower, as it is relying on gravity.
But I felt compelled to make it more complicated, just because I knew how for once. So I decided to go back and animate the bottom half of the fabric using the same principles as the tailed ball exercise (the bottom half following the top half, following the very bottom- the hem of the fabric- offset by a couple frames). I plunged into this task eagerly and this is the result:
I have to say I’m happy with it.
The front piece was actually much, much harder than the back.
I’m not sure what it is about the front that makes it so incredibly difficult, but it has to do with the fact that it’s a shorter piece of fabric, which means that the movement is much more dramatic as there is less of itself weighing it down. I actually animated the entire thing twice and got rid of all my work, being unhappy with the results. I had an extremely challenging time even making sure that it does not phase through the legs. When the legs are raised, the cloth must be pointing almost straight up to avoid the thigh phasing through. After almost two hours, this is rough, first half of the animation is all I had to show:
You can see that my technique is making it very fluttery, like the back cloth, to make the dramatic movement a little less intense. Unfortunately it is extremely hard to get the cloth to animate correctly without phasing through the legs.
This is my work at the end of this full day animating fabric.
I have to say that while my work on this project has previously made me proud of my progress and excited to see what else I can do, my work today fills me with unhappiness. I know that the front cloth looks scrunched and wrong and that it would be the first thing anyone in the industry would notice, but just my work on the fabric today took over five hours and this is the best I could do. With one more day to work on mistakes before submitting, hopefully I can at least make it look somewhat decent in time. I’m beginning to doubt every aspect of my animation.
Final Product
And here’s the finished product.
I have to say that of all the projects I’ve done so far, this one I think is simultaneously the best and the one that disappoints me the most. This really took a lot out of me. I can’t stop staring at how jolty it still is, despite having spent so much time in the graph editor trying to even that out. I’m well aware of how bad the fabric looks, barely following the laws of physics. And the longer I look at it the more the legs seem to snap.
I think now’s the time to be grateful for the progress that I did make. I started out on the first day spending hours just trying to figure out how to control the rig, whereas now I find it easy to jump in and change a keyframe without throwing anything off. Not only did I animate joints and fabric for the very first time on this rig, as well as animate a character holding a prop throughout, but I also am a lot more cognizant of objects phasing through others. It is difficult to see my own mistakes and not have the knowledge yet to fix them as I’d like, but, as always, Maya is a wide open door of possibilities I will simply have to discover in time.
In this post, I will be comparing clips from two very different (but equally wonderful) films in order to illustrate the use of visual culture to evoke different responses from the viewer.
Midsommar (2019)
Midsommar is one of my favorite horror movies, if not my favorite.
When I was younger, I spent every Thursday at Blockbuster with my friends picking out a horror movie to watch that night. Eventually, we had watched every promising-looking horror movie that Blockbuster had to offer. In the time that I spent consuming (mostly awful) horror movies, I developed a snobbery in regards to the genre, born out of my boredom with the same overused tropes and halfhearted writing. In my opinion, a good horror movie does not rely on jumpscares and gross monsters to scare its audience, but instead utilizes a variety of clever methods understanding the conscious and subconscious human psyche to give the viewer a sense of isolation, vulnerability, change, and foreign dread that lasts well beyond the end of the movie. In a good horror movie, it isn’t just the slasher, monster, or ghost that is scary, but the whole environment, even allies of the protagonist or the protagonist’s own mind. For this reason I’ve been beyond delighted with the rise of A24 and Ari Aster’s fresh, intelligent take on the genre. Although I know that the opinions regarding Midsommar can vary widely, I would argue that it’s the perfect example of good horror. Warning- spoilers up ahead.
