Now that all 3 of my animations have been completed, there are several things that I could perhaps improve upon. One thing I noticed with my animations is that some of the animations had quite jerky movements instead of more fluid ones, which is a result of using keyframes every x frames. If there is a way of smoothing out these animations in blender then I would like to go back and redo them.
Also, weight painting the vertices was a fairly difficult process, since the mesh would sometimes deform while trying to animate a pose, so I would have to keep going to Weight Paining mode and attempt to fix the deformation. All in all, I am relatively happy with the results, especially as I believe the animations closely resemple their real life counterparts.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Monday, 10 May 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Weight Lifting
For the last animation, I chose to do an animation of a weight lifter lifting up a barbell. As I have done before, I used the reference videos to get a good starting pose for the animations as I find this is the best way to animate. Unlike the other two videos, I decided to create a mesh for a barbell, as this would not only improve the animation visually but also help me get a goot reference point of the hand positions.
Once this was done, I used the same technique I had used in the rower animation. This time however, I did not animate to the video exactly, but instead used it as a rough guide for my poses. Everytime the weight lifter in the reference video made a different movement (i.e. going from crouching to standing), I made a keyframe in the animation and replicated that piece of movement's starting and finishing position.
The process was a lot harder to make as I first thought, since there were issues such as the barbell going through the knees of the mesh in which I would have to re-adjust the position of the mesh before attempting the animation again. Something else that was different was that I would also have to keep changing the position of the barbell to keep it in the arms of the weight lifter.
Once this was done, I used the same technique I had used in the rower animation. This time however, I did not animate to the video exactly, but instead used it as a rough guide for my poses. Everytime the weight lifter in the reference video made a different movement (i.e. going from crouching to standing), I made a keyframe in the animation and replicated that piece of movement's starting and finishing position.
The process was a lot harder to make as I first thought, since there were issues such as the barbell going through the knees of the mesh in which I would have to re-adjust the position of the mesh before attempting the animation again. Something else that was different was that I would also have to keep changing the position of the barbell to keep it in the arms of the weight lifter.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Row row row your boat.
Now that I am animating a rower, I once again chose a starting pose for the rower using the videos as a reference. For the starting pose, I chose to have the legs at their most bent and the arms out stretched as this would be easiest to animate.
Once I was happy with the pose, I moved up the timeline 20 frames and created a middle pose (which is pretty much the pose that is half way though a cycle) where the legs were this time extended and the arms bent.
From here on in, it was just a case of filling in the blanks between the poses. It was quite useful that blender does most of the work when filling in the animation between keyframes, but there was still some tinkering to be done in aligning the position of the hands and wrists so that they follow a straight line instead of wobbling up and down.
There were several problems with the weight painting I came across while animating the rower, such as the balance bone having some vertices assigned to it. As a result, when I would drag the bones in the torso back and forth to simulate the rowing stroke, some vertices would be pulled out of positon do to the balance bone pulling on them. I managed to assign the vertices to the hip bone instead to get around this proble.
As with the running animation, the pose in the first frame of the animation was copied and pasted to form the last frame, although it did not need to be flipped. The animation was also lengthened to 240 frames using the action editor.
Once I was happy with the pose, I moved up the timeline 20 frames and created a middle pose (which is pretty much the pose that is half way though a cycle) where the legs were this time extended and the arms bent.
From here on in, it was just a case of filling in the blanks between the poses. It was quite useful that blender does most of the work when filling in the animation between keyframes, but there was still some tinkering to be done in aligning the position of the hands and wrists so that they follow a straight line instead of wobbling up and down.
There were several problems with the weight painting I came across while animating the rower, such as the balance bone having some vertices assigned to it. As a result, when I would drag the bones in the torso back and forth to simulate the rowing stroke, some vertices would be pulled out of positon do to the balance bone pulling on them. I managed to assign the vertices to the hip bone instead to get around this proble.
As with the running animation, the pose in the first frame of the animation was copied and pasted to form the last frame, although it did not need to be flipped. The animation was also lengthened to 240 frames using the action editor.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Javelin
Once the running gcycle had been made, I decided to make a start on the javelin throw animation. However, a bit of the way into position the starting pose, I noticed that the armature I was using did not allow the arm to rotate in such a fashion in order to grip the javelin properly. Instead of reconfiguring the armature to allow better grip, I decided to chose another olympic practice instead.
