Inner Demons Animation

Finished Environments

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:07:17 -0400

Animation has been coming along nicely, another sample or two will be uploaded soon. However, in the meantime here are the finished environmments. To each of them I have improved some of the landscape, particularly with the mountains to give the final modelled look.

Texturing took up most of the time with the environments, for the physical objects I had to unwrap the UVs and then find a texture to apply over the UV mapping; for some of the landscapes and more general surfaces I used various shaders and experimented with render nodes to get a realistic and interesting look. I then also applied bump maps for the light to bounce off realistically, these basically give the 2D textures a 3D look when lighting is applied.

Final Stage is the lighting. For the indoor scenes I played around with point and ambient lights, with the outdoor areas I simulated a sun with a Mental Ray tool and then played around with the settings to give simple yet effective outside lighting.

Below are the finished environments:

Mountains

The Cell

The Lobby

The Ruins

Sanctum

When I started production for Inner Demons I mentioned how I wanted to improve my skills with making Environments in Maya. I set myself quite a challenge with these environments and because of it I have learned a lot in the areas of texturing, UV mapping, Bump Mapping, render nodes, lighting and mental ray, and my knowledge of some important Maya workflows and features has vastly improved. there’s still a lot to learn, but I am very pleased with how these have turned out!

Next step is to finish the animation, more on this to follow shortly!

Here is an animation example from the mountain scene.

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:49:43 -0400

Here is an animation example from the mountain scene.

Texturing Meryl

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:41:47 -0400

In my last animation, I did little texturing with UV maps, instead I just applied blanket metrials of the right colour and material. With the more realistic approach of this animation however, I need to use a different method called UV mapping.

With the mesh selected this is the map I am given in the texture editor.

This view is what i apply a texture to, and clearly I cant make an effective one with this that will give a good look. What I need to do is unwrap and postition the UV map so it is flat and textures can be designed more effectively. This process is done by selecting the faces I want to unwrap, for example, her top. I select all the faces that make up her top and cut and unfold them in certain places to give a flat plan of it. I then tweak the UVs slightly if needed to give me a UV mesh I can design textures on. Below is what the texture editor looked like after I had unfolded each part of her body in this way.

Each part of her body is now laid out flat and ready for texturing. I take a UV snapshot of this and use photoshop to make a texture map:

This is brought back into Maya and applied to the corresponding faces marked by their UVs. After looking at the mesh to make sure there are errors with textures or missed spots, I have a finished, textured, Meryl:

The Hair

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:41:25 -0400

For the hair I could have simply made a mesh on her head as seen below:

However, it wouldnt look as compelling as it wouldnt move with her body movements and stay in a constant unrealistic shape. Maya however, has a built-in hair simulator that I can use for Meryl:

I created a scalp mesh and created hair to come of out of it. This is what it looked like when it first came out:

I then need to give it the characteristics I want, including length, behaviour, colour and dynamics (gravity, firction, collisions etc.) I then parented the scalp mesh with a joint in Meryls head so it would move along with her. After a lot of experiementing and tweaking, I had a completed hair shape for Meryl:

Unrendered it doesnt look like much. After I applied some shadow settings, I rendered a view to see how it looked:

The eyes and mouth

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:21:41 -0400

I have handled the eyes and mouth differently to the rest of the rig. The eyes and blinking mechanisam were created seperate from the mesh. First I created a simple sphere and designed and texture to go around it.

I then made the eyelids and set up a set driven key so that close. I assigned the set driven key to a Blink attribute I set up on some eye controllers. When I raise this attribute from 0 to 5, the eyes close.

I then applied an orient constraint to the eye and eye controller, meaning wherever I move the controller, the eyes will look towards it.

The mouth was done by creating a simple teeth, tongue and mouth shape to hide behind the lips. Like with the blink attribute, I set up on called Teeth that controls the opening and closing of the teeth depending on her facial expression.

With this all done, the rig is complete and I can now texture it.

Blendshapes

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:11:43 -0400

Blendshapes are duplicates of a shape that have been changed. They are used for various uses but in this case they will drive the facial animation.

Meryl will need several mouth and eye movements as part of her animation. To do this I need to duplicate the original mesh. On this new mesh I will change it to give her single facial movement, for example, angry eyes.

I then select the duplicate and orginal and assign it as a blendshape. I can then control with a slider the blend: for example the eyebrows will move from the orginal position to the position I put them on on the duplicate. I do this process for each and every movement on her face, including raised eyebrows, a smile, a frown, surprised looks and other expressions. With the sliders I can then mix them up to give full facial animation. Below are the amount of these blendshapes I had to use for Meryl.