While most horror movies use dark shots and grimy, decrepit sets to evoke an unpleasant aesthetic, most of Midsommar takes place in broad daylight, under a blue, sunny sky, in a beautiful pastoral village. That is, most of Midsommar. In the very beginning of the film, the protagonist, Dani, loses her entire family in a tragic turn of events. She had predicted it may happen, but her boyfriend of four years insists (in more or less words) that she’s just being crazy. Struggling with this massive loss, breach of trust, and guilt, Dani becomes depressed. As you can see briefly in the trailer, Dani’s hometown is now bathed in blue darkness. Every shot, even the one’s she’s not in, is dark and desaturated, with little to no musical accompaniment. In regards to mise en scène, the sets are cluttered with homey items like laptops, notes, paintings, and books, but most are cast into darkness and ignored by the characters, as if they hold little value now, or only serve to illustrate Dani ignoring her previous life. She wears only her pajamas or gray sweatpants and we can even see the roots of her naturally dark hair growing in. Her only ally is her boyfriend, Christian, and his friends, and when she’s not there, they talk about how annoying and emotional she is. These scenes are in stark contrast to the ones Dani’s part of- they’re bright and upbeat, louder, more comedic. When Dani is in public- stepping into these brighter scenes- she’s often shown running away to go cry or throw up, with the camera spinning around her. As a whole, it gives the viewer a sense of ostracism. The only relationships Dani has are shallow and meaningless, and no one seems to want to understand how she’s feeling. The world she’s living in is dark and bland and she’s ill at ease trying to leave it behind. She’s powerless, unimportant.
But after the characters journey to Hälsingland, Dani steps into a bright, sunny world of color. The villagers wear flowers and white, crisp clean robes. Buildings are painted bright yellow and beautiful handmade tapestries hang from the walls. The Hårga are essentially one large family, and every member of the cult is cared for by the others. Dani, in her emotional vulnerability, is in the perfect place to be their next victim. The beautiful atmosphere lulls the viewer, like Dani, into a false sense of security and trust. But even after the Hårga’s shocking practices are revealed, the bright, cheerful aesthetic stays, giving us a disturbing sense of being trapped, as if we know something but can’t do anything about it- or maybe because we choose to accept. We come to realize that the brightness doesn’t represent morality, but rather a sense of belonging.
It’s worth mentioning the incredible filmmaking in the scenes in which the characters take psychedelics (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily). The world spins, the focus shakes, flowers open their mouths and breathe. The most pivotal scene is the one in which the female cult members, hand in hand, decked out in flower wreaths and white robes, begin dancing around the maypole. The rhythm picks up faster and faster, until it’s dizzying like a sensory overload. Harsh, cruel violin music plays. Although Dani and her peers are laughing and enjoying themselves, reality visually and audibly starts to fragment. We see Christian beginning to have a panic attack as he watches.
As for a visual metaphor, in this scene the woman that has been chosen to have Christian impregnate her is wearing red lipstick and a red-patterned robe (not to mention being the only member of the cult with red hair).
She is the only one wearing red lipstick, she is the only one wearing makeup at all, and this is the only time we see her with it on. It feels like a mark, some kind of brand she must wear to designate her as the member who has been chosen to carry this task out. During and after the (incredibly disturbing) sex scene, in which Christian is incapacitated with psychedelic drugs, it becomes even more clear that this woman, and the red lipstick, is not meant to appear seductive or pleasant, which is what we would have assumed originally. The fact that Dani herself is (until this point) only shown wearing sweatpants and no makeup makes us further analyze the red color as a metaphor for the strange and disturbing views that the cult has regarding sex and romance and how it, as well as everything else, so easily misleads the characters, who mistake it for something familiar. Dani herself may have mistook her long romance with Christian as something it wasn’t, too.
It is this disturbing sex scene that ultimately leads to Christian’s death at the hands of…. Dani. Wearing her crown and robe of flowers, which breathe and thrash under the influence of the psychedelics, Dani stares him down with no remorse or pity. Her regal outfit represents her ascent from one who lost everything, who was neglected and powerless, to May Queen. She is the most powerful member of the cult now. All of the other members imitate her every move and sound, and follow her orders.
I feel like the reason a lot of people dislike Midsommar is because they mistake the ending as some kind of violent feminist statement or endorsement of Dani’s evil actions. But I believe that Dani’s robe and crown hold the answer to the true themes. She was powerless, and now she’s powerful. She was controlled by the trauma that death held over her and now she is the one who controls death. She has removed the only person who made her doubt herself, and the only one she was trying so hard not to lose, so she’s now removed the fear of loss from her life. Protagonists don’t have to be good people. The dark and desaturated color palette and aesthetic transitioning to a bright and colorful one represent Dani coming into power.
