Task: 3D Character Model - Inspiration Images

Step 2: Collect inspiration images and Brainstorm

Task: 3D Character Model - Brief Interpretation

Production Requirements:
3D character
Webcast Series
Attracting interest from a production studio
Prime Time TV Audience
Break away from a shallow TV mould

Design Requirements:
Personality & Memorable
Cartoony
Little Detail
Dimensionality in the head
No hair or restrained hair treatment
Clean and fairly simple forms
Start with a drawing and/or 3D clay model
[VISUAL REFERENCE IS ESSENTIAL]
Simple colour (essentially no textures or extra detail)
Geometry needs to be clean
Elbow and Knees need to deform appropriatley 
The head and the body seperate stages but still relate to each other.

Step 1: Research things in brief that you don't completely understand or need to develop

Webcast: Broadcasting over the internet

Personality: Instead of trying to make a character have personality, try and identify, what type of personality is needed for the character? Happy, Sad, Smug, etc.

3D Clay model: I've never really worked with Clay, but for this project it would help to understand the different views of sketches. I need to do some research about how to go about clay modelling.

B Team Animation Logo

Katelin and I organised a small meeting to talk about possible logo designs. We mucked around with a few different options before settling on having a neon sign. We quickly got to work on finding a tutorial on how we could go about making text look neon. We had to change a few settings for it to work for our design but it's worked out very well. There's still a few more things to add but this is working for our idea.

Modelling

We started modeling and I'm very interested in learning all the features avaliable on 3DS Max for modeling. 

The first thing we did was edit a box and start getting introduced with the editable poly features. We then used these new skills for an attempt for the face edited from a plane. After that, we model from a box to get a body.

For the body, Working where you start with a plane definitly works better from me but each time I've done it this way I end up making the model a female.

This is my starting attempt for more of a masculine model. There still a lot for me to do for the male body. But the initial shape I've started with works.

We've also started to animate hands. At the moment, this is something I think I need to work on. Either to make more personalised or make more realistic.

Art Style Reference Pictures

Mainly I'm looking into art styles that would be easier to animate and do in illustrator.

Sound Editing

I was surprised about how small audio edits in Vegas (putting dialogue above music) has actually helped my editing of sound. Although now I'm aware of all the categories of sound from Foley, Ambient, FX, Dialogue and Music. FX are definitly something I want to learn more about. The ways you can change the sound to suit what you're working with would be very nice to know. 

The first sound editing we did I enjoyed because we were able to change things, such as the music in the background, which definitly changed the whole feel of the animation. Making the wolf seem more dramatic and putting Red riding hood in danger instead of it being a lovely walk in the forest.

I've added sound to multiple files, including old projects. Such as the Robot animation:




I've also added sound to my walk cycles, but just the steps and ambient noise. If I put these walk cycles in show reel, I could add in the background music later.

The main animation I added to sound to and tried to perfect was the Heavy VS Light project. When I first edited it, I wasn't aware of how to add FX. Once I found out how, I changed parts that were annoying me like the sound of the brick crashing because it sounded hallow but there were no other FX avaliable. Instead I layered some other crashing and pitched it down, this worked a lot better to make the brick sound like it was falling apart.

Multiple Programs

3DS max:
One main thing I hear about 3DS Max from all our teachers is that it can help with the learning curve for other 3D animation programs. So far in this course, there's still a lot of the program I don't understand but in terms of animating that's where my knowledge is. 

Maya:
The only experince I have with Maya is looking at projects my friend Maddie has done in her course. And even then I really prefer 3DS max but that might be because she's done very different projects from us. She's working on the architecture of locations and rooms, not rigging and animating. 

Blender:
I've actually used this program once before, I followed a tutorial to make a wreaking ball mainly to get the jist of the program. I get told that it has a learning curve, but it doesn't seem to be too different. Their are some settings I could see people getting annoyed with if they work with Autodesk, because some mouse settings are reversed sort of deal but it's very simple to change them to suit your needs. I'm actually really shocked it's completely free, even if used it for commercial purposes, you don't need to credit blender. Which is something I really think I'll be taking advantage of. 

Mixamo:
This program is a easy way to create, rig and animate 3D characters. This is definitly a program I want to learn, but there is a cost. There are free services avaliable to look into though. 

Sculptris:
For digital sculpting, it's said by the company, pixologic who made it, to be a good beginning to sculpting digitally. For people more experienced they offer Zbrush, which is another program I'd probably want to try out eventually. But probably not anytime soon.

Quixel Suite:
This has a lot of different programs, they have Megascans to help with materials, bringing in real world surfaces. NDO for mapping. DDO for texturing. 3DO which is a light weight model and material previewer directly fused with photoshop. They refer to Photoshop in comparisons, saying that they make photoshop look like a normal editing program. I imagine the learning curve would be steep for these programs but worth looking into, even if the cost is quite large. 

Make Human:
This is an open source for 3D humanoid characters for free, this also has a compatiability with Zbrush and mudbox.

Final Cut:
This is an editing program I need to learn at some point, mostly for the uni course I want to go to because this is what they use. I'm hoping that my experience with sony vegas will lessen the learning curve.

Sony Vegas:
I've been using Sony Vegas since I was 12. This is a program that even 5 years of experience there's so many things I don't know about this program. I do know it better but there are still aspects I haven't need to try out yet.

Audition:
Using audition now, changes how I look at editing audio through Vegas. Anytime I'm working on a video now, I'm aware how I could do it in audition and how much easier it could be. Sound editing is a lot of fun for me, and I hope to learn more about audition, in class and in my own time. Including editing dialogue.

After Effects:
This is a program with so much potential, there's so much I still want to learn in so many other aspects. I'm hoping to learn a lot in my own time and in this course. What I've been taught so far, I've enjoyed and taken it completely onboard.