Nicole's 3D Computer Animation blog

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental UE5

Week 5: High model of boss Project 1 – UE5

Content and task:

To ensure a reasonable timeline, I need to allocate time for rigging, animation, scene creation, rendering, and editing. Therefore, I should aim to spend one week on creating the high-poly model and sculpting the details. This week will be dedicated entirely to detailing the sculpt.

First part of detail:

I used subdivision and projection to ensure the model’s polycount is appropriate. Later, I will bake the high-poly details onto the base model, but that will be part of the work in Substance Painter.

first part of detail

The creation of details is mainly divided into two parts.

The first part involves sculpting the primary details, such as the flowing lines and muscle definition.

Second part of detail:

The second part focuses on the skin details, including its rough texture, scales, wrinkles, and rock-like cracks. I will use various brushes to create these features.

The second part of the detailing, along with UV unwrapping and base color painting, can be found in the following video.

I want to add some details to its horns, such as making the outer shell appear rock-like and hard. Over time, due to wear and tear, cracks will form, and some of the worn-out shell will expose the jade-like material beneath.

The next step is to export the first level model, which is the baked model, and use rizomuv to cut the uv, which you can also see in the video

Use RizomUV to cut uv

For the body, since I’ve combined the head, arms, and torso into a single model, I need to use UDIM to ensure the texture resolution is maintained properly.

Use Zbrush paint base color

Then, I continue using ZBrush to paint the base colors because ZBrush’s masking tools are more effective than those in Substance Painter. I’ll complete the base color in ZBrush, export it, and then import the base color into Substance Painter for further work.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental UE5

Week 4: Create a mid-level model of the boss – Project 1 – UE5

Content and Task:

  • Make a boss model and determine the proportions of the limbs
  • Determine muscle direction
  • Definite silhouette
  • Engrave the details of the chest

In the head sculpt, I want to convey a sense of both danger and gentleness. Its silhouette might resemble that of a deer, but the details will deviate from this impression.

Around the mouth, I want to sculpt an emaciated and dry appearance, as if the skin is clinging tightly to the bones. Additionally, I want to create the impression of vines growing beneath the skin.

For the overall body, I aim for a more slender and lean design, suggesting that it doesn’t rely on strength or muscle to win battles.

Due to the story setting (though this won’t be shown in the video), this boss possesses the powers of both life and death. However, the power of death was taken away many years ago, leaving an unhealed scar on its chest. Therefore, I want to sculpt some details that convey the sensation of flesh growing on a hard surface. It resembles a fusion of organic matter, rock, and jade.

I aim to highlight its divine nature, showing that while it has formidable healing abilities and powers, it still bears permanent scars and can experience pain. At this stage, I noticed that its chest and muscles appear somewhat soft, so in the final polishing stage, I plan to make the edges look sharper.

I noticed that I started sculpting the back muscles relatively early, but because of the need to use Dynamesh, the details were lost. I’ll pay more attention to this in future work to avoid wasting unnecessary time. Since this time I started creating after not using the software for six months, many of the repetitive tasks could have been avoided with better planning.

For example, in a proper workflow, I should finalize the shapes of the fingers, toes, and all other parts before moving on to detailing the head and chest. However, I couldn’t help but start with those details first.

However, I often find myself getting lost in the process of refining the shape. This stage, which lies between rough sketching and detailing, tends to feel tedious. I often can’t help but dive into detailing a specific area instead of focusing on the overall form.

My weekly reflection:

Sculpting the mid-level model is a painful process because it’s extremely tedious. I can’t immediately see the final result, which makes the entire workflow feel endlessly long. I ended up remaking the legs three times.

The first attempt aimed to create a treant-like feel, with legs resembling a structure made of branches. However, when considering the integration of the legs with the body, I realized they were too thin to properly support its weight. So, I redid the legs.

first version of leg

The second attempt followed an animal-like structure, including bent knees and heels. But I had to reconsider this because the character needs to sit cross-legged, and I also needed to factor in the later rigging work. This led to the third version of the legs, where I switched to a human skeletal structure to make the subsequent work less troublesome.

second version of leg

I had to make some compromises, such as removing the branch-like structures extending from the hip area. I was worried they might clip through the body when the character sits cross-legged.