These blendshapes are now part of the rig meaning I now nearly have full body and face animation, all that’s left is the eyes and mouth.

Rigging - Part 3

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:58:42 -0400

With the environments done all I need to complete the rigging so I can start animating.

Below is the completed skeleton. The shapes around it are the controls. With these I can assign them to joints and program in some controls, so instead of selecting joints and handles directly, I can select the controls and keyframe all the movements I need for that part of the body. For example the arrows on the feet not only control the leg movement but also things like the toe bend, the ankle bend, the angle of the foot and the pivot of the toes. Overall, the controls make animations alot easier.

Next I need to apply the mesh. This process is called skinning. First I need to select the skeleton and mesh and select Smooth Skinning. The body and joints have to be exactly in line for this to work properly.

The skinning is a long process with a lot of trial and error. I had to select each joint and paint onto the mesh how much that joint would influence that part of the mesh. Below shows this process:

White areas mean the area has a Value of 1 so they move with the joint, black areas have a value of 0 so are not effected byt joint at all. The grey areas represent areas with a value that is in between 1 and 0. The higher the number, the more the skin moves with the joint. It takes of a lot of painting, checking the joint movement, then going back and refining it until the skin move realistically with the joints.

With this done, the body is fully rigged and skinned, ready for animating. Belows is an example of how the joints now move the mesh:

Environments (untextured)

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:27:49 -0400

The Cell

The Lobby

Sanctum

The Mountains

The Ruins

Modelling the Ruins

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:25:38 -0400

The most complex environment is the ruins. This are will be a fairly large but varied and interesting area with broken structures, pillars and rubble. Below are some images from the construction of the ruins.

Pillars

Courtyard

Arches

Ruins

Modelling the Lobby

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:02:54 -0400

The Lobby is a simple area comprising of an infinite white space and several doors dotted around, the idea being that each door leads to a different part of her mind.

Below is the process of creating the doors for the space.

The last environment to construct is the ruins.

Modelling the Mountains

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:20:53 -0500

My concept art and idea included the peak of a mountain in a mountain range. Below is the process I took to construct this area.

I started with modelling the basic mountain shape:

I then extended it to make it a peak, and gave it a flat platform where the characters will stand:

I then added a few more details to give it more shape:

I then took a larger plain and gave it enough polygons to be adble to extrude a few more mountains:

With more details, and further mountains constructed beyond these, I have a completed mountain range.

When the materials and textures are applied it will have a much better look. I will also create a plain for the background so the range looks endless.

Modelling Sanctum

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:16:04 -0500

Sanctum is the name of the machine Meryl is plugged into. As said before it needed redesigning. The new look is a lot better and looks more sci-fi than before.

First I mapped out a few basic objects:

I then added a few details so that the focal point of the room was complete:

Next I constructed the rest of the machine. It has a much more interesting look and bigger presence in the room.

I then added a screen on which the scientists can see what is going on in Meryl’s mind.

Next I added in the walls and ceiling, as well as making some wires to give the look of a temporary structure:

Below is the completed Sanctum room.

Modelling the Cell - Part 2

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:10:02 -0500

I added a few more objects to the cell to give it more character. I then constructed the walls, window and doorway. Below are images of the finished cell (but with no materials yet applied.

Modelling the Cell - Part 1

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:36:03 -0500

One of the scenes in the animation is of a small cell in which Meryl is bouncing a ball against the wall. This will consist of a small room with a few objects in. Overall to create the look of a dark, dank and uncomfortable cell.

Below are some objects to start it off:

This bed will look a lot more scruffy and unwelcoming when I come to texture it.

These boxes look a bit too clean at the moment so I will probably add some cracks and rubble. Again, texturing will give it a lot more character.

A broken chair. The cracks look a bit too blocky at the moment, expect some improvement on this one.

This is a very simple representation of the cell, I only need a frame at the minute to block out the scenes. Hopefully when finished it will have this kind of look about it:

Rigging - Part 2

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:16:21 -0500

The next part of the skeleton is the spine. The spine is one of the most flexible parts of the body so I need to create more joints to simulate it effectively. With these joints in place I use a different Kinematic tool called the Spline IK, this creates a curve that aligns with the selected joints. This method fits in better with the natural curve of the spine.

