3D Animation
Overview: The name of the project is called Amber and Bob, and it is a school project. The exposition of the story starts with the encounter between Amber and Bob, the rising action is their love story. The climax of the story starts when Amber is taken away by the bad guys. Finally, the falling action and resolution of the story start when Bob rescues Amber through various difficulties. We were inspired by the Goomba and toolboxes in Super Mario, and the Air Canon in Doraemon.
Personal Reflection: Teamwork played an important role in the entire process because the animation cannot be finished if any part was missing. In the learning process, I learned how to model an object, texture it, and animate it. Also, I learned how to adjust the movement of the camera in a scene. This project gave me a great opportunity to know how to work as an animator. Instead of playblast the animation, I would like to render the images and edit them by Adobe Premiere in the future.
Roles: I was the modeller, director, and animator in this project.
Tool: The project was made by Maya.
Teammates: Tianming, Zihe, Amarthya, Ho Wah.
Timeframe: Summer 2020.
Script
Once upon a time, Amber was walking on the street. Suddenly, four Simons came from nowhere and captured Amber. Bob starts running from the start point to where Amber is. He attacks the Simons on the way with different weapons and tools and finally saves Amber.
Characters and Environment
Characters:
1. Bob, an 18-year-old boy who’s trying to reach the ending point to save Amber.
2. Amber, a 19- year old girl who’s waiting for support from Bob.
3. Simon, a brown monster which attacks Bob during the journey.
Environment:
Blue sky with clouds, it is a sunny day. Amber and Bob walk into the neighbourhood. There are some toolboxes on the floor so Bob can get different tools to beat Simons and save Amber.
Storyboard and Narration
I sketched the character, and my teammate created the storyboard. Finally, I narrated the storyboard using screen recording. I learned how to ideate the characters and to make the narrative storyline in this process. We were inspired by the story of Super Mario, so we decided to create a hero story that follows the nine act structure. Finally, we created a hero, Bob, and some bad guys, Simons, against Bob to save his girlfriend, Amber.
Animatic
The animatic step shows how the characters will move and give a blueprint of when to switch the scenes. I modeled the environment and animated the characters in this step. I learned the importance of timing, which means I have to make sure the soundtrack and the movements are in sync. In terms of modeling, I learned how to use different materials to make the objects look more realistic. The more details I pay attention to, the better the final version will be.
Final Rendered Images
I was the modeler and the animator in this step. To refine the final version, I added the baseboards inside the house. Lighting is also not negligible, so I chose the bright Skydome lighting to fit the theme and added Arnold lighting to make the room brighter. To better show a rainy scene, I applied glossy textures on the floor and the roof. By doing this project, I learned how to coordinate the works between the team members. Also, I learned how to use editing software, such as Maya, iMovie, and AfterEffects.
The challenge that we faced is rigging the characters and painting the skin weights because the limbs cannot move properly without refining several times those two steps. The incompatibility of different versions of the software is another problem that we have to solve. Because of the pandemic, we cannon work together in the computer lab and use the same version of Maya. Our group and the teaching team put many efforts to face these challenges and solve the problems so that we can finish this project on time.
