Final Year Animation Blog

THE BOWERBIRD

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:15:18 PST

Alright HERE it is. The final animation of The Bowerbird. I still cant believe I've done it xD
Enjoy guys!!!

The Bowerbird Realtime trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 02:41:02 PDT

Good news everyone, The Bowerbird short film is already done. The first opening was last Thursday 21st Oct which is also my assignment due day. However, I will not release it anywhere on the internet (youtube or vimeo) until after the Graduation Show which will be held at The Loft, QUT Kelvin Grove the 10th Nov.

In the mean time, please enjoy the realtime trailer of The Bowerbird:

Thumbs up for the Koala-Cola can

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:58:08 PDT

My friends have been telling me I could be sued for using Coca-Cola trademark so I change the texture of the soft drink can. It doesnt look too bad does it =D

How to make clouds using Maya fluids

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:27:57 PDT

http://www.3dlessons.com/tutorials/How-to-Make-Realistic-Clouds-using-Maya-Fluids-41906.html

Now I dont have to use crappy photo background anymore *thumb up*

Stuff on the table

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 05:36:09 PDT

Check out the awesome Coke can!!! Please ignore the background and the flying portal potty. They're not gonna be seen in the shot anyway. This is just a snapshot of the stuff on the table because i love my Coke can so much *thumb up*

2nd Draft with a positive ending

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:56:35 PDT

1st draft with test soundtracks

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:59:54 PDT

Hope to give an idea of how the music could be done for the short:

Soundtracks list:

Ice Cream Wonderland -- Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
The Latest Invention - Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
Up is Down -- Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End
Close To You -- The Carpenters
Dinner is Served -- Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest

Keys Dynamic Test

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:44:03 PDT

They dont look very good now but once I animate the bird carrying them, they'll look better.

Lighting references

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:31:42 PDT

These are the references of how I want to light the scenes in my animation. Most of them are from Shaun the Sheep because I really like the outdoor light of it and the green nature background with different layers of hills and mountains.

For example the scene with the construction could be similar to this scene:

and the camping scene could look like this:

And the scene with the bower. a tree and a blur background

I want the shadow to be dark and clear like the one in this scene from Bolt

Clear sky?? Well... at first I thought maybe just make the sky blue and clear like in Shaun the Sheep, but then it will make the scene where the bird flying on the sky too simple and boring so a few clouds would make it look better like the sky in this scene from Bolt:

If you look at the ball of Rhino the hamster, I really want my water bottles to have that plastic look and a translucent shadow like that. At the moment, the bottles dont look very nice.

Just wanna add a youtube of The WotWots. I think the integration is pretty good, and i like the lighting when they are in the spaceship.

New 3D Animatic

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:26:35 PDT

Alright this is the new-super-cool-3D version animatic of The Bowerbird made from a bunch of playblast clips and render test images. And as usual the quality got messed up by youtube.

Anyway, enjoy!

Vogelkop Bowerbird

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:31:34 PDT

Just a document about the Vogelkop Bowerbird in Papua New Guinea:

http://www.fedbybirds.com/2009/07/vogelkop_bowerbird.html

Thank you Arthur for the link.

I think it's interesting that animals could be artistic as well. In fact they're even more creative than us!!!

How to model a screwdriver and render it with mental ray

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:24:38 PDT

This is cool!!!

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/tutorials/rendering-lighting/mental-ray/c/how-to-model-a-screwdriver-and-render-it-with-mental-ray

And this is what I've done. I didnt set up the scene to render it nicely coz it's just an asset that will be imported to another scene.

Mirror Material Testing

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:08:54 PDT

These are the assets for scene 10. I need to model some screwdrivers to replace those toothbrush.

The Bower render test

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:53:21 PDT

Render test of the bower (the nest).

