Month: March 2022

Animation film:

My role in the team:

Project Management：

In this collaborative project, I started by setting a strict schedule for everyone. This is essential as it is very challenging to complete such a project in such a limited time. Of course my team members were very hardworking and cohesive, and we all did our jobs within our schedules, which ensured that our project ran smoothly.

Script:

Providing ideas to make the story have more details and reasonable enough.

Modeling:

After completing the script, I quickly followed the plan and completed the modelling tasks for the two main characters. And then unfold UV and give them to Guanze with his rigging tasks.

Texturing:

I started the texturing process again and I imported the robot model into SP. Then work on the texture painting method I mentioned earlier.

Lighting:

I started by working on the lighting for the character, I created a set of lights just for the character to ensure that the character was always in the same set of lighting effects for the rest of the rendering. I then worked with Guanze and Wanxuan on the lighting of the scene, again we only had to secure one effect and the rendering became much easier later on.

Rendering:

I created render layers for all the animation reference files that Ziyin made for us, based on the close up, medium and long distance views in the shot. Then put the two characters on different layers and finally set up the render setting.

Compositing:

I imported the sequence files of the different rendering layers into AE, then adjusted according to the effects and concept drawings we have determined. Finally I output with quicktime format to Wanxuan for her editing work.

Hyberlinks:

WEEK1:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/02/03/week_01-intro-to-the-unit-and-projects/

WEEK2:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/02/04/week-2-collaborative-unit-camera-lenses/

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/02/04/week_02-collaboration-unit-project-brief/

WEEK3:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/02/06/week_03-character-modeling-01-determining-the-rendering-effects/

WEEK4:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/02/07/week04-character-modeling-02-storyboard/

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/13/week_04-texturing/

WEEK5:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/15/week_05-maya-toon-shader-editing-improve-the-scene/

WEEK6:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/15/week6-seminar-lighting/

WEEK7:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/16/week7-rendering-compositing/

WEEK8:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/16/week_08-rendering-compositing/

WEEK9:

https://zhenzhongliang.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/03/16/week_09-rendering-project-summary/

This week we rendered the last few sequences of our animation and finished the editing and compositing.

The final result of our animation will be put in the next post. Here I just make a summary for our project and review some of our works.

Project summary:

Team members and roles:

Zhengzhong Liang: Script writing; Character Modeling (old man & robot); Texturing and Shading (robot); Lighting; Rendering; Compositing.

Ziyin Wang: Script writing; Layout; Animation (all shots)

Wanxuan Liu: Script writing; Storyboard; Character Design; Texturing and Shading (old man, part of livingroom); Lighting; Rendering; Sound and Editing.

Guanze Wu: Script writing; Rigging (old man, robot, props); Texturing and Shading (scene: kitchen & livingroom); Lighting; VFX (cloth & water sim); Rendering.

Yuehui Chen: Character textures refinement.

Script and Storyboard

At first, we decided to make a cel-shading scifi background animation film, but we were not sure what to tell in the story. Therefore, we wrote the script individually and shared our scripts together. After disgussion, we finally chose one of the script and spent some time to refine it.

Here is the initial script:

In a near-future, robot is widely used in people’s daily life. A computer virus explosion lead to a chaotic, which strains the relationship between the oversensitive protagonist and his suspected robot. A misunderstanding drives the protagonist to fight with his suspected robot, and died accidentally in this fighting. The story finally shows that the robot is not affected by the virus at all. 

Then Wanxuan drew the storyboard. We disgussed about the storyboard later and realized that part of the camera in the storyboard need to be adjusted. In order to understand camera movements, we shoot a video as a reference for our layout and camera settings.

Modeling

We evaluated the modeling tasks in this project and decide to model the character and robot by ourselves, and other objects in the room would be collected from website.

The character and robot were modeled by me, other models are searched by Wanxuan and Ziyin. The design and modeling of robot went smoothly. However, we met some problem when we designing the character. Wanxuan finally drew a concept art for the character, which solved this problem.

After that, I quickly modeled the character and gave these models to Guanze.

Rigging

Guanze did all the rigging after modeling. Guanze rigged the character and robot at first, all the rigging is rigged without any script or plugins. After that he also rigged a newspaper which can be folded and curved.

