As with previous 3D projects this has again proved highly challenging. I set my self a difficult task from the beginning by having a character with a mouth that would prove difficult to portray emotion with. I did realise this early on but I chose to stick with, in the end provided a relatively successful result.

I believe I have portrayed the story well and feedback from audiences so far have noted that it is amusing particularly the end when its limbs and eye pops out. I believe I created a good range of movement with the model, the characterization is quite strong with the zombie mannerisms and the sadness portrayed about him not being like the robots in the poster.

I attempted to portray the moral of its okay to be different / be an individual. The ending of the animation is not quite clear enough on this on reflection. The moral can get all too lost when ones mind is concentrating on the actual technical aspects of the animation. The character would have been better showing a contented expression at the end of the animation to show he was still happy even after his arm & eye fall off again.

I learnt new production methods in the form of the physique modifier which made the skinning / rigging much more straightforward. I also learnt the morpher modifier and the FFD box tool. As the final 3D project I will undertake I am happy with the range of skills I have acquired. I have discovered in regards to 3D my strengths lie solid surface detailed modelling and its this area which I will look to develop post studies.

It is always highly satisfying bringing a character to life and I believe I have created a likeable and fun character that meets the brief well.

To create the animation I used a mixture of freeform animation of the biped and footsteps mode. For the walk sequence I initially created the footsteps at a wide stride to get a zombie esque walk and then proceeded to alter the leg / arm / torso placement to make it more fluid and zombie like.

From previous experience I knew I had to convert the footsteps keyframes to freeform keyframes before I could animate the legs properly. Once keyframes were converted they cannot be reconverted to footsteps mode again, so I always had to be sure I was happy with the footsteps before converting. For this reason each sequence of animation was created in a new file.

Once the animation was finished I rendered out the scenes. I chose not to use skylights and fancy scenes as we were told we were not going to be marked on these aspects. This meant my normal render times of 2 minutes per frame were down to 2/3 seconds or so per frame at 1280x720.

The animation was cut cinematically in Premiere pro. The brightness and contrast was altered in Premiere and some effects were added in the form of the brain and thought bubble. Initally I used lots of zombie moans in time with the mouth. This however proved quite annoying to view I therefore went with a very appropriate audio track (buck 65 - zombie delight).

With the morpher modifier I have been able to create a number of mouth expressions.

Happy

Anxious

Sad

Shocked

Here are some renders of my final model. Im happy with the way it has come out although would be happier if the arm moved with less distortion when the biped is moved. This is the part that lets the rest of the model down. The legs in particular move very well with the biped.

The model of my robot was constructed from a cylinder primitive and the arms and legs were extruded from the body. The hand is constructed with 3 finger like pieces this is too keep the hand model simple and also to create the desired typical robot look for when he analysis his hand in one of the sequences.

The head and mouth were created as separate objects. the mouth would need to be able to move fully independently of the head so I decided to model it separately. I wanted the head unattached to give me more versatile options during the animating. I am considering the character changes his head for a newer one. This will be dependent on whether I get time to do this at this end of the planned animation sequences.

A biped was created and rigged with the model using the physique modifier. This is a much more straightforward method of rigging the character than in previous projects. There is however less room for controlling the envelopes and setting very specific weights on certain limbs.




The different expression mouth shapes were created from the original mouth which then had the morpher modifier applied to it. The morpher allowed for a range of facial expressions to be created. Due to the nature of the mouth i did not have a full range of control as I would with a more human mouth, this would be a problem in conveying the emotion of my character.



The eyes were created using spheres and adjusting the hemisphere to create the eyelids. An FFD box was placed around them to make them deformable. The two eyes will act independent of each other in the animation, one of which will be made to look like it is hanging off the face.



The head, mouth, eyes and namebadge were linked to the model with the Select and Link tool making sure I had the correct parent/child arrangement so that they all moved in unison with the model.

NEXT TASK: ANIMATE

I have been doing more research on body language in preparation for the animation. Here are some videos that I found to be of particular interest.

This video is quite annoying to watch but the content is good.

After doing research on facial expression I did some of my own quick sketches for my character. As the mouth is not on the face I will be distorting the hanging mouth and can even explore moving it away from the body and detaching it.

I have found another article that may prove useful to other people and myself.

Abduzeebo Facial Expressions

Some of the Images from the article:

Because the mouth of my character is somewhat unusual facial expressions are going to have to be over emphasise to show the emotion clearly. I found a website with 50 facial expressions that would provide a good reference point to create my attempted emotions from.

Facial Expressions

I have spent some time researching what other people have done when animating 3D zombies. There is very much a stereotypical zombie walk, I must ensure I play to these stereotypes so that the audience fully understand what the character is.

The typical stereotypes are:

Arms outstretched - sometimes with limp wrists > hands pointing down

One foot / leg dragging behind the other > foot sometimes at a total right angle.

HIgh amount of hip movement / swaying

Jerky movement of leading leg.













AUDIO

As well as the stereotypical movement the sound must fit what the audience expect in a zombie. I will look to make the 'moans' of a zombie more 'digital' in my animation possibly by passing a stock moan through a pitch / phaser adjuster in Logic Pro or soundbooth to create the robot zombie esque moan.

Once the sketch was finished I scanned the picture in and created a vector versoin of the character. This was to present my character to the class and also help in the development of the personality. Next up: commence modelling.

The first stage of the character design. Next up - scanning the drawing and taking it into 3DS Max.

My initial idea was centered around a zombie robot. This zombie robot wants to be like all the other normal robots, the animation would be centered around his journey of becoming like all the other robots.

Sketchings of a mentalist?