The first one I chose to do was olympic diving, as there is a wide variety of diffent techniques to animate. However, since I was unable to find any slow motion videos I could reference, as well as the high probability that there would be another conflict in the armature, I decided to look for another. In the end, I chose rowing since it has a good balance of arm, leg and back animation. The videos I used for reference are listed below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLhptMPeh7A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVmMd7FdAA
The first one I chose to do was olympic diving, as there is a wide variety of diffent techniques to animate. However, since I was unable to find any slow motion videos I could reference, as well as the high probability that there would be another conflict in the armature, I decided to look for another. In the end, I chose rowing since it has a good balance of arm, leg and back animation. The videos I used for reference are listed below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLhptMPeh7A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVmMd7FdAA
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Runner Part 2
Now that I had half of the cycle done, I was time to finish the second half to make a complete cycle. Luckily, there is an easy way of doing this. Instead of re-posing each of the positions as I've already done, I can just use these poses for the rest of the cycle. In the last update, I used the paste pose to get the mid-cycle pose, which I will use again to get the rest of the poses.
Since I did each step of the animation every 5 frames, I went back to the beginning and every 5 frames, copied and flip pasted the pose into the desired frame. After doing this to every frame. I had a complete run cycle. However, I wanted to make this run cycle last over 240 frames, instead of the 120 which was the current length of the cycle. To do this, I went into the action editor window after highlighting all of the bones and selected all of the keyframes. I then duplicated them and positioned them further in the timeline so that one cycle would begin straight after the last. I then did a test render on the animation too see how it looked.
The result was relatively good but there was still something missing. It was then that I noticed that although both the leg and arm movements had been animated, the body had remained completely still the whole way through.
I went back to the animation and set up some key frames in the spine bones, giving them a bit on rotation left and right as the legs and arms move back and forth. After rendering the animation again, I was happy with the result.
Since I did each step of the animation every 5 frames, I went back to the beginning and every 5 frames, copied and flip pasted the pose into the desired frame. After doing this to every frame. I had a complete run cycle. However, I wanted to make this run cycle last over 240 frames, instead of the 120 which was the current length of the cycle. To do this, I went into the action editor window after highlighting all of the bones and selected all of the keyframes. I then duplicated them and positioned them further in the timeline so that one cycle would begin straight after the last. I then did a test render on the animation too see how it looked.
The result was relatively good but there was still something missing. It was then that I noticed that although both the leg and arm movements had been animated, the body had remained completely still the whole way through.
I went back to the animation and set up some key frames in the spine bones, giving them a bit on rotation left and right as the legs and arms move back and forth. After rendering the animation again, I was happy with the result.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
The Running Man
The first piece of animation will be a run cycle based on an olympic sprinter. To start off, I selected a starting pose for the animation. I decided to go with one with a foot in contact with the floor, and the leg as perpendicular to the floor as possible, since this pose would be easiest to replicate. To help get the pose right, I used a reference video which I posted earlier which would help me get the position, angle and rotation of the bones as close as possible.
Once the pose was good from one side, I flipped to the front row and lined it up into position again. From there on, everytime I forwarded the reference video 10 frames, I moved the animation 5 frames and redid the pose, remembering to add position and rotationg keyframes for each IK bone which I would move. When the runner had completed an exact half-cycle on the video, I simply selected the first frame, selected all the bones, and chose Copy Pose. I then went to the frame where the half-cycle pose was going to be and chose Paste Flipped Pose.
However, when I done this, the legs were completely fine but the arms were out of position. I did some research into what may be the cause for this problem, which was when I was suggested that the axis of the bones in each arm may be different from each other. Sure enough by showing the axis', they were different in each arm. To fix this, I managed to re-align the bone rolls in each arm (which I have already done once before, but not on both arms) which managed to solve the problem. This time when I flipped the pose, all was well.
Once the pose was good from one side, I flipped to the front row and lined it up into position again. From there on, everytime I forwarded the reference video 10 frames, I moved the animation 5 frames and redid the pose, remembering to add position and rotationg keyframes for each IK bone which I would move. When the runner had completed an exact half-cycle on the video, I simply selected the first frame, selected all the bones, and chose Copy Pose. I then went to the frame where the half-cycle pose was going to be and chose Paste Flipped Pose.
However, when I done this, the legs were completely fine but the arms were out of position. I did some research into what may be the cause for this problem, which was when I was suggested that the axis of the bones in each arm may be different from each other. Sure enough by showing the axis', they were different in each arm. To fix this, I managed to re-align the bone rolls in each arm (which I have already done once before, but not on both arms) which managed to solve the problem. This time when I flipped the pose, all was well.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Weight Painting
Now that the mesh has been attached to the armature, the first area I looked at was to see if there were any vertices in the mesh that have not been assigned to a vertex group (i.e. not linked to a bone). To do this, I simply grabbed the 'balance bone' in the centre of the mesh (in pose mode) and dragged it. Any vertices that would be attached to a bone should be dragged along with it, leaving any unassigned vertices behind.
