Compositing in Cinema 4D

Recently I have been experimenting with compositing 2D and 3D images in Cinema 4D. The way I've been doing this is by placing backgrounds into the project, and then adding the photo as a texture. After doing this, I add a camera and adjust the perspective to fit the photo. Once the camera is in position, I add cubes to the project and move the points of them to fit the geometry, while respecting the perspective of the photo. After adding the cubes and getting them in the right position, I add the the photo texture to the cubes, and change the projection to 'frontal'. This makes it so that the texture of the cubes matches the texture of the background. This creates an effect which allows the 2D image to have layers parts, so it can be used in 3D.

One test I have tried is using a New York skyline, and attempting to make the buildings 3D using cubes. I feel it worked well, if slightly strangely put together, and hopefully, now that I am considering using this technique, I can streamline the way I do this.

I added lighting to the project, to make the changes more notable, seen below. The buildings on the right have been composited, whereas the ones on the left have not, to show the difference between the two.

I may use this technique in my animation, however, since I am very inexperienced with the technique, I may simply opt to create a full 3D background in my animation.

Sound Test

For the sound test that I will be doing, I will likely be using a website I have found called Incompetech.com, which provides royalty free songs that can be used for videos and animations and such. The music is helpfully catagorised and tagged so that I can easily search for the type and style of music I want in my animation. For my animation, I am looking for a somewhat cheerful track, to use when Larry is walking to work. Ideally, I don't want the music to be too obnoxious, rather I want it to add a relaxed backing track, without drawing too much attention. The tags I will be searching with are 'Bright', 'Humorous', 'Bouncy', and 'Uplifting'. 

I plan to distort the track, making it so the further the animation progresses, the more distorted the music becomes. Im not entirely sure how I will distort the music; I will test some techniques once the animation portion of the production is complete.

Walk Test

To test how my animation will look in 3D, and, if all goes well, to begin animating my scenes, I had to  created a basic path, where my character will walk along. I then imported my character model into my new document, and set up a camera in an appropriate position. After doing this, I made a basic walk cycle, to show the movement of the first scene of my animation.

I intend to create a 2D background for this scene, and then use the compositing technique I have experimented with to make it '3D'.

This walk will be the first major scene in the animation, after some introductory scenes. This is because the walk cycle will provide me with three shots, the first being a zoomed in shot of Larry's foot as he steps, the second being a wider shot of Larry, walking down a concrete path next to a road, and the final being of Larry's un-characteristically happy face, as he walks.

Artist Research - Tokyo Plastic

Tokyo Plastic are an artistic duo made up of Sam Lanyon Jones and Drew Cope. They primarily create 3D animations, commonly themed around animals, though they have done commercial work for companies like Nokia among others. Examples of their work include 'Catzilla', 'Kitteh Kitteh Scatman', and the MTS series of animations

'Catzilla' is an animation based on a sleeping cat, dreaming of being a Godzilla-like character, whilst attacking a city. The animation is short, being around 40 seconds long, with the majority of the action happening when tanks roll up to stop Catzilla, and it breathes fire on them, destroying the tanks. The camera then switches back to the sleeping cat, and zooms outward, and the it cuts to black. I rather like the models used in the animation, and the way that they are semi-realistic while using very cartoon-like proportions. This could be something that I could try in a later animation, as I am fond of the product. I also particularly enjoy the way the fluff on the cat/Catzilla has been done, as it helps make the cat cute, making Catzilla strangely cute for being a giant killing machine.

The MTS series of animations are adverts created for the company MTS. The animations feature a Buffalo/Bison called Morty, talking to other animals and reacting to various scenarios. The animations generally feature Morty being helpful to the other animals, such as hitting a tree to get acorns, or house-sitting for a squirrel. The main feature of these animations I like are the the characters, and the style of the models and environments.

Walk Cycle - Numeracy Task

When creating a walk cycle, mathematics can and does play a role. In the last module, I was tasked to create a walk cycle with the rigged model I created. I made this using a 40 frame animation cycle, with the key poses taking place on 10, 20, 30, and 40 (or in quarter increments).

If I wanted to create a run cycle, as opposed to a walk cycle, I could speed up the frames, for example, half them, so that the animation cycle ran on 20 frames, and the major points were on 5, 10, 15, and 20 (still working within quarter increments). Obviously, I would have to manipulate the points to make it work better as a run, rather than a fast walk, but the change in timing would be good, and it would make it easier to create a good run cycle.

