Ronnie Leah, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

Today I decided to bring together all of the shots I had animated so far for the animation in order to see how everything looked together.  I wanted to bring all of the clips together as I began feeling confused as to how to display certain shots as I was loosing track of where exactly I was in the animation. This was due to me picking out random scenes to animate at a time rather than go in order. In order to fix this I firstly took each Maya scene I had created ordered them. I then cleaned up each scene by deleting unneeded geometry as well as adding in the new models to make each scene consistent. I then went through and began the second pass of each scene. I did this by adding small tweaks here and there, mainly animating additional parts of the characters rig to create extra movement for a smoother look. Although I did not do this for all scene, the scene in which I did do this for look as lot better. I hope to continuously do this until the shots look the best they can within...

 Today I began animating the first part of the fight between the two characters. I purposely haven't animated both characters in the same scene up until this point as I wanted to get the hang of working with the rigs.  I tried animating the shot before the main action in which the Cyberpunk character swings his sword towards the Samurai, however the movements did not look fluid and it felt like something was missing. This made me nervous to animate the rest of the fight sequence as I did not want the fight to look unnatural. This left me feeling stumped as to what I could do to improve the shot. I referred back to my drawings to see what it was which made the animatic look more interesting. I found that it was more visually interesting due to the anime like action lines which followed the sword as it swung. I therefore researched to see if this was an achievable effect to recreate in Maya. I managed to find a video which used MASH to leave trails after showing text on the scre...

 Today I decided to remodel the stairs which lead up to the main palace as I felt that they did not look grand enough in the pre-viz. I wanted to take the time to block out the newer version of the environment before animating to see what possibilities I could add into the final animation.    I Uv each part of the model and put it into Substance to test what the model looked like with textures applied. I tried to go for a stylized look which I think I could achieve with the brickwork if I added a bit of variation. In terms of creating the grass, I want to do this by using a MASH network in Maya, however I thought I would see what it would look like with a texture. Although not perfect, I feel if I spent the time I could make the grass texture work in Substance. 

 Today I followed a tutorial in order to create a rope bridge which interact with its environment. I thought this would look more interesting than the pre-viz model and hope to be able to use it in order to show the bridge breaking in a realistic way.  I found the tutorial quite straight forward, with the bulk of the video showing how to use MASH in order to get the chain links as the rope. I found that my bridge did not sway nearly as much as the videos one once clicking play on the animation, however I think this is due to the settings being different. I will play around with them to see what effect I can create with this bridge. If I am unable to use this bridge to recreate the Samurai splitting it in half, I have a backup video which shows how to create a different type of bridge with physics. 

 Today I completed more of the animation by animating the Samurai preparing for battle. I decided to make the still shots from the animatic look more interesting by having the character stretching in anticipation for the fight.  I feel there is still more that can be done to smooth out the animation, however the idea I had for the shot is laid out nicely. I enjoyed adding the smaller details such as the characters facial expression changing. I wasn't completely sure I liked how the camera moved however will see how it looks against the other parts of the animation.  I also completed the shot were the Cyberpunk character runs in anticipation to jump the bridge. This again was presented quite cleanly in the pre-viz so I started by getting the initial key frames from that. After I blocked out the general movements, I decided to experiment with a closer shot to capture the leg movement. I also decided to go with a more dramatic jump to emphasis the action. I'm happy with how ...

 Today I began animating the final version of the animation using both of the new character rigs. I decided to start with two scenes which contain both characters individually in order to test the workflow of using both character rigs.  In order to save time I decided to import both characters into the previz scene I wanted to recreate. I could then animate the character to the same actions as a first pass and then go back through and add in additional detail for the final animation version.  I chose to complete one of the running sequences for both characters as they are the most intense movements the rigs will have to withstand. Meaning if both rigs work for this aspect of the animation, then I will most likely be able to complete every other shot of the animation.  My initial concerns for animating the Samurai scene was that the knees of the character would not bend in the correct way, therefore making the character look odd. However after playing with the rig for...

Today I remodelled the katana the Cyberpunk character uses for the fight and textured both of the characters weapons in Substance. In order to create the Samurai's weapon I simply used the weapon created for the previz and UV and textured it.