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Scripting To design a good character animation, an artist must have a good

understanding of the composition of the work, and a strong ability

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Before starting to design any character (or indeed any object), you
should break it down into these shapes, and be sure of their
proportions.

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The triangle is the most recognized shape for character drawing,

and is usually the shape I first consider when I start to compose a
character.

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Your grasp of proportions determines whether a character looks

good or bad, and even determines the style (or mood) of the
character. It's crucial to get these proportions right before you start
to fill in the details. After you′ve blocked in a character, it′s best
to go outside and get some fresh air. It′s surprising what will
reveal itself to you when you look at a drawing again with fresh
eyes!

I cannot stress how important it is to start your project by observing

shapes effectively. A good way to start developing this skill is to
look at the work of master artists. You will quickly find that they
create their shapes by first focusing on outlines. Furthermore, they
work on getting the best shapes by also examining and creating
tempo, proportion, and contrast. You will quickly notice that they
may omit and modify some areas just to keep the overall tempo.

I'll illustrate with a famous painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

(Nymphs and Satyr, 1873).

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In the painting, Bouguereau emphasizes certain structures and

outlines to give the entire painting more impact and tempo.

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In his shape analysis, Bouguereau first ignored shading and small

details, instead treating the objects as if they were purely flat
cutouts.

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If he had left all the cutout outlines at the same intensity and color,
they would look too forced. So Bouguereau blurred the cutouts by
shading in some parts and blending away the harsh edges so that
they are less visible to the eye. The end result? A balanced,
beautiful image.

By using this same type of analysis, you can also design better
shapes. I′ll illustrate further with some designs I sketched out for a
dragon animation.

For these designs, I researched a lot of dragon imagery to find the

look I wanted. There are many kinds of Chinese dragons. In the end
I chose a creature called "Qiu," a dragon with two horns similar to
dragon imagery found in the West.

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I conducted some analysis on the details. This is a very helpful

technique to verify the model and facial expression you′ll need
later on.

Finally, I drew a detailed sketch of the face to understand the

texture up front, to avoid going back and forth fruitlessly later on in

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production.

Usually I create another color sketch after I finish a design, but this
animation was an exception because I already knew what I needed
to do. But, in teamwork everyone must understand every aspect of
a design, so lots of color sketches are always crucial.

Often the storyboard and the character designs are done in

parallel. Many animators overlook the storyboard, or draw it out
very roughly. This is not good practice: a good storyboard is crucial
for the best production values, and the minimum production costs.
For example, a good movie will be exciting already at its storyboard
stage. The storyboard also helps you consider the movement of the
camera, the relationship between foreground and background, the
motion of the characters, the timing, and the overall performance.
To get it right, you should even consider drawing a color
storyboard.

MOD ELI NG

I do not have much to say about modeling, because it is entirely

based on an individual′s ability to conceive designs and to grasp
the structure and beauty of shapes. In other words, it takes lots of
practice!

I would like to mention one tool often neglected by animators: the

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top view. The top view is important to check if your model has
depth, and is key to avoid that flat face so often created by
inexperienced modelers.

Also, good models must have their lines laid out following the
direction of the bones. Although it can be difficult considering
bones at the same time as sculpting a shape, this technique will
always pay off at the setup and binding steps. No matter how
complicated a model might be, this principle cannot be ignored.
Oftentimes I see models on the Web where the shapes are done well,
but the lines are laid out very badly, resulting in poor animations.

For complicated models with a lot of repetition, you will need a tool
to process your work in batches, and Maya MEL code gives you
this option. I use the following little script as a wrapper to iterate
through a list of objects:

string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`;

for (int $i=0; $i < size($ls); $i++)

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{ ........................ }

This wrapper can be included in many MEL scripts. For example,

there are thousands of scales on my dragons. To adjust them one
by one would not be possible, so I wrote the following script to
adjust the scales:

global proc noisejobwin()

{
if (`window -ex noiseobj`)
deleteUI noiseobj;
window -rtf 1 noiseobj;
columnLayout -adj 1;
floatFieldGrp -l "tranlate offset" tranlateoffset;
floatFieldGrp -l "rotate offset" rotateoffset;
button -l "creat" -c noisejobfunc creatnoisebutton;
showWindow noiseobj;
}

global proc noisejobwin()

