Chen’s MA3DCA Blog
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Author: Jixuan Chen

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Final Major Project & Thesis

Week 7: About FMP thesis


This week, based on my proposed dissertation topic, I started looking for references, mainly through ualibrary and Google Docs. I mainly looked for literature, books on film lenses, lighting, which explore topics that are good enough to support my dissertation and provide favourable evidence and help for my thesis.

Bibliography:


1.structure to communicate theme and mood. In Proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on SmKennedy, K., & Mercer, R. E. (2002, June). Planning animation cinematography and shot art graphics (pp. 1-8).
( Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/569005.569006 )

2.Grodal, T. (2005). Film lighting and mood. Moving image theory: Ecological considerations, 152.
(Available at :
https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=qBLBSSjj1IoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA152&dq=film+lighting+mood&ots=16X3VYYeVz&sig=9Iiiy7JA-SEi6zNggVFOp9H-vzs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=film%20lighting%20mood&f=falsehttps://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=qBLBSSjj1IoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA152&dq=film+lighting+mood&ots=16X3VYYeVz&sig=9Iiiy7JA-SEi6zNggVFOp9H-vzs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=film%20lighting%20mood&f=false )

3.Frantz M, Crannell A. Viewpoints at the Movies: Forced Perspective and the Hitchcock Zoom[M]//Viewpoints. Princeton University Press, 2011: 135-138.
（Available at：https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400839056-010/html?lang=de）

4.Katatikarn, J., & Tanzillo, M. (2016). Lighting for animation: The art of visual storytelling. Routledge.
( Available at: https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315779591 )

5.Wisessing, P., Dingliana, J., & McDonnell, R. (2016, July). Perception of lighting and shading for animated virtual characters. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (pp. 25-29).
( Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2931002.2931015 )

6.Kennedy, A. J. (2014). The effect of color on emotions in animated films (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University).
(Available at:
https://www.proquest.com/openview/1f359b318d68435d8cd9c0330c6c5c6b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750 )

7.Thayer, D. L. (1960). A Study of the Influence of Conventional Film Lighting on Audience Response. The University of Iowa.
( Available at:
https://www.proquest.com/openview/cd324f8f1d089eeb1d4b885558e86b27/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y )

Categories
Collaborative

Week 7: Collaborative Unit

Today’s lesson started with learning how to use ue5, importing the models from the previous lesson into UE5 and tracing some of the five senses on them.

This week we also used a brand new website for next generation character modelling, it is very developed and has pre-defined character faces, every organ shape and just a simple click to create a brand new character.

This week I exported a MAYA model of a tree I made as an FBX file and imported it into UE to see how it looked in the UE scene.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Project 1

Week 7: Mech Arm

This week I worked on the design and production of my own robotic arm, because the style of robotic arm I did in class was sci-fi, high class, techy, so for this arm I wanted it to be the opposite, in a steampunk, shabby style, I also used the hydraulic rods taught in class, as well as binding, and finally spreading the uv in maya and texturing in sp.

The model drawing in maya, some wires were made and rig to them.

The material mapping was done in sp, using yellow worn metal with some red and black metal.


The final rendering of the drawing in maya.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Project 1

Week 6: About FMP

The most difficult part of the final project was the special effects, the meteorite and missile effects which I hadn’t come across before, especially for the flames, smoke, explosions etc. I collected some instructional videos online as a reference.

For the two main characters in the story, I found some references to use in designing them.

For the male character I modelled, I wanted him to look not too young and have a melancholic feel, in keeping with the apocalyptic setting of the story.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Project 1

Week 6: Mech Arm

This week I started by adding some elements to the robot arm that I liked, for example I made the small arm into a model that can be opened and simply bound using the set driven key taught by my teacher and added a gun inside the arm, controlled by a hydraulic lever that can be popped out of the arm, I really like this design.

During the class, the teacher continued to work on the large arms and enriched the details, most importantly the use of the ret driven key to control the movement of the shoulder armour so that it could follow the movement of the arm and not go through the mould, which was a new learning for me.

And more control loops have been added to bind each joint.