Office Space (1999)
Though both are perfect for the topic we’re discussing today, Midsommar was a good example of aesthetics and color composition, while Office Space is a better example of visual metaphor. And I’m sure you can already guess which objects hold the most significance as visual metaphors in Office Space:
Milton consistently promises to quit if his desk is moved one more time, but allows himself to be moved down into the grimy, pitch black basement and miss his paycheck for several pay periods before he decides he has had enough. However, none of this is as important to Milton as his red Swingline stapler. It’s a prop that is so important that it was actually spraypainted red to stand out against the drab gray and whites of the cubicle jungle (another good example of both mise en scène and color composition). Swingline didn’t actually produce red staplers until a couple of years later when requests for them from fans of the movie skyrocketed. Oh, if only that brand advertising had been intentional.
Throughout this scene we see the important stapler prominently displayed on a stack of paper, Milton’s prize possession. One of the only things we can hear from Bill Lumbergh’s unintelligible conversation is “took a stapler off my desk”- zoom in on the mouth here to indicate how important it is- which implies that Lumbergh thinks the stapler is his. Milton’s hand hovers over the stapler protectively, but he reaches out like a towering monster and rips it from Milton’s grip anyway. Milton threatens to burn the building to the ground, which he does, but not before asking a few more times to get his stapler back over the course of the movie. In fact, the very last time we see the building intact is when Milton enters Lumbergh’s office without permission, muttering “I’m just going to have to take the stapler back myself, because it’s my stapler and I told him it’s my stapler, it’s mine, the Swingline, that I’ve been using for a long time….”
While Peter, Michael, and Samir completely failed in their plot to get revenge on Initech by stealing money from the company with their virus (hilariously named VIRUS_CDEF), Milton’s solution is simple. He said he would burn it down and he did, and it’s all because of the stapler. Milton represents what any of the protagonists would’ve become if they stayed in that soul-crushing office the rest of their lives: an invisible, inaudible husk of a person slowly losing their grasp on sanity. The Swingline is his sanity, the one thing keeping him afloat.
Before we get into talking about the printer, I want to mention my favorite example of mise en scène in the film:
This banner makes me, and I assume anyone else who has ever worked in an office, want to just start punching things blindly.
“Is This Good for the COMPANY?” in the same dull grays and blues that all of the employees wear dehumanizes them even further. As they stand there being introduced to the corporate shills who will decide whether they get to keep their jobs, they’re reminded to think of themselves only in terms of their production value. It’s almost subtle enough to be infuriatingly believable.
Throughout the movie, the use of gangsta rap while watching pale, miserable nerds sit at computers in a drab office environment is not only hilarious but indicative of that feeling of the deep, unhinged anger they’re experiencing. Even nowadays, nothing makes a person want to lose it more than printer issues. In the movie, though, the printer is almost personified, it’s someone that they all hate passionately. During the printer destruction scene, chips, wires, and plastic “spray” out at the camera like blood, intentionally meant to look like gore for comedic effect. Peter and Samir hold Michael back after he beats the printer violently with his bare fists. He drags the cord behind him like a spine, and they throw it along with their “weapons” in the trunk, leaving the scene of the crime behind them.
While the stapler is a symbol of hope and sanity, the printer is the evil in the world. An unfeeling, corporate machine. It represents what they hate about their work even more than Bill Lumbergh does. Even Peter admits that Lumbergh isn’t really the problem anyway- he realizes throughout the course of the movie that he’s not the kind of person who likes office work and that’s okay.
I decided to use the iphone as a prop, constraining it to the ball. I floated it in front of the walker as though held by a Veggietales character, and angled the “head” down as if completely absorbed in the phone. This gave me the idea to add in a little bit of danger for emphasis that this character really is not paying attention at all to his surroundings.
However, everyone I showed it to either could not tell that he was supposed to be holding a phone or were unsure why he didn’t react to the car. To reinforce the idea I added on some headphones and had the phone emit a bright cyan glare. When I showed my partner this updated version he said, “I’m concerned about him”, which was the reaction I was going for. Now that I’d spent some time getting invested in my idea and constraining both props (the iphone and the headphones) it was time to get down to the nitty gritty and focus on smoothing out the small details.
