Month: October 2024

Shots 016, 018, and 019 focus on close-up shots of the cat’s face. I’d like to provide a detailed explanation for shot 018. In this shot, I modified the original wide shot because I felt that working with a wide shot would require considering the entire body twist of the cat, its center of gravity, and the order of movements, which would be time-consuming and lack impact. Instead, I drew inspiration from scenes in Japanese anime Haikyuu!! and Spy x Family, as Japanese animation is highly skilled at expressing tension through animation. Below is the reference video I used.

For expressing tension, what came to mind were camera shakes and strong winds. To achieve this in my animation, I used a ragdoll dynamic. After attaching the corresponding physical simulation capsules to the ears’ controllers, I applied air and turbulence forces. The air effect provided wind strength and direction for the capsules— the direction of the lines indicated the wind’s direction, while the length of the lines represented the wind’s intensity. The turbulence was used to disturb the existing wind lines, adding an extra layer of dynamic motion to the shot.

This can be seen more clearly when the geometry is removed

Shot 21 can be considered a looping animation of the two characters. I continued the earlier Harlow flight animation, modifying only the face to save time. For the cat’s animation, I used reference footage of a tiger running in a loop, as the size and weight of the tiger more closely match the characteristics of my character. This helped me achieve a more believable and dynamic movement for the cat.

Shots 12-17 represent a shift in the emotional tone of the animation, moving from tension to calmness to joy, and ultimately leading up to a high-energy soccer kick. Personally, I’m not very skilled at creating subtle body movements that reflect emotional shifts, so I made a lot of adjustments.

In the initial blocking phase, I didn’t use reference material or shoot any reference footage. Instead, I relied on my own ideas to pose a few key positions. I felt the timing was close to what I envisioned, so I considered the early stage complete.

However, upon reviewing the initial blocking, I noticed many issues, including the camera rotation, as well as the rotation and follow-through of Harlow’s spine and arms. To address this, I decided to record my own reference video, which significantly helped me in refining the animation.

This is a comparison video showing the differences before and after recording the reference footage.

Shot 017 was primarily based on the reference video I recorded, combined with curve adjustments. For the reversal part, I used frame-by-frame keyframing to ensure smooth animation. During the soccer kick, since Harlow and the ball were positioned far apart and there needed to be a quick camera movement to showcase the power of the kick, I specifically adjusted the waist controller. This helped me achieve the desired effect and meet the ideal standards for the shot.

For Animation 005, I continued to use the approach of starting with a cube. However, for Shot 006, where the cat takes a step forward and roars, the cube approach became less applicable.

For Shot 006, I adopted a method of building the animation layer by layer using controllers. First, I clarified the timing and distance of the cat’s two forward steps, as well as the duration of the preparation and roaring phases.

Since it was very difficult to find a reference for this animation, I recorded my own reference video, imagining myself as a monster emerging from behind a cliff.

Shots 007, 008, and 010 all feature Harlow’s flight animations. The total frame count is very short, but the shots are highly expressive.

First, for shot 007, Harlow is escaping. Since the entry direction for the animation in shot 008 is from right to left, Harlow’s exit direction in shot 007 should also be to the right. During the turning animation, Maya’s built-in breakdown algorithm proved ineffective, so I ultimately chose to pose the movements frame by frame. I carefully drew the curves for the head, hands, and feet to ensure that the details captured by the audience’s eyes in this extremely short time frame remain smooth.

For shots 008 and 010, I started by creating a stationary flight loop animation. Since the essence of these two animations lies in variations based on the base animation, I placed the flight animation in the base layer of the animation stack. Then, I selected the necessary controllers and added new animation layers to make the modifications required for these two animations.

Shot 009 is a rather challenging one, requiring a solid understanding of the fundamentals of quadruped animation. I repeatedly revised the feedback George provided, but the timing was still considered too fast. George suggested starting this shot with a cube as well. Key curves to pay attention to include the torso, all four paws, the tail’s tip, and the head.

This is my reference

Shot 011 can be viewed as a death animation where the character interacts with the ground. It’s important to focus on the speed of the character’s forward slide, ensuring it gradually decelerates before coming to a stop. The swinging of the legs should be staggered in position, and the force from the character bouncing back off the ground should also decrease over time.

001,002,004, these three lenses are mainly in the middle and long distance of the focal length, which can show the details of the flowers and harlow’s overall movement trajectory. Due to the short shot time, the character moves fast. So I don’t think the blocking-spline animation method I’ve been using is as good in terms of progress and effect as the one George taught about using a cube as a way to observe the timing and spacing of the entire animation.

So I started my animation with cube. I wanted to fix my timing and spacing as early as possible, but even so, in the process of improving the animation, I occasionally broke or overruled the timing to ensure smooth animation.

This is a screenshot of different completions in the same frame

This is a video comparison of the entire animation from cube to polish stage

The next step is the re-determination of the story shots. Because I changed the characters, some of my animations and shots need to be changed.

On the storyboard, I think the characteristics of harlow as a fairy are: small, smart, and light. The character itself will also highlight the character’s personality, here I refer to the movie: Tinkerbell, which is a series of films with fairys as the protagonist, which provides me with a lot of support.

In the movie, no matter what the character of fairies is, their bodies are very dexterous, so I designed two entrance animations, the content of Harlow playing in the forest and flowers, so as to highlight the character’s personality at the very beginning and set the atmosphere and tone of the whole animation.

This is the storyboard that I modified according to my idea, and you can see that the overall main line of the story has not changed.