Month: March 2023

Week 12:

This week I have continued working on a “Toy memory”. The main difficulty for me was to work with the rigs. Since we got only mesh models for the characters, we had to rig them ourselves. By using mixamo rigs software I was able to add rigs to the characters, however they didn’t work properly. I spent a lot of time trying to fix the issues and in the end decided to work with what I have. This issue have made the animation process much more complicated. Despite it, I was able to show my first version of the animation on this group meeting.

Although the animation did receive a good feedback especially on the emotional side of it, I had to do lots of cleaning.

On the meeting we have also discussed models for the “scanning machine memory”. After the discussion I was told to use the same grandmother model for two people.

Collaborative Unit

Week 11:

This week we had another online meeting with our group members.

We have talked about how to change the scanning machine memory since the models had to be full sized. Our partners suggested not to use a parent and a child models since there already are quite a big amount of kids in the scene and they didn’t want the scene to give a wrong impression.

We have discussed to use other models such as a grandmother in a wheelchair and a man. This could show that there are different aged characters and we are not focusing only on young and middle aged people.

I dived into searching for suitable models for this “memory”. The main issue was that the character has to be rigged for the better animation and it has to be suitable for the VR so it has to have a low polygon amount.

I have found a few models and waited for the opinion of other group members:

While I waited for the response of others, I have started to work on another “memory” – a kid is playing with the toy while their mother grabs them and walks away.

At first I had to rig the characters and after I have created some references to better understand the movement:

Collaborative Unit

Week 10:

This week’s meeting was concentrated on the sound design for the project.

We created an asset list will all the sounds we will possibly need for our animations. From my side I specifically paid attention to the scanning machine animation as it will need lots of digital sounds as well as voices on the hands owners and environmental background noise.

We have also discussed this animation and I showed the current version. Although I got a great feedback on the animation itself, I have been told that it has to be done again. The main issue is that the models have to have full bodies so the player can see them fully. The models I have received before didn’t include other parts rather than the hands. It means that I will need to start this animation from the beginning.

Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 1

Week 10: Final Previs

In the final previs I added provisional sounds and music that will be mastered in the last steps.

I have also tried to add an actual character to the scene to see how it will look together:

The other problem that I am excited to look into is the process of making gathering of fireflies. In the previs it looks like this:

But for the final animation I will try to make it look like this:

Robot Arm:

Thesis Proposal

Week 9-10: Literature Review Final

Post author By Veronika Butkevich
Post date 10th March 2023
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Does gender representation in the industry influence animation?

Abstract:

Over the years gender representation in animated films has significantly increased. Not only female characters started to appear in the lead roles but their characteristics have also evolved from the basic social stereotypes. The change towards equality has been also seen in the industry itself. This paper will study if there is a direct relationship between gender representation in the industry and on screen.

Literature review:

The following literature review is going to be divided into three parts. The first part will cover the topic of the underrepresentation of females in the industry and its improvement over time, the second part covers the increase of female representation in animated films and the last part will discover a connection between gender representation in the industry and on screen.

Jobs in the animation industry have been gender-segregated from the start. The creative departments in most studios were handled by men, while women were limited to the drawing and painting department, where the work was mostly uncreative (Furniss, 2000). Over time women started to take more job positions, however inequality still exists. From 2014-2018, the gender ratio of males to females across head positions was 8.5 to 1 (Smith, Choueiti, Pieper, Clark, 2019). A bigger gender gap is in such roles as directors, writers, and producers (Smith, Choueiti, Choi, Pieper, 2019). Even though gender inequality in the industry is still on a high level, the number of women working on films and taking top positions have significantly increased.

From the early animation films, women were represented in a very stereotypical way with exaggerated features and primary as a side character. Although, in the modern time only 20 (17%) of the 120 top animated features from 2007-2018 had a female lead or co lead (Smith, Choueiti, Choi, Pieper, 2019), the female representation in animated films as well as the number of female leads have increased.

The last part of the paper will combine two previous paragraphs to understand if there is a connection between increase of women taking positions in the industry and female representation on screen. The presence or absence of the connection will be reinforced by two statistics: one of them will show top animation films with female leads and/or better female representation and the percentage of women working on these films, and the other will illustrate top animation films with male leads and the percentage of women working on them.

The main purpose of the paper is to find out if gender representation in the industry influences gender representation in the animation films. If so, this paper will prove that gender equality and more diverse representation will benefit the industry and is a right way to move forward.

Bibliography:

Smith, S.L., Choueiti, M., Choi, A., & Pieper, K. (2019). ‘Inclusion in the Director’s Chair: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, & Age of Directors Across the Top Films From 2007-2018,’ USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved from: http://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inclusion-in-the-directors-chair-2019.pdf

Smith, S.L., Choueiti, M., Pieper, K. & Clark, H. (2019). Increasing Inclusion in Animation. Investigating Opportunities, Challenges, and the Classroom to the C-Suite Pipeline,’ USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved from: https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inclusion-animation-201906.pdf

Furniss, M. (2000). ‘“Color and Line” in Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics,’ London: John Libbey. Rev. edition: 71-74.

Collaborative Unit

Week 9: Film Studies

In the class we learned about face capturing:

In the collaboration project I continued working on the scanning machine animation. Although we had some changes.

Instead of the previous model of the scanning machine we decided to use a different one:

We decided to put the animation in the middle on the scene to be visible for a viewer.

I have worked on improving the animation and make is as believable as possible:

Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 1

Week 9: Previs

This week I have worked on other shots to make them look better. I cleared some movement of the character and improved timing of the shots.

For the shot 2 I decided to give more space for the lip movement: when a firefly sits on the face of the character, it irritates the lip and eventually it will make the character wake up and sit down.

Here is the timing before:

And after:

The same change happened to the Scene 3 – I added more time for the character to look around and at themselves.

In the Scene 4 I added more time in the end of the scene.

In the Scene 8 I added the camera focus change. However, it gives a strange stroke to the background while playblasting. It doesn’t occur in the actual render.

When rendered:

I have also added another final scene – a detail on the character.

Thesis Proposal

Week 8: Literature Review Abstract

Post author By Veronika Butkevich
Post date 3rd March 2023
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Abstract:

Collaborative Unit

Week 8: Realtime Technologies

Post author By Veronika Butkevich
Post date 3rd March 2023
No Comments on Week 8: Realtime Technologies

In the class we had an industry talk about creative computing. Important books for the topic:

For the collaboration project we have agreed on dismissing a diary and a poster idea and instead focus on the hand scanner. The animation will consist of a child’s hand being gently placed into the scanner by adult hand. This will be also accompanied with voices to make the idea more clear.

I have finally received models that I can use for the animation. It includes the hands and the scanner:

For the purpose of a better animation I have filmed a reference:

I was able to create a rough animation for this “memory”:

The purpose was to show an emotion only with the hands. The kid is supposed to be afraid since they has never done anything like that before but their parent tried to calm them and gently put their hand on the scanner.

Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 1

Week 8: Previs

This week I have also made new changes to a few shots.

In the 5th shot I’ve added movement to the bugs as we discussed last week.

First of all, I added a few elements in the 6th scene to make the movement more interesting and natural. I’ve also added a stone in the left bottom for the better composition.

I have also changed rocks in the Scene 7 which gives a bit more interesting composition and shows movement of both the character and bugs as well as it enables to play with the camera focus – at first only bugs will be in focus and then the character.