Animation Update - 2D

Most people within the team participated within the 2D animation. I was passed shot 5 "Spread the Love" from a team mate to animate. 

Animation without the background and sound

I first created roughs for the animation and tried to capture a sense of uncertainty leading towards desperation within the character through the use of slight anticipation when his eyes lingered on the left, then using follow through action when they returned to their original position. I also wrote accents for the dialogue to guide my mouth movements along with the audio to sync them up as close as possible. The forced smile was liked by many team mates as they thought it emphasized the emotion of the character well.

However, a lecturer pointed out that the animation wasn't consistent with the other shots Jonathan and Michelle had produced. Their mouth movements were a lot snappier, while mine involved too much movement. Thanks to our head of 2D Jonathan, he was able to give advice which was removing some of the inbetweens to give it a sharper movement.

Later, I was told by Jerwin that he had updated the 3D animation for Butter within this shot. This meant I would have to redo the shift of the facial expressions. I was able to use my old rough as a template for getting the expression correct.

Mapping out the placement of the expressions. It was quite choppy and jumped all over the place, something I would fix later by the use of guidelines which would help cementing the positioning. I had also used the clean up version from the original rough.

While doing so, I was updated by Jerwin again that he had tweaked the animation for shot 5 a little. Luckily, it wasn't too big of a change, and I was able to reuse the animations I had already been producing. 

I was able to position the face to have a smoother transition alongside the 3D animation, and soon began adding roughs for the arms that Jerwin would clean up later. I wanted a shift within the arm to go around the collar of his wrapper shirt, as well as let it include anticipation which would emphasize a defeated arm fall that was made to look more natural through follow through of the arm's swing as it slowed to a halt. 

In exchange for Jerwin doing the cleanup for the arms, I took the shots he helped with and composited them for him.

Animation Update - 3D part 3

Part 3...(shot 6)

Just from the dialogue itself, I knew this would be the hardest out of the shots I had to animate.

"But you can't churn me down! I'm high end creamy blend!"

Butter was at his limit and his desperation is the most strong in this shot. However, the original pose had him lying on his side: I had to make him flip onto his front to look towards Michelle.

Initially, I didn't really know how I would achieve this without it looking so...clunky with the fact that:
1- Butter didn't have limbs at the moment
2- Butter was a 4-sided block. Him rolling could look rather clunky if not careful.

I decided to try the initial idea of making him roll onto his side, even if it didn't look natural to me.

During the beginning stage however, a lecturer overheard my little problem. He offered the idea:
"What about making Butter jump?"

I thought that this could act a lot of character to Butter's personality and also exaggerate how desperate he was: he was willing to actually get up and MOVE on his plate.

After thanking the lecturer for the idea, I tried to come up with an animation for this action. However, once again, I was having trouble imagining how he would push himself off the plate with his arms that didn't even exist yet.

This was what I had ended up with after many alterations (which I forgot to record OTL). I wasn't too happy with how out of time everything looked, from the push to the time spent in the air. There wasn't enough emphasis to show the force of his faceplant, and the follow-through action of his hair flicking upwards was a bit slow also. One idea I had regarding timing that I discussed with Michelle Zhen was that I could have him falling over when he says "churn me DOWN" and have him flick his head up in "I'm HIGH end" for emphasis on the dialogue for clear communication.

Despite this, I was actually beginning to get frustrated at this point that I had forgotten to even ask my group members about the idea in the first place. A few people thought it looked a tad overdone with the Butter suddenly projecting himself into the air - even I started to think that as I kept looking at the animation. Also, when people talk while jumping, their voices jump along with them. The audio we had didn't include this, meaning it already looked out of place with the audio, despite it suiting the dialogue. 

I decided to redo the entire shot entirely and change him to just roll himself over onto his front. Jerwin gave me advice that blocking in the movement made things a lot easier. He helped me block out the entire animation which included arcs within the movement for more accurate flow. After doing so, I tried to get the start of the animation done.

