Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Final Part

It has been a long time since I have added anything to this blog but I thought it would be a good idea to add the completed version of the animation for viewing. Hope you enjoy. :)

Spectre - Final Version

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 10

This is the last blog entry before the animation is put together and it has been done late because I forgot to add a few things before hand in. First of all, the music included is made up of various pieces of different tracks done by an artist called Masami Ueda and edited with audacity so they do not sound similar. In order to do this I have sped up the tracks, altered the pitch and tempo and added filters where necessary. The end result will be necessary to add atmosphere to the piece and build the tension included with the story.

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 9

The animation design has been completed and the rendering has been finished. The audio and sound effects have also been completed. All that's left to do is put it all together. In order to do this I will be using windows movie maker as I am experienced in using this program. Putting the sound effects, speech and music in will have to be done in three stages as this program only allows on audio overlay at a time. This does slow the progress down but it not to a great extent. Below is the animation without the audio added.

Spectre - Without Audio

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 8

The animation is coming together well. Rendering is taking a little longer than I would have thought but it can't be helped. I seem to have over come all the problems that have hindered my progress except for one; after assigning a walk cycle to either of the bipeds, I am still unable to input keyframes after the last footstep and I have been unable to find any help on the subject. In order to get around this problem, I have been forced to render the walk cycle and then animate the movement of the arms and head as a separate animation clip. This is time consuming but it cannot be helped. Either way the transition between clips should be seemless. Below, is one of the scenes that have been rendered.

Introduction

Scene 2

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 7

Encountered a problem with the character modelling; the materials that are assigned to the different selections (e.g. eyes, hair...etc) wont stay assigned to the objects they are placed. This only occurs when the objects are linked/connected to the biped head. So far this has only occured to one of the character models.

As of yet, I haven't been able to find a way to solve this problem and will have to leave the selections as they are. The only thing I can do to cover this is manipulate the story so that the eyes of one of the characters is hidden from view. This shouldn't be too difficult seeing as most of the animation takes place in the dark.

I have currently begun rendering the first scene, which takes place from a distance anyway so the abnormalities in colour wont be noticable. The only other problem faced during the production of this is the slow rendering time of the animation, which could become a problem if any other problems occur.

Below is an image from the opening scene, which is in near complete darkness but can still be viewed due to the flash light animations;

Front Drive of Mansion at Night

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 6

Designing my characters has hit a few problems today. First problem involved animating the facial expressions. Whenever I move the skull of the biped model I'm using, the eyes and lips are left where they were set. I have tried to overcome this but it is looking unlikely that my characters will be able to perform facial expressions. For the time being I have focused on getting the character to walk and run and put the face together using the 'connect' tool, which is why the face doesn't move. I will keep working on it but if it cannot be sorted, facial expressions will have to be left out. Below is a short clip of my character running;

Character 1 - Running

Digital Media Level 3 - Spectre, Part 5

The first character is almost complete; all that's left to do is model the shoes/feet and it will be done. I have also managed to overcome the problem with creating the eyes. I have found out how to group objects together in order to create a single model. This is essential for the eyes as I will need the model to move as one. I have also modelled the characters hair converting a sphere to an editable polly and editing the vertices. This has taken a couple of attempts but I have finished this stage of the character. Below are images of the character;

Character 1 - Stage 2



Character 1 - Stage 2, Face and Teeth