ICTX - 3D Animation Outline

1. History/Evolution

1.1 A Brief History of 3D Animated Films

1.2 Uses

1.2.1 Medical Imaging

1.2.2 Advertising

1.2.3 Entertainment

1.2.4 CAD - Architecture

1.3 Companies

1.3.1 ILM

1.3.1.1 George Lucas

1.3.1.2 Created for Star Wars

1.3.1.3 Focussed on adding realistic features to traditional film making

1.3.2 Pixar

1.3.2.1 Started at Lucas films, bought by Steve Jobs in 1986

1.3.3 Disney

1.3.4 EA - Video Games

1.3.5 Dreamworks

1.3.5.1 Shrek

1.4 Examples

1.4.1 Shorts

1.4.1.1 Luxo Jr.

1.4.1.2 Tin Toy

1.4.1.2.1 1988 Pixar

1.4.1.3 The Abyss

1.4.1.3.1 1988 James Cameron, Water Pseudopod, it was the first morphing mesh used in a major motion picture, done by ILM

1.4.1.4 TV Ads

1.4.2 Full Length

1.4.2.1 Reboot

1.4.2.1.1 First half hour 3D television show

1.4.2.2 Toy Story

1.4.2.2.1 No People, hard to animate

1.4.2.2.2 1995 Pixar

1.4.2.2.3 Proved it could be done

1.4.2.3 Avatar

1.4.2.3.1 2009 James Cameron

1.4.2.3.2 Seamless combination of real/rendered worlds/actors with amazing motion capture including facal experssions.

1.5 What does the future hold?

2. Concepts

2.1 3D Space

2.1.1 Grid

2.1.2 Camera

2.1.3 View Port

2.1.4 Light

2.1.5 Object

2.2 Prime Objects

2.2.1 What prime objects can be used depends on your rendering engine

2.2.2 1D Objects (building blocks)

2.2.2.1 point (in 3D space)

2.2.2.2 line

2.2.3 2D Objects

2.2.3.1 Plane

2.2.3.2 polygon

2.2.4 3D objects (have volume)

2.2.4.1 cube

2.2.4.1.1 other closed multisided objects like a soccer ball.

2.2.4.2 torus

2.2.4.3 cylinder

2.2.4.4 sphere

2.2.4.5 Fractial based

2.2.4.5.1 ex

2.2.4.5.1.1 clouds

2.2.4.5.1.2 fog

2.2.4.5.1.3 stars

2.3 Building an Animation

2.3.1 Story board

2.3.2 Soundtrack

2.3.2.1 This comes very early because your ear is more sensitive than your eyes.

2.3.3 Objects

2.3.4 Camera and Lighting

2.3.5 Animation

3. Technologies

3.1 Rendering Engines

3.1.1 Ray Tracer

3.1.1.1 realistic

3.1.1.2 slow

3.1.1.3 First renders were ray tracers because the math is fairly simple to understand.

3.1.2 Polygon Renderer

3.1.2.1 less realistic, can even be made to look like a cartoon

3.1.2.2 fast or even very very fast

3.1.2.3 used in video games

3.1.2.4 some engines have "hacks" to emulate other types of rendering engines

3.1.3 Volume Renderer

3.1.3.1 Most realistic

3.1.3.2 very slow

3.1.3.3 Only engine that can render "real" effects such as fog and clouds

3.1.3.4 Used more in scientific apps since it is so slow but very precise.

3.2 Animation

3.2.1 Manual Animation

3.2.2 Key Frame Animation

3.2.3 Motion Capture

3.2.4 Physics Engines

3.3 Object Creation

3.3.1 Modelling

3.3.2 Object Designers

3.3.3 3D Scanners

3.3.4 Surfacing

3.3.4.1 Simple colors

3.3.4.2 Textures

3.3.4.3 Transparency

3.3.4.4 Reflection

3.3.4.5 Hardness

3.3.4.6 Maps

3.3.4.6.1 Image Maps

3.3.4.6.2 Bump Maps

3.3.4.6.3 Transparency/Alpha Maps

4. Assignments

4.1 1. Intro to blender space!

4.1.1 First Steps

4.1.1.1 Open a ready made animation

4.1.1.2 Add own name to some 3D text

4.1.1.3 Render animation

4.1.1.4 Save as movie file and submit.

4.1.2 Getting Around

4.1.2.1 Open scene from last assignment

4.1.2.2 Delete an object that does not move.

4.1.2.3 Add new object from object lib

4.1.2.4 Scale/Move new object so it replaces the one that was removed.

4.1.2.5 Render animation and submit new scene and animation.

4.2 Problems that must be addressed. i.e. you will lose marks if you do these!

4.2.1 slow render times

4.2.2 Getting to close to objects to where you can see image map pixels or polygon angles.

4.2.3 View port clipping (seeing inside objects)

4.2.4 Object smoothness vs. simplity

4.2.5 Unrealiisc animation.

4.3 2. Welcome to 1986! - was all done with ray tracing

4.3.1 Ball

4.3.1.1 Ball with UVmap

4.3.1.1.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kk2BkVQkyk&feature=PlayList&p=BD14F95E51D1AC42&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=29