In the above picture, you can see the letter ‘C’ evenly distributed along the spine. These are called Clusters. I assigned them to the control points of the curve created by the Spline tool. With these I can control the spine and how it bends at different points of the spine.

Next I moved on to the head. This only requires a bend at the neck so it’s fairly simple. I used the same reverse technique as with the foot so the head could be controlled effectively with a controller. Below is a sample of the rig with a couple of controllers around it.

Controllers are simple shapes used to make the animating easier when the rigging is done. It can be fiddly to select joints and handles, especially when the skeleton is applied to the mesh and you cant see them clearly through the solid body. Controllers are also used so the visibility of the joints and handles can be turned off when animating so the view is a lot less cluttered. When the rig is completed, there will be a lot more controllers visible.

This is a completed rig in its simplest from. When I come back to it I will rig the smaller body parts for more intricate movements, as well as moving on to the face.

Rigging - Part 1

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:56:04 -0500

Now that I have the completed model, I need to prepare it for animating. To do this, I need to build a working skeleton and attach it to the model. A skeleton in Maya works very much the same way as real one, with a hierachy of joints that move certain parts of the body in certain ways.

First of all, i’ll start with the legs. The joints need to go in places where the body bends, so for the leg I need three joints, one at the hip, one at the knee and the final one at the foot. Using the model as a reference I placed these joints (see below).

Next I moved on to the foot. There is technique when rigging the foot where you create an second joint hierachy overlapping to give a single point of control for the orientation of the foot. Below is the rigging for the foot. The first picture is the standard foot skeleton, the second is with the added reverse foot.

Next, to make the legs move realistically and make it much easier to animate, I need to use Kinematics. These put a handle as such between the selected joints. You then move the handle and the joints in between will bend accordingly. Below is the leg with the applied Inverse kinematics, followed by what happens when I move the handle.

Using Kinematics means I only have to move a handle to animate a chain of joints rather than moving each joint individually. The same was applied to various parts of the foot as seen below.

Now each handle realistically controls a different part of the body. If I move the foot, the knee bends; if I move the toes, the ankle bends accordingly.

The same process is applied to the arms. Joints are placed and a kinematics handle is put in place to simulate the elbow bending. I also put in the joints of the hands and fingers that I will come back to later.

With these in place, all I need to do is simply mirror the joints to apply them to the other leg and arm.

With the legs and arms done, I need to move on to the spine, hips and head.

Completed Meryl Model

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:20:00 -0500

Below is the completed Meryl model (minus hair and eyes) following what I constructed in the previous Character Development posts. Details may still be added before moving on to rigging.

Character Development - Part 3

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:16:54 -0500

Clothing

To complete the model for Meryl I needed to define the clothing so you can tell by looking at the mesh what kind of clothes she is wearing. I started with the tank-top I designed her to be wearing. To do this, I split the polygons on the existing mesh to outline the shape of the tank-top. I then selected the faces and extruded them to give the 3D presence of the clothing. (See below)

The Belt was done in very much the same way: Create a straight edge loop around her waist and extrude. (See below)

I then tweaked the shape and size of the tank-top and belt along so they looked more natural against her body. This included pulling out the top of the trousers slightly so the belt didnt look seperate from them; I also created a slight gap that will be exposed skin between the belt and tank-top so the two didnt just simply meet.

Finally, because the trousers are supposed to be slightly baggy (considering she has to run and jump a bit in them), I needed to create some creases to make them look like real trousers rather than just leaving her legs smooth.

This was done by splitting the polygons to create a 2D crease outline. (See Fig.1) With the shape I pulled out some vertices at various lengths to create the 3D crease shape. (See Fig.2) I then adjusted the upper edge normals so they softened to match that of crease behaviour. (Normals define the way the model is shaded, how its built, which faces are facing outwards, what’s the front and back of the surface, etc.)

1) 2) 3)

I repeat this process many times in different shapes to create realistic looking creases all the way down the trousers, particulalry where they bunch together around where the shoe would be. Below is a completed set of creases on the trousers. (I also quickly put together some shoes and attached them to the mesh)

Character Development - Part 2

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:53:17 -0500

The Hands

So far I have created the basic curved shape of Meryl. To continue developing the character I need to move onto creating the other body parts whilst defining and adding detail to her overall shape.

First of all is the hands. To start I used the following drawing to map out a basic shape for the fingers.

When I had created one finger I copied it and scaled it to fit the other fingers and thumb. From this I joined them together at the bases and extruded the polygons to eventually model the palm. After a lot of tweaking I had a completed hand shape that I could join to Meryl’s body.