Sure enough, some of the vertices were left behind. The main cause of unnasigned vertices was due to some of the mesh in the head, such as the eyes and teeth. In order to fix these vertices, I went into Weight Paint mode and selected the corresponding vertex group of which I wanted the desires vertices to be assigned to. By selected an intensity of 1.000 and 'painting' over the vertices, I managed to assign them to the bones and stop them from stretching out of position.
Sure enough, some of the vertices were left behind. The main cause of unnasigned vertices was due to some of the mesh in the head, such as the eyes and teeth. In order to fix these vertices, I went into Weight Paint mode and selected the corresponding vertex group of which I wanted the desires vertices to be assigned to. By selected an intensity of 1.000 and 'painting' over the vertices, I managed to assign them to the bones and stop them from stretching out of position.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Attaching the Armature to the Mesh
Now that all the bones have been made, I needed to attach these bones to the mesh so that when the bones are moved, the mesh is moves also. To attach the armature, the bones first need to be parented to the mesh. When parenting the bones, there is the option to create vertex groups. I selected the option 'Create from Bone Heat' which basically tells the mesh to attach the mesh to a bone if it is in close proximity to that bone. This saves a lot of trouble of having to weight paint the entire model.
After creating the vertex groups, I decided to check the rigging to see how the mesh would respond when posing the armature. It was here that I noticed a problem with the rigging on the right hand of the armature. Instead of bending in sync with the ring finger, all of the fingers bend off in different directions, regardless of which way the original ring finger bent.
To solve this, I first tried unattaching and then reattaching all of the parents and constraints in the hand, but the problem still persisted. The next step I took was to check the names of the bones, incase there was a problem with the left-right names being flipped. Lastly, I decided to research this problem on the internet and see if there was a fix. In the end, it turns out there was a problem with something called the 'bone roll', which needed to be recalculated after the left armature had been mirrored. By re-aligning the z-axis with the cursor of the bone rolls, I fixed this problem.
After creating the vertex groups, I decided to check the rigging to see how the mesh would respond when posing the armature. It was here that I noticed a problem with the rigging on the right hand of the armature. Instead of bending in sync with the ring finger, all of the fingers bend off in different directions, regardless of which way the original ring finger bent.
To solve this, I first tried unattaching and then reattaching all of the parents and constraints in the hand, but the problem still persisted. The next step I took was to check the names of the bones, incase there was a problem with the left-right names being flipped. Lastly, I decided to research this problem on the internet and see if there was a fix. In the end, it turns out there was a problem with something called the 'bone roll', which needed to be recalculated after the left armature had been mirrored. By re-aligning the z-axis with the cursor of the bone rolls, I fixed this problem.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Finishing the Armature
Now that the bones in the spine, arms and legs are ready, its time to get them ready to attach to the mesh for animating. To help prevent the mesh from deforming around the underarm area, I placed several placeholder bones. The collar bone was duplicated, and placed slightly below the original so that the right side came in contact with the underarm. A copy rotation constraint was placed so that it would rotate with the collar bone. A slightly smaller bone was extruded off this placeholder bone which runs parrarel to the mesh.
Now that all the bones had been made (I didn't need to make any facial bones since I was not interested in doing any facial animations), the arm and leg bones were duplicated, and mirrored (with the centre point set to 0,0,0) to form the bones of the right arm and leg.
Since I had named the arm and leg bones with the .L suffix, these names need to be changed for the right arm and leg. An easy way of doing this is bringing up the specials menu and choosing 'Flip Left-Right Names', which changes all of the selected suffixes to .R.
Now that all the bones had been made (I didn't need to make any facial bones since I was not interested in doing any facial animations), the arm and leg bones were duplicated, and mirrored (with the centre point set to 0,0,0) to form the bones of the right arm and leg.
Since I had named the arm and leg bones with the .L suffix, these names need to be changed for the right arm and leg. An easy way of doing this is bringing up the specials menu and choosing 'Flip Left-Right Names', which changes all of the selected suffixes to .R.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Rigging the Legs
Now that the arms were rigged, I moved onto the legs. Once again, I used the tutorials posted by ArtER21 on his youtube account as a guide to rig the legs. First, a bone was created in the top of the leg near the hip bone, and resized so that it runs down the leg to the feet (around the ankle). This bone was subdivided and the middle 'joint' placed where the knee should be. This should make up the leg bones.
