The bald man and the fly fable - Evaluation

This is my final animation. For some reason, the size is a bit small, however, i am not sure how to resize it. It may be a short animation but i have put a lot of effort into this.

Over the past 12 weeks, i have learned a lot of interesting things that i didn't know i could do before. When i started this module, i felt very motivated, however, i took did not take advantage of the time i had. I have wasted some time, although i have attended my class regularly and tried to make progress each week. The problem i had was i had other commitments which stopped me from doing more work during weekdays and out of tutorials. Because i work before the class, as soon as i get there, i am too tired to do anything. This was something i could have changed. I cannot control other things but i could have been more attentive in the class. I did however put as much effort as i possibly can. I have stayed behind after classes to do my work but this was still not enough. I really didn't get started until it was over  6 weeks, so i only really had 6 weeks to complete my work.

The quality of my animation could be improved. I have learned that it is very important not to waste time as time pass by so quickly. before you know it, the module is not finished. A problem i had to face was rushing my work in the last week. I could not get any help, however, there are resources that were available. I have taken books out from the library to teach my self how the work needed to be done.
My main problem with my animation was skinning. I have tried changing the weights of vertices, however, the outcome did not seem to change much. Also, the fly could have been more animated in a way so that it moves its wings or rolls its eyes. This was something i originally planed to do, but because of the short time I had left, i was unable to achieve all that i planned from the beginning. As you will see back in week 5, I made my storyboard. But I was only able to complete few scenes.

Overall, I am pleased with my work as i made something myself. With the lecturer's help. But from this project. Time management is very important and it is something I will always remember to get a better quality work.

Video editing

Light and Camera

This is the top view, showing the lighting. I  have used a target light. the reason for this is because i could not get the omni light to look natural on my scene. I was not sure of the other light settings such as mr sky portal or free light, so i decided to stick to what i know. I could not get a good lighting for my scene as to be very honest, it did not really need light, cause now, the scene is a little too bright. I changed the light from a cylinder to a rectangle, as a cylinder is not really appropriate in this scene.

This was the first time i used the camera settings. I enjoyed using it, it makes the animation more realistic when a camera had been used. I also used a target camera. From my point of view, i could have made my camera work much better, however, i was limited the the amount of time i had left. but in the future, this is something i would like to work on and improve.

Environment/ Surroundings

This is the jpeg image i used for the ground. I used the material editor to apply this on to a plane. 

This is the plane with the material applied to it. I used diffuse and bump on the material editor to give the surface a rougher look. Also, I made the plane bumpy so that it is not too plain. I used editable poly and moved the vertices up and down.

This is another image i used for the background, using exactly the same method as the ground as shown above.

I chose this image because I think it blends in well with my model.

Animating

After an unsuccessful skinning, i had to move on to animating as it was getting closer to deadline. 

I decided to use 500 keyframes for my animation. the reason for this is because i don't have much action happening on my scene, except the fly flying around. 

Every 25th keyframe, the fly moves from one place to another. 

Skinning

After the biped, i had to start skinning in order to animate my model. This is the part i found most difficult and i was taking a long time to get this right. 

Under skin modifier list is an envelope, here you set the weights for the right areas of the body. the weight tool was used to modify it. I also had to animate my model to see what i needed to skin. However, this is where i had a big problem. I did not seem to progress at all. I carried on with this for a few days but my model looked pretty much the same as when it was not skinned.  I felt that i was going wrong because i was unable to move the vertices. But this was  not the case, as vertices were not supposed to move. I was stuck at this point and was running out of time. So, i had to make a decision of leaving it behind and carry on with the rest of work that i still had to do.

I know that this is something that could have been fixed, but it was my fault so leaving it till it was too late. 

Biped

I created the biped my going on to create > systems > biped. I dragged the skeleton starting from the feet to the head. The size of the biped had to fit inside my model, as long as the biped does not stick out of the body. I resized some body parts such as the legs and arms. The joints had to be at the right places otherwise it will not be in proportion. 

This is the bit where it started to get more harder. It took some time for the biped to fit in perfectly. 

the arms and leg seemed straight forward, however, it was the hand that was more complicated as it was slightly rotated to an angle. So i also had t rotate the biped hands. Bearing in mind that there are only 4 fingers to work with instead of 5. The reason for this is because when i decided to create the hand, i was unsure with how to extrude and bevel the 5 fingers, i only seemed to have enough space for 4, but it turn out okay in the end. I was happy with the end result.

Once the biped was in the right shape, i attached the biped to the model i created, so when the arm moves up, the arm and the bipeds arm also moves, so the biped now acts as the skeleton for my model.

Bench

I created the bench by only making half of it, and mirrored it, slice along the mirror, so the bench has the design on it meeting in the middle. Again, i used the symmetry modifier, flipped it on X axis.

Here is the bench once rendered.

Here are the models i created. I am very pleased with my models as i have put a lot of effort into this. 

