The Globe Reacher : animation, 3D

Reaching the Globe's New Demo Reel

GlobeReacher — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:59:00 GMT

I made this Demo Reel following Rick Green's Demo Reel Tutorial [LINK].

Even if you aren't a potential client for us, comment and tell me why or why it wouldn't would make you more likely to hire us if you were.

3D Fish Commercial Project: A Walkthrough: Part 4

GlobeReacher — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:21:00 GMT

Scene Two prototype completed. Here is One and Two Together.

3D Fish Commercial Project: A Walkthrough: Part 3

GlobeReacher — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:44:00 GMT

Animation 1

Ok, we now have our fish rigged, lighted, and placed. We are ready to animate!

Before we animate, we must record the dialog audio so we can make the animation fit it. I used the Blue Snowball [LINK]. It's an excellent microphone. However, the audio in the clip below was recorded in a cheaper microphone... hence the popping... I did re-record the audio with the better microphone.. not to worry... It's just a prototype.

To animate, we must set keyframes.

Almost all virtual motion is created in frames. A frame is an image in a series of images. Movie cameras take about twenty-four frames each second. When the pictures are displayed one after another, the object that is filmed looks like it is moving. It isn't exactly twenty-four frames per second, so we call it 24p (Twenty-four frames per second progressive). For web video, to get smoother motion, we use 30 frames per second. That is what I am using for this project.

Keyframes are basically motion markers. Let's say I set a 3D object at the left side of the screen on Frame One in the timeline. If I switch to frame 30, then move the 3D object to the right side of the screen, when I play the animation, I will see the 3D object move across the screen in one second (because I used 30 frames). In this way, I can animate things growing or shrinking (scaling), rotating, or, of course, moving. This is how 3D animations are done.

Because this is probably going to be a TV commercial, I am going to render it out in High Definition (HD).

Ok, I move the camera to get it framed just right... oh, perfect!

Alright, I will start by lip syncing. This is when we make the motion of the character's mouth match the words that he speaks. I like using a built-in plugin called Morph Mixer. Basically this is just placing a keyframe for each morph as the character says each sound (called "phonemes") that makes up words. For example, if I wanted to make the fish say the word "fluffy", I would keyframe in the following phonemes: F-V, L-D-N, A-I, F-V, E, than back to Base (speechless) .

For this project, I do all the lip syncing first; than animate fins and tail, etc. I want the tail to have a nice flowing motion in the background, as you will see in the clip.

Alright, all of the lip syncing is done for Shot One. I now add a few keyframes to make the head and tail move to add more realism.

Well, I'm going to render Shot One out now. Rendering is basically when you tell the computer to generate the images. I am using a render farm. A render farm is basically a group of computers working together to render the shot. This shot took about 30 minutes to render. I will be including more information on how to set up a good render farm and use it efficiently in a future blog post.

Once the shot has been completely rendered out and compiled, I import the clip into Adobe Premiere Pro [LINK] and add the dialog.

When you shine light into rippling water, you get what are called Volumetrics (also called Godrays). To get this effect, I will composite in a clip of the Volumetrics that I created in Adobe After Effects [LINK]. With all of this together, here is what we have!

IMPORTANT! Do NOT watch this until you have read the above post!

3D Fish Commercial Project: A Walkthrough: Part 2

GlobeReacher — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:43:00 GMT

Setting Up in Layout

Ok, we now have our two fishies. One battered (hee-hee-hee) and one healthy.

I opened LightWave Layout and imported both models.

Some of you are probably wondering what LightWave "Layout" is. Well, I'll tell you.

LightWave works in two applications: Modeler and Layout.

Modeler is where you model ("create or modify") your 3D models (objects).

Layout is where you animate (making dem' move!) and render (export) your animation.

I have the models ready, so that's why I'm moving into Layout.

Ok, I get the fish side-by-side and the begin basic rigging.

"Ok", you ask, "What's rigging?".

Well, to make characters move at joints, they have to have joints. 3D joints. To do that, we use 3D invisible bones.

Bones? Yes, bones. 3D objects with joints have bones. When visible, they make the fish look more like a robot than an animal... it's a good thing they are invisible in the final export.

I put a bone to move the head, and a few for the back and tail. As said before, the fin didn't need bones because they are controlled by morphs.

Alright, so I have the bones in place. Now I make sure that the morphs have the right control over the object shape.

Ok, I'm almost ready to animate! One last thing first... lighting.

Lighting? You mean in 3D you still have to deal with lighting?

Yep! 3D actually has virtual lights that you can move, rotate, and adjust in 3D space.

The different lights are:

Distant Light

A light good for a general key light (main light source). These are the lights I am using in this project; one on the left, and one on the right.

Spot Light

These lights are pretty much exactly what they are in real life. They can be just a plain beamed light source, or we can make them project an image like a projector.

Point Light

These are good for when you want light emitting from a certain point in all directions... like a candle, fire, etc.

I won't write anything about the other lights (Linear and Area lights) because... well... I don't know much about them myself.

Here is what they all look like; click on the image to enlarge.

Well, we have our fish in place, rigged, and lighted.

That's all for now, folks!

Next time Animation 1 !