Lab 6: Collaboration, Character, and Sound
IDS252: 3D Animation, Spring 2018

Goals

The goals of this lab are to:

• Collaborate with another person.
• Learn how to organize a complex, collaborative Maya project, including File Referencing!
• Use gesture and foley effects to convey emotion and tell a story. "Foley is the reproduction of everyday sounds for use in filmmaking."
• Continue to practice with pose-to-pose animation.
• Deliverable: A 15-20 second animation with 1 or 2 characters. Gesture and sound are used to tell the "story". See Evaluation Sheet (pdf).

Maya Tutorials

• The only required online tutorial is on File Referencing, but this one is VERY important. You only need to do the beginning part up to, but not including, the part on proxies. It is not very long. Copy the entire FileReferencing folder which can be found on cs-render in the folder:

  \IDS252Sp18\IDS252Resources\ Paste it wherever you plan on working.

  Note, the files graveyard.mb, zombiePlain.mb, and zombeShuffle.mb will not show any textures because, if you look in these files, you will see that the path names for the texture images are absolute paths and not relative paths (relative to the project folder). The absolute paths won't work for you because the paths are for whoever created the tutorial files.

  Instead, use the files ending with "Mod" (e.g. graveyardMod.mb) because these have been corrected to use relative paths. Take a moment to open both sets of files and look at the texture paths to make sure you understand the problem. This is a common problem and can cause a lot of headaches especially if you are copying your project folder to different places (or if you want to use the renderfarm).

  When you create references, you also want to be sure to use relative path names, especially if you plan to use the renderfarm.

  Set the project to the folder FileReferencing. Open up the graveyardMod.mb scene file. If the textures do not appear, you may not have set the project before opening the scene file. Note, you do not actually need to render anything but if you want to, and if you have rendering problems, consider using Maya Software rather than MentalRay.

  In Maya, go to Help → Tutorials → Maya Tutorials. Click on the link Getting Started with Maya 2015. In the contents, click on Getting Started with Maya, and then File Referencing and do Lesson 1: Using file references. Do not do the entire tutorial - only do up to, but not including, the part on proxies.

  The above tutorial will not be collected.

Renderfarm

You are encouraged to try out the Render Farm. It is best to try it first during lab time when you can ask for help.

Project Directions

• Pick a Partner: In this lab you will work with one other person. A goal of the lab is to learn how to work with other people; working alone on this lab is not an option.

• Folders: On cs-render, in folder \IDS252Sp18\Lab6\MayaProjects, create a folder whose name is derived from both partners' names, e.g. using last names. Place your Maya project and editing subfolders in this folder. There should be only one Maya project - it will contain the maya scene files for both partners.

  Also create a folder in \IDS252Sp18\Lab6\FinalAnimations with the same name you used for the folder in MayaProjects. When you have completed the lab, please copy your animation over to this folder. Name your quicktime animation file based on the names of both partners AND the initials of the musician(s). Also place your final colaboration form and storyboards in this folder. These will be described below.

• Foley: The animation should contain two or more foley sounds. A variety of foley sounds are available in the folder \IDS252Sp18\Lab6\FOLEY. You may use any of the sounds.

• The Animation: The animation should be a brief scenario lasting 15-20 seconds with 1 or 2 characters. Use the foley sound to direct what the scene is about. Listen to the sounds you have been chosen and brainstorm ideas about what these sounds represent. Keep the scenerio simple. It is better to have high quality animation that is simple and expressive than to have a complex but awkward animation. The focus should be on gesture and sound.

• Characters: The characters should be chosen from the rigged characters: Bloke, Bony, or Andy. It is suggested that you do not use Moom since his textures are problematic with MentalRay.

  Andy (short for “androgynous”) is a character you haven't seen so far. The rig has the advantage that one can select different parameters to give the appearance of a girl/boy/man/woman, for example:

   

  If you use Andy, you can find the files on cs-render in the folder \IDS252Sp18\IDS252Resources\Rigs\AndyFiles. Note, you need to copy the Andy scene file (andyRigv1.4.6.ma) into your own project's scenes folder and you need to copy all of the files/folder in the sourceimages files into your own project's sourceimages folder. If you don't see the textures when you open the scene file, it is because you either placed the sourceimages in the wrong place or you did not first set the project.

  If you plan on having more than one character in your scene, make sure they are distinguishable either by using a different rigged character or by changing the appearance of one of them. For example, if you have 2 blokes, you can change the color or give one of them a hat.

• Environment: The environment should be minimal, e.g. containing only a few objects (if any) other than the characters themselves. Any objects that do appear should be there for a reason, i.e. they should play a part in the interaction or in setting the mood or scene. Shading and texturing can be minimal, however, do pay attention to lighting and to a choice of color scheme.

• Camera: It is recommended that you use only a few stationary cameras with simple cuts as the transitions. Pay attention to continuity between cuts. It isn't necessary, but to manage the cameras, you may optionally want to use Maya's camera sequencer and ubercam .

