Category: Collaborative

• Project summary

In this blog I will summarise the final outcomes of the project, the process and the changes. This is our final video.

https://vimeo.com/808156376

And the following is the process showreel of my part.

https://vimeo.com/808187253

• Team Members

MA 3D Animation

Yaxin Hou (y.hou0420211@arts.ac.uk)

• Team leader
• Storyboard
• Scene
• modeling
• Textures
• 3Danimation
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Sound

Qiaoqing Yu (q.yu0320211@arts.ac.uk)

• Character
• modeling
• Scene
• modeling
• Rigging
• Textures
• 3Danimation
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Editing

Jiazhuo Tang (j.tang0420212@arts.ac.uk)

• Character modeling
• Scene modeling
• Textures
• 3Danimation
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Sound

MA 2D Animation

Yinyun Xu (y.xu0320215@arts.ac.uk)

• scene design
• 2D animation
• 2D visual effect

Guowei Gou (g.gou0320211@arts.ac.uk)

• Character design
• scene design
• 2D animation
• 2D visual effect

The preliminary design of 2d students’ painting is very important to our conceptual design of animation. We have three 3d students modeling and animation together, work together, and complete the task within the specified time.

• Story setting

This project is a promotional video for the game, mainly through the story of the little boy to tell the premise of the story, the hand that appears at the end of the short film, is the player with the task to find the little boy.

Our aim is to show the theme of anti-school violence through this game. The rabbit the boy holds at the beginning is a symbol of his former kindness. When he is hurt and attacked by others, he chooses to fall into the amusement park and all his former kindness is lost.

• Pre-design

Our 2d members drew our animation’s characters and scenes design drawing through the story setting and reference we discussed.

2d pre-design gives 3d production a great help and reference role, laying a solid foundation for the later modeling work to be carried out smoothly.

• Modeling and Rigging

According to the 2d design drawing, we made a 3d model with Maya and ZBrush, and then made textures in substance painter. In addition, I used adv5 to rig the character in Maya.

The main character was modeled by myself, from the very first version to the current final version, and I kept modifying and adjusting it during the process by absorbing the opinions and comments of the group members, and finally creating the current model of the main character.

This rabbit model was also made by myself, modeled in Maya and textured in Substance Painter.

The gate scene was modeled by me and Yaxin Hou. There was not a lot of detail at the beginning, just large volume squares, and then I added a lot of detail in it.

These three models are all rigging by me.

I was mainly responsible for the animation of the first scene, including walking and watching. And the animation of walking and jumping in the second video.

I am responsible for editing videos in pr, importing all rendered images into video animation, and adding sound effects and background music to make the animation look more complete.

Finally, we worked together to complete an animation

The young boy has no friends and no fun after being bullied and isolated at school, and the rabbit is the only toy and playmate he ever had. Because of what happened to him, he longs for an amusement park where he can find friends and fun, in fact this is the site of his inner fantasy. He was attracted by the wide range of facilities in this amusement park and wanted to take possession of them. Finally attracted to the doll, a darker side of himself inside him, he eventually loses himself and is lost in the amusement park.

The rabbit abandoned outside the gates of the amusement park is the only goodwill and kindness he had left, and he has lost his good side and fallen.

The last player to appear is the one who goes on a mission to rescue him and bring the little boy back to reality from his lost plight.

But can the player really save him?

We appeal to prevent school violence, which will hurts everyone, please stop school violence!

Rendering

This week’s task is to render the project file animation we have made. We render in the classroom. More than a minute and a half of the animation needs to be rendered, which is a large amount of work. We render the animation every day until the classroom close at 9:00. Fortunately we finished the rendering within the planned time frame.

• Create Animation

The main task this week was to complete the animation section, which was also assigned, each person had their own shots and animations to produce. My assigned task is the animation and shots of the gate and the carousel.

Animation and shot of the gate, part of the animation of looking and walking.

Animations and shots of merry-go-round horses, part of walking and jumping animations.

• Rigging

This week’s task is rigging. I am responsible for the rigging of all models. I use adv5 to bind the bones of characters in Maya.

• Thoughts and reflections

During the process, I encountered many problems and troubles, such as the mouth of the face of the model could not be bound to the weight; the cloth doll weights consistently go wrong, difficulties being fixed etc.

In the process of solving the problem, I asked my classmates and kept trying to find out and solve the problem. This is a process of continuous exploration. After trying and finding solutions. Fortunately, I finally solved this problem.