Rough front half of the entire shot

By this time, I had actually spend way too much time on trying to get the animation done, and the 2D animators needed the 3D quickly. As much as I had wanted to help the team with the animation, I wasn't producing desirable animations at a pace quick enough which was holding Jonathan back also. Jerwin ended up looking at what I had, and informed me that he liked the idea of the movement for Butter. He then offered to finish off shot 6 while using the animation above as a guide to making the shot how I wanted. While he was doing so, I would be able to help out with the 2D animating that seemed to be having a few troubles with the first few shots.

Animation Update - 3D part 2

Part 2! (shot 5)

While making shot 4, I was also making the animation for shot 5.
The dialogue was "Spread the love" and this would be the part where Butter was starting to lose hope. Jonathan told me that he would slowly drop his left arm from the previous shot in shock, meaning I didn't need to involve too much movement. I thought it would be nice to at least have Butter move in the sense that he's pleading Michelle Zhen with his eyes by directing his head towards her.

Rough animation

I had already found a problem: Butter's screen placement was on the left while Michelle was on the right - Butter looking towards the left wouldn't make sense. 
I soon changed the animation to look as so. The way he directed his eyes made a lot more sense, and I thought the ease into the head turn emphasized his desperation and shock. 

Animation Update - 3D part 1

...Well I certainly took my time to update my blog during the animation process -.-;;;
Prepare for a massive update on the animation process OTL

We first started off by counting how many shots of Butter we had and decided to split half of the shots to Jerwin, and the other half for me to animate. I was given shots 4, 5, and 6 which included the lines:

"Hmph, well I AM the cream of the crop."
"S-Spread the love!"
"But you can't churn me down! I'm high end creamy blend!"

Before doing that however, we needed to check how Butter fit on the plate inside the fridge.

Butter seemed to fit fine, we would just have to adjust the lighting and camera angles
accordingly to each shot

After doing so, I began making rough animations for the shots. The first being the cream of the crop shot.

I wanted his head to tilt downwards at the beginning to emphasize his smirk. Afterwards, he would tilt his head up in a rather...."greasy" fashion. The timing would have to be altered to fit later also.

However, after checking with the head of 2D Jonathan, he gave me feedback that Butter lost his sturdiness as he "jiggled" around. Also, I was actually a bit late in giving this to him, as he had split the 2D animation between different members too. This meant that it was up to Jerwin and I to provide them with 3D animations quickly in order for them to work on them. I honestly wasn't too confident with my 3D skills initially, and I was actually finding it more difficult to animate Butter compared to a character with no limbs because of the fact that he had a solid form, and I also had to imagine how his body would move if he DID have limbs within the 3D aspect of the animation.

I referred back to the animatic Jonathan had provided, along with the expression sheets the members doing 2D animation had discussed to create a pose that would further fit the face that Jonathan had already started animating without a body. (Sorry Jonathan! T_T)

It still included the smirk and included a head tilt backwards which Butter would then whip his head forward with his changed extreme expression. This shot would've looked a lot better if I had included follow-through action for his head to maybe tilt back slightly again at the end to look more smooth and natural, as he looks quite stiff when he returns.

I thought this animation was capturing Butter's extreme personality quite well personally. However, I still hadn't learned the lesson of communicating with the 2D animators: I had made my animation different to what Jonathan had already drawn out.

On this day (3/06) there was a feedback session with other lecturers and we had to prepare an animatic for it. So I quickly remade a rough animation of this shot to fit Jonathan's animation.

After fixing the animation, it fit perfectly with his animation

This was the basic animation I quickly made for that shot. However, with the addition of the expressions and the quick zoom in, Jonathan and I thought that the shot looked perfect just as is. The emphasis is supposed to be on Butter's extreme expressions, so having too much body movement could distract the audience. Also, I later realised that the sudden head whip forward along with the fast zoom could be a bit of an over-emphasis which could overload the audience.

13/05 - Update

At the beginning of this week, I was discussing the layout of the fridge with Mikayla who is in charge of matte painting. While using the prop sheets we produced last week, we also had to consider how we would direct the viewer's vision towards our character through the use of clever prop placement (an example being an unfinished juice box with the straw pointing towards Butter). We thought another good idea would be to give subtle hints regarding the punchline of the animation within the background by adding a carton of soy milk. This would give the viewer a fun realisation as they rewatch the animation a second time when they discover the milk carton. 

