Character Animation 2010

The final video of Ernie's journey to work can be seen below:



To cover the "procedure and tools" used for the video, the Bear was rendered on a green screen and the backgrounds were rendered separately to reduce render time in Max. Before rendering in Max, the biped was made invisible by using the Layers tool. Various glow and colour adjust effects were applied in Sony Vegas to give the scenes a bit more 'spark' as Max's scenes looked characterless and dull by default. The Bear's hat was also green-screened on as attaching a 3D hat to the walking Biped didn't result in the right look.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the animation as although character modelling and animation isn't my strong suit, I believe I've created a character capable of emotion and movement based on videos and images. In the final edit, a lot of extraneous scene setting shots have been shortened or removed to focus on the animation while still telling a story.

When creating the Bear, my initial model was not brilliant (as can be seen in an earlier post), but I'll go through how he was made anyway.



The torso was created side-on with the Line tool, and the face was then extruded to create half a torso:



I then applied the Symmetry modifier and TurboSmooth:



As can be seen, this doesn't look great. As for the limbs, the arms and legs are cylinders which have been Extruded and generally poked about then TurboSmoothed:



Notice the pretty bad pinching on the ends of the arms... Next thing to do was create the feet:



These were made by following a class tutorial - it's basically Extruding faces from a box, followed by a TurboSmooth.



The face was a Sphere with a section cut out through the middle. The nose was created by Extruding and poking about vertices and faces. The eyes are basic spheres and the ears are Torus objects with the hidden faces deleted in Editable Poly.



The two halves of the face were welded, leaving a gap for the mouth. I then TurboSmoothed the face.

I did apply a Biped to this bear and get him moving, as can be seen earlier in the blog. However, after feedback, I realised I really needed to start again. Following a tutorial from Rob, I created the new Bear:



This bear was created from a single box mostly through the use of Edit Poly tools (covered in more detail earlier on the blog) on faces and vertices. Below are some detail shots of the face and hands:



The inspiration for my Bear is Bernard:



I then used Symmetry on the model and applied a TurboSmooth. The problems associated with these are covered in an earlier post.

In the final animation, there will be two bear models used: one with the eyes attached to the bear for use with the Biped (body movement) and one with the eyes as separate models so they can be animated along with the face.

When creating the Bear's eyes, I modelled them separately to the rest of the Bear.

They were created by using three spheres - one for the main eyeball and two with Hemisphere applied to be used as eyelids. They were then placed in the eye sockets of the Bear model and can be animated separately to the Bear's face. I then created a simple eyeball texture to place on the main sphere.

This system allows the bear to look around with his eyes and open and close them to aid expression. Animation of the eyes is achieved with regular keyframe animation.

The technique I have chosen to animate my character in 3D Studio Max is the Biped. This is available in the Systems tab of Max. It is placed inside the character model:



The individual elements of the Biped can be moved to fit the mesh, and the entire Biped can be moved inside the character by selecting the diamond in the pelvis. The next step is to attach the Biped to the character by applying a Physique modifier to the character and attaching it to the Bip01 node (the diamond).

Of course, by default the bones will not affect the mesh much. This is where Influence Envelopes come in:



These envelopes can be scaled around the mesh so each bone affects the correct area. The movement can either be set to Deformable (ideal for main body bones) so the mesh deforms when the bones move, or Rigid - which is better for use on the head as it will not twist the face when the head turns.

Common problems which can occur are tearing of the mesh when the bones move the mesh beyond a certain point and vertices begin to overlap (as seen in the entry on the Bear's initial walk cycle). This can be fixed by being careful with which sections are moved. Overall, the Biped is very useful for moving arms and legs.

As mentioned in the first entry of the blog, the Biped comes with a ready to use walking cycle. This is what I have used to make Ernie walk:



Unfortunately, this system is not without its problems. The character's arms tend to stay by its side and mesh tearing can still occur. However, I believe creating a perfect custom walk cycle would not add any expression or characterisation - as the walk movement is simply used to advance the plot as the character moves between locations. So I have focused my attention on the other body movements. The mesh tearing that occurs can be "hidden" by use of camera angles without disrupting the purpose of the walking scenes.

For this module, we have to match our character's movements and expressions to real life to ensure accurate motion. Below I will cover the "inspiration" videos and images, and compare them to Ernie's movements in the animation:

***Facial Expressions***

Fear:

As can be seen above, the Bear's expression matches the human expression (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDnzwBmsNJs) in that the eyebrows raise and the mouth widens. Obviously Ernie's expressions are exaggerated because he's a cartoon bear. His eyes differ slightly from the human as I have tried to add some "I'm not sure about this" expression to Ernie, as if he is considering turning round and going home.

Shock:

The human expression above is very exaggerated but this suits the Bear perfectly and is why I have tried to match it. In the animation, notice the wide eyes, the raised nose and the way the jaw drops wide open.

Head scratching puzzlement

Using this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u94PPAoKVU&feature=related) of human head scratching, it's pretty clear my initial attempt at making the Bear scratch is inaccurate and a bit robotic (above). For the final version, Ernie tilts his head slightly down and forwards as if he is looking away, then scratch the side of his head in a more natural motion. This is far more accurate and shows the importance of matching movement to video.

