Research Planning & Notes

Posted on 13th December 2020 by Muhammad Fadhli Kamil Ahmad Fauzi

(Term 1: Week 8-13)

In this week class, Luke asked us about our research topic for 1500 words essay. I proposed to make a research about real-time rendering as I’m really interested in that topic because it’s getting more popular and advanced nowadays.

I was involved in using a real-time rendering, Unreal Engine when I was working to produce a game with my friends about 2 years ago. I was the animator for the in-game animations and cinematics for the game. The game visual was not designed towards a realistic look, but I was blown away with the power of the engine which can render almost everything I threw into the cinematics in real-time such as fog, reflection and volumetric lights.

My small experiences with Unreal Engine when producing animations for the game

As I was getting interested with the engine and searching online for tutorials to improve my knowledge with Unreal Engine, I found out that the game engine is getting popular in actual film and animation productions because its capability to produce realistic rendering in a shorter time compared to offline rendering.

Back to my research topic, at first I want to focus on the method used by real-time rendering of how it can optimise the processing power and rendering time compared to other rendering type. But I think the research will results in to have too much technical jargons, terms and algorithms that I myself don’t understand as I’m not into programming.

Luke said that real-time rendering is such a massive topic. So he want me to narrow it down to how it use to produce effects (VFX) or how it use in virtual production.

After that I was thinking for few days about my topic because I don’t want it to be too big and too small either.

Early Research

Title:
– Real-time Rendering Method in Virtual Production
– Real-time Rendering and How It Can Benefit Visual Production
– Future of Visual with Real-time Rendering
– Advantage of Realtime Rendering in Visual Creation.

Question / research scope:
– What is Real-Time Rendering
– Technology for fast rendering
– Brief history of real-time rendering
– Has been around for decades in games
– Method / how it works
– three conceptual stages: application stage, geometry stage, rasterizing
– Type of real-time engine
– Integration in production
– What are the benefits
– Time
– Cost
– Previs for script writing, set building, motion capture, animation
– What is the future of rendering? Can it compete with another render?
–

Early references:

I found a book titled “Real-Time Rendering, Fourth Edition: (4th New edition)” by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines and Naty Hoffman. Its really going in-depth and very technical too. Its not really suitable for my short essay, so I may use this book just for basic references only.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1888-how-to-3d-rendering-rasterization-ray-tracing/

https://unity3d.com/real-time-rendering-3d

https://unity.com/solutions/real-time-filmmaking-explained

https://www.designblendz.com/blog/what-is-real-time-rendering-and-how-does-it-wo

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tech/how-real-time-game-engines-are-enhancing-production/5124990.article

https://80.lv/articles/integrating-real-time-rendering-into-film-production-pipeline/

https://unity.com/solutions/real-time-filmmaking-explained

Video credit: Eduonix Learning Solutions

After more thinking and looking at various references, here are almost the final outline for my research essay.

Research Outline

Title
Advantages of Real-time Rendering in Animation and Visual Effects Design

Introduction (200 words)
– Problem in production in terms of rendering time, cost, etc
– Solution with real-time rendering
–

What is Real-time Rendering (300 words)
– Description of what is real-time rendering
– Brief example of how real-time engine works
– Maybe compare to off-line rendering
– Example of real-time engines
– Not too technical
–

Benefits to workflow and creativity (900 words)
– Can see result in short time / instantly
– Fast review / feedback cycle
– Can experiment with ideas
– Team can collaborate in real-time
– Save time & cost
– Short development time
– Some real-time engines are free
–
– Find samples of real productions using real-time rendering
– How it helps with creativity
– How it used during production
– How it opens a new type / style of entertainments
–

Conclusion (100 words)
– Real-time rendering is the future as it getting powerful
–

Body Mechanics

Posted on 12th December 2020 by Muhammad Fadhli Kamil Ahmad Fauzi

(Term 1: Week 7 & 8)

This week we learnt about body mechanics in animation and was assigned to do a short animation for this topic.

Body mechanics can be described as the way character body change and move from one pose to another pose. A great body mechanics animation is when the sequence of movement through the body is prepared and timed properly to describe the intended action for audience to believe that the character moved. Some good examples to show a full body mechanics are gymnastic, parkour and even as simple as a character lifting a heavy object.

References

For this week task, I planned to do a short parkour action. It is different than the previous character animation tasks as the character will not doing a repetitive animation like walk cycle but instead, a variety of continuous actions from start to finish. It can be hard to animate this complex motion using only imagination or by designing the action from scratch. So, a good video reference from the parkour expert itself can help a lot.

I then proceeded to find the references online. After searching for several hours, I noticed that there are actually many good parkour videos but some of them are not suitable as animation reference because of shaky camera movements and extreme angles in the video. Most of the videos also are a fast cut compilation of short parkour clips which very hard to follow. For the reference, I’m looking for a video with consistent camera angle.

