Re-Evaluation

I was able to seek a week extention in order to complete my 3D animation project. This enabled me to have to time to convert all my rendered 3d max files into a mov format, this way Premiere Pro would be able to recognise them.

I am extremely pleased with my final production. Instead of using voices to portray the characters i have decided to use words (images), along with the sound track to the childrens TV show Arthur.

I feel very confident using Adobe Premiere Pro now, and also more confident by the day at animation within Autodesk 3DS Max. It will take time to become fluent with the programs, but i feel that by the end of my next project i will be.

My animation has been exported in:
720 x 480 @ 29.97 fps
48000 Hz, Stereo, 16 bit

This is the same format to which it was imported, so no quality has been lost from the original renders.

Did I stick to my storyboard?
The honest answer is no, because i completely changed it, but i have stuck to my latest storyboard.

As i previously said in my original evaluation post, "If i had a longer period to spend on it i would have completed it to much higher standard!", as i had an extra week i feel proud to say that i have succesfully completed this task.

Fianlly, Premiere Pro Rendering

I was able to get an extension for my work...after i handed it in, so i had to go back and get it from the iCentre.

So once i got the work back i was able to render all the different scenes into a different format (one that PremierePro would recognise .mov). I am very pleased with my work within PremierePro and the simplicity of its use!


I imported all my files into my "fable" project, these included audio, text and movies. I was then able to manipulate the files to my descretion in order to complete the animation. The above screenshot shows the timeline i used.

This screenshot shows the final stages of exporting my animation.

It's Done

A huge sigh of relief although saying that i have extremely enjoyed this module, but it hasnt been easy in the slightest. My final version of the video is 600 x 800 format, but i have had some difficulty with the audio. It seems to have overlayed each other and in places, 2 speech files output at the same time, making it impossibly to hear what has been said. I put this down to the software i am using VideoPad.

The soudtrack i used for this was from a website called http://www.partnersinrhyme.com

If im honest i am disapointed in what i have produced animation wise, because it has been rushed and if i had a longer period to spend on it i would have completed it to much higher standard!

Moodboard - Better late than never eh?

I decided to focus my moodboard on crabs, women, children and leading by example (such as captain's and world leaders). The reason i chose women is because the initial idea was to accessorize the mummy crab with girly items, and therefore accessorize the baby crab with baby items.

Conclusion / Evaluation

From the start of this module i was very excited to learn new techniques and really understand how to create models and animate them. Now i have put that into practice i feel that overall i have developed vast amounts over the course of the year, but there is still room for a lot of improvement. I know this within myself, so next year i aim to better myself and aim high.

More than halfway through this semester i decided to change my entire storyboard, this has led me to being unprepared and panicing at times! If i was to do this again, i would draw out multiple storyboards instead of just one, therefore i can have an open mind all the way through until the end. I would not spend as much time on the modelling as i feel i can produce adequate models (such as the scene i have created, i am extremely pleased with this, expecially the effect that the water gives), therefore leaving me more time to plan and animate the characters of the animation.

Although saying that i am particularly pleased with my water i have created from a plane and added noise to the timeline giving the water the effect of it moving throughout the movie. Another thing i am also pleased with is the initial crab walking cycle. The total process to bone, rig, skin and animate the sequence was roughly 7 hours!

In conclusion, i admit that my time keeping for this module has not been the greatest, therefore i aim to make sure i am more prepared for next year, this will then give me the chance to really excel myself and show others what i can produce. Also my animation has been rushed, i would have really liked to have spent about 4 to 5 weeks rendering it properly and not having to quickly edit the video, but this is all down to my time keeping and self-organisation skills.

On a positive note, carrying out animation within 3ds max i can see how different characters (humans, animals...) are animated, therefore when designing my next piece i will already know how to animate them and i will be able to evaluate each one of them before making a selection on what i animate.

Rendering is complete!

Now that was a long process! with great difficulty over the past week i have my scenes ready for editing.

I have adobe Premiere Pro CS5, but for some odd reason it will not let me import any of the avi files (see second screenshot), therefore i have no other option but to use an alternative video editing program. I have found a free one online called "VideoPad Video Editor".. I wouldn't recommend it if im honest, user controls are very limited. I am very dissapointed that i cannot import my scenes into premiere pro as the animation will not look quite poor, whereas in the rendered avi files, the videos look pretty good.

As you can see from the first screenshot of VideoPad, its not exactly the most complex program in the world, therfore limiting my opions of video editing.

I had a bit of difficulty exporting the movie file from VideoPad, the sound would not come out correctly. It was really high pitched, im not sure if this is to do with the codec used or just the program in general being useless! It has craashed many times when trying to export the file, and is extremely frustrating (see screenshot 3).

Completed Final Render of my scene

Within these screenshots I have used a model of a playground that I downloaded from http://www.turbosquid.com. I am not claiming that i created this, all I did was create the materials used to give the model the effect it has.

Direct Link: http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/playground-max-free/298526

Slight Ammendments to the scene

From the previous scene that i uploaded i came across the problem of either making the cylinder too large or the scene base too small, as you could still see the corners, instead of fading out into the horizon as such! So here is my proposed final scene without the playground.