Fix 1: The Toe Dip
The first and most obvious issue was what’s always been the bane of my existence with walk cycles: toes dipping below the ground plane on in-between frames.
As annoying as this is, I’ve found though that it is easily fixed by making the Translate-Y curve between the two points linear:
Sometimes, but rarely, I must go in and adjust the splining to be a little bit faster or slower in relation to the two key frames. Keeping a close eye on the toes, frame by frame, is a meticulous task, but only until those were done could I begin thinking about polishing further.
Fix 2: The Electric Slide
The next thing I wanted to get fixed is the sliding problem:
The walker appears to slide on this step as if on ice.
This is what the Z-Translate curves look like at this point (frames 70-85). I ended up fixing it by dialing down the translation on the offending foot at the passing pose by a lot- from 1 to about 0.2. The result looks like this:
I then went back and did the same to all “passing” poses.
Fix Three: Bend and Snap
Last but not least, I wanted to make sure that the leg movements look smooth and natural, and polish out any twig-like snapping that might be happening. If this happens, it simply means that the knee is going from a bend to a straight position too quickly, and so the answer to this is lowering the heel, easing out the keyframes to be a little less exaggerated, or bending the knee a little bit more.
While I did this I actually went back and decided to slow down the whole second half of the animation while I was at it, because the walker had been traveling noticeably farther/faster towards the end.
The Ultimate Fix: Enlightenment
I went to go move my laundry and found myself paying attention to my walk. Then it occurred to me why I was seeing some of that backwards-foot-sliding motion: once the foot is planted, it stays in that spot, and the rest of the body moves forward around it until it is lifted up. I feel that when I had done my walk cycle originally I’d been stuck in that habit of thinking of it as key poses without understanding how or why the walker must move in that way. I had originally made the mistake of animating the root control, and when I fixed that I still didn’t understand the problem- I had animated the entire walker to move forward at every single keyframe, rather than relying on the forward motion of the leg to carry the rest. That’s why the walker still looked a bit slide-y no matter what I did.
And so I sat down and eagerly redid every single keyframe. This time I studied the channel box editor and keyed the foot control to stay at the same Translate-Z location for the entire time it is on the ground until it lifts up, and I just animated the body and the other foot around that. Here is my graph editor showing the feet staying put throughout the duration that they make contact with the floor:
I found this actually resolved a lot of things- speed, for instance, as the walker is only able to move forward as much as the last step will allow, if that makes sense.
Finishing Touches
Despite reaching this breakthrough that solved most of the surface issues and perhaps fixed the actual mistakes, I still feel that my walk cycle needs work. Most of what’s disappointing me about it is that it feels very stop-motion-y or robotic looking, and I think this is because I made the rotation of the ball/head too predictable and repetitive. Mostly, I felt that the X-Rotation I applied to give the ball a “bobbing its head to the music” feel was not working and instead hurting the realism of my animation. Keeping in mind that “every piece of the animation should always be unique”, I got back to work on the ball.
I think that it may now be just about perfect. I’ve smoothed out the leg animation, added in a couple “head” rotations, and tied it together with the secondary action of the headphones being blown slightly forward by the momentum of the car, still unbeknownst to the walker.
Whether you realize it or not, you’re constantly being advertised to.
Social media is a good example of this, with products and brands being constantly drilled into your lifeless eyes as you spend fleeting hours scrolling endlessly through meaningless posts you’ll forget a second later, yet living on in the deep recesses of your brain. What’s the influencer’s skincare routine? Which sneakers are Kylie Jenner wearing today? You already have an iPhone X, but did you notice that all the most popular celebrities have it in the newly released Rose Gold edition? And so the age old tradition of flaunting one’s wealth for social acceptance takes new form in the modern age, even if its perpetuators are ignorant of it.