Texturing

After modeling and texturing, we started to texturing our characters and the scene. We invited Yuehui Chen, who studies character animation in CSM, helping us to do some texture stuff. Wanxuan finished the first version of chracter textures and I finished the robot textures. Guanze did the first version of scene textures. After that part of the furnatures inside the room were replaced by new models.

Layout

When we were making textures, Ziyin started build the layout. We were satisfied with part of the camera in the first version of the layout. However, the other part of it still had some problems. Therefore, Ziyin did some researches on camera shot and then finished the second version of layout. The second version looks much better and we decided to animate based on this one.

Lighting

We then started to lighting the scene. Guanze, Wanxuan and I finished the scene lighting. Guanze did the basic lighting, after that I and Wanxuan refined part of it. Besides me and Guanze also figured out how to make the proper AOVs for toon shading. After that we rendered the scene and test the rendered layers inside After Effect.

Animation

Ziyin did all the animations by himself, which can be considered as a huge work. He did neary 40 shots of animations. He was quite strict with himself and even remade part of the animations. Thanks for his works, our characters starts moving and the scene becomes much more interesting.

Rendering, VFX and Compositing

In the next few weeks we started to render animations, while Ziyin kept animating other unfinished animations. Guanze and Wanxuan rendered animation layers, while I dealed with the compositing. Since some of the shots requires water simulation and cloth simulation, I asked Guanze to use Houdini simulated these visual effects.

Sound and Editng

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to ask sound art students to help use make sounds and music. Therefore, we decided to finnish this part by ourselves. Wanxuan finished the editing of the whole animation and the sound. The time was so limited that we only have chance to make the first version of animation. Though part of the animations can be improved into another level, the final result was still satisfied to us.

This week I still keep focusing on rendering and compositing for the rest cuts.

I followed the method I used in cut 01, and set the same settings for other cuts, and then put the scene and characters into different layers.

For the cam06 file we need to make the content in TV, but Ziyin’s camera was moving forward, so I add another ID layer to track the screen’s move for compositing. It’s easy to set that I add a new surface shader for the screen and turn the out color into green. That could give me a tracking mask on AE.

And then I import them into AE, other methods is just the same as before but I use the ID layer I set before as a Alpha mask channel to identify the news content produced for us by Wanxuan.

This week our team focus on rendering and compositing. Ziyin will finish other animations, while Guanze and wanxuan focus on rendering. I am responsible for setting render layers to them and compositing.

Rendering

According to Ziyin’s cut I imported the reference file and check there was no mistakes on reference files. And then I put the default light set we created for the two characters and put them into different layers. After that I divided the scene into layers closescene, midscene and farscene just to make sure we could create a greater sense of space and depth of scene. Also I set a shadow layer too, I could adjust the color of all shadows individually. This process is the key to make sure we can finish the rendering work for nearly 40 cameras in the limited time. Besides this will allow more scope for compositing.

And then change the rendering settings we need the Z depth and RGBA in box channel and edge in contour channel and merge these channels together with exr format.

Compositing

I put all the layers sequences into After Effects and then I tweaked them separately for some effects like the curves and brightness and contrast. Finally I put the default compositing into a new sequences and extract the Z depth and adjust the focal length by that. Furthermore I add another adjust layer to edit the color into a shade of orange with some glow effect.

And here is the first cut I will use this template to composit the rest cuts.

Seminar

In class, we formed by 5 discussing the topic ‘Take 1 element from each other of the members of your group’s work, is it possible to form a new project?’

We have two plan. The first is a 3D horizontal game (element from Kaiwen and Ziyao) with the main character old angry man (element from Wanxuan and me) combine the Cyberpunk background (element from Mengyang and Yaozhang). The story is about robot took human’s job opportunities. So, our main character lose his job and decide to destroy all the robot. He can collect different weapons on the road to fight against the robots. We made a slogan for him “Make Human Great Again!”