Artist Research - David O'Reilly

David O'Reilly is an artist known for creating primarily 3D animated films. Examples of his work include 'Please Say Something', 'Octocat Adventures', and my personal favourite of his, 'The External World'. As well as these films, O'Reilly has done commercial work creating films for U2, and an episode of the popular cartoon Adventure Time. Whilst his work does delve into other techniques and styles, his 3D work is generally low-poly, and has a very distinctive style.

'The External World' is a 17 minute comedy film, and is essentially made up of many little skits, which come together to create one film. The film draws upon dark humor a lot, using what would normally be tragic events or scenarios to create humorous results. The film is very surreal, and is in the very recognisable low-poly style usually seen in O'Reilly's work. I personally enjoy the film because of the way it uses dark humor and very abstract scenarios, such as the teacher trying to get the student to learn piano, which eventually culminates in the teacher smacking the student with the butt of a gun, and then the student shooting the teacher. In the final scene, a ghostly hand has been handcuffed, so that it cannot hit the boy whilst he is playing to the characters seen throughout the film. I also particularly like the range of colours used in the film, and the referential humor used, such as a homeless person trying to get coins by jumping into a brick block, imitating Mario. The use of bright colours is something I may choose to strive for in my animations, as this is something I particularly enjoy throughout the animation.

'Please Say Something', is set in the future, and follows the characters of a cat and mouse, who live together, and are in a troubled relationship. During the film, the two main characters have trouble getting along with one another, and go between being passive with one another and fighting several times. Occasionally in the film, the mouse will go to make a decision, and the film will carry on, but later rewind, as the mouse does not like the consequences. One such time is when the cat decides to leave, and the mouse does not try to stop it, and doesn't seem to care. However, the film progresses, with the mouse at his laptop, and as he goes to the TV, he realises the cat had the remote, so the film rewinds, and the mouse winks at the camera as the cat goes to leave him. The film tends to mainly use black and white imagery, while using dashes of colour, which does give it a nice effect, and is a useful tool for highlighting important pieces of the animation, such as characters and props (as seen with the scarf the cat is given).

Octocat is a very strange animation, based on the character of Octocat, trying to find his parents. A very large part of the animation is made using very, very basic drawing, similar to the style of very quick drawings made in MS Paint. I'm not overly fond of this portion of the animation, however I do like the way in which it is able to show movement and so on, while using basic imagery, and does have a certain humour to it. Octocat searches far and wide for his parents, meeting several character along the way, until he meets one particular character which makes fun of him for having no parents. At this point, Octocat transforms, and along with it, the animation style changes, now being in 3D, in O'Reilly's signature style. Octocat seemingly destroys the entire surrounding's, and the screens fades out. After this, Octocat is seen sadly walking through a forest, alone, when the camera pans up, and the audience see what is presumably Octocat's parents.

Animation Idea for the New Module

The idea I have came up with for my animation in the new module uses my character Larry, the office worker. The animation is based around Larry's hopes for a better, more welcoming workplace. The animation starts with Larry walking to work; the sun is shining, Larry is whistling, and everything seems disgustingly perfect. As Larry is walking along, I plan to have various things happening in the back ground, the nature of which is undecided. As Larry progresses, he reaches his workplace, and cheerily enters through the main door. Larry throws off his hat, and heads towards his desk, as he reaches his desk, the animation cuts, and then shows Larry, head on hand, suddenly come to his senses, and realise he's still in his god awful, boring, low paying job.

During the animation, I plan to use both 3D and 2D animation, using both the 3D model of Larry I created, and the assets that I made for the character sheet. I am still unsure of which sections I want in 3D or 2D, but it will likely be that the animation will be split at the point where Larry realises that he was day-dreaming. I will be using Cinema 4D to animate in 3D, and most likely after effects to work in 2D.

New Module - Work Based Learning 1

During the week off, we were tasked to begin work on a project proposal for a new module, that we would be presenting to the class on the thursday of the week back. While I did start work on the proposal, I couldn't fully follow the work guide as I was finding it difficult to answer some of the questions, such as the section on budget. This was more based on not being able to write things related to my project, rather than the questions themselves.

However, I did complete a fair amount of the proposal, including a background of myself and my style of work, a basic overview of the idea for the project, and a list of the tasks that need to be completed for he project.

