Final Animation Re-edit

Here is an edited version of my animation, it does still need more work but it includes all of the frames.

Project Reflection

I have particularly enjoyed this project and feel that it has been my most fulfilling project to date. I have dramatically increased my knowledge and developed my skills. I have considerably enjoyed producing this project as well most likely due to these factors. There are countless examples of what I have learnt, I think the most beneficial aspect has been the production of the kitchen. Again, I have surprised myself with what I am able to produce and the knowledge that I have gained. Specifically the creating the lighting set up in the scene was a huge learning curve for me. Previously I had little knowledge of producing appropriate lighting for a scene therefore I used this project as an opportunity to develop these skills and spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with lighting as well as increasing my knowledge. I also learnt about three point lighting and used this for renders of the objects within the scene. I now feel that I would be comfortable producing a lighting set up for a scene and am keen to develop my knowledge further as I still have a lot to learn. I also developed my skills regarding texturing and modelling of which I am always eager to do as texturing is a passion of mine.

I do feel that there is a lot that I could improve on especially with the final animation. There were many reasons as to why I was not able to produce the animation to the standard I had hoped, time was one of these factors. Even though we did have a fair amount of time to complete this project, I also had several others which involved using Maya and rendering which restricted my use of Maya; I was not able to begin rendering until later than I had anticipated as I had to render other projects as well.

Kitchen Model

This is a panning shot of the Kitchen model that I produced as I feel that not all of the aspects of the environment are visible. This video provides a better insight of the finished model. 

 

Final Animation

There are many aspects of my final animation that I wish to improve and I will continue on improving it. Here is the most current version:

Editing Stages

The rendering took a lot longer than I had anticipated, I was rendering for 13 days solidly and have managed to render out the animation however I am missing a second of footage of the cat going through the cat flap as I did not have enough time. Here is the footage before editing:

For the editing stages, I will be using Adobe After Effects where I will be adding sound and editing the footage that I have.

I had an idea for the title shot, I wanted to produce something that looked like this but with the words 'Kitty Kingdom'

I to recreate this is Cinema 4D however, I have not used this software before and with limited time I was unable to achieve the aesthetic that I wanted and ended up with this: 

I did not feel that this was a fitting title scene therefore I decided to experiment with cat fonts instead. I produced this which I feel is more appropriate.

Kitty Kingdom Complete

Here is the current finished model of Kitty Kingdom; I do feel that I could have produced a higher quality environment but there were many obstacles that restricted what I was able to achieve. Rendering time was definitely one of the biggest factors that disabled me from producing a high quality environment as the kitchen scene had taken a lot longer than i had anticipated therefore I needed to keep the render time of Kitty Kingdom as short as possible. The factors that I would improve would be the grass and the pavement textures and well as to add more details within the environment. I could not include some objects such as the trees as this dramatically increased the rendering time of each frame.

Kitty Kingdom - Lighting

The lighting for Kitty Kingdom will not be as complex to produce as the lighting for the kitchen was. I want to produce a natural outdoor lighting in this scene therefore I will be using the Mental Ray Physical Sun and Sky and will be placing the sun accordingly.

Kitty Kingdom - Work in progress

Kitchen Scene Playblast

Here is a playblast of the initial scene of my animation within the kitchen.As I have previously stated, the animation is from the cat's point of view. I am pleased with this scene and have began rendering which as always is going to be a lengthy process, it has been rendering for over a week and is still not complete.

Kitty Kingdom - Grass

In previous projects I have experimented with different methods of producing grass within a scene however I have not yet found a method that I am happy with as I have not been able to produce a high quality realistic grass.

I think that this is in important aspect of the scene as it is the base for the entire landscape. I am going to dedicate some time to this as I want to push and develop my skills especially as this is an area I have not yet conquered. As far as I am aware there are a few ways to create grass, I have tried them all such as a grass texture or using the Paint Effects tool however I discovered a method involving using Fur which appears to be the best method for Maya and Mental Ray therefore I am going to experiment with this in detail. I have tried other methods however they are not the standard that I want. I received some feedback from my lecturer that it looked too much like carpet.

So I decided to start experimenting with Fur, this is a test shot so I was able to see what it looked like. I think that this is definitely a step in the right direction. I am going to research and experiment more to produce exactly what I am looking for 

Animation Key Frames

Here are the key frames for my animation. I have decided to stick with my initial instinct of not having the cat in the frame as I received feedback that suggesting that it would look better without. The scenes are not finished at this stage so it is just a basic sequence of shots. 

Modelling - Kitty Kingdom: Smaller details Part 2

I have split this into two parts as I am going into quite a lot of depth with my modelling therefore I wanted this to be visible, individuals who are uninformed regarding 3D Animation may not appreciate the time and effort and skill that go into each model.

As I previously stated, I wanted to experiment with the idea of cat flowers. I took this image and edited it.

I then modelled a 'flower' in maya. 

I felt that the flowers need some leaves so I modelled and textured a leaf. 

This is the finished 'Cat flower' which I am pleased with. 

Kitty Kingdom - Texturing

The base of Kitty Kingdom is a grassy, hilly valley. As I previously stated, the structure of the environment is highly influenced by The Lorax.

I particularly like the composition and depth within these scenes which is something similar to what I hope to achieve to give the impression that the environment is a large kingdom. 

I have not previous produced a grass texture that I have been entirely happy with. I have previously experimented with the PaintEffects in Maya however, for these materials to look good in Mental Ray, they need to be converted to polygons which results in a ridiculously high poly count and slows down the rendering time dramatically. 

I modelled the hills in Mudbox, starting with a flat plane. 

One of my peers informed me of a method of texturing in MudBox where you project an image and paint it on to the object. I did this which looked good in MudBox but when I sent it to Maya, it looked like this:

Obviously the lighting isn't great, I just stuck one in without altering it but I was not happy with this result, I feel that it looks really unrealistic. 

I then decided to texture it in Maya instead which resulted in this:

I am a lot happier with this result as it is closer to the visual I was looking for. 

Modelling - Kitty Kingdom: Smaller details

In Kitty Kindgom, everything is cat related (of course) therefore I am going to create objects with a 'cat twist'. For example the trees are not going to be standard trees, they are going to be cat themed trees. As previously stated, I have asked many people what they think Kitty Kingdom would look like therefore i am going to combine ideas.

There are many stereotypical things that cats 'like' such as balls of yarn and cardboard boxes.

When I decided to make a yarn ball I was unsure of how to model it and could not find any tips online therefore I created a polygon sphere and put a polygon torus around the outside.

I then duplicated the torus many times and placed them in different positions around the sphere which resulted in this final model of which I was happy with. 

I then experimented with different textures and colours. 

From my experience, a majority of cats love cardboard boxes therefore I feel that there needs to be some in the scene.

This was simple to model, I created a cube, deleted the top face and extruded the edges to make the flaps. I then applied a cardboard box texture.

Another popular item with cats is a scratching post. 

As scratching posts have a rough texture, I had to try and replicate this to make it look more realistic. I found that the material used on scratching posts is called sisal rope so I found a couple of textures and experimented with which one gave the best visual. I also produced a bump map to give the texture depth. I felt that the second image looked more appropriate. 

Using the yarn balls and the scratching posts, I am going to make trees for the environment.