Though it helps and it hurts in its turn, social media is not, at its core, a friend of anyone, as it hungrily feeds off our insecurities and evolutionary need for social acceptance to sell us, whether intentionally or not, an agenda. This holds especially true for young women. For example, it unfortunately is the nature of social media that sex-related content gets more attention. A hiking photo in which the influencer wears Eastern Mountain Sports gear and an expensive, multifunctional backpack predictably gets less attention than a “hiking photo” of an influencer taking her top off in front of a mountain and wearing Lululemon leggings. Lululemon profits from this preposterous scenario, but does anyone else? Such is the nature of human evolution that hundreds of thousands of likes translates as “this is what people want you to be”, and so young women are pushed more and more into a role of oversexualizing and oversharing on the internet, which is already a dangerous place for teenagers to be. Speaking of a dangerous place to be, I find it only fair to briefly touch on the school-shooter-bootcamps that are unregulated forums, where angry, insecure young people find an echo chamber of like minded individuals who would once never have found a place that would have allowed this kind of rhetoric. In many ways, social media is a festering, rotting swamp married to the cruelty of late-stage American capitalism to birth a twisted version of unfeeling greed and conceit that heretofore only existed in Lord of the Flies and 1984.
Today, however, I will not be talking about social media but about movies and television, and now that the imminent, looming destruction of morality this will result in has been mentioned, we can look a little more lightheartedly about the ways in which companies advertise themselves to you and how successful they were in being subliminal.
Most Successful Product Placement
Good product placement feels like part of the story. What makes Stranger Things so good at this is that it heavily incorporates 80’s nostalgia, so mentions of Dungeons and Dragons or The Clash tie into the plot. When Eleven grabs boxes upon boxes of Eggo waffles from the freezer section, it feels like a charming and comedic moment reminiscent of young children, regardless of background, loving sugary breakfasts, and it reminds the audience of their own childhood, wishing to raid the grocery store of its junk food without parental supervision. But Eggo is very much still alive and continuing to grind out frozen waffles, and not only did they profit off this product placement, but they produced card games as well as special edition boxes of Eggo’s for all fans of the super-popular show. The “joke” landed so well that some merchandise of Eleven is even sold with her clutching her beloved waffles, continuing to make Eggo an unsuspecting buck.
Worst Product Placement
This one may not be as in-your-face as some others, but it’s extremely jarring: In Skyfall, James Bond orders a Heineken. Any viewer would know, whether they’ve seen any Bond movies or not, that his signature drink of choice is a dry martini “shaken, not stirred”. It’s one of his two most famous phrases. Some fans even get excited to see him ordering alcohol, anticipating this tradition that ties the character together regardless of the actor portraying him. This product placement feels cheap and artificial. In fact, one might even have to suspend disbelief to even accept that Bond would patronize a bar that serves Heineken, a beer that, while light and refreshing (unsponsored), typically costs $2 per bottle, as we’ve been constantly served the message that Bond only drives the most expensive cars and wears the newest and most fashionable clothing. In fact, it’s somewhat unrealistic to even portray the kind of woman Bond dates approaching a man drinking Heineken.
Worst Product Placement II
Some product placement is bad because it doesn’t fit into the storyline or is out of character, but I also had to mention product placement that is bad simply because it’s too heavy-handed, making the movie feel like a commercial. Transformers: Age of Extinction makes you feel like you’re on The Truman Show. As we learn about an alien alloy that can transform into literally anything, a cold, imposing business tycoon demonstrates its abilities by turning it into a Beats by Dr. Dre speaker, and saying “Do you like music? The pill”. Maybe this would have worked if the character were a materialistic, shallow teenager, but then again it’s hard to imagine using an indescribably powerful alien alloy this way- even then the character would probably have opted for a car or a robot. The odd juxtaposition of high budget production value and horribly written dialogue makes this feel like a Superbowl commercial… but then again, so do most of the Transformers movies. I’m sorry.
What Do We Do About This?