{
if (window -ex noiseobj′)
deleteUI noiseobj;
window -rtf 1 noiseobj;
columnLayout -adj 1;
floatFieldGrp -l "translate offset" translateoffset;
floatFieldGrp -l "rotate offset" rotateoffset;
button -l "create" -c noisejobfunc creatnoisebutton;
showWindow noiseobj;
}

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global proc noisejobfunc()

{
string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`;
for (int $i=0;$i < size($ls);$i++)
{
select -r $ls[$i];
float $v1;float $v2;
$v1=′floatFieldGrp -q -v translateoffset′;
$v2=′floatFieldGrp -q -v rotateoffset′;
float $rand1=rand(-$v1,$v1);
float $rand2=rand(-$v2,$v2);
move -r $rand1 $rand1 $rand1;
rotate -r -os $rand2 $rand2 $rand2;
select -cl;
}
}

Here′s another little script. I used to have trouble locating the

exact position of selected objects, which meant that I had a hard
time parenting other objects to them. Then I discovered this script
that moves a simple air field locator to the selected object:

string $ls[]=`ls -sl -fl`;

for (int $i=0;$i < size($ls);$i++)

{
float $xform[]=′xform -q -ws -t $ls[$i] ?59;
air ;
move -r $xform[0] $xform[1] $xform[2];
}

In this script, the air locator is moved to the position of each

selected object. You can then use this locator to parent other
objects to the selected object.

AN I MATI NG

Maya's animating tools let you achieve almost any effect you want.
I used other CG software in the past, but their animating tools were
never complete so I always had to scramble to complete a task. I
even had to stick plastic transparencies to my computer monitor to
compare my 2D drawings with the bones I was trying to set out!

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This troublesome workflow is history now that I have Maya. Ghosting,

for example, is an excellent tool to give me a clear picture of what I
am doing.

Here I will use ghost images to show how to animate a wave.

In this image the red up arrows show the crest of the wave, and the
down arrows show the trough of the wave. This wave action
represents how a motion or force will travel. Furthermore, a moving
character will often mimic this wave motion. Getting the tempo of
this wave motion just right is the true test of the artist's discipline.

Consider a character throwing a ball. When a person is preparing

to throw a ball, the waist must be exerting force backwards. This
force then travels up the spine as the ball is thrown. Meanwhile the
force at the waist gradually decreases as the force travels away,
until the next time when the waist exerts force anew for another
throw. Looking at the following picture, you can see how this action
can be compared to a wave:

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Animators like to use IK, but many don't realize how important it is
to create this wave-like motion from one frame to the next. And this
motion applies not only to body animation, but can be extended to
facial expressions as well. Techniques like turning Maya's ghosting
on really help to see this flow and get it correct.

TEXT UR IN G

Drawing a surface requires patience. In this section I will explain a

few small techniques I've used to make surfaces more realistic.

When drawing a bump map, you should draw not only the "craters"
(those areas on the bump maps that are recessed), but also the
corresponding "bumps." Both are necessary to create a realistic
look.

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In the above examples of bump maps and resulting images, the

craters look too uniform, lacking the wear and tear seen in real
objects. Add highlights for a more natural look:

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The following bitmaps are used in a texture I applied to a dragon

used in my animation.

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Although a texture may seem weak when you first apply it, it can
create an entire effect once the model is lit.

Moving on to lighting, I want to mention another tip. Let's start with a

portrait I painted:

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On the second copy of the portrait, I've circled areas that are
grayer. By making some colors grayer, you can bring out other
colors more, resulting in a more vibrant portrait overall. You can
also use this same type of contrast for textures.

Another tip for faces: place some lights to add a more complex
colored effect. These lights should be in colors opposite of the color
of skin on the color spectrum. That is, if the skin has a reddish
tinge, use "cold" (blue or green) lights to filter out the excess red
and to highlight the colors of the blood vessels.

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I did not use complex textures and models for the images above,
choosing instead to use spheres so that you could see the basic
lighting principle at play. If possible, you should collect the light and
color information projected onto the object into a separate layer, so
that you can compare the colors later on by hiding and showing
layers.

Fi le s do wn loa d

Dragon scene files:

Both files are in Maya 6 PLE format.

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Red dragon [13.2MB]

Blue dragon [21.8MB]

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Skymedias - Blog Content Page 24

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who is the author of this article?

i would love to see some more of his
paintings!
please post a name or even better a
link to his/her work..

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