For this part of the task, the whole group sought to make the plan concrete. Taking into account the members’ strengths and abilities, the group was divided into separate teams. I became part of the 3D team.
We were first tasked with breaking down the whole script, and after consulting with the rest of the class, which had also been divided into groups each according to their strengths and on each scene of the script, we agreed on what parts of the narrative would be produced in 3D visuals. These consisted of brief 3 second shots to more complex animations including cloth effects and also lighting.
I then divided the tasks to the members to the team and contacted each member to make sure that we all agree on the tasks at hand.
Really and truly, I did not really work within the 3D group but conversely, I was more involved with the scenes that included the effects. I was in close communication with Christine Borg since she was responsible of the after effects bow.
My job was subsequently reduced because Mr Camilleri decided to have the bow appear when the two flags collided while the end – which depicted a present with wrapped paper pattern – was also decided to be produced in 2D.
These decisions were taken because of time constraints and rendering the job in 2D would take far less time than doing the same job in 3D.
I started my job by gathering several tutorials, which showed different approaches to produce the same effect, but with different style. Primarily I started with three main approaches, one was using nCloth, animating along a cv-curve and rigging. When discussing the options with Mr. Camilleri he advised me to continue with n-cloth since it has the best effects.
Even though I do have experience in Maya software I had never used any of these techniques and these definitely proved to be a challenge but nevertheless, I had made good progress through by the help of many tutorials.
Meanwhile, I started off with a digital-tutors course of 36 tutorials on nCloth to get a good grasp of an idea what I can do with the nCloth. Unfortunately none of these tutorials explained about an animated flag. So I moved on to tutorials found on You tube.
I did manage to create the idea of a flag coming up from the back, over of the wall and swift to the other side of the screen. The main problem which gave me a lot of trouble was the dynamics of the cloth as it was folding on itself and stretching to an extreme. I also had the problem that by the time one end arrives to the side of the screen the other end was dropping down to the floor. I experimented a lot with the constraints and parameters of the cloth like for example the friction value, stretch resistance, gravity I also used the nucleus node to add wind but still there was a drop. I met with Mr. Savona Ventura and he proposed to start the animation from the topside to avoid the droopiness of the cloth. After many experiments it did improve but I still wasn’t happy with the result. But on the other hand I also had the time against me and I couldn’t afford to keep on experimenting, too add on to the problems when rendering the motion the result was horrible. The flag started out with a good swift movement but as it arrived to the mid area it formed a knot and stayed that way for the rest of the shots.
I had to move on to plan B, animating a plane along a cv-curve. This technique was fairly simple but the drawback was that it produces a very flat looking flag. I decided to freeze the history and shape of the nCloth and attach it to the cv curve. This way the plane did not have the properties of a nCloth but still had that dynamic look and it was easier for me to control.
The next step was to export the uv map to design the flag on photoshop. After this process was successful I repeated the task for the left flag and manipulated the mesh a little to get a different look. When playing the animation I noticed that one of the flags was slipping out of the mesh and getting out of control. I had to repeat this process several times when I noticed that every time I copy and paste the polygon and the mesh surrounding it bugs even though I tried scaling down the plane to ensure it not slipping. So I created four scenes with four flags going in different angles and rendered them all separately.
Evaluation:
Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time and energy which is not shown in the final projection but I had many setbacks and problems due to the fact that I didn’t have much knowledge on the subject and spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with Maya. I believe I could produce a better job know that I am experienced in the subject This being said, I have gained a lot of knowledge on nCloth, which is definitely a positive aspect and I never gave up.
We were first tasked with breaking down the whole script, and after consulting with the rest of the class, which had also been divided into groups each according to their strengths and on each scene of the script, we agreed on what parts of the narrative would be produced in 3D visuals. These consisted of brief 3 second shots to more complex animations including cloth effects and also lighting.
I then divided the tasks to the members to the team and contacted each member to make sure that we all agree on the tasks at hand.
Really and truly, I did not really work within the 3D group but conversely, I was more involved with the scenes that included the effects. I was in close communication with Christine Borg since she was responsible of the after effects bow.
My job was subsequently reduced because Mr Camilleri decided to have the bow appear when the two flags collided while the end – which depicted a present with wrapped paper pattern – was also decided to be produced in 2D.
These decisions were taken because of time constraints and rendering the job in 2D would take far less time than doing the same job in 3D.
I started my job by gathering several tutorials, which showed different approaches to produce the same effect, but with different style. Primarily I started with three main approaches, one was using nCloth, animating along a cv-curve and rigging. When discussing the options with Mr. Camilleri he advised me to continue with n-cloth since it has the best effects.
Even though I do have experience in Maya software I had never used any of these techniques and these definitely proved to be a challenge but nevertheless, I had made good progress through by the help of many tutorials.
Meanwhile, I started off with a digital-tutors course of 36 tutorials on nCloth to get a good grasp of an idea what I can do with the nCloth. Unfortunately none of these tutorials explained about an animated flag. So I moved on to tutorials found on You tube.
I did manage to create the idea of a flag coming up from the back, over of the wall and swift to the other side of the screen. The main problem which gave me a lot of trouble was the dynamics of the cloth as it was folding on itself and stretching to an extreme. I also had the problem that by the time one end arrives to the side of the screen the other end was dropping down to the floor. I experimented a lot with the constraints and parameters of the cloth like for example the friction value, stretch resistance, gravity I also used the nucleus node to add wind but still there was a drop. I met with Mr. Savona Ventura and he proposed to start the animation from the topside to avoid the droopiness of the cloth. After many experiments it did improve but I still wasn’t happy with the result. But on the other hand I also had the time against me and I couldn’t afford to keep on experimenting, too add on to the problems when rendering the motion the result was horrible. The flag started out with a good swift movement but as it arrived to the mid area it formed a knot and stayed that way for the rest of the shots.
I had to move on to plan B, animating a plane along a cv-curve. This technique was fairly simple but the drawback was that it produces a very flat looking flag. I decided to freeze the history and shape of the nCloth and attach it to the cv curve. This way the plane did not have the properties of a nCloth but still had that dynamic look and it was easier for me to control.
The next step was to export the uv map to design the flag on photoshop. After this process was successful I repeated the task for the left flag and manipulated the mesh a little to get a different look. When playing the animation I noticed that one of the flags was slipping out of the mesh and getting out of control. I had to repeat this process several times when I noticed that every time I copy and paste the polygon and the mesh surrounding it bugs even though I tried scaling down the plane to ensure it not slipping. So I created four scenes with four flags going in different angles and rendered them all separately.
Evaluation:
Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time and energy which is not shown in the final projection but I had many setbacks and problems due to the fact that I didn’t have much knowledge on the subject and spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with Maya. I believe I could produce a better job know that I am experienced in the subject This being said, I have gained a lot of knowledge on nCloth, which is definitely a positive aspect and I never gave up.
Group leadership skills
Short animation with nCloth which started off great but got tangled in a way
Rendering Failures
uv Maps
Experimenting with the nCloth parameters to reduce the dropiness
Problematic area, the ribbon is starting to droop down