Third version of leg

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 12 Final submission for Maya – 3D Computer Animation Fundamental

This is final summarize and submission for animation in Maya:

A summary of all weeks, including all 7 animation exercises for the semester:

Week 1: Bouncing Ball

Check the information and reference in this blog:

Week 1: Bouncing Ball Animation Exercise – Maya

Week 2: Pendulum

Check the information and reference in this blog:

Week 2: Pendulum Animation Exercise – Maya

Week 3 and Week 4: Tail Movement

Check the information and reference in this blog:

Week 3: Tail Animation Exercise -blocking – Maya

Week 5 and Week 6: Weight Shift Animation

Check the plan and reference in this blog:

Week 5: weight shift Animation Exercise – blocking – Maya

Week 7, week 8 and Week 9: Walk Cycle Animation

Check the information and reference in this blog:

Week 6: Weight shift Animation Exercise – polishing – Maya

Week 10 and Week 11: Body Mechanics Shot

Check the plan and reference in this blog:

Week 9: Plan Body mechanics shot – Maya

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 11 Polishing Body mechanics shot

This week, I need to modify my arm poses based on the teacher’s feedback to ensure they are not obscured by the body. I will also convert the blocking into spline and adjust the animation curves to make the movement smoother.

Here is my work:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 10: Blocking Body mechanics shot – Maya

Task and Content:

  • Blocking Body mechanics shot

This week, I continued working on my animation. Teacher taught us a great method for gaining overall control of the movement. It involves stacking two cubes, with one representing the shoulders and chest and the other representing the main torso. Then, based on the reference, you keyframe the cubes. Just like sketching a draft in drawing, these cubes serve as the first step in summarizing the body’s motion patterns.

cube method

My blocking:

I believe the order of production is very important. For example, the body, as the first-level object of movement, should have its position determined first, followed by the feet.

I start by focusing on the details of the body’s rise, fall, and rotation, then move on to establish the relationship and positioning of the feet in relation to the ground.

Finally, I keyframe the arms and hands. For the last part, I make slight exaggerations — I want to extend the anticipation phase, allowing the character to build up more force in the opposite direction. Therefore, I enhance the actions based on the reference.

My feedback of this week

The issue is similar to the one I encountered with the silhouette poses earlier. In the reference, the arm movement is not very clear; for example, when jumping, the right arm is obscured by the body, which results in a lack of information.

This is something that needs to be considered in animation — how to re-design and modify the motion based on the reference to make the entire process more “animated.” Fortunately, the instructor gave me some great suggestions for arm poses.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 9: Plan Body mechanics shot – Maya

Content and task:

  • Plan Body mechanics shot

Task :Plan Body mechanics shot

I referred to a reference video from professional motion capture actor Xixiyu and decided to create a jumping-down pose. I realized that the preparation phase for this pose is crucial because when a character jumps down from a high place or between platforms, there is usually a preparatory action before the jump. Below is my reference clip:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ZJ4m1L7Sp/?spm_id_from=333.1387.search.video_card.click

The reason I chose this reference video is that it is very comprehensive, covering the whole process from the initial position to the preparation position, to the jump, fall and return to the standing position. The recording is complete and clear. I need consistency and integrity in these poses so that I can better analyze the changes in his movements.

This is the preparation phase before the jump. According to the reference, she first takes a deep breath as the initial preparatory action. Then, she crosses her arms and shifts her weight backward, storing force in one direction. After that, her center of gravity moves upward and forward, and her body transitions from a side-back position to facing forward.

This is the takeoff phase. She spreads her arms, possibly to maintain balance, and then descends. The overall motion curve should resemble that of a bouncing ball.

This is the landing phase. You can see her center of gravity shifting from right to left, followed by her standing up and taking a few steps forward.