Crabbys First Steps :)

Crabby now has the ability to walk...
Enjoy :D

The Final Scene - Phase 1

As i have previously before entered in my blog that i will be doing a variety of scenes, i have discovered this will be far to complex and unrealistic to complete to a satisfactory standard. Therefore i have designed and created a whole new scene. This consists of a sandy beach, with a playground on one side (yet to add), and a river flowing through the middle. The river will have a log bridging the gap in order to allow the crabs to gain access from one side to the playground. "Lets just pretend that these crabs can't swim :) "

I have also used omni lighting to give the scene a feeling of the sun rays hitting the surface of the water and sand.

The sandy texture was created in photoshop by using a cloud filter with sandy colours. With the opacity turned down, this was placed upon a yellow background giving it the effect it has.

The water texture was created by using a plane. I followed an online tutorial (link at the end of this post), which i recommend to anyone who wants to create water. You are unable to see this in screenshot renders, but the water surface actually moves during animation, and with the use of omni lights it makes the scene look that extra bit better with the light reflecting off the surface.

Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE44k7d_FtI

Sky Texture

This is the image i have used to wrap around the inside of my cylinder surrounding my scene i have created. It is very basic and consists of a brush pack of clouds that i downloaded and a gradient background (blue and light blue). Although it is very basic i am pleased with it as is resembles the effect i was after, cartoon.

Skinning Crabby

Once the boning stage had been completed, i was then able to apply the "skin" modifier to the model. I then added the bones to complete the structure.

I also used "Dummy's" (green boxes) in order to allow me to not be so precise when pulling the structure about. I applied 2 Dummy's to each of the legs, one at the top joint, and another at the next joint down towards the foot.

As you can see there are a range of rectangular faces behind the model, this is to allow me to make a good estimate of leg range/movement that would be acceptable for the crab when walking.

Boning Crabby

In order to set up the bones correctly for the crab, i started off with creating one centre piece bone. This would be the parent to all the other bones of the surrounding legs. I then created a structure for a single leg, because all 8 legs are the same i was able to copy this and just edit the angle of each leg individually. Once the bones were created and put in place correctly i edited the fins to fill out the leg model of the crab.

I then applied a skin modifier to the crab model and added all the bones that I created within the skin.

Modelling my first scene

As you can see by the images uploaded (i.e. storyboard) my first scene consists of the crabs coming out of a house. I have decided to model this by using a close up shot of the front door with its surroundings, therefore i can create a good small model without going into unnecessary detail.

There are 2 images within this post, one is rendered and the other is non-rendered. The rendered image is the angle that i hope to use when producing the animation, this might change later on with publishing the creation.

Beginning the Modelling

I have started to design my crabs. The greatest obstacle that has slowed my progress down is the creation of the legs. For this i started off with a cube, cut away one end, and extruded, extended and scaled with border to create segments for the legs. This is key if the legs are to look realistic when turbo-smoothed. The image below is the leg without being smoothed and you are able to see all the different sections of it. The image below that is the leg smoothed out. Im not sure if i will keep it as it is or carry on playing about the with shape of it before it is ready to have bones placed in it.

Images in motion

This is just a quick practical that Richard gave us to do. We had to view a person walking in a unique way, and draw it in stick-man format to show how we perceived it.

Original Storyboard and New Edited Storyboard

Using the reactor plug-in

The video here shows represents a bowling ball hitting the pins. I was able to create the animation by using a plug-in known as Reactor. I firstly created a Rigid Body Collection. This contained all of the models within the scene. Once i did this i was able to use the reactor. Inside the reactor properties section i changed about with the collision tolerance, mass, friction and elasticity of the models. Using trial and error i was able to create an effective animation. In order to make the ball start moving towards the pins, i made a short animation of about 5 frames of the ball moving forwards. Then once this was made i went into the preview and animation area and started the animation from frame 2, this then gives the ball that energy it needs to start moving towards the pins.

Animation using Cameras

In our most recent lesson we looked into animation using cameras. We built a small city-like model and created a line that the camera would follow along giving the user a walkthrough effect of the area.

First attempt at animation

This is a short video clip of a ball being hit down onto a table and up against a wall and back again. I admit it is far from amazing, but it is a starting point for animation :)
I managed to use the curve editor in order to give the ball a realistic bounce with the aid of gravity.

Image References for Modelling and Animation Ideas

Selecting the appropriate fables

Having looked through many fables i have picked our about 5 that i like the sound of and the morals behind them. Having thought about them not all would be easy for a child to understand. Therefore i have cut my choices down to 3.

The Bald Man and The Fly - "You will only injure yourself if you take notice of despicable enemies". I beleive this would bring the young child up not to go around causing trouble to others...they would only get hurt themselves.

The Shepards Boy - "A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth". I was brought up with this in my knowledge from when i was very young. Always speak the truth because if you dont it would lead to negative consequences.

The Two Crabs -"Example is the best precept". This fable displays the moral of making sure if you are a role model to anyone then be aware of how you are setting the example. (especially to young ones).

All of the above fables display their own unique moral that the audience would be able to take away from reading it (in the finished project case, viewed not read).

Reaction to the brief

Well, having just read over the brief..it seems to be very interesting! There are so many fables to choose from, and this is what makes the ideas and end results extremely vast.

I will have to choose the fables appropriately as not all are suited for children.

From the 3 that i will choose from the vast list of fables i will narrow it down over the next few weeks in order to find one that i feel i can create to the highest standard :)