Level 5 3D Animations

Overview/Goal

In this second year module, we were tasked with creating the following four animations:

• A lipsync to an audio of our choice using a premade-up rig (blendshapes and bones) (15 seconds / 375 frames)
• A bouncy ball course animation (10 seconds / 250 frames)
• A character interacting with an object conveying weight (10 seconds / 250 frames)
• 2 characters dancing or fighting (10 seconds / 250 frames)

Media/Gallery

Final

Final Showreel

Progress 

Contribution

My Role

Tools used

Modelling + Animation

• 3ds Max for Modelling and Animation (Keyframes, Morph targets etc.)

Rendering

• 3ds Max Scanline render
• Unreal Engine Cinematic toolset for the 3 other animations

Reflection

I really enjoyed working on this module! It got me comfortable with a more complex workflow using Unreal for rendering rather than natively rendering in 3ds Max. This did introduce new issues with importing/exporting that took a bit of a toll on the final result, especially with the ball animation missing planned parts due to morph targets not being exported correctly.

As for specific animations, the fight scene is my favourite by far. I had several ideas for what the fight could be and started animating some, but once I came up with the giant vs rogue idea everything clicked and I really enjoyed playing with the scale and appeal of the characters. The rogues little cocky nod and sassy hip pose alongside the giants threatening stomp is my favourite example of this.

The lipsync was very fun to work on with the freedom of picking an audio clip and just pure experimentation with expressions, although it was good practice for phonemes!