4.3.1.1.2 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Quickie_Material

4.3.1.1.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVhhZ2KRr4Q

4.3.1.1.4 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics

4.3.1.2 Blue sky with clouds

4.3.1.3 Green ground.

4.3.1.4 Increase Ambient lighting

4.3.1.5 Point camera down at ball at 30 degree down angle

4.3.1.6 ball fills 50% of screen

4.3.2 Lamp

4.3.2.1 build Lamp

4.3.2.1.1 Spin lamp head

4.3.2.1.1.1 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Creating_a_Simple_Hat#Spinning_the_hat

4.3.2.1.1.2 http://www.scribd.com/doc/12899177/spin-a-mesh

4.3.2.1.2 Spin lamp base

4.3.2.1.3 Add 3 balls as joints for lamp

4.3.2.1.4 Add armature to lamp

4.3.2.1.4.1 To get parts of lamp to not deform, keep them separate objects (the top two circle), then parent them to a bone. First in pose mode, select the bone. Second, in object mode, select the ball then the armature, go back to pose mode. Ctrl+ P, and choose make parent to bone.

4.3.2.2 lamp is gray

4.3.2.3 Add ball from previous assignment to lamp file and size it so it looks good.

4.3.2.3.1 Open file to copy into and press Shift +F1 and import object.

4.3.3 Ball Lamp Animation

4.3.3.1 Make a copy of the lamp

4.3.3.2 get parent lamp to initally follow the ball as it rolls by (add "track to" constraint on lamp bone to ball

4.3.3.3 then get parent lamp to turn around and look as child hops in (need to add influence key to "track to" constraint)

4.3.3.4 Make two lamps kick ball back and forth so animation loops seemlessly

4.3.4 Basics of lighting

4.3.4.1 Add lights to lamps

4.3.4.2 Turn down ambiant light

4.3.4.3 redo animation lamp light "target" ball as it moves

4.4 3. Time to be cinematographers! "This is red five going in!"

4.4.1 Build the death star

4.4.1.1 make the death star by sweeping.

4.4.1.2 Add image map (gray with some boxes)

4.4.1.3 Make sure Death Star has a slot!

4.4.1.4 Death Star has to have the right number of polygons so it can explode later

4.4.1.5 Add a sun light and some ambient light to make the Death Star look good. Note that in reality, the Death Star would look like the moon where one side would be totally black, but not in Star Wars!

4.4.2 Blow it up!

4.4.2.1 Make a couple of simple space ships

4.4.2.2 Have your main space ship fly along the death star and then fly away Extra points: add a missle from the ship to the Death Star

4.4.2.3 Have the other ships chase the main ship. Extra points: have the ships shooting at the main ship

4.4.2.4 As the main ship flys away from the death start, the death star blows up!

4.4.2.5 The Camera should follow the action in a pleasing way. This is the main point of the assignment.

4.4.2.6 Remember about acceleration and deceleration.

4.5 4. Artistic and abstract

4.5.1 Make an abstract rendering with reflection and refraction

4.5.1.1 Reflection Tutorial

4.5.1.2 More Complicated Reflection Tutorial

4.5.1.3 Glass: Refraction and Transparency

4.5.2 No objects from libaries, you can use anything you make or have made for previous assignments

4.5.3 Still must render in a resonable time!

4.5.4 Somewhere there must be a red and white checkered ball.

4.5.5 This assignment is about textures and lighting, The objects can be very very simple.

4.6 5. Project Proposal

4.6.1 Submit a storyboard for an 3D short.

4.6.2 Mark is based on how close final animation matching the storyboard.

4.6.3 Feel free to use object libs!

4.6.4 Extra marks for adding sound but it is not required.

4.6.5 Concentrate of what parts of 3D animation interest you the most.

5. Examples

5.1 Story boarding

5.1.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKQ8Ilr6PgU

5.2 Physics

5.2.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKQ8Ilr6PgU

5.3 Camera tracking

5.3.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZgcTuwGlhg

5.4 Motion Capture

5.4.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0yT8mwg9nc

5.4.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTisU4dibSc&feature=related

5.4.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNghsXtDLWQ

5.5 Blender shorts

5.5.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaPmOUz27G4

5.5.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBbU5pvNmkk

5.5.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5emtgUDzCzI&feature=related

5.5.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvVGc-lEkV8

5.6 Abstract

5.6.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np2X-TZlr6A

5.6.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1DaOmMgoR4

5.6.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLhnD3X_sWA

5.6.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ZH9r2tuZw

5.6.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9HZ-ZBznT0

5.6.6 http://fantasyartdesign.com/3dgallery/a-digital/42pictures-3d.htm

5.6.7 http://static.desktopnexus.com/wallpapers/35765-bigthumbnail.jpg