Aayushi Barai's Blog

MA 3D Computer Animation
Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Animation

Week 9: Body Mechanics Planning

For the body mechanics assignment, we were told to understand how a body works mechanically focusing on posture, centre of gravity, weight shifts etc. It is a foundation to understand how to animate as they make movements feel believable and grounded.

We were given many options but I chose ‘Standing to Sitting on a Chair’. For that, I first started to find references on the internet to find a version that I liked. After going through a lot of videos, I decided to shoot one myself.

I tried to make it a stylised version where a woman comes from the side of the chair and sits on it gracefully. I shot the reference and sketched out a 2D trial animation to see how it would look. Then I planned out the key and contact poses to analyse the reference and help me in the blockout.

This helped me prepare for the blockout I will be doing next week by breaking down the actions and analyse the references.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Animation

Week 8: Walk Cycle Spline

After feedback on the walk cycle blockout in the last session, I started making the changes and converted it into spline. Certain details like the positioning of the legs as well as the rotation during the weight shift made the spline a little better.

After making these changes, I finalised my walk cycle in spline. Here is what it looks like:

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion

Week 12: Project Submission

Final Showreel

Concept: For my temple cave project, I aimed to create a unique and mystical environment inspired by ancient cave temples to honour God Shiva’s form ‘Natraja’. I tried to connect the God of Dance Natraja to the environment with elements that symbolise the balance of nature: Earth through the lush greenery and rocky surfaces, Fire with glowing torches and ambient lighting, Air through dynamic lighting and shadows, and Water with subtle streams or droplets. I added an animated man dancing, representing the cosmic balance found in the Nataraj Murti but also creates an immersive experience that reflects themes of creation, destruction, and spiritual transformation.

Design Proposal

In my design proposal, I have explained my previous project and the concepts behind it. For my upcoming project, I’m shifting focus to high-speed car chases and car culture. This video offers a preview of what’s to come, where I’ll be working on a car rig, character animation, and creating a dynamic car meet scene with NPCs. I’m excited to explore this new direction and push my skills further as I develop this project.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion

Week 10 & 11: Project Final Steps & Polishing

After the base environment was done and everything was set up, I moved on to the foliage part. I also decided my final character for the animation.

For the character I chose an Indian looking guy from SketchFab to fit the theme and added all the textures and defined the rig in Human IK in Maya to be able to add the motion capture animation to the rig.

I then exported the character to Unreal Engine along with the rigs and the textures to start with the animation process.

After adding the character and testing out the animations, I added foliage in the inside as well as the outside to add the element of ‘Earth’ in my scene.

I proceeded to add lighting to the scene to add those finishing touches. I added a variety of spot lights and point lights (like above the fire and in between the trees) to lit up the darker areas where the sun casted a lot of shadows on.

I proceeded to add my cameras to the level sequencer and keyframe the locations and rotations. Then I created a Master Shot and added all the shots together to create a cohesive video.

With this, I had a proper sequence ready for render to finalise my video and I proceeded to render it in 4K resolution by changing the settings according to my video.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion

Week 8 & 9: Term Project Progress

Next, I proceeded to add the element of fire that fit my narrative and played a little with the glow and smoke settings to get the desired effect in my scene. I changed the emissive colour and fade settings according to my liking and played around with a few other parameters as well.

Once I had the fire set up, I started to fix the dynamic sky and atmosphere in the environment and played around with the location of the sun to get the God Rays effect from the cracks of the rock.

After that, I added my second desired element – Water. By adding an ocean from the Place Actors panel in my scene, it made the bridge connect the entrance to the Murti and have water on both sides.

The water however, did not look right as it looked a little greenish. So i changed a few settings including absorption and fixed the water body.

I then moved on to the outside area of the cave to build the entrance part.

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 9: Further Research and First Draft

This week, I focused on deepening my research and starting the first draft of my report. I began by looking for academic articles on Google Scholar to explore the aesthetics of violence in animation. However, I mostly found research about how violence in animation affects children, which wasn’t directly helpful for my topic. There wasn’t much written specifically about the stylistic or artistic presentation of violence in animation.