I finally found a video by StuntsAmazing on YouTube which has the criteria I wanted. I took a small portion of the video as a reference for my animation.

Credit: Video by StuntsAmazing

Storyboard & Movement Observation

The following are the key poses that I identified from the video.

From the video and storyboard, we can see the person doing 2 jumps that require 360 degree rotation for the whole body in the animation process later.

For the first jump, the person lands with his left hand touching the ground first (pose 5) and followed by his right hand (pose 6). This may require IK control to make the hands stick to the ground while the body still moving during the animation process. There is a follow through and overlapping motion for the legs during the jump. At the end of the first jump, he lands his right foot first (pose 7) and then the left foot (pose 8).

The person continues to make 2 small run cycles (from pose 8 to pose 13). He then makes the second jump which is a roll jump. During the jump, there is a ‘squash and stretch’ happening. The person squeezes his legs to the body (pose 15) and extend them back when he lands with both hands (pose 16), followed by his back (pose 17) and then his left foot (pose 18).

Blocking

For this week task, we need to get the blocking done first and then continue for final animation after we receive feedbacks from Luke.

This time, I used another character called ‘Sam’ because I think his anatomy is much better to practice the body mechanics animation than the previous ‘Thepp’ character.

As usual, I begin with placing down all the key poses based on the storyboard using the ‘step tangents’ in the Graph Editor. I think the process was not too hard since the character rigs are quite easy to control even though I just used to this character. The only minor problem was the reference video has some blurry frames because of motion blur. So I had to anticipate and predict some of the body parts placement especially for the hands and foots.

Blocking Video

Feedbacks

These are feedbacks from Luke:
– Fix curve for the body / spines
– Add more overlapping motion to the legs

Polishing

After I received the feedbacks, I begin fixing the original blocking first and followed the poses suggested by Luke.

Then I started the splining and polishing stage. Right after I converted the keyframes to ‘Auto tangents’, I instantly noticed some problems with rotation animation especially for the arms and foots. They are now doing a funny spinning motion throughout the animation.

I made this mistake during the pose-to-pose blocking where I just rotated each body part without paying attention to their rotation direction. When the body doing a full rotation to positive direction for example, I should rotate the other body parts to the same direction. I didn’t noticed this problem before because ‘Step tangents’ will not show the in-between motion. This is something I should take note of to prevent the same mistake in the future.

I managed to fix some of the problems using the Graph Editor by aligning the curve to have proper increment at each axis direction. But it became a too complicated since the rotation directions are mixed between the axis and keyframes. The easiest way I found was to delete the problematic rotation keys and recreate the key by rotating it back to its intended position through the right direction.

There were a lot of full rotations going on throughout the animation and I spent most of the time to fix them. I think this was the biggest problem happened in this task which I learnt a lot. The other parts were almost the same as the previous assignment like offsetting some keys to create overlapping motion, and changing the animation curves to control the slow in and out.

Final Animation

Story and Character Development

Posted on 7th December 2020 by Muhammad Fadhli Kamil Ahmad Fauzi

(Term 1: Week 7)

Movie 1 :
Spongebob The Movie (2004)

Breakdown of the story development

SpongeBob work as burger fryer at the famous eatery station in Bikini Bottom, The Krusty Krab.
The Krusty Krab own by Mr. Krab who always kept the secret recipe of his famous burger to himself. Mr. Krab is a bit selfish when it comes to money.
When Mr. Krab decide to open second branches of his restaurant, he decided to appoint Squidward as a new manager leaving SpongeBob felt very frustrated.
Meanwhile, Plankton which Mr. Krab enemy has planted a “Plan Z,” an elaborate plot to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula and get rid of Mr. Krabs.
Plankton stole King Neptune precious crown and sending it to Shell City.
As King Neptune thought Mr .Krab has steal his crown, he rush to The Krusty Krab and ready to fry Mr. Krab.
SpongeBob came to the rescue and ask King Neptune to give him some time for him and his bestfriend Patrick Star to go to the Shell City to retrieve the crown.
Along the journey to Shell City, SpongeBob and Patrick has come across a hazardous trench, and Neptune’s daughter Mindy appears to give them encouragement and they successfully pass the trench.
By the time SpongeBob and Patrick almost arrive to the land, they gets stomped on by the “cyclops” (a diver).
The cyclops grabs SpongeBob and Patrick and heads off to his store by the beach, which is in fact “Shell City” itself.
SpongeBob and Patrick see the crown, and after so much struggle and nearly die, they manage to escape with the crown and leave the Shell City.
The rushed to the Bikini Bottom and in the nick of time, SpongeBob and Patrick return with the crown, save Krabs, and then face Plankton.