• Character Modeling

This week’s work focused on modelling characters and scenes, with our team members dividing up the work according to the tasks assigned. I was mainly responsible for modeling the main character. And each person is responsible for one scene, my main task is the modeling of the gate.

This is the final version of the hero. During this period, many tests and color attempts have been made in other versions, and finally this model has been determined.

• Scene Modeling

This is a rendering of the scene modelling, all of which is done in constant adjustment and modification.

Timely team communication is also very necessary. Everyone should express their ideas.

• Mid-term Presentation

This week, we prepared a mid-term progress presentation for our collaborative project and presented and shared our progress and content to our classmates in Lecture B. We received good advice and comments from our tutors and classmates.

• Visit the Tate Modern Museum

• Thoughts and reflections

It was a very interesting experience. I visited the Tate museum with my classmates and appreciate the artworks, we would talk and understand the meaning of the artworks together and enjoy the content of the artworks.

Tate Modern Museum is very large, many art works about history, environmental protection and special ideas. I am very interested in Piet Mondrian’s art works, because I heard of his works very early. He created the “Neoplasticism” with three primary colors and geometric figures as the basic elements of painting. He uses abstract modeling and neutral colors to convey the concept of order and peace.

This is the pre-design part of our collaborative project, and the process of pre-design exploration:

• Character Design Reference

After we determine the Gothic style animation, we look for relevant character pictures on the Internet as a reference for character design.

• Character design sketches

• Scenes design Reference

We wanted to create an animation of an amusement park, so we found scenes of amusement parks on the internet and wanted to create a dark, gloomy and scary atmosphere.

• Character design sketches

• Why does our animation need pre-design?

Pre-design in animation is a very important part of the whole production process. The core content of animation is creativity, and in the production of animation works, the concentration of creative design is the animation pre-design stage. The pre-design is the main content of the animation production process and is the main support for the whole animation work. Only when the pre-creation part of the work is fully completed, can the subsequent production process be guaranteed to proceed smoothly. The pre-design is responsible for character design, scene design, concept artwork, storyboards and sub-camera design, which are also the main part of building an animation work.

• Concept of theme and style

We determined that the project we want to do is the type of game promotional film, and then published our content on Padlet, hoping to find other students who are also interested in it. Soon, two students majoring in 2d contacted us and expressed interest and willingness to cooperate.

We discussed and watched a large number of videos of various game promotional films together, and we finally tended to produce short and exquisite game animation content. After we discussed and determined the Gothic style, we began to work together. After that, we began to search a lot of reference pictures about Gothic characters and scenes. Through these reference pictures, we can design our protagonists and scenes faster.

• Script

We initially wrote a more complex script and then drew the storyboard. We showed it to our tutor for advice and tutor helped us to analyse and understand the script in depth and felt that the content was too big and difficult to complete in the limited time available. This was a very helpful tutorial, which helped us a lot. And then We re-set the story script and re-drew the storyboard, and after taking it to our tutor again, we finally decided on the current storyboard.

A good script and story setting need to be constantly revised and improved by seeking the help and feedback from tutors.

• Why do we need story setting and storyboard?

Animation script story setting is the main body of expression of the theme of animation works. The most direct and main way to express the theme of animation works is the story content and plot narration. A good story setting is the source of attracting audiences, and a good storyboard will contain ways and methods that are suitable for telling a good story.

• This week’s theme was Radical Friendship, Gamified Collaboration and DAOs.

• This week we brainstormed together in class through two games to appreciate each person’s role and task in collaborating in groups, and felt the charm and fun of working together through cooperative games.

1. Cooperative painting

Three-person group origami cooperative painting

The first game is to draw a combination picture in a group of three people, but the part of others should be covered before painting, so that everyone does not know what others are painting until it is finished. Because everyone’s ideas, designs and brush colors are different, there will be many interesting things in the end.

2. Design our own group games

Reflections and gains:

• We learned how group work should be done, the importance of each person dividing up the work and that we should share our ideas boldly, no matter what it is. Communication is important, as well as sharing the results that come from collaboration.

In the course

• In this week’s session, we were given a general overview of the course structure, objectives and syllabus of the collaborative unit course, as well as the specific assignments and projects we will be working on throughout the semester. We also discussed the workflow during teamwork, the skills and knowledge needed to work effectively in a teamwork course.

• During the class, we post our details and topics of interest to us on the padlet board to connect with other students.

After the course

• After the class, we went to the canteen for a meeting. And we met course leaders and students from other majors and discussed collaborative content and areas of interest together.