Modeling the Fly

For the fly, i started with a sphere and made the head. I did not want the head to be a perfect round shape so i used the select and non-uniform scale tool. I then squashed the sphere downwards. Just like the man, i created the eyes in the same way. I made one sphere and used the material editor. I used the same eye as the man model. I applied it by going on maps, diffuse, bitmap and selected the file. Once i dragged the material on to the eye and the pupils were rotated at the right place, i then cloned it to make the second eye. The reason for this is so that the eyes are equal. otherwise, if i had created two separate spheres, it would have been possible to do but it would have taken me a long time to get it in the right size and angle.  

I created the body by using a sphere again. I used the scale tool to make it narrower and pointier at the bottom. I cut off the top bit of the sphere as i was going to put the head i already made to go on top of the body.

I used the extrude tool to pull out the arms and legs and i also used the bevel tool to make the tips wider, with an illusion of hands and feet.

I also created the wings using a plane. there were many ways of doing it, however, i decided to only make one side of the wing and mirrored it so the wings perfectly even. I used the symmetry modifier, selected mirror and flipped from the X axis.

 

Once i had all the fly body parts, i put them all together and assigned ID tags. As you can see, there are two different colours; black and yellow. Out of all the colours, i chose theses too as it looks like a bumble bee. Other colours wouldn't have been as good as this.  

Eye Material

For the eyes, i created this pupil using illustrator and saved it as a jpeg. I then use it as a material on the modifier and applied it to the eyes of my model. I rotated the eye balls to fit the pupils in the right places.

I found this quite easy to make and I'm very pleased with the outcome.

Modeling

This is my model, i created ID tags to assign a certain colour to the body, to make it look like my model has clothes. as you can see, this is before i attache the hand to the man.

After attaching the hand, the colours had to change due to the fact that the skin colour should all match. 

Creating my model

I started making my model by creating a box, I then used the bevel and extrude modifiers to shape the body of my model. I used these modifiers to create the arms and legs. as you can see, on the knees and elbows, I had to extrude more so that it gives my model some skin for when it bends. 

I then created a box to make the head, however, i found it even more difficult to shape. So i started again with a sphere. I used the modifier, editable polly to shape the head. using the vertices to shape the eyes, nose and mouth. I tried to create the ears but it was taking me too long, so this is something i could improve in the future.

I then had to create the hand separately, with the fingers. I started with a box and extruded the fingers and beveled the finger tips. I used the smooth modifier to soften the edges of the hand as it was quite boxy in the beginning. I then tried to attach the hand on to the man model. I had to cut off the tip if the hand from my original model, and attached the end of the arm on  to the separate hand i created. Attaching this was very hard, especially the first time. however, i learned how to use the loop and grow on the modifier as well as the link.

The bald man and the fly fable... Comic Storyboard

I decided to make a comic storyboard as I am not very good at drawing pictures. I chose to do The bald man and the fly fable becuase there is a meaning to the story compared to the other 2 ideas I had. Also, I think making this animation would be interesting and fun.

Material

With the 3  ideas, I will try and create animation based from the TV show Pingu. I will try and create softer characters just like the penguins in Pingu. It will look more like clay texture.

3 Ideas

1. The bald man and the fly fable

There was once a Bald Man who sat down after work on a hot summer's day. A Fly came up and kept buzzing about his bald pate, and stinging him from time to time. The Man aimed a blow at his little enemy, but his palm came on his head instead;

again the Fly tormented him, but this time the Man was wiser and said:

"You will only injure yourself if you take notice of despicable enemies."

2. The two pots fable

Two Pots had been left on the bank of a river, one of brass, and one of earthenware. When the tide rose they both floated off down the stream. Now the earthenware pot tried its best to keep aloof from the brass one, which cried out:

"Fear nothing, friend, I will not strike you.""But I may come in contact with you," said the other, "if I come too close; and whether I hit you, or you hit me, I shall suffer for it."

The strong and the weak cannot keep company

3. The two crab fable
One fine day, two crabs came out from their home to take a stroll on the sand.
"Child," said the mother, "you are walking very ungracefully. You should accustom yourself, to walking straight forward without twisting from side to side.
"Pray, mother," said the young one, "do but set the example yourself, and I will follow you." 

Example is the best precept

Update...Character change

I have decided to change the theme of my model... instead of the soft clay material look, i am going for more natural human look rather than the unrealistic cartoon character. The reason for this is because i dont have much experience with this project, therefore starting with the basics would be more appropriate rather than making something that i know will get me in a twist later on.

The mouse

This is the mouse I created using a biped. First, I created a biped and used the skeleton as the frame for the character. I  then applied the body of the mouse over the biped and making sure that the moving places such as the elbows and knees are at the right places. The proportion of the skeleton had to be the same as the body of the mouse. Underneath the mouse is the biped where the bones of the body are.

Bouncing ball sequence

This is my bouncing ball. I created a sphere for the ball and a plane for the surface. I used a target light to cast the shadows. Then, i used set key mode with key filter et to position, rotate and scale the ball.

This is my first animation. I found this very interesting and motivating to create my next one.