For the animation I will be producing in this module, I will be using my character Larry, the office worker from the last module I completed. I will likely be utilising both the 3D model I created for Larry, as well as the assets from the character sheet I created. I will be creating another post explaining my idea in further detail.

Work Update #4 - 17/03/14

Since last week, the few main tasks I needed to complete were the Project Proposal and the treatment. While I did complete a majority of the Project Proposal, I struggled to fully grasp how a few of the sections would affect my project, such as the budget, which did stump progress somewhat. However, I did complete the majority of the sections for the proposal, ready to be converted into a PowerPoint presentation when I return to college. I will then be presenting this to David, the rest of my class, and potentially others.

Work Update #3 - 10/03/14

Throughout the last week, I have been trying to finalise both the Digital Skills Acquisition module and the Contextual Studies module, for the hand in last Friday. This mainly involved completing the objectives that I set last week, though other tasks were needed to be completed for hand in.

I started the week by trying to finish the rigging of my character, which I did. The only sections of the model I had left by the end of the previous week were the legs and feet, so even though these are the trickiest areas in my opinion, it did not take that long to complete. Completing the rig allowed me to complete a basic walk cycle for my animation; completing another of my personal objectives, as well as one of the module objectives. However, even after completing this walk cycle with my character, I decided to add more detail, which involved texturing Larry, to somewhat match the character sheet. How I did this was later detailed in my making of guide, for the 3D model. Once I had added more detail to the model, I created another walk cycle, but this time it was slightly more fluid, and looked better in my opinion. Having completed this, I rendered the animations, and they were ready to be put onto a disc, and handed in.

Having completed two of my objectives, I moved onto the third, which was to finish off all the work on my character sheet. To do this, I needed to add the pantone colors to the sheet in some fashion, as well as writing a short background to Larry. Once I had completed this, it was later detailed in my making of guide for my character sheet.

The fourth and final objective I set for myself was to complete the 1500 word essay, on one of the areas I had already studied. I chose 3D animation for my essay, and wrote about several topics within the essay; expanding upon my previous 300 word section. After completing this, I printed both the 300 word sections, and the 1500 word essay, and had it printed and bound.

However, even after completing my previously set objectives, I realised I needed to finish my development 'making of' guides, for both the character sheet and the 3D modeling and rigging process. I did this by detailing the methods and process I used throughout the module to complete tasks set, accompanied by screenshots showing the progress I was making. After completing these I had them printed and bound, ready to be handed in.

Another thing I needed to do was mount my character sheet on foam board, which I completed on Friday, as it was a fairly simple task.

Once these tasks were complete, I was more or less ready to hand my projects in, which I did on time.

My main targets for next week are:

• Complete Project Proposal for the next module
• Complete a Treatment document for the module

Work Update #2 - 03/03/14

Over the past week I have been working on several different projects. Over the week, I worked towards the objectives that I set myself last week. The first objective that I aimed to complete was the completion of my character sheet poses. This meant adding the hands and hair to the existing poses, as well as adding a third and final, more dynamic pose. The first two poses were simple turn-around poses; from the front and side, with the third pose being of the character sitting at a desk, bored, staring forward, with a glum expression. The (current) final three poses can be seen below.

After completing after the character sheet poses, began work on my character model rig. Doing this involves follows the instructions in the guide that was given to me by David. I am currently about hallway through the booklet, having just moved on to inserting the ankle, heel, and toe nulls, and moving them into place.

During the week, I also began finalising work on my 300 word sections for the research portion of the current projects. This involved carrying out research on several areas, such as pixellation, stop motion  (with this, to an extent, clay-mation), and 3D. This allows me to now chose one of these areas and expand on it, with a much more detailed 1500+ word section of writing, based on the current research.

I also continued work with my print design, adding a border, as well as more detail into the background. I felt I needed to add a background design, as the project as a whole looked as if all of the pieces were floating in white space, and I wanted to fill this space with something more interesting. I am currently deciding on whether this should be the final version, or whether I want to add any more detail. The current state of the project can be seen below.

Having completed the poses for my character sheet, began work on my character rig, and having completed the initial research portion for my project, I have completed all the objectives that I set myself last week.

My new targets for this week are:

• Finish my character rig
• Complete at least one basic walk animation with rigged character model
• Finish my character sheet (add additional information on character and colour info
• Start and complete the 1500 word portion of the written work