The question is whether we even can do anything about this. Society as a whole, I believe, does have the power to reshape our constant brainwashing of the masses for financial gain, but it seems like that won’t happen without major economic reform, and something that COVID has taught us is that right now as a whole we care more about money than the good of the people. On the individual level, as animators and producers of media, I’m not sure if we have any power in this. The way the industry runs right now, entertainment endeavors must make money somehow, and so do we. Oftentimes we can’t be picky about our projects, especially early in our careers. I do, however, think that it’s wise to be aware of the full scope of the impact that this has on audiences, and if we can, make unethical advertising and product-pushing a dealbreaker. For example, I would rather work on a project that casually advertises Eggo than one that pushes a political agenda I don’t agree with- for example, I would probably turn down work on any of the endless propaganda-filled American-made Vietnam War movies that exist to brainwash the masses. Which leads me to my next topic:
How Does the Media Influence Politics?
I will give one example of this but it’s the most glaringly obvious one to me. As an American, I will write this from an American perspective, and please forgive me for getting into my own views here.
America relies on blind, feverish nationalism to prevent its citizens from ever questioning its war crimes, racism, failing economy, and lethal healthcare system. Roving masses of citizens claim that changing or adapting any part of society is “Un-American” and therefore inherently wrong. It is easy to work the unquestioning droves of zombie-like Trump worshippers into a rabid fever just by repeating “America” or “America is Great” “God loves America” or any form of “love your country”, thus preventing them from actually listening to any kind of policies or questioning whether their ideals align with those of their preferred candidate. They refuse to criticize or question anything that they’ve been told, and have been convinced that those who wish to see America become a better place for everyone actually hate America because they want to change it. In part, this is not their fault, but that of the extremely effective propaganda that’s existed in American media since the middle of World War II.
American nationalism didn’t exist as it does today until World War II. During this time, the government needed to convince people not only to buy war bonds but to support the war effort by using less metals and otherwise adapting their lifestyle to allow more resources to be allocated to the military. It’s almost unimaginable today that the American public would be susceptible to changing their lifestyle even the smallest bit whether it inconveniences them or not, judging by the adamant anti-maskers, but the government was very effective at doing this through radio, movies, posters, stage shows, and so on. Up to this very point I do not think the agenda pushed was unethical. But unlike in the United Kingdom, militaristic patriotism in media didn’t die after the war.
I personally believe this was to prevent the public from questioning the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, a crime against humanity so heinous, so unbelievably evil, that I can’t fathom a harsh enough punishment for it. If Japan had dropped nuclear bombs on New York and Boston, Japan would no longer exist. But somehow the USA, leading by example as always, killed millions of innocent men, women and children with an unfathomably powerful weapon and still managed to falsely claim that this was necessary to end the war and paint themselves as heroes for it. I suspect that nationalist propaganda was intentionally perpetuated to the public, still riding high on the happiness of seeing their beloved husbands and sons return home, so that they didn’t become disillusioned with the country’s war effort that they’d put their lives on hold and lost loved ones to support. Unfortunately, at the time it was acceptable to mix a lot of this nationalist propaganda with xenophobia and racism. As one can still see in war movies and games (See: Call of Duty) today, our enemies were reduced to racist caricatures to dehumanize them and wipe away any concerns about their families, homes, and lives.
Beloved American war movies like Rambo and Apocalypse Now are a continuation of this. The Vietnam War was so heavily protested that the government was forced to create a narrative of the whole of the anti-war movement being Communists, unwashed drug users, and immoral sex fiends. Even modern Vietnam War movies carry on a narrative of dehumanizing the Vietnamese people and depicting bloodthirsty white men as badass. Only now we’re just starting to see some that address the post-traumatic stress disorder many soldiers suffered from, but it’s still pretty taboo to depict the pointlessness of the war and the crimes America committed during it.
This long history of propaganda-induced American nationalism leads us to where we are today, with masses feverishly worshipping that which they don’t bother to understand and accepting glossed-over history textbooks as truth. This brings us to the palpable tension between the two-party system, waiting to snap at any moment. This brings us to billions going to the military- imposing a threatening presence in other countries, setting up puppet dictators- rather than towards universal healthcare for our own people. And this long, ugly history of nationalism and xenophobia in media continues to this day- I mentioned Call of Duty earlier. I’m not saying the games themselves aren’t fun, but the early ones pretty clearly harken back to the Bush era with their gibberish scribbles of pseudo-Arabic on the walls of forts where the player hides to kill vaguely Middle Eastern looking men with assault rifles. All of this brings us to where we are today, to the racism and unflinching patriotism that go hand in hand to create so many problems.