For the bones in the feet, the lower leg bone was extruded to the base of the toes to form an upper foot bone, and again into the end of the middle toe to form a lower foot bone. Since I do not really mind if the toes bend or not, I do not need to place 2/3 bones in each toe. This lower foot bone can then be duplicated and resized for each toe to form the toe bones. Each of these toe bones need to be parented to the upper foot bone.
Finally, some more IK bones need to be added for easy bone movement. An IK bone was placed on the middle toe for toe and foot rotations, another below the heel for leg movement and bending, one on the back foot, and the last on the knee. IK constraints were applied to these bones to allow the manipulation.
The next thing to do is to get the bones ready for weight painting.
For the bones in the feet, the lower leg bone was extruded to the base of the toes to form an upper foot bone, and again into the end of the middle toe to form a lower foot bone. Since I do not really mind if the toes bend or not, I do not need to place 2/3 bones in each toe. This lower foot bone can then be duplicated and resized for each toe to form the toe bones. Each of these toe bones need to be parented to the upper foot bone.
Finally, some more IK bones need to be added for easy bone movement. An IK bone was placed on the middle toe for toe and foot rotations, another below the heel for leg movement and bending, one on the back foot, and the last on the knee. IK constraints were applied to these bones to allow the manipulation.
The next thing to do is to get the bones ready for weight painting.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Rigging The Spine and Arm
The best place to start rigging a human model is traditionally the base of the spine. When placing the 'bones, is it important to have both the front and side views open to make sure that the bones are being placed inside the mesh of the human. Creating the rigging in a seperate layer also makes it easier to change from mesh to rig, as well as distinguishinig between mesh and bone.
The spine was made by placing a hip bone, and then extruding a second bone all the way up to the neck. This second bone was then subdivided to form 4 bones which make up the spine. The top spine bone was then extuded upwards to form a neck bone, and again to form a head 'bone'.
The arm bones were then placed, made up of a collar, upper arm, lower arm and wrist bone extending into the base of the finger tips. To add movability to the fingers, a bone was added to the ring finger, and then subdivided to form 3 finger bones. The finger bones were then duplicated and placed in the middle finger, and resized to scale. Before duplicating for the rest of the fingers, copy rotation constraints were placed in the newly duplicated bones to mimic the rotation of the ring finger bones. The middle figner bones were then duplicated and placed in the index, and pinky fingers before being resized.
I used the same method to create the bones in the thumb. Two more bones were then added, one in the thumb and one in the ring finger. Now that was done, several IK bones were created, which would be used to control the movement of the bones without having to individually alter each one. An IK bone was added to the end of several bones in the arm and fingers, followed by an IK constraint to the connecting bone which allowed realistic looking arm movement by grabbing and pulling on the IK bones. Several bones were parented before I was left with the final product.
Although it requires a lot of time and patience, I didn't really run into any major problems with the rigging since I kept referring to the tutorial on what to do. The next stage is to rig the leg bones.
The spine was made by placing a hip bone, and then extruding a second bone all the way up to the neck. This second bone was then subdivided to form 4 bones which make up the spine. The top spine bone was then extuded upwards to form a neck bone, and again to form a head 'bone'.
The arm bones were then placed, made up of a collar, upper arm, lower arm and wrist bone extending into the base of the finger tips. To add movability to the fingers, a bone was added to the ring finger, and then subdivided to form 3 finger bones. The finger bones were then duplicated and placed in the middle finger, and resized to scale. Before duplicating for the rest of the fingers, copy rotation constraints were placed in the newly duplicated bones to mimic the rotation of the ring finger bones. The middle figner bones were then duplicated and placed in the index, and pinky fingers before being resized.
I used the same method to create the bones in the thumb. Two more bones were then added, one in the thumb and one in the ring finger. Now that was done, several IK bones were created, which would be used to control the movement of the bones without having to individually alter each one. An IK bone was added to the end of several bones in the arm and fingers, followed by an IK constraint to the connecting bone which allowed realistic looking arm movement by grabbing and pulling on the IK bones. Several bones were parented before I was left with the final product.
Although it requires a lot of time and patience, I didn't really run into any major problems with the rigging since I kept referring to the tutorial on what to do. The next stage is to rig the leg bones.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Rigging the Model
The next stage was to add bones to the model so that the model behaves anatomically as a human in real life would, so that the model can be animated and provide realistic looking fluid motions. This is a process called rigging.
To find out how to rig the model I had previously imported, I once again looked on the internet to find a good tutorial on how this could be done. Most of the tutorials I discovered had the rigging procedure for each stage of the body, but written individually by different authors, which may cause problems with trying to implement all parts into the same structure.