During this week's group meeting, I was given positive feedback for the ideas regarding the little details for the layout. I was slightly worried that the first concept looked too crowded, meaning it would direct the viewer's eyes away from our character. However, the lecturers actually liked the idea, along with the various ways the background highlighted Butter. We will most likely go with that concept, unless we decide to take a few items out to emphasise the fridge of a student = should lack food....a little...>.>;


I also had to work on the much dreaded UV mapping and texturing of the plate. However, despite my initial hate towards the process, with the help of video tutorials and our Head of 3D Jerwin, I was able to get the work done rather smoothly.

Jerwin explained the smooth UV tool. Despite how Maya unwrapped the UVs in a way there would be the least distortion, the smooth tool actually cleaned the UV mapping by smoothing out the edges which allowed it to have a lot more accuracy to the original model.

Core of Rose before smooth tool

Core of Rose after smooth tool

Petal 1

Petal 2

Bottom stand of plate

Top, bottom and sides of plate

Jerwin recommended that I unfold the UV for the side of the plate to get a cleaner UV.
It would also make it easier if we wanted to add a separate pattern/texture from the top and bottom

Cleaned up UV map for the side of the plate

After creating the UVs, we found a texture online for a white ceramic with a few "cracks" to give the plate a more natural look, rather than giving no texture other than a shiny reflective white surface.

Also added the rose drawing to the UV texture ><

Adding a red overlay to the white ceramic for the roses 

Plate with the finished textures and resized roses.

This is the turnaround for our finished prop. Many thanks for our Head of 3D Jerwin for the assistance throughout the entire process, even up to adding point lights for the turnaround.

05/05 - Update

I actually ended up not doing much over break. I just thought about the props within the fridge because I wanted to give Mikayla a hand with the matte painting in the future. I also sketched the ideas this week as well as discussing with Mikayla what she had in mind with the layout of the setting. She was given the task of adjusting the layout because she has a better idea of the sizes of the fridge.

I also roughly added the butter model Jerwin created to the plate to get an idea on how large the butter would have to be in comparison to the plate model. Jerwin had already added rigging so I had to add a control which would allow me to move the model around.

Plate positioned with roses to the side. We should be able to see butter's
expressions fully.

The painting is covered quite a bit, but the amount that still shows
accentuates the butter and the "romantic" atmosphere

I also tried rotating the plate so the roses were placed in front, but this
covered his face. That would be a problem considering the fact that
our character expresses himself more through expressions rather than body language

After the group meeting with the lecturers, I was told that the roses placed on the plate looked slightly large. And because they're pointing inwards, it is rather hard to tell what they are from the front view of the plate. Also, everyone preferred the initial rotation of the plate as it allowed the viewer to get a clearer view of Butter. I also noticed that I accidentally made Butter lay on the wrong side, as he usually takes up the left side of the screen for the screen direction throughout the animation.

15/04 - Update

We had another group discussion with the lecturers today (minus Michelle Zhen and Mikayla as they both were sick T_T) and once again, the overall feedback for the group was positive.

The lecturers seem to really enjoy how the overall designs of the characters and the models seem to be coming out, as all aesthetics are appealing and suit the genre well. I personally didn't do too much work this week but I did show the group my designs for the plate's print.

The lecturers and group members gave the most positive feedback for the second rose bed, as it was approaching the desired effect of the air brush and painted effect for the design. It also has softer outlines along with the lack of any in the actual roses to soften the overall image.

One of the lecturers mentioned that I would have to have a test shot with the butter on the actual plate. This is because the butter would be covering the majority of the rose bed. After doing so, I could determine how much of the design requires more attention because the edges will definitely still be showing through. I was also told that I should try a few lighting tests as the colours were quite distinct. These tests should be done before I make any more changes to the various designs on the plate, as there would be no point doing more work if it doesn't look good together initially.

During the break, I intend to try UV mapping the plate and roses, while also finding an appropriate texture for both models. If they can't be found, I think I'm going to have to paint my own textures. I may also help with the matte painting next term, so I probably will try sketching a few props that will be in the background.

14/04 - Update

Last week when we had the discussion session with the lecturers, we were told that everything was going along quite smoothly. However, I did get a bit of feedback regarding the initial rose bed print on the plate. 

Initial Design

The lecturers mentioned that the black lineart was slightly harsh in comparison to designs on different existing plates. After looking around, I realised that other plates usually lacked a black outline and usually looked as if they were stenciled on the plate. If they did have a lineart, they were usually a darker shade of the design's colour, rather than having it as an actual black outline. 

Different plate designs for a small mood board ><

I ended up using the original design and altered certain aspects of the print.

Changing the lineart from black to white by erasing them entirely so it comes out with transparent lines, rather than actual white lineart in case we didn't use a white plate.

Removed the lineart entirely from roses to accent the shadows of the roses to define the actual shape. It also gave a blurred appearance which caused a softer look.

Repainted the entire print without lineart with an airbrush for a stenciled effect. I personally feel this looks more like a design that would be found on a plate but I would have to discuss this with my group members. There are less shadows, with the only ones being seen on the leaves with a darker shade of green. 

From these three simple changes, I decided to test them by roughly adding them to the screenshots of the plate model before creating any more variations. This was to ensure that it actually looked presentable as a design on the plate.

I had an initial discussion with Jerwin and he seemed to think that the design looked fine on the plate which is a plus ><

I actually understand what the lecturers meant regarding the black lineart: I feel even though it is small, it creates a harsh contrast with the white plate and accentuates the roses a bit too much. 

07/04 - Update

Our group met up today to get the filming out of the way >< (Thank you Mikayla and Michelle Zhen for letting us film at the apartment!)
Throughout the day, I helped around with adjusting minor details within the storyboard and acting to make it appear more natural. As the director, I was also the person who decided whether some shots were good enough or not, along with my group members.
Jerwin's friend gave us advice regarding how we can bounce light off different surfaces, so at some point, I was adjusting the paper we were bouncing the light source off to direct it towards the desired area.
..Mikayla and I was also tasked with taking numerous photos of the work environment ><

Bouncing the light off paper~

...We forgot we had a tripod

Jonathan filming

Prepped food :D

Men, use your muscles

We decided that the wall threw off the white balance with how blank it was.
...This was also a chance to add character to Michelle Zhen's character.

Took photo of the lighting within the fridge: good idea for the title screen concept

An orange tinted light was added to the bottom of the fridge. It was casting
shadows on the sponge (butter) but that can be fixed when we add the plate
and through matte painting.

Everyone! Get in here!

Initial light test while Mikayla was preparing the "food"
From this, we knew that the scene wasn't bright enough and created too much contrast.

Hello to our actress ><

Acting with a slight over the shoulder + high angle shot

The lighting for the fridge was great for setting up a romantic atmosphere
around Butter inside the fridge.

Pointing the light directly at the scene created too many harsh shadows
so we had to bounce them off walls too.

Michelle getting reading for filming

Jonathan checking again :D

Lights

(Photos from Mikayla and Myself :3)
Everyone was pitching in ideas during the filming so it ended nicely. Just have to go through and select the footage we want in the final piece.
Lighting was a problem initially because the apartment was quite dark. Problem solved: Jerwin's friend provided us with multiple lamps with a yellow light. This was able to produce a rather romantic atmosphere for the lighting which we can complete with a pink filter during the editing stage.
...Time for us to get ready for editing! ><



Regarding the plate:
I ended up modelling the roses that sit on the plate.

The middle...

Adding the first few petals

Second layer

I will say that I am a bit glad it didn't turn out as something....that doesn't look like a flower OTL However, I'm not entirely sure if it's the look I'm going for so I intend to ask what the group members think about it. Adjustments must be made depending on how we decide to texture the plate.

Little stand added

I also made a rough addition to the plate to see how it would look with it. (It isn't connected to the actual plate yet). I actually think it looks a lot better than having it as a flat plate.

I also just added the roses onto the plate to see how it looks so far. The base of the plate also had colours altered because I wasn't too sure of having just a white plate. (A sort of colour test?) This was because the fridge itself is white and I wanted the plate to have even the slightest difference in colour to not blend in with the background.

I personally think the purple shade would create more contrast with the yellow butter but I'm going to need to get the opinions of others. I also have to remember that the rose bed will be in the center of the plate...

ONWARDS TO NEXT UPDATE! ><