My biggest issue with my original walk cycle was that I had animated the root control rather than having the feet themselves move forwards. I started over, and this is the product.
When I started out, I had a bit of trouble getting used to the tail. This was because I was thinking of it as I would a walk cycle; pose-1, pose-2, pose-3, trying to key each shape the tail should make at specific points.
I actually spent a couple hours unsatisfied with my work until I reconsidered my method. It became a lot easier after I began thinking of the tail as a series of arrows, where each arrow points the direction that the one before it did last, with the movement originating from the base. I also reviewed my notes from the lecture and found it useful to remind myself that the tail must “point toward where it came from”.
In this sense there is no specific pose the tail must be in: the most realistic way to use it is to think about the way gravity would affect the base and animate the rest of the tail in turn. I would change the position of the base, then go down the chain and move each segment of the tail a couple frames after one another.
Knowing this, I was able to think of other ways to use the tail, i.e. for balance and emotion.
I also chose to add some sinking-log animation, not only for weight but for secondary action, in order to make the scene a bit more interesting and believable. I also found it fun to have the beaver balance a little bit with his tail as the logs bobbed up and down in response to his weight. I chose the beaver rig after deciding to incorporate the sinking logs, because I felt that tons of fallen trees were a bit too sad if you don’t have the hope that maybe a beaver did it to build himself a home.
After my first couple bounces, it was time to find out whether my motion trail was smooth, and whether it shows overlap of each tail segment.
Well….. There’s overlap for sure, but it’s not exactly smooth. Time to fix that. A quick smoothing out, and it already looked much better:
The biggest difference I notice after the tail arc smoothing is that looks much more natural when the beaver lands on the first log. Satisfied with my work and feeling much more comfortable with my tail abilities, I decide it’s time to move on.
Floatation Frustration- Day One
I’ll now be discussing my process with this clip, in which the beaver turns and jumps far out of the river onto a larger log:
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the tail this time that caused me the most trouble. It was something I thought I’d gotten the hang of during the ball bounce exercise: an unrealistic trajectory. In my defense, however, the difference between the ball and the tailed rig is that this character is assumed to have some sort of muscular system he is using to propel himself, rather than using simply momentum and gravity to dictate the height and speed of his jumps.
Here is the odd “floating leap” I was having trouble with. I was animating the ball movement before adding in the tail motion when I came across this problem:
As you can see, the beaver sort of sails through the air without much realism, completely shattering the work I’d put into his weight. Cautious about what I’d find, I cracked open the graph editor to take a look under the hood:
I edited the Y-curve to be linear at the points of impact, and sped it up more at liftoff and touchdown, but it only helped marginally without really resolving the issue:
Hesitantly, I tried the X-curve:
As I’m sure you can predict (as I should’ve) that this did not solve my problem. What it did is cause the beaver to swerve around in a little detour rather than taking a diagonal path.
In the end it occured to me that I had included extreme squash on both impacts and no stretch. I tried it and sure enough, that did the trick. The long leap now looked believable, albeit cartoonish:
Oh, well. Goes to show not to forget about the simple details. I thought it fair to mention this simply because I had spent so much time trying to figure it out.
End of Day One- the Little Hops
With my brain sizzling on the griddle I finished the last little bit of animation I had planned to reach my stopping point for the day.
The Little Hops.
The little hops were a nice easy way to phase out the day. All I had to do was make sure to keep those impact points linear.
I started work on the tail, but my brain had become scrambled eggs. I shelved the little hops to continue tomorrow with a fresh pair of eyes, looking forward to adding a jump up onto a tree limb for my sixth and final bounce. Here is the finished work for Day One, a little more than halfway done:
For the next day, I planned to finish my work on the action after landing on the log, as well as polishing up speed.
Turn Around, Bright Eyes- Day Two
I got back to work on the little hops with new determination. The tail animation gave me no trouble at all, and I had a lot of fun with it. However I was finding a lot of trouble with the slow rotation at the beginning, in which the beaver pauses after landing before turning to jump towards the end of the log. Reminiscent of the floating leap I had dealt with earlier, I found that the turn looked extremely mechanical, despite having added some lifelike motion to the hops afterward.