• Storyboarding: Once you and your partner have decided on a scenerio, do the following:

  • Download the Lab 6 Collaboration Form (doc) and write out your scenario description in words (a few sentences or a paragraph is fine). The Shot List and Task List will be described below.
  • Once you have written the text, sketch out the primary actions (very rough storyboards) on paper. (See Storyboard resources.) It does not matter if you can't draw. Stick figures are ok. Pay attention to the camera location (framing) and relationship of the characters to each other and the camera (staging) as well as the characters' gesture (body pose/language). This is exploratory. The goal is to begin to hash out with your partner the visual elements of the story before you invest a lot of time implementing anything in Maya. Act out the scene to get an idea of the approximate timing. Remember, the final animation should be between 15 and 20 seconds. Indicate on the storyboards where the foley will be.
  • When you are ready to animate, you are to use these storyboards to block in the key frames using pose-to-pose animation.

• Division of Labor:

  The Collaboration Form is your contract with your partner. It identifies who will be doing what. By writing it out, you will avoid a lot of potential conflict and finger pointing down the road (believe me):

  • Task List: In your Collaboration Form, which so far contains your story description, you will see a Task List. Decide which partner will be responsible for which task and place their names into the appropriate slots. Note, the editor is the person responsible for putting the animation together in Adobe Premiere.
  • Shot List: Break the scenario into its "shots". A shot typically corresponds to a camera sequence (i.e. separated by cuts) but it can also just be a convenient spot for a transition (e.g. a character walks off the screen at the end of shot 1 and comes back at the beginning of shot 2). Each shot should be assigned to one of the partners. Each partner is responsible for all of the animation in their assigned shots. It is common in an animation for more than one animator to animate a particular character. If you feel strongly about changing this, consult with the instructor. In any case, each person must do some amount of animating - it is not ok for one person to do it all.

    Once you have decided the shot break down and who will do what, fill in the Shot List contained in your Collaboration Form. Be sure to fill out all columns of the form. The content may be modified as you go but it is important to have a starting point. If you do make changes, it is important that you update this form (make a new version rather than deleting the original).

• Project Setup:

  Once all of the above has been completed, you can now get started in Maya.

  • You and your partner are to create a single Maya project in which to work. There will generally be a different scene file for each shot but use your best judgement. All of the assets (characters, props, etc) should be in their own individual scene files. These assets will be referenced into the shot's scene file. Thus, there should be a separate scene file for each of the following:
    • Each character
    • Each prop
    • The environment (may contain all of the props which have been imported or referenced)
    • Each shot where each shot will reference (not Import!) the environment and the characters in that shot. When possible, avoid multiple levels of referencing (e.g. a file references a file which references a file ...). Before creating the references, be sure that the characters, props, and environment being referenced are cleaned up.
    • Make sure that all assets (e.g. textures, maya scenes, sounds, source images, etc) are somewhere inside the project folder.
    • Remember, don't use the default lambert material (lambert1) because Maya will get confused if different referenced files have a different "default" material. Instead, always create new material for your models. It is also recommended that you rename any materials you create so that you can identify them easily in the hypershade.
    • Display Layers: Learn how to use display layers so that you can focus on only the parts that you are working on (ask if you don't remember how to set these up).
    • Be careful - you and your partner should never have the same scene file open in Maya at the same time. If one person saves the file, it can delete the work of the other person.

Loading Music into Maya:

• Import the sound as you did in Lab 5. You can shift the sound so that it starts at a different frame by right clicking on the timeline, selecting Sound, and then selecting the small box to the right of the name of your sound. (see picture below) This will bring up the attributes for the sound. Change the Offset to move the sound to a different frame. For example, set Offset to 5, to shift the sound over by 5 frames.
• For the second sound, import it as you did the first. To see and manipulate the location of both sounds, it is probably easiest if you use the Trax Editor. Click on the timeline, select Sound, and then make sure that Use Trax Sounds is selected (it probably already is, but good to check). Now, open up the Trax Editor by going to the top menu Window → Animation Editors → Trax Editor. Click on the small arrow to the left of the word Soundtrack in order to open up the sound track and see your sounds. You can drag the sounds around using the mouse.
• When you render the animation in Adobe Premiere, you need to import and place the sounds at the right places. Depending on the animation, you may be able to do this easily by shifting the audio file with the mouse. However, if more precise placement is needed do the following:

  • In Maya, open up the preferences. In the Time Slider section, check the timecode box. This will allow you to see in the time slider both the # of frames and the associated time:

    

  • Jot down your Foley sound's offset (time or # of frames) as it appears in Maya's timeline. Use this time to align the audio in Adobe Premiere. Note, in Adobe Premiere, it is probably easiest to set the timeslider to use frames rather than time. However, if you use time, the units are hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. For example, if you are using 30 fps, the time of 00;00;02;8 corresponds to 2 seconds (i.e. 60 frames) plus 8 frames or, in other words, a total of 68 frames or 2.267 seconds.

Evaluation

Before beginning to animate, have the instructor review your storyboards and your completed Lab 6 Collaboration Form containing the story description, shot list, and task list.

On Friday Mar 2, place the following items on cs-render:

• In the \IDS252Sp18\Lab6\FinalAnimations folder, place your final animation.
• In the \IDS252Sp18\Lab6\MayaProjects folder, place the final version of your Collaboration Form and a copy of your storyboards. If they were hand-drawn, you can scan or photograph them. Please make sure they are readable. If you need help scanning, please ask!

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