This is the entire dynamic process：

The entire line change in the center of gravity, but I won’t make it exactly the same because the animation needs to be smoother, like a bouncing ball.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 8: Final Walk Cycle Polishing – Plan Body mechanics shot – Maya

Content and task:

  • Final walk adjustment
  • Plan Body mechanics shot

This week, I submitted a re-done walking loop and got feedback:

There are still some problems with animation, for example, my cog is not low enough when the center of gravity should be the lowest. In order to solve the problem of knee jumping, it is necessary to disassemble the key frame of the foot touching the ground, so that the whole heel touches the ground, and then the front foot is tilted up, and then the next key frame is the whole foot touching the ground.

Front view:

There are no major issues with my front view, and no modifications are needed.

Here are the outcome after fixing these problems:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 7: Walk Cycle – Blocking to spline – Maya

Content and task:

  • Change the blocking to spline

My reflection:

During the week, I had some difficulty converting blocking to spline. For example, I didn’t get the Settings right and the whole animation looked very strange after the conversion.

Settings for blocking:

Settings for spline:

In addition, I had another problem, when I wanted to pace the animation, I selected all the controllers and they were all keyframed, but when I moved the animation was broken. I don’t know why it happened, but the whole body looked twitching and it seemed like some keyframes got mixed up as they moved.

This week is more about reflection and polishing, because my homework needs to be redone. But for the sake of documenting the process, I’ll put it down below

Side view:

As you can see in the video below, the whole movement is stiff and looks like a robot just learning to walk, and this week I still don’t know how to deal with the wobbling of my knees. That’s why the knees are shaking up and down.

Front view:

When I reflected on it, I realized that it was a strange walk, because the knees were turned inward, and ordinary people don’t walk so strangely.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 6: Weight shift Animation Exercise – polishing – Maya

Content and task:

  • Plan Walk Cycle
  • Feedback of Weight Shift and Pose

Task 1: Plan and blocking Walk Cycle:

My reference is from the learning materials in this week’s powerpoint. This picture clearly shows the decomposition of walking posture.

What needs attention is the key frame of each foot’s contact with the ground and departure, as well as the position of the legs and the distortion of the knees. And pay attention to the movements of the ball of the foot and the heel at different times.

In addition, the movement of the center of gravity of cog is also very important. Similar to the principle of the movement of a small ball, the motion tail of cog should be undulating from the side, and the shape of an infinity sign from the front.

Blocking of walk cycle:

Side view

Front view

Feedback from teacher:

For side view: Be careful not to step under the ground when the foot touches the ground, and the knee needs to be more bent, for example, when the center of gravity is lowest, the knee should be more bent. Notice how the ball of the foot connects between each pose.

For front view: Notice that the shape of the changing center of gravity is not the shape of a heart, but the shape of infinity.

Task 2: Polishing of Weight Shift and Pose

Feedback from teacher: Make the cog movement curve smooth and adjust the pose when foot contact floor.

My final view of weight shift practice:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental Maya

Week 5: weight shift Animation Exercise – blocking – Maya

  • Breaking down walk cycles
  • POSES in Maya showing Silhouette and line of action
  • Plan and animate a weight shift

Task 1. POSES in Maya showing Silhouette:

Draft and pose in Maya showing silhouette and line of action:

Feedback of sihouette:

My refelction: The whole dynamic posture needs to consider the expression of the animation, for example, the movements of the hand cannot be blocked by the body, otherwise the silhouette will lose information, so the posture of the hand should be adjusted appropriately. The Angle of view of the entire camera is a bit too lateral, requiring 3/4 of the side to correspond to the Angle of reference. On the left foot, consider standing on your heels for better balance.

So I adjust the pose according to the feedback:

Task 2. Blocking of weight shift:

My plan and draft:

animation plan

For example, when a person takes a step to the side, the weight will remain on the foot in contact with the ground, and until the other foot contacts the ground, the weight will begin to shift. The curve of the whole cog is a radian, not a straight line. For example, in my sketch, the center of gravity will first shift to the bottom left, and then after reaching the lowest point, the center of gravity will slowly rise. translate

Blocking: