Unit 67: 3D Animation Task 2

The Animation
https://youtu.be/iWZ0AcYA8K8

My animation is around 35 seconds long and involves animations point of view being abducted by a spaceship, and meeting with the leader of the Klowns. Within the animation there are Klowns moving, along with one walking towards the camera before kneeling down next to the camera. There are also hand movements for multiple Klowns along with head motions. Finally, there is also an animation for the spaceship flying down for the abduction.

The first thing that the player will see is that they are surrounded by defeated Klowns, which have been staged to make it seem like they have been defeated by the viewer themselves, to give the sense that viewer is the hero and that they have won the fight, giving a sense of victory. As they are panning around the room, one of the Klowns lifts his head. I did this to grab the attention of the viewer, and make them think that maybe all the Klowns are still alive. Due to the character being rigged and skinned, I used the rotate tool on his head joint to rotate his head round to look in the players general direction. This is also used as a reason to get the viewer to get a better look at the Klowns on the ground, and move closer to the still moving Klown. When the camera moves in towards the Klown, it makes it apparent that they weren't looking at the player, but instead past them. This gives an excuse for the camera to look towards the area the Klown is looking. I further signified that there was something behind the camera by moving the Klowns arm forward as if it was reaching towards something. The Klown's arm mo
ves in an arc to make it seem more realistic. I did this to build tension by making the viewer think that maybe another one of the Klowns has woken up behind them.

When the camera pans towards the area that the Klown has indicated, the player sees the spaceship in the distance. I used pose-to-pose animation to move the spaceship around the sky, making sure it moved around the sky and moved to the correct points. I also did this to make it seem like the spaceship was searching around, before seeing you and moving towards your position. It then moves towards the camera and there is a blinding light as the viewer is abducted.

When the viewer wakes up, they come face to face with a different Klown that looks to be asleep and tied down. I made sure that the camera takes in this fact to build up a sense of safety for the viewer, as they can't be in danger if the Klown is tied down. I used a lot of zooms to make the viewer think that there would be a jump scare at some point, which builds up the tension for the viewer as they think there might be something scary coming but they don't know when or where. As the player turns towards the Klown again, the Klown lifts it's head up. I used this as a form of anticipation, as it foretells that the Klown is now awake. There is also more anticipation as the Klown starts to break it's bonds, which tells the viewer that the Klown is going to break free and they are no longer safe. The camera moving back is there to insinuate that the viewer should be scared and should be trying to get away from this Klown.

The camera tries to get away by turning and moving backwards, which was done to show that there is no escape from the Klown. When the camera turns around they see that the Klown has stood up as is now walking towards the player. In order to animate this I used the straight ahead technique, by animating each frame of each body part in order to make the Klown walk more accurately. Furthermore, by swinging the arms as the Klown walks towards the camera adds some arcing movement along with making the movement seem more realistic as it happens. Once the Klown reaches the camera, it slows down to a stop, which adds realism as it makes sense for the character to slow down before it stops. Finally, the Klown kneels down in front of the player before two of the Klown's minions pop into the frame in order to have a bit of a jump scare and also show that the viewer is surrounded and they are not going to escape. The animation ends there to leave the viewer wondering what is going to happen to them next.

Evalution and Review

Overall, I'm quite happy with the animation that I have created. I think there is a good use of some of the 12 principles of animation. I think it captures the atmosphere of fear quite well, and I think the walking of the Klown is relatively well done. However, I had a problem getting the walking animation done due to the model that I was using, as it wasn't rigged very well which caused the movement to look odd as there were lots of things that had to be corrected between scenes. For example, the joints in the knees didn't move properly which meant a lot of the leg movements had to be done by moving the hips and feet into the right place and then correcting the knee placement. Furthermore, another problem that I found was that by using the camera as the point of view of the animation, I did limit the amount of things I could animate as that only reactions I could use were the movement of the camera. If I were to do this again I would probably use a stationary camera and use multiple characters so I could show more detailed reactions to make the animation much better. I would also use better models so that I could perform much more detailed movements and move the joints in more interesting way. Finally, the render came out a lot darker than in Maya, which works for the night sky, but the abduction doesn't work properly so that's something I would fix as well.
I do think that the atmosphere and the story that the animation tells is good though, as it builds up a lot of tension and has a good payoff at the end. Therefore, although there are things that I would change, I think that it isn't a bad attempt at an animation and I'm quite happy with the result.