22-23 Feb 2021

Today, I started rigging the space buggy so that I could produce an animation for one of my shots, which is shot 07. The model is from the university library.

As usual, when I opened any 3d files especially for rigging, I will check and make sure the model is ready first. I relinked its textures using the ‘File Path Editor’ to have dynamic path to our collaborative folder so that it will always find the ‘sourceimages’ subfolder regardless of the change to the root address and drive. I also converted all materials to Arnold as we planned to use Arnold rendering for our project.

Next, I need to separate some of the space buggy components especially all its wheels so it can be rigged and move individually. Currently the wheel meshes were within the same mesh group with the body.

Like the problem with previous spaceship model, there were many separated polygons and overlapping vertices which make ‘double-clicking’ to select each component become harder. This is a very common problem happened when the model was converted and transferred using other 3d file format. So I did some meshes clean-up using the vertex ‘Merge’ function with very minimum threshold to fix the problem. I then managed to select each wheel meshes more easily.

I separated all the 6 wheels using the ‘Edit Mesh > Extract’ function. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Maya mesh separating function can be quite tedious because it will create a new group and divide each component in the selection into different objects with generic name. I need to rename and combine some of the object that supposed to be 1 component back. After that, I separated and combined some other components that I think are appropriate to follow the wheels or the body.

With all the necessary components separated, I started creating all the controllers using the ‘NURBS Circle’ with ‘Linear’ Degree and 8 Sections to have low poly shape so animator can have clear visual when the shape rotates.

I setup 1 root controller which placed at the center ground level, 1 controller for the body and 2 controllers for each wheel; 1 intended for wheel suspension and another for wheel rotation. I locked the suspension controllers to be able to move up and down only and wheel controller locked for rotation only. To sum, the rig hierarchy was setup this way; ‘root > body’ & ‘root > suspension > wheel’. All the meshes where parented to their respective controller using the simple Parent Constrain method.

It was a fairly simple rig but sufficient for the vehicle animation in shot 07. There is no physic or rigid body applied which mean all controllers must be animated manually. I think it’s good because I can have direct control for the animation and learn how animate the vehicle properly.

I finalised the rig by arranging and renaming everything accordingly in the Outliner for better management. I uploaded the rigged space buggy file to our collaborative folder and let the team know in case anyone want to check and use it.

24 Feb 2021

Early in the morning I started animating shot 07 as I was eager to animate this shot. I begin by referencing the space buggy model into the animation file and placing Jordan and Michael characters on the buggy to resemble the storyboard.

I then looking for the right spot in the background for the scene to happen. I want the buggy to run over some small rocks so that the vehicle will have some suspension motions to make the scene more dramatic. There are already several potential spots with small rocks in the background model but after several testing with camera angle, I finally decided the area with good rocks arrangement and angle for the space colony.

The animation process is pretty simple actually. I animated the root first to move from point A to B with the small rocks in its path. I then animated the wheel suspensions to move up and down when the wheel reached the rocks.

After I get the wheel suspensions right, I animated the buggy’s body to react accordingly to the suspension with some follow through and overlapping motions.

For the wheel rotation, I just made one cycle (360 degree) for the first 30 frame only and loop it in the Graph Editor using ‘Curves > Post Infinity > Cycle’ to have a continuous motion.

After that, I proceed to make the camera animation. I want to have a bit of cinematic feel to it by closeup on the small rocks at the beginning and pull out and up towards the end of the scene to show the wide desert area while keeping the space colony always in view throughout the shot to show that the characters are heading to it. I used ‘Camera and Aim’ so I can control the camera target more easily and animate the ‘aim’ to have some shake and natural movement to it. At the end, it turned out the characters were not really visible in the shot because of the camera angle and the buggy has some big components at its side that covered the characters.

I did some render tests and noticed the space buggy textures were a bit too dark. So I made some changes to its materials in the original model file and have it all updated to the animation file as I used the reference system for the vehicle.

I sent the finished animation file and updated space buggy model to our collaborative folder so that the VFX team can put their lighting and effects to the scene.

26 Feb 2021

We have another weekly video meeting today. Only animation and VFX team were involved this time as we discussing about our progress so far. The sound team was still focusing to produce the music and sound effects.

During the meeting Ghera asking about if he can have a spaceship model with the backdoor closed for the shot 01. I told him that I will update the model as requested.

Right after the meeting, I proceed to separate the backdoor, changed it pivot location and rotated the door to close it. I parented the door to the spaceship and it can be animated. It was a quick task as I have done this process several times before. I then tested the model in the template animation file (with no animation), and the model was updated successfully.

I was about to send the file to our collaborative folder, but I thought I should check if the model will update correctly with Emma’s animation file. I found the back part of the spaceship broke and the door was not moving together with the body in the animation file, where it should move together since it was in the same hierarchy. With further investigate, I noticed that the spaceship hierarchy in the Outliner was different and some of its meshes were changed. I asked Emma to know what she had changed when she animated the shot.

It turned out that Emma changed the parenting structure and merged some of the spaceship meshes in order to make all the parts to move together. She animated the object and not the spaceship group. It was my mistake. I should have properly rig the spaceship with controllers for the root, door etc. I should also inform Emma to animate the spaceship’s group when I decided to use the simple group-parent style rig.

This is something new that I learned today because I never expected the reference model can be modified in animation file, especially to the mesh level. I have worked in 3dsmax and Blender where the reference / proxy model can only be animated, changed in terms of position, rotation and location. The meshes cannot be changed to prevent mistakes and unwanted modifications to the model during animation, at least until we change the proxy settings as local.

27 Feb 2021

I fixed the problem by not separating the backdoor and managed to update the spaceship reference without damaging the Emma’s animation. The door now cannot be animated, but since we don’t have any shot with the backdoor animation, then we are going to be fine. I uploaded the updated file to our collaborative folder on OneDrive and university network.