Update News

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:17:01 PDT

Just some update from the latest presentation about the project. This project will be displayed at the graduation show in December and this is how it's going to be displayed:

Thank you Michael Paech my tutor for the brilliant idea about changing some assets that will tie up a bit more the story between human and animal's construction.

so I'll replace the tent with some portal potties:

Replace toothbrushes by screwdriver and other tools:
And then the notebook with some architecture drawings:
This is the new timeline for this semester:

I still havent got any contact from the sound students yet and this is going to be frustrated if I cant get the sound done by myself at the end. I might have to go record something and compose them and finger cross that they work.

Free Audio

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:39:10 PDT

Just a note on where I can get free sound effect from:

http://www.istockphoto.com/audio

Flying Test

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:05:28 PDT

It is... not really good but I'll get back to it.

A helpful comment of a friend on fb:

Al Dayan i like the motion of the wings actually, they contrast the rest of the body quite well. some thoughts on the animation (my own views, just use wat works for you):

- The wings seem to flap diagonally downwards to the front. if that were the... case, the bird would be flying backwards.

- If it's flying forward, make it flap mainly downward. considering how fast it's flapping compared to the relative movement of the rest of the body, it's as if the bird needs to try harder just to stay airborne cos it's so fat and has small wings. i like that btw *laughs at the fat little birdy*

- The head looks very stiff. the eyes make it look more so. perhaps relax the tension around the neck a little to show some movement. nothing too dramatic/over the top. just keep it subtle. maybe make it tilt so you can see the beak dip a bit as it recoils from the elevation it gets from flying/beating its wings.

- Some swaying motion in the body itself would look interesting.

- The feet only move/curl in one direction. front on, it looks too flat and robotic. some variation would look nice.

- I like the subtle 'bob' of the bird's chest. i recommend you use that as a base for the rest of the bird's movement in the limbs and head.

- By the look of it, the bird's 'power centre' seems to be just in front of its breast...maybe a little above it. i'm not entirely sure wat the bird is supposed to be doing since it's not a very strong stance, but from wat i can tell from its 'power centre' alone, it's just flying forward rather aimlessly...yet attentively...like a stoner bird.

- The most important thing here is wat are you trying to show in the bird? can't really help much if we don't have an idea of wat you're aiming for.

Keep it up Kim :)

Official Poster

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:34:02 PDT

This is the poster I've done for the graduation exhibition catalogue, and it's hideous T___T
I know... they're flying. Something wrong with the shadow layer and I've tried but couldnt fix it in Photoshop. Anyway, let's hope that the final animation wont look that bad!!!

Female Bird

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:43:13 PDT

Finally the female bird is rigged and ready for animating.

She is actually just a chubby version of the male bird. It took me the weekend to modify her from the male version.

I'll need to have a scene set up and test render for the poster which is due in a few hours later today so... wish me luck!!!

poseDeformer of Michael Comet

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:20:05 PDT

I'm reading this: http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2009/10/02/posedeformer-walk-through/

It could be useful. I've got the plug-in but don't know how to use it yet.

Facial Expressions

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:24:08 PDT

Ok so this is what I've been working on for the last 2 days, creating facial expressions for the character using blend shapes. I got left with an issue from last week about how to apply blend shapes for just the part that I want, in this case it's the head, when the entire body is a single mesh. I don't want to duplicate the whole body everytime to make the target shapes because I will end up having too much points and polygon to deal with.
Finally last Friday, I found a book in the library that could save my life. The title is MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya by Chris Maraffi. (Why people name Chris are usually good in 3D techniques and stuff? hmm...). Anyway so the book is about MEL script, but there is a part called Morphing through a Proxy Head where he teach you how create a proxy for the head, do all the blendshapes that you need on that proxy, then connect it with the original mesh using Wrap Deformers. This guy is a genius!

Alright so this is the screenshot of the proxy head I created:

Then I made all the target shapes just like how we do it in the traditional morphing technique. These are the mouth blendshapes:

and these are the eyebrows blendshapes:

So everything works on the proxy head as I expected. Then I connect the proxy head with the whole body mesh and look, it works! Just like magic ^__^

Then I spent some more times making this awesome GUI for the facial expressions control:

and here is the clips showing how the GUI works:

Since the proxy head is working wonderfully, I'm thinking of doing the same thing for the wings because at the moment, when they fold in, the polygon look like they are broken and the wings look really messy.

