Escape Studios AN5001: Refining & Rendering

In this module for Escape Studios, it is important to note that the animation I am creating is for the Rookies’ Knight Spider Animation Challenge. Because of this, I have two deadlines to keep in mind: the deadline of the AN5001 module, the week of writing this blog, and the deadline of the competition itself: January 14th 2022. This in turn means that I will have two versions of the animation. A version submitted this week to be marked by Escape Studios, and a version that will be refined further before eventually being submitted to the Rookies.

The main difference between the two would be that the version made for the Rookies would have no sound, and only the basic set provided in the contest scene, in accordance with the contest rules. On the suggestion of my tutors, however, the version submitted for Escape Studios would contain a more complex set as well as sounds for the action taking place. This will enhance the animation as a standalone piece, giving it context and entertainment value on its own.

Scene with set, for Escape Studios

Scene with no set, for Rookies

Before considering this, I first had to complete the breakdowns and fully describe the movement in each part of the animation, especially in the areas that had previously lacked detail such as the step backwards and the reaction to the first ball being thrown. The tool that assisted me greatly during this process was Animbot’s “Tween Machine”. Following the advice given, I created breakdowns between the key poses shown in the previous blog post until I had a key roughly every four frames on the relevant controls. Once this was done, I changed the tangents of the animation from “stepped” to “splined”. This gives a smoother motion more akin to the final animation, as the software is interpolating the position of the character between keys instead of keeping them still when there are no keys. This is the result:

I spent the majority of my time on the project refining this, working with splined animation instead of animation on stepped curves. This is because it allowed me to gain a better sense of timing, and made it easier to notice inconsistencies in the movement arcs of the limbs. In order to achieve the snappy timing that the animation needed, I made use of the Tween Machine tool to create keys that favoured the key poses, shortening the transitions between them. This was successful in making the movement seem faster and more purposeful.

After I was happy with the timing in a broad sense, I moved on to animating the facial features of the rig. I did not spend a large amount of time on animating the facial muscles and mouth, as the animation is a wide shot and therefore the face is not large on the screen. On top of this, the mouth on the Knight Spider rig is very small and de-emphasised, meaning that it is very hard to read at anything less than a close-up shot. The area of the face that did need attention were the eyes. In order to create convincing eye darts, I first changed the eye controller to be in the “World Space” meaning the eyes do not move when the head does. I then added some basic cubes into the scene to act as the off-screen characters throwing the ball. This assisted me in creating the illusion that the Knight Spider is looking at someone off-screen. It was necessary for me to animate the channel that switches the eyes' “Follow Head” channel on and off. This is because of an issue where the eyes of the rig popped out of the body during the falling action if the eyes did not follow the head during this. The result of mixing the two can be seen below, with the eyes in World Space for the first part of the animation and following the head for the second part.

By this time, the animation was mostly complete. I was able to make a few small adjustments to the timing and the animation on the hands before rendering my submission for the module.