H. Chris Brown FMX Classes Blog

 I ended up creating 4 different cameras for the entire video and then sequenced them into one uber camera. The camera sequencer wasn't crazy difficult to understand, but I did find it a little challenged to change on the frames I needed them to change on. I did manage to get it work and began rendering. After about 20 minutes of rendering I realized I forgot to set the uber camera as the camera being rendered out, so I did have to stop and restart the rendering process which was a slight inconvenience. I got it done eventually though and I just finished editing the final video right now (it is the morning now). Though it is simple, having a sky and environment adds so much and I'm pretty proud of what I accomplished.  

 To better understand how to create a multi-camera setup and sequence them into an uber camera, I am creating a new animation to test this on. I spent some time figuring how to setup a pre-made low-poly environment and taught myself how to create a sky using a skydome light. I really liked the look of the setting and felt it worked well with the box rig. I originally made a more story-oriented animation where the box fell from the sky, crash landed, and then went and did a dive into the small body of water. However, my maya crashed before I could save and I lost it all. I still wanted to produce something though, so despite it being late, I quickly made a short simple animation of the box falling from the sky and I am about to add my cameras right now. 

 It took me a good hour or so to figure out how to get the Baby Yoda's rig into Maya and to texture it, but I eventually figured it out. Also playing with textures I figured out how to get a grass texture on the ground and made the lamp significantly better than the lamp in my previous Oogway animation. The animation itself was pretty simple, the only obstacle I came across was dealing with Grogu's arms. The rig to control his arms kept flying away farther and farther the more I used them, so I had to try and minimize how much I moved them. The jump Grogu makes was probably the most movement done in the video and I really like how it turned out. I ended up having to use 16 computers to render it out, each rendering 50 frames and overall, I love how it turned out. My first rendering messed up some textures, but I went back and fixed that issue later.

 Due to me having work every day over the weekend, I put zero time into this project until now (Sunday night). I don't have a storyboard yet, because I know I want to try and use a new rig along side the box and I haven't decided on what yet. I am currently looking. Update: I've decided to try and use the baby Yoda free rig. I have also created a storyboard on the white board in our classroom. 

  Autoscopy Assignment 

  Idea #1:   Setting is living space   Reason is over money     Person 1: Arm wrestling person 2 with a pile of cash on the table Person 2: Arm wrestling person 1, their arm is broken on the table Person 3: Standing eyes wide open in shock to the left   Person 4: Actively passing out to the left   Person 5: Spilling popcorn in shock to the right   Person 6: sitting at the table counting the money with no reaction  

The rendering process was an absolute pain in the ass. I found out the hard way that if you have a punctuation in the JPEG title, then it won't download as a JPEG sequence. I rendered my whole project after a few hours before realizing this mistake. Once I did, I was tired of the wait time, so I used 12 different computers in our Cass media lab and rendered 100 frames on each computer at the same time. It was still a solid wait time that kept me up into the early morning hours, but I got it done none-the-less. I was pleased with how the final product looked, especially with the cool lighting I created. The editing in post wasn't very difficult because all I really did was add cherry blossom leaves. The final product lined up pretty well with the original scene, and I think this was a very cool assignment that I am proud of.  

 It took a lot of time and effort, but I have completed the animation! The actually movements weren't extremely challenging, but with the usage of a camera, and having a setting/props involved, it was quite the hassle. After having done a couple other projects with the box rig, making him do what I wanted him to do wasn't as challenging as it used to be. My biggest issue I faced was timing. I tried to make my animation time up with the actual scene as much as possible, which resulted in me watching and then re-doing many parts. Overall I am really pleased with the outcome, especially since it was my first time creating and using an actual setting. I definitely reached that satire goal I was looking for and when timed up with the audio, I think it's really funny. Now all that is left is to wait a couple of hours for the render to finish. yay...

For this assignment, I have decided to commit to my second idea which was recreating Oogway's death from Kung Fu Panda using the cube rigs. I said in my previous blog that I was only planning on doing this one if I managed to somewhat recreate the setting of the scene, and I managed to do so after some time. I chose this scene to do because the scene itself carries a very serious tone, and so I think it will be funny in a satire way to watch the scene through cardboard boxes. I am quite proud of what I have accomplished so far, but it's now time to do the actual animation.

I am a little confused about this assignment, but I'm assuming we are taking the box rigs and recreating an animation sequence from a piece of animated content. At least that is what I am retaining from the instructions.  I have a couple options in mind for what I want to do for this. My top pick is a small portion of the fight between Naruto and Sasuke. I feel like a fight scene would be ideal since I've already done it once and because it is the best type of action to recreate with the boxes.  A second option I am considering is Oogway's death scene from Kung Fu Panda. I think it wouldn't be that difficult especially with a camera, and it would be really funny to put the audio over top the interaction of two boxes.  If I chose to do the Naruto scene, it would require a lot more effort I think and a lot more actual animation. The scene uses a LOT of exaggeration, anticipation, and some squash and stretch. I would only do it from the run up to when Naruto chops Sasuke o...

I finished rendering my animation, after a couple hours of waiting. It was a really annoying wait time, but I'm glad it ended it up looking as good as I'd hoped it would. I was then up very late taking the render and putting it through post. The editing wasn't as difficult as I was expecting and the end result was pretty much exactly what I was going for. Overall it is easy my favorite of our assignments so far. 

 I am currently in the process of animating my boxes, and I did something by accident that made the physical objects disappear and I am struggling to get them back.  I'm now continuing the blog a couple hours since that last sentence. I got my issue figured out a while back and have made a bunch of progress. I am almost done! (besides rendering and post). I have been remembering to save every once in a while too.