Puzzled face:

As can be seen from this comparison of a puzzled human and my puzzled Bear, I have matched the mouth expression but the eyebrows and eyes still needed work. In the final video, Ernie looks to the corner and his eyebrows are furrowed. His ears also move in a "Huh?" gesture.

Dejected:

Looking at this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwr5yGblj3Q) of a dejected human, I believe I've matched the Bear pretty closely to it. The way his head looks down, the heavy eyelids, and the staring straight ahead at the ground all comes through in the animation of Ernie.

Contented

The guy on the left in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vBnJyOUWdM) looks pretty contented, so it is the image I have tried to copy for the Bear's default expression. Both images feature reasonably happy mouth shapes and the eyes arch upwards. These are not "super happy" expressions, but that's not what I was aiming for here.

Panting/Exhausted:

For the panting clip, I have taken inspiration from animals as, well, it's quite hard to find videos of people panting like dogs. In the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj2glEJwDRk&feature=related), the cat's mouth is moving up and down, in an O shape then a flatter shape. I have tried to match this with Ernie's behaviour. The cat doesn't blink, but I have added this to Ernie to give him some more facial movement as just moving the mouth would not really work.

***Body Movement***

Catching a hat:

When Ernie goes to catch his hat, I made him dive for it like a goalkeeper. This slow motion clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiWhIbp7dvQ&feature=related) was a great help. The animation was created in slow motion then sped up.

The initial animation of Ernie trying to catch his hat when I was experimenting with the Biped features didn't look so great as it was pretty simple head and arm rotation:



Peering over desk:

When Ernie arrives in the office and nobody is there, he leans over one of the desks to see if, for some reason, someone is hiding beneath it. I have taken some inspiration from a snooker player leaning over the desk for this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7qS0GKdLlI), however the movement of the left arm is not as extreme in my animation.

The initial experimentation of making the Bear lean over the desk did not look good as, again, it was very simple arm rotation:



Receiving a present:

When Ernie Bear receives his birthday present, I acted the scene myself to get an idea of movement and recreated it from memory in 3DS Max as a challenge to see if it was necessary to reference a video frame by frame to achieve a good result.

***Overall***

I believe I have created a character with realistic movement and expression based on inspiration videos and images :)

As I haven't written much about Ernie so far, here's a picture explaining some bits about him:



Ernie doesn't enjoy his walk to work, and likes it even less when he loses his hat and has to cross a busy road... Today is his birthday (40something in bear years), so he's hoping nothing will go wrong and the day will pass quickly, as working in an insurance office isn't his idea of a good time.

How did he get here? He's a pretty average bear, did his O levels and A levels, went to uni and graduated with a degree in Bearsness Studies (Business Studies for bears), went onto Paddington Insurance's graduate scheme ("Protecting you and your honey"), met a companion, moved into a nice suburban house, got married, had cubs and lives a pretty normal middle class existence.

He drives a small car but secretly desires something big and powerful before he gets too old to appreciate it. With a promotion on the horizon, who knows..? Ernie may be a very happy bear soon...

Above is an image of the Bear's workplace, the offices of Paddington Insurance - "Looking after you and your honey".

After finding the Biped walk mechanism will work with Ernie, I have started matching him with the environments to create the beginning of his Bad Fur Day. I have also attempted giving him a shocked (referenced from this strange TV programme... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzzuq3UXLOk) and scared expression (inspired by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDnzwBmsNJs), both of which need work.

The basic story so far is: Ernie is on his way to the office wearing his hat (which, again, needs work!) when he walks across a very windy bridge... And of course, the hat ends up in the water which makes him sad (aww!). He then has to cross a busy road, which scares him...



The quality of animation, lighting, texturing and rendering in no way reflects what the finished product will be, and the Biped is still visible through the model at this point. The car models are downloaded from a free model site, the environment textures a mixture of completely original and adapted from online images. All of Ernie's modelling and texturing is orginal.

So, my first attempt at a walk cycle using keyframes didn't work out as expected:



Because only the arms and legs are moving, the bear looks like he's skating. Even making the feet tilt didn't help. And there's tearing everywhere. One way to correct this is by using the Biped walking system...

I have now given the bear an outfit to suit his personality, and rendered a short animation to show the biped movement still works with textures applied:

I have started texturing Ernie by applying a UVW Unwrap modifier. Using Face mode to select the model then Flattening the map in the editor helped create a coherent map. I then manually rotated the sections of the map to create this template at high 4096x4096 resolution to minimise blurring on close-ups:



The map went through 3 stages to create the right look and lining up the eyes and mouth was a challenge:



The fur texture was taken from an internet image, shrunk for the second image and had an Ocean Ripple effect applied for the third and final style. The eyes are not completely even but I think it adds to the bear's look...



With the first style, the fur is too big; it's too "mirrored" in the second one; but brilliantly fuzzy in the third.



As seen above, the early fur textures had problems tiling on the front and back of the bear. The fuzzy texture still suffers from this but it can either be fixed by re-mapping the object or giving the bear clothes of some kind.