So hopefully I'll get that done in the next few days.

Poster

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:08:16 PDT

Well it's actually just a test to see if the colour of the bird and the background work together. I'll have a better poster later on when I have all the lighting and rendering set up.

These are just some references of real-time animation Chris Carter suggest me today:

Bird Texture

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:35:48 PDT

I think I've got the shading for the eyes right this time. He looks more friendly now.

I also added a bit of purple mixed in with the blue colour of the texture. The resolution of the pic is not very high but if you look closely you can see it (maybe double click on it to see it in full size). I'm happy with the texture so far.

I've been working on refining this bird for too long and I have to move on quickly to the fixing the rig otherwise I'm not gonna have time for the actual production stage which is supposed to start now =(

I am (unfortunatly) under a lot of pressure this semester because it's my last semester in uni and I need to get something great to put in my porfolio, something that will be able get me a job so I can stay and work in Australia after I graduate.

Will I get this project done on time? It's hard to say...

Colour Test of the truck

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:27:41 PDT

Just a quick colour test of the red truck. No biggy...

Sound Design Document

noreply@blogger.com (Kim Thu Vu Nguyen) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:44:11 PDT

Sound Design Document

THE BOWERBIRD

Short animated film project

Style: 3D animation

Duration: 1 minute.

Synopsis:

In a small village, people are building a house. Nearby a hardworking bowerbird is building a nest, preparing for the mating season. The nest is made by straw and the bowerbird only uses blue objects that he found around the area to decorate it. He picks up everything blue he can see on the way. He also uses blue flowers to decorate the house. Blue things are all over the place.

On the way back home, he suddenly discovers there is a beautiful female bowerbird appears near his place. Too exciting he land down quickly and hit his head to the ground. He tries to get up as fast as he can and the female bird is right there in front of him. He looks at her. She is big, she is pretty and she is the girl of his dream. He has to do something to impress her. He quickly shows off his beautiful bower with a lot of blue decorations.

Just a second later, a truck comes and crushes over everything. The bowerbird’s nest turns into a mess within a flash. The bird is stunned. He does not understand what just happened in front of his eyes.

The truck keeps running toward the village where we can see the construction from far away.

Sound Design Influences:

The story occurs in the countryside so I will need some outdoor environment sounds. So something like this:

Shaun the Sheep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2w6oQHCQIo

I also need sounds for the construction scene at the beginning of the film.

For those scenes where the bird flying around and picking blue things, I think they need a music background. I really love the music from The Pigeon Impossible and the sound effect is well done too. They are more like a 007 James Bond style of music so it might not be suitable for my animation.

The Pigeon Impossible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjUAnPc2VA

But I would prefer to have some sort of a classical epic music for those scenes so something in between

This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EynZ65x6Tmo

And this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye8KvYKn9-0

Especially for the scene where the female bird blinks to the male bird, I would love to have The Carpenters – Close To You song as a background because it’s such a famous song that everybody will recognise and the lyrics somehow make sense “Why do birds suddenly appear...”

The Carpenters – Close To You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87XQKCXfFjQ

However because of copyright I’m not sure if we can remix it or cover it somehow. I’m thinking of doing like a chipmunk version of the song or something.

Of course i will need some crushing and squashing sounds when the truck crushes the nest and some sort of birdy scream. And then the film will end with just a peaceful country music when the truck keeps running to the village.

(Please refer to the animatic if you have no idea what I’m talking about!)

Well this is just what I have in mind at the moment. The music and sounds could be changed into anything as long as they are suitable for the film so feel free to give me comment/feedback.

Length and pace:

The film will last for about 1 minute and will mainly tell the story of the blue bird building a bower. The film will start at a normal pace then accelerate when showing the hard working bird finding blue objects. It will suddenly slow down when the female bird appears and then go at a quick pace right when the truck crushes over the nest.

Animatic:

The bowerbird animatic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4E-F6vq3R0