It was then that I discovered a set of tutorials that had beed posted on youtube.com by the user ArtER21. The nice thing about these tutorials is that he also used the MakeHuman programme to implement a 3D model of a human into blender, allowing me to be more familiar with the process.
To find out how to rig the model I had previously imported, I once again looked on the internet to find a good tutorial on how this could be done. Most of the tutorials I discovered had the rigging procedure for each stage of the body, but written individually by different authors, which may cause problems with trying to implement all parts into the same structure.
It was then that I discovered a set of tutorials that had beed posted on youtube.com by the user ArtER21. The nice thing about these tutorials is that he also used the MakeHuman programme to implement a 3D model of a human into blender, allowing me to be more familiar with the process.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Using MakeHuman
After downloading MakeHuman, I started experimenting with all of the options that are available. Features such as height, weight and build can be adjusted on a slider to the user's liking. If any specific parts of the body need adjusting individually, they can be selected and altered with the click of a button.
Since the human I am designing is an athlete, I put up the level of muscle faily high and also made him slightly taller and weigh more to give the effect of a person who trains a lot. I also chose not to add any hair or any ethnicity to the model as these will not be needed once I import the model into blender, since I will that this would detract the attention away from the actual animation of the scenes.
Once I was happy with the look of my model, I first saved a copy as a MakeHuman file (incase I would want to make any changes to the model later) and then exported the model as a lightwave file. I then opened blender and imported the lightwave file into the scene and set up some lighting, no problems what so ever. The model was finished off by applying a smooth modifier to round off all of the edges. The final outcome can be seen below.
Since the human I am designing is an athlete, I put up the level of muscle faily high and also made him slightly taller and weigh more to give the effect of a person who trains a lot. I also chose not to add any hair or any ethnicity to the model as these will not be needed once I import the model into blender, since I will that this would detract the attention away from the actual animation of the scenes.
Once I was happy with the look of my model, I first saved a copy as a MakeHuman file (incase I would want to make any changes to the model later) and then exported the model as a lightwave file. I then opened blender and imported the lightwave file into the scene and set up some lighting, no problems what so ever. The model was finished off by applying a smooth modifier to round off all of the edges. The final outcome can be seen below.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Make Human
Whilst looking around on the internet for various tutorials on how to make humans in blender, I came across aopen source programme called MakeHuman. MakeHuman is a powerful tool that allows the user to create 3-Dimensal Humanoid models which can then be customised to the user's liking.
The nice thing about this programme is that once the human is looking as you want it, the file can be saved and imported directly into blender as a lightwave object (.obj). Doing this will allow me to spend more time on the animations of the models rather than having to construct them from scratch.
The nice thing about this programme is that once the human is looking as you want it, the file can be saved and imported directly into blender as a lightwave object (.obj). Doing this will allow me to spend more time on the animations of the models rather than having to construct them from scratch.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Making a Human
I have started messing around with making humans in blender starting with the feet and legs.
The feet were made using a cube that was extruded and rescaled and both legs were made using cylinders. Once one leg had been made, it was mirrored and replaced to save the trouble of having to remodel another.
The feet were made using a cube that was extruded and rescaled and both legs were made using cylinders. Once one leg had been made, it was mirrored and replaced to save the trouble of having to remodel another.
Monday, 22 February 2010
Inspiration
After looking at various video clips on the internet, I have decided to do animations on the 100m sprint, javelin and weight lifting. The clips that will be useful have been included below.
100m Sprint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEIz0nBHtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZvlQTTCMg&NR=1
Javelin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMneTkpqH6E
Weight Lifting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI6maggAugg
The fact that most of the videos are in slow motion will help me view the movements of each person more easily, so that they can be replicated in blender. I also considered animating the long jump but put that aside.
100m Sprint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEIz0nBHtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZvlQTTCMg&NR=1
Javelin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMneTkpqH6E
Weight Lifting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI6maggAugg
The fact that most of the videos are in slow motion will help me view the movements of each person more easily, so that they can be replicated in blender. I also considered animating the long jump but put that aside.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Ideas
Our task for 3D Character Animation is to create 3 animation sequences totaling 30 seconds in length. The main idea that I am currently looking at is animating 3 different olympic disicplines, as the movement displayed in each practice varies greatly, making each animation .from one another.
To help me get a feel of how the final animations should look, I searched on video websites such as YouTube for various animations of events that I may choose. Also looking into videos of walk, run and jump cycles should help with the animation process.
To help me get a feel of how the final animations should look, I searched on video websites such as YouTube for various animations of events that I may choose. Also looking into videos of walk, run and jump cycles should help with the animation process.
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