Breakdown of character development

SpongeBob is hardworking and cheerful worker in Krusty Krab. He is being seen as an annoying little creature by his co-worker.
SpongeBob dreams is to become a manager at The Krusty Krab and when Mr. Krab decide not to appoint him as manager, he felt frustrated and drowns in sorrows.
Even though SpongeBob feel upset with Mr. Krab, he did not bear upon seeing that his boss’s life is at risk.
SpongeBob brings all his courage and successfully restore the crown with so much struggles.

How character drives the story

SpongeBob has clearly drive the story and make more interesting with his comic attitude along with his bestfriend Patrick.
The story also get interesting with the main antagonist, Plankton. He planted a lot of evil plan and drive SpongeBob and his friend into dangerous situation.

______________________________

Movie 2 :
War of The Worlds (2005)

Breakdown of the story development

Ray Ferrier, struggle to build a positive relationship with his children.When his ex-wife, Mary Ann drops the children off at Ferrier’s house, he is ready to spend a weekend together with the.
However, an alien tripod descends on Earth threatening to wipe out humanity.
In attempt to save his children, Ferrier rush to transport them from New York to Boston in to find safety at Mary Ann’s parents’ house.
The existence of the aliens made a massive destruction in the earth causing an EMP that disrupts all technology and electricity.
They eventually get to a Hudson River ferry only to be surrounded by tripods but Ray’s family manages to escape.
Ray got separated from his son, Robbie when U.S. Marines engaging in a futile battle with some tripods.
While taking shelter in a farmhouse basement by a deranged man named Harlan Ogilvy, Ray’s daughter, Rachel is abducted by a nearby tripod.
Ray manage to joins her daughter after picking up a belt of grenades and help from other abductees, Ray uses the grenades to destroy the tripod from within, freeing them all.
When they arrive in Boston, they find the alien vegetation withering and the tripods inexplicably collapsing.
Ray successfully alerts the soldiers escorting the fleeing crowd, who shoot it down using anti-tank missiles and when the hatch opens, a sickly alien struggles halfway out before dying.
Ray and Rachel finally reach Mary Ann’s parents’ house, where they are reunited with Mary Ann and Robbie (who somehow managed to survive).

Breakdown of character development

Ray Ferrier the hard-working and disillusioned New Jersey dockworker has failed as a husband, and as a father.
Estranged from his troubled teenage son, Robbie, and his little daughter, Rachel, Ray struggles to build positive bridges with his kids.
As he doesn’t see his family much, he tries to make the best possible effort whenever he does get a chance to spend time with them.
When Earth is under attack by extraterrestrial invaders, Ray’s paternal instincts take over as he desperately tries to rush his children to safety.
He became more protective and caring while undergoing the ultimate test under these extreme conditions.
At the end Ray able to reunite with his ex-wife and get his children to a safe place and embrace the positive relationship build with his children, especially hi son.

How character drives the story

Ray drives the story with highlighting on protecting his children and making sure that he can build a good relationships with both of them.

______________________________

Movie 3 :
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of Were Rabbit (2005)

Breakdown of the story development

Wallace and his dog, Gromit’s has venture into latest business, a human pest-control called ‘Anti-Pesto’.
The business is booming as the enterprising duo are finding it hard to manage all the captive rabbits taking over West Wallaby Street before the Giant Vegetable Competition.
Wallace then invents a brainwashing machine and experiments on the bunnies to program them to dislike the veggies, however, the experiment goes wrong, the machine misfires and melds his mind to another bunny.
Wallace turn into a humongous Were-Rabbit at night and starts terrorising the village, eating the giant crops.
While the event organiser Lady Tottington, doesn’t know on what happen to Wallace, she decided to hired Wallace and Gromit to investigate the mystery and to capture the creature.
Consequently, Victor Quartermaine, Tottington’s macho suitor wants to catch the animal himself, using violent means if necessary to win Tottington’s heart as well as earn the village’s respect.
Gromit had discover that the Were-Rabbit is his actually Wallace, he uses his prized squash to lure the rabbit and capture it without hurting it.
Meanwhile, Victor are able to track the Were-Rabbit and ready to shoot the rabbit with golden bullet.
Gromit successfully save the Were-Rabbit and dresses the defeated Victor in a makeshift rabbit costume, and soon the villagers chase after him.
With the help from Tottington and Gromit, the Were-Rabbit, now turn into Wallace’s human form.
Gromit is pronounced the winner of the event and all is well again in the duo’s little farm village.

Breakdown of character development

Wallace is an inventor with a house full of gadgets, running a new business together with his faithful dog, Gromit.
Wallace always get into unexpected situation, still, he can always relax with his best friend Gromit who spends most of his time saving Wallace from various scrapes and a number of mischievous characters.

How character drives the story

The story get interesting when Wallace with his invention and always end up with unexpected circumstances.
Gromit as a secondary character drives the story with his genius and mischievous solutions.

Kamil Fauzi

MA 3D Computer Animation, University of the Arts London

Monthly Archives: December 2020

Research Planning & Notes

Body Mechanics

Story and Character Development