Evaluation

I have thoroughly enjoyed this module. Although at times it was quite difficult to get the animation exactly how I wanted it, through the use of tutorials and great patience I managed to tweak it to my liking.

I have learnt a lot about the time line in this module and also how small mistakes can drastically affect the animation later on. I find the best way is to get the entire animation done to a good standard, then go back and add extra bits for realism if you have time. As a rushed animation just doesn't look right.

If I could do the module again I would create my own character and attach the Biped to it, rather than using the pre-made model. I would also have a try at creating bones from scratch. I have a very primitive knowledge of bones, and would like to add to my knowledge and see what I can create.

Overall I am happy with how my animation has turned out, and feel that it is believable enough to be used in my portfolio!

Adding new scenes

My lifting animation is now finished, I am happy as how it has turned out. I think my character really looks like he is struggling with the weight.

The animation however, is only 10 seconds long, so I had to add a couple of different scenes. The first is my character stretching and warming up, which can be seen on the latest video upload. The 2nd is a graveyard scene. Although the only use of the time line in this scene is the camera movement, I feel it ends the whole animation quite well.

Lifting the Weight

At first I was puzzled at how to get my character to pick up the weight from the floor.
After spending a few minutes deep in thought, and other few minutes playin around in Max, I realised how - Dummies!!


This was the first time I had used dummies, so I followed a simple online tutorial and soon enough, the weight was off the ground and into my characters hands.


Here is a brief rundown of what I did;


Make 2 dummys, 1 for the object and 1 for the characters hand,
Select the object, go to - Animation>Constraints>Link Constraints,
Select 1 dummy on Frame 0,
Repeat last 2 steps at Frame 37 (frame where lift occurs).

Character Update

Here are two clips of my character. The reason I added another short animation, was because the walk cycle was only 10 seconds long, so I made a new animation showing the character stretching and psyching himself up, ready for the lift.

Progress So Far

Here is an uploaded video of my character's animation so far. I am quite pleased with his movements so far, but feel his walk cycle seems a bit too easy for the amount of weight he is supposed to be lifting. I will tweak the timeline and upload an update once it is done.

Character Persona

Name: Dave Jones
Age: 19
Occupation: Trainee Builder
Marital Status: Single

Dave is currently on an apprenticeship at a builders yard in Chelmsford, it is a very hot day and he has been given the task of moving steel girders from one side of the yard to another.
He is wearing his steel toe-cap safety boots, but considers it too hot for a t-shirt or hard hat.
Despite Dave being very malnourished, he is a very competant brick layer and a hard worker, although his ego sometimes gets in the way of his work. He feels he doesn't need safety gear as he is not working near the forklift truck.

The foreman has not yet noticed his blatent dis-regard for safety. If he did, it would no doubt cost Dave his job. His terrible lifting technique also shows he was not paying attention during the manual handling and satey techique videos. This could turn out to be one painful day on the job for Mr Jones!

Example of a Fall

I uploaded this video to show how a humans body folds under heavy weight. Although the man fails to lift the weight past his shoulders, he holds onto the weight all the way whilst falling.

Note, how from 14 seconds in, his body collapses downward and his legs bend, followed by the fall backwards and a turn of the head.

Example of a struggle followed by collapse

The above video is another very good example of the three things that happen when a weight is too heavy.

1/ The Shake (12 seconds in)
2/The Step/ loss of footing (13 seconds in)
3/ The Fall (14 seconds in)

Although this happens very quickly, I plan to prolong my bipeds struggle to show his strain and perseverance to fight the weight.

Example of Heavy Weight Struggle

The video above shows a struggle whilst lifting a heavy weight, followed by the person collapsing under the heavy weight. The things most noticeable about the struggle are:
1. The man is shaking due to the weight of the lift.
2. There is a slight pause before he falls
3. There is a little step back before the fall

These elements will be included in my animation to make it more realistic.

Week 5 - Movement of the Biped

Update: I have decided to now make my character struggle along with a heavy weight and then fall backwards with it. I think this will be more believable due to the start position of my biped - he is leaning back to try and counter the weight. I feel that dropping the weight forwards would be very unrealistic.

Today I added some more to my biped. I made his body more natural looking by adding a Turbosmooth Modifier, and attached the shorts and shoes to its body by using the Physique Modifier.

At first, I had trouble attaching the shoes to the feet because the envelope was overlaping the other shoe. After spending quite a while tweaking the settings, I finally found out by moving the legs further apart, I was able to attach the shoes without a problem.

Here is my character in his starting pose ready to start his staggered walk whilst holding the heavy object.

Week 4 - Character Ideas... Cont

Today I have decided to use the basic biped for my animation and attach some clothing to it. This is because I feel that I will spend to much time modelling and not enough time animating my characters emotions if I create a character from scratch.

I plan to use anger as the emotion for my character. An idea I came up with was to have him carrying some object and dropping it on his toes, this would cause him to hop around in pain before becoming angry.

Below are some screenshots of my character so far, I will add more information on the character each week.

Week 3 - modelling a character

This week we were told to start on our character. It could be as simple or as complicated as we liked, but we would not be graded on our moddeling ability. It was for this reason that I decided to construct a simple character.

I started with a box and by using just extrude and Turbosmooth, I was able to contruct a very simple character which (after some fine tweaking) would be ready for boning...... Pardon my French.

Below is my step by step screenshots of the extruding process:

And after some fine tweaking, here is my character:

Introduction to Modelling

In week two we were introduced to primitive human modelling. Although the biped is a pre-boned skeleton, it gives you very little options in regards to tweaking the characters image.

By creating a model from scratch, you can easily tweak and modify the character before rigging and boning. Below is my first try at creating feet and a pair of legs. I think they came out pretty well, especially my buns of steel!

Basic Biped Movement

Today we were introduced to the module and told what we were required to do.
In order to produce a rigged, moving character we were shown how to use 'Biped', which is a pre-rigged character in 3DS Max. This can be found by going to Create> Systems> Biped.

We then tweaked the character to resemble whatever we wanted; male, female or skeletonm whether it had a ponytail or not, how many fingers and toes. First impressions seem to show that Biped has quite alot of options when designing the structure of your character.

I decided to play around with my character and try to get it to walk. Using the 'create multipe footsteps' option, I added 10 footsteps, then activated them and played through the timeline. My character walked like a pro!

I then attached a head to the skeleton. I did this by selecting a sphere, placing it on the skull. I then went to Modifier> Physique and attached it to the Node (which in this case was the top of the neck).

After playing around for a while, I created this chap below!!