The Face

Athough I have already mapped out a basic face, I needed to go back and improve it so that it is ready for animation. Humans and creatures use muscles to move parts of their bodys, the shape and position of muscles define the nature of the movement. A CG human needs to follow these muscle movements as closely as possible to look realistic. When constructing a CG face, I need to consider the muscle shapes and anatomy of a real face.

Below is a diagram of facial muscles. Next to it is the mesh of Meryl’s face with the edge loops highlighted to show how I have constructed her face to fit these muscle patterns.

With the mesh setup in this way and the facial features constructed, all I had to do was continue tweaking and refining until I got the completed look I wanted for Meryl’s face.

The Script

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:44:51 -0500

Storyboarding for a trailer is trickier than for a standalone animation. Trailers have a lot of brief clips rather than full scenes meaning I cant really storyboard until I Have a script for the piece. Below is a rough draft I typed up, from this I can not only produce some better storyboards but map out what exactly I need to make the animation.

Inner Demons Script

Music fades in.

Scene fades in. Shows Meryl bouncing a ball against a wall in an enclosed room. The room flashes between a cream, clear and bright room to a dank dark cell.

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Her mind is her prison.

Spectral person stands in the doorway to the cell. Meryl looks up at him.

Spectral Man: Come with me.

Scene changes to show the machine that Meryl is strapped to with two men standing next to it.

Male voiceover: This is the place where fears are dismissed, where people are freed of their own past, where the impossible becomes real. This is the place you walk out of as a new person. This…is Sanctum.

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Her mind is her enemy.

Scene changes to an open area with several doors standing around Meryl and the Spectral Man.

Meryl: What do I have to do?

Spectral Man: Through each of these doors is a part of your mind. In your case, each one represents a part of your life.

Scene changes midway through his line to a shot of Meryl amongst some ruins, looking scared.

Spectral Man: All you have to do is defeat what is behind them.

Meryl: And what’s behind them?

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Her mind is her goal.

Scene changes to the machine room. The two men are talking in front of controls.

Man 1: So how does this work? What are you asking me to throw my money at this time?

Man 2: It’s a unique kind of therapy, people use it to get over the things that they don’t want to live with anymore. If you’re scared of spiders, you can overcome that fear. If were abused as a child, you can move on and look back without feeling the horrid feelings you felt before.

Scene flashes to Meryl on her knees clutching her head in the room of doors, clearly distressed.

Man 2: Our technology projects the issue as a scene the person can interact with and confront. The mind interprets the outcome of the confrontation and the person is better for it afterwards.

Scene returns to machine room.

Man 1: And what if it doesn’t work?

Man 2 looks at Meryl.

Man 2: So far tests have been positive. But to be on the safe side, we brought her in.

Man 1: And what’s her story?

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Her only way out…

Scene changes to Meryl running and jumping through some ruins. She bursts through a door back into the door chamber. She backs away pointing to the door.

Meryl: You never said HE would be here!

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

…is to conquer her past

Scene changes to Meryl and the Spectral man on a mountain top.

Spectral Man: You’ll never get out of here if you don’t face it!

Meryl: You’re asking me to face everything bad that ever happened to me at! Do you know what kind of a life I’ve had? This isn’t some stupid phobia, this is my whole life!

Spectral Man: Of course I know. I was there.

Meryl: Who are you?

Spectral Man doesn’t reply

Meryl: Who are you? Get out of my head!

Spectral Man steps through the door and closes it. Meryl runs through it but falls straight out the other side and falls off the mountain.

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Discover her curse.

Scene changes to Meryl pulling back a curtain.

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Discover her battle.

Scene change to the machine room.

Man 2: She’s spiking again.

Man 1: Get her out of this thing!

Man 2: We can’t!

Man 1 pulls out a gun and aims it at Man 2.

Man 1: You can and you will!

Man 2: If I pull her out now, she’ll die. Her body will go into shock.

Screen fades to black.

Man 2: She’s started this now, she has to save herself

Screen fades to black. Text on screen:

Discover her sanctum.

Meryl: Everything I’ve ever known is pain. Every person I’ve ever seen has hate and disgust in their eyes. Everything I’ve ever experienced has torn me apart. But now, I’ll take my life back.

Scene change to Meryl in the ruins with a spear lunging at an unseen creature. Screen fades to black.

Titles appear on screen as music fades out.

So that’s it for the first draft. From this I can properly pad out what I need to create for the animation.