Categories
Final Major Project & Thesis

Week 6: About FMP thesis

The different shots and lighting tones reflect the different directions of the story and the characters.

Abstract
The author wanted to look at the language of the shots, and the lighting, and how they guide the audience, how different shots bring different characters to life, and how the lighting does too, how they give the audience a sense of what is going on in the mind first: the plot is going to change here, this character is so oppressive. This study is not intended to be limited to animated films, but to cover all types of films, and through this study it will be possible to have a better understanding of shots and lighting, and thus to make more progress in the production of short films. The authors will achieve their goal by analysing typical shots, lighting and referencing examples of films.


  1. structure to communicate theme and mood. In Proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on SmKennedy, K., & Mercer, R. E. (2002, June). Planning animation cinematography and shot art graphics (pp. 1-8).
    ( Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/569005.569006 )
  2. Grodal, T. (2005). Film lighting and mood. Moving image theory: Ecological considerations, 152.
    (Available at : https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=qBLBSSjj1IoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA152&dq=film+lighting+mood&ots=16X3VYYeVz&sig=9Iiiy7JA-SEi6zNggVFOp9H-vzs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=film%20lighting%20mood&f=falsehttps://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=qBLBSSjj1IoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA152&dq=film+lighting+mood&ots=16X3VYYeVz&sig=9Iiiy7JA-SEi6zNggVFOp9H-vzs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=film%20lighting%20mood&f=false )
  3. Frantz M, Crannell A. Viewpoints at the Movies: Forced Perspective and the Hitchcock Zoom[M]//Viewpoints. Princeton University Press, 2011: 135-138. （Available at：https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400839056-010/html?lang=de）
  4. Katatikarn, J., & Tanzillo, M. (2016). Lighting for animation: The art of visual storytelling. Routledge.
    ( Available at: https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315779591 )
Categories
Collaborative

Week 6: Collaborative Unit

For this week’s group project I completed the final tree, which was different from the initial design in that I changed it to a pink color so that it would look better with the blue glowing lawn in UE4.

https://youtu.be/awCPVR0wiD0
https://youtu.be/mgKmpOBV1u8

In the group work session, the teacher taught us to use a new software which was amazing, it used a recorded video and scanned the characters from the video and turned them into 3d models.

Step one, import the video and scan it, the model will be rough at first and the background at the back will look poorly finished because there is no information.

Step two, select the extra unwanted parts to remove so we are left with only the parts we want.

Step 3, round off the model so that the face looks more comfortable and has more detail.

Step 4, apply the decals, which will be automatically generated in the video.

Step 5, finally I exported the model as an obj file and opened it in maya and the decals were still available. This made me feel like I have more ways of making models and I can learn more about this software in the future.

Categories
Final Major Project & Thesis

Week 5: About FMP thesis

This week I had a discussion with my teacher about my dissertation topic and at the end of the class I asked my teacher if the topic was okay, my dissertation topic was called different shots and how lighting guides the audience.
The teacher’s feedback was that the topic was too broad and asked for a narrower scope.
I considered whether I was looking at the shots and lighting of a film, and the teacher contacted me to find out what kind of shots and how the lighting guided the audience.
After thinking about it, I thought I would narrow it down to the idea that different shots and lighting tones reflect different story paths and characterisation.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Project 1

Wewk 5: About FMP

This week the changes continue to be made to the section on the final project, with more refinement to some shots, such as some of the missile shots, where I combined the split shots into the same shot, from the missile flying out to following, and modified some details, such as the timing of the main character turning his head.

https://youtu.be/nm0S6pixAxw
Categories
Collaborative

Week 4: Collaborative project

This week we have started to paint our own character design. The main character of the story is a 6 year old boy, we want to try different styles of characters, for example, refer to the Little Prince, make the model angular, set the material to wood, paper, another important scene prop is the tree, we want the tree to be full of stars at the end, this we will try to achieve in ue.

In the last session on Friday I learnt the basics of using unity, such as how to import models, how to animate them, how to play them etc. This was my first time using unity and I thought it was interesting, I knew a little bit about it before that and I am very hopeful that in the future I can use what I have learnt about 3d computer animation and combine it to make a vr or game.