Since academic reports didn’t provide much insight, I decided to shift my focus to visual references. I watched several animated series and movies to gather examples and ideas. These included anime like Berserk and Demon Slayer, the animated series Cyberpunk, and Disney films like Beauty and the Beast. Watching these helped me analyze how different animations approach violence visually and narratively.

As I watched, I noticed many different themes in the content, such as pornography, sexual assault, patriarchy, bloodshed, revenge, cults and supernatural. Each of these could be explored deeply, but I realised that my report needed a clear and focused direction to stay within the word limit. To make the topic manageable, I decided to focus only on physical violence and bloodshed, particularly scenes involving death. This narrower focus would allow me to go into more detail and provide justice to the topic.

To prepare for the report, I took detailed notes while watching the series, including timestamps of key scenes that illustrated physical violence and bloodshed. These notes will be important references for specific examples I plan to use in the report.

Overall, this week was about finding the right materials to support my argument and deciding on the direction for my report. While it was challenging to find academic sources, the process of watching and analysing animations gave me plenty of insights and examples to work with for the next stage.

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 8: Research on Report Topic

This week, I started with my research topic: The Aestheticization of Violence in 3D animation. In this topic,  I will examine how violence, when made to look stylised or visually appealing, has an impact on  storytelling, does it promote character development, and change moral perceptions. This topic is particularly intriguing because it helps me dive into how animators shape the narratives and influence the audiences perspective of good versus evil.

Research Question: How does the aestheticization of violence in 3D animated films create moral ambiguity, what are the implications for narrative resolution and character development?

This question will be the foundation of my work, guiding my analysis of how stylised violence challenges traditional storytelling norms and changes audience expectations.

Why This Topic?

  • Personal Interest: I’ve always been fascinated by how animation can evoke emotions, and violence is often a tool used to convey drama, conflict, and depth.
  • Blurred Morality: Stylised violence blurs the lines between heroes and villains. It can make a villain seem more relatable or charismatic, challenging viewers’ moral judgment.
  • Complex Narratives: This subject highlights how violence impacts character arcs, especially when heroes face internal conflicts or consequences of their actions, and villains are humanised through their motives or backstories.
  • Ethical Responsibility: Animators have significant influence over how violence is perceived. Their creative choices can shape societal attitudes toward violence, making this a critical area of study.

By exploring this topic, I aim to address the ethical responsibilities of animators and how their artistic choices impact the way stories are told and received:

  • Stylised Violence and Moral Ambiguity:
  • I’ll examine how visual choices like colour, framing, and exaggerated movements make violence appear less graphic yet more impactful.
  • This will help me understand how these choices create moral ambiguity, making audiences sympathise with villains or question a hero’s actions.
  • Character Development in 3D Animation:
  • I’ll analyse how the portrayal of violence affects character arcs.
  • Heroes often face internal struggles about their use of violence, while villains may be portrayed as victims of circumstance, adding layers to their personalities.
  • Narrative Impact:
  • I’ll look at how violence drives the story forward and shapes the resolution.
  • For example, when stylised violence humanises a villain, it can lead to more complex, morally grey endings.
  • Ethical Considerations:
  • I’ll explore how animators balance creative freedom with their responsibility to audiences, particularly younger viewers.
  • This includes questioning whether aestheticising violence normalises it or sparks meaningful reflections on its consequences.

Keywords for My Research: To dig deeper into this topic, I’ve identified keywords and phrases that will guide my research:

  • Keywords:
    Aestheticization, violence, 3D animation, moral ambiguity, narrative structure, character development, villains, stylised violence, moral judgment, emotional disconnection.
  • Keyword Phrases:
    • Aestheticization of violence in animation
    • Moral implications of animated violence
    • Character development in 3D animated films
    • Violence and narrative resolution
    • Ethical responsibility of animators
    • Psychological effects of animated violence on audiences

Moving forward, I will start drafting my research report according to the format provided, organising my thoughts into sections that explore visual techniques, narrative consequences, and the ethical role of animators and diving them into chapters. 