Tail good, turn mechanical.
Motion curve of the little hops tail animation.
And so I tried experimenting with the turn, trying to find a less animatronic looking solution. There was to be a turn right after this too, as the beaver turns again to look at the tree branch, his next target. If I could find a way to resolve the first turn I could find a way to resolve the second and vice versa.
Ultimately, this was my decision to add some life to the turn:
I tried for a while to simply have the tail wave in the opposite direction of the turn, but the turn is too slow; it didn’t look realistic. And so I added two elements to make this turn a little more realistic.
Little details-when the beaver lands, the tip of the tail bobs up and down briefly. I did this to add some information about the weight of the tail, as well as give an idea that the jump required some exertion and the beaver is now pausing to relax his muscles and take a breath- which I also attempted to convey by slightly squashing the ball at the same time as the tail bobs back down, which is as much as this little thing can “breathe”.
And more noticeably, I decided instead of having the tail follow an arc, relying only on gravity, I’d instead give it a bit of musculature. I decided to have the tail sort of help propel the beaver upwards into his jump (which the “breath” earlier can also be preparation for). Although the tail does not smack the log, I gave it some wind-up action for anticipation effect; to help the beaver get ready to make his jump and put some force into it. When I was considering doing this I thought I remembered seeing a Disney film in which a beaver walks on his tail and took a brief detour down the rabbit hole, but I could only find this from Lady and the Tramp:
….My beaver propeller is somewhat of an in-between as far as this cartoonish exaggeration and the less flexible tails that real beavers do use during their work day.
This bit of animation looks a lot better now, and I believe I’ve solved the “mechanical” issue:
Yay!
V. Day Three
The home stretch was just a clip in which the beaver jumps from the log to its landing place on a tree branch. For all intents and purposes I must state that beavers can’t climb trees in real life.
The first part of this segment wasn’t too hard, just a simple long leap which gave me time to show off the classic tail animation that had now become second nature.
The second half of it was a little bit harder, I had my heart set on having the beaver do a couple little happy, short jumps to signify its excitement at having reached its destination despite its expressionless face. The difficulty with this was that I had to have the tail wave up and down twice within two very short, 10 frame movements, without coming to a rest.
After a little bit of adjusting, though, I realized that it wasn’t as hard as it seemed at first if I just ignore what the ball is doing and return my focus to the “arrow system” I described earlier- keying the tail segments to point where the last one was pointing earlier.
In the course of the two hops, the end of the tail undergoes a lot more movement than the first two tail segments do, in keeping with its relative lightness that I’ve given it throughout my animation.
I went through and fixed a couple things- most importantly, I decided that my propeller tail looks odd pointing outward off the log, and should be pointing straight out behind the beaver. Not only does this look better, but it makes more sense with the laws of physics too, as a sidelong “propellor” would either unbalance the beaver or him off course of the log. I also tidied up the speed somewhat throughout the animation. After staring at the animation for hours upon hours, I decided it was done.
As mentioned in class, one of the biggest differences between animation for film and games is that in film, the animation needs to be as detailed as possible, whereas in games less information is better, and in TV a compromise must be reached as the animator must create their work as quickly as possible while still doing a good job.
I did a little bit more research and found some other interesting points. For example, in game animation, the player is able to view the character from any angle, and therefore the animation must look good all the way around and in any lighting, whereas in film animation, the animator only has to worry about the shots that the camera can see and the lighting/setting that exists in that clip- albeit to a more intense extent. In TV, the animator faces these same challenges but with much quicker deadlines.
It’s hard to say at this point what my career goals are in animation, but I feel that I still lean towards the gaming industry. I like the idea of my existing at any angle and in any setting, able to be translated and adapted to the needs of the media, it’s part of the reason I feel drawn to computer animation as opposed to traditional in the first place.
Source:
“Animation for Games vs Animation for Movies.” Pluralsight, Pluralsight, LLC, 4 Mar. 2020, www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/how-animation-for-games-is-different-from-animation-for-movies.