The second plan is a music video (element from Mengyang and Yaozhang) with the main character a little girl (element from Kaiwen and Ziyao) and a robot (element from Wanxuan and me). The background is under human society’s fight against the robot. And a girl falls in love with a robot. The story describes once the girl was in danger during the war between human and robot. A robot soldier saved her life. And the girl cannot stop herself to fall in love with the robot.

Lighting

This week we focus on lighting the scene and keeping refining our textures. At the same time I would try to find a proper way to layer our rendering scene and preparing for the further compositing works.

Guanze made the first version of lights, and we just need to adjust them and add some more light and blackout panels to get the final light effect based on his works. During the process of lighting we meet several kinds of problems. For example, the weird noise in the image and improper shadow range. We finally overcame these problems and found a proper way to light the scene. Also we found the correct way to export multi-layer exr files with Z depth data, edges data and color data, which can make the compositing much more easier.

Maya Toon Shader

Since finishing the texture work from last week, this week I need to create Toon shader for our character in Maya. Cause this is my first time to make a cel shading project so I don’t have these experiences before. So I have to read so much materials like some cel shading process and Maya Arnold official guide of toon shader even some producer’s interview. This helped me a lot in this project on the limit time.

First I followed the Arnold official guide of toon shader (https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/Toon) and created a toon shader for individual objects. And link the base color map in shader ball.

After that I needed to adjust some accurate results on each shaders. Like adjust angle threshold in edge detection the larger value I enter, the more accurate the outer contour line we get. Besides the tonemap in base color was also super important to adjust. This property has a direct impact on the color and effect of the shadows we want, and at first we misunderstood the meaning of this property. So I added a ramp map to control the shadow color. Others like specular was just the same like PBR production, cause its a metal object, so all I need to do was that turn up the metallicity.

Other thing need to mention about is that the flame on the bottom of the robot, I didn’t use the toon shader for it. Cause once I used toon shader for that, it will have outer liner which it exactly don’t need to. And I made a simple light texture on Photoshop just some outward blue fading light effects. Then put that in Maya and create a arnold stander surface ball for it and link this image to base color, opacity, emission color respectively. Also I need to turn down the button of opaque.

Finally I need to make a light set for it. For ease of production I mainly choose directional light. So I set a direction light with 2.0 intensity as my main light source and then set a light in the opposite direction to light the shadow area. That could keep my shadow area never too dark. Besides I add another light as a contour light with blue color and lock it on rim lighting in attribute. And I got my final rendering effect.

Improve The Scene

Guanze and Wanxuan worked together with the scene, so after I finished the characters shading I need to join in them to put all elements together and see what happens. I didn’t think their scene layout matched our script very well, so we came up with a new way of placing the living room. Besides, our scene is too empty, lacking a lot of life-like objects such as a picture frame of the main character or some unwashed dishes and bottles lying around in the kitchen. So we worked on this to keep the Mise-en-Scène more reliable.

Next week I will work on how to light the scene and do my best to get the first version of all elements together to lead others clip rendering effects.

This week I focus on the textures of the robot and create a whole character light for it.

Thanks for Wanxuan’s fine art concept design that could lead my texture work. With her drawing I also found some other mechanical structures on the robot as a reference.

First I imported the robot into Substance Painter with obj file format. Then I baked some useful maps for me to better control the color effect like ID map, Curvature map, World space normal map and Ambient occlusion map.

Then I use ID map as range of colour options to add main color on single component. And then I just use World space normal map to distinguish between top and bottom color. Cause the robot ‘s main color is orange so I made the top area of whole robot with more pure yellow. Then I reversed the World space normal to make the bottom area with more purple on that. The whole thing is just to make more contrast of colors.

Furthermore I use Curve map to add and imitate some effects of edge wear. And I also add a layer with light map mask to give more color variation in the light and dark areas.

Finally I add a fill layer with pure black and use my Ambient Occlusion map as a mask to define the area where we want the pen touch effect and add a fill generator on a higher level of this and choose one alpha noise map as grayscale to imitate the pen effect. Then things come more easier I just need to adjust the scale and rotation and offset data which is the most suitable for the robot of the grayscale. I also add more details to show the robot like some icons. And I got all the texture effect on Substance Painter.

Next week I will link these textures with maya toon shader and help Guanze and Wanxuan with their scene lighting.