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion

Week 7: Project Initial Review

This week, we had to show Serra our progress with the term project and get a review on what we had done so far.

My Concept:

A temple inside the caves holding the Natraja Murti, the God of Dance, with dance animations that symbolise cosmic movement and energy. The four elements of nature – Earth, Fire, Water and Air are symbolised through foliage, dynamic lighting and other such actors.

I started by designing the temple structure but making sure it looks traditional and old. I added multiple stone blocks and pavements to see what fits the scene perfectly.

I started adding boulders and rocks to form the cave structure around the statue and added the side wall assets that were taken from Fab and CG Trader.

I then added railings to the side of the main path turning it into a bridge.

In my review, Serra told me to finalise shots in cine camera actor first to see how long the video will be and will help me decide the animation for my male character and set a correct timeline. She also told me watch a few references of dance videos and films to help me in the shots.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion

Week 6: Control Rigs

This week we looked at Control Rigs in Unreal Engine 5 where we started by adding a Control Rig in the content browser via the Animation section. By creating a Modular Rig, we added the Unreal default mannequin’s skeletal mesh into the blueprint.

We dragged and dropped the rig module into the sockets available in the skeletal mesh and added everything to the character.

We also looked at the module settings to change the size or colours of the controllers according to our preferences.

Then we moved on to the second type of rigging method which we learnt using a octopus model. We started by editing the skeleton, and set the root bone transform to 0. We deleted the existing bones of the arms and left the shoulder as is. Then we added joints from the shoulder by clicking on the arms and add as many bones as we wanted and proceeded to bind the skin.

We then added the control rig samples pack from Fab into our projects. Then we created a regular control rig for the octopus and imported the octopus in the rig hierarchy to look at chain hierarchy.

We then selected the Bone > Right Click > New Control to create a controller for the shoulder and the last joint of the arm. To ensure its not a child, we pressed Shit + P on the controller. We then created a parent constraint and assigned the root bone in the name section. Then we parented the root bone control and attached that to the bone. This ensured that the controller can transform the bone it is assigned to. We did that to all the shoulders then.

Then we added SpringInterp and turned it into a vector. We dragged and dropped the last bone of the arm into the graph and clicked on get bone. We connected the translation to the target. We then dragged the control of the same bone and clicked on set control and joined translation to the result.

Then we created an Aim Constraint and defined the name and the target of the arm in the node from where the aim starts and where the aim ends. We set the Aim Control’s parent type to Control and attached the execute node from the Parent Constraint to the Set Transform’s execute. We then connected that to the Aim Constraint.

Then we tried rigging a human character from what we learnt so far in the class using all the nodes and it allowed us to better understand how characters are prepared for animation, emphasising the importance of proper joint placement and control creation.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Animation

Week 7: Walk Cycle Blocking

Once that was done, we moved on to learning how to block out a walk cycle using the same character, ‘Walker.’ We were told the main key poses that are needed for a walk cycle:

  • Contact Pose
  • Down Pose
  • Passing Pose
  • Up Pose

These poses form the foundation of the walk, and we were told to create a simple 24-frame walk cycle from left to right and also from the front view before extending it to 48 frames. For reference, I also used “The Animator’s Survival Kit” by Richard Williams, which helped me understand the movement better later on.

I started by referencing the walker into my scene. For this assignment, we also played with the lighting by adding two directional lights to make the scene look better. I then proceeded to place the Contact Poses at frames 0, 12, and 24. Then, I added the Passing, Down, and Up Poses, spacing them evenly with 3 frames between each. This structure helped create the rhythm for the walk cycle. Then it became easy to replicate these initial 24 frames and changing the values to create an opposite walk. At this point I had a basic walk cycle ready with 48 frames.

After laying out the basic poses, I went further and added some character to the animation. I used the front view of the character and applied the principles of weight shift to make the walk feel more realistic by moving it along the x axis on the leg that it shifts its weight on. I also incorporated a slight rotation with the weight shift on the sides to enhance the fluidity of the movement. Additionally, I brought the feet a little closer together and turned them slightly outward to make the walk appear more realistic. These subtle adjustments helped the cycle feel more grounded and natural.