All posts by Muyuyang Huang

Advanced & Experimental, Previs_George's Session, Term2

Previs2 — What is previsualization

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Previsualization, often abbreviated as previs, is the process of planning and visualizing scenes before full-scale production begins, especially in film, animation, and visual effects. It involves creating rough versions of shots or sequences—usually using 3D models, simple animations, or storyboards—to help directors, cinematographers, animators, and other team members understand how a scene will look and function.

In the early days of the film industry, directors and storyboard artists typically relied on static images resembling comic strips to design storyboards. With the advancement of computer graphics technology and the support of 3D software, professionals were able to conduct detailed simulations of object movements and special effects within scenes, thereby obtaining precise visual previews. This allowed for necessary adjustments to be made in advance, thus preventing the waste of resources and shooting time during formal production.

This is particularly significant in the field of 3D animation, which is entirely computer-generated. It could be argued that the sole distinction between a refined 3D Previs and a final product lies in the rendering process. By continuously refining the Previs, animation directors can make informed decisions regarding the final output quality of the animation during the early stages of the project and address any deficiencies in a timely manner.

In (3D) Animation

In animation, previs helps plan:

  • Character performance and choreography
  • Shot continuity
  • Visual flow of scenes
  • Integration of complex camera moves or effects

After Previsualization (Previs) gained increasing popularity in the film industry, the scope and complexity of the information it encompasses have also expanded significantly. Nowadays, it is feasible to simulate virtually every aspect of a live-set environment within Previs, including camera movement angles, object destruction effects, explosion dynamics, and more. This advancement has substantially minimized the likelihood of rework in film and animation production while establishing new standards for industrial workflows.

Advanced & Experimental, Previs_George's Session, Term2

Previs — 1. MISE-EN-SCÈNE

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As discussed in the previous term, MISE-EN-SCENE, as a professional term in the film and television industry, refers to the arrangement and design of film and television scenes. In this stage, the art and set design personnel need to coordinate and arrange the following numerous aspects:

1.Costumes and props

  1. Hairstyle and makeup
  2. Facial expressions and body language
  3. Lighting
  4. Role Scheduling

In 3D animation, the entire world is virtual. Compared with the set setting work in the real world, animation directors can arrange scene props, lighting, etc. more freely.

1.Determine the shot size

For the same scene, employing different shot sizes will yield entirely distinct expressive effects. For instance, close-ups are typically utilized to highlight a person’s face, amplify their inner emotions, or emphasize specific details. Meanwhile, medium shots and long shots are generally employed to depict spatial relationships between characters as well as between characters and the environment. Each shot size carries unique significance, and mastering the skill of arranging and applying transitions between different shot sizes in a reasonable manner is crucial.

2. Golden Ratio in Film Composition

The golden ratio is a fundamental concept in mathematics and is intricately linked to the Fibonacci sequence. The compositional principles derived from the golden ratio also play a significant role in the domains of painting and photography. Similar to filmmaking, when creating 3D animations, it is essential to consider the composition of each shot to ensure that the characters and objects within the frame are positioned in aesthetically pleasing ways.

Previsualization

After acquiring a solid understanding of the fundamental principles of picture composition, you can proceed to create storyboards and develop previsualizations based on them. Previsualization, or previs, is essentially a dynamic representation of the narrative structure, emphasizing the organization and linkage of shots while effectively showcasing the practical application of shot language in final productions. The next article will introduce in detail what Previs is.

3DCA Fundamentals, Maya

WEEK 6 – 8: Walking Cycle

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Walking cycle is one of the basic movements in character animation, but also one of the most difficult movements. Making walking loops is an essential exercise for any animator. So for three weeks, from week 6 to week 8, we trained on 3D animation of the character walking cycles.

reference for walking cycle

In the walking cycle, the actions in a cycle can be divided into four states, namely contact, down, passing and up. From the side view, the figure’s center of gravity moves up and down in a sinusoidal manner.

plan of walking cycle

Here is a blocking animation of walking cycle that I made in week 6.

This is the spline animation based on the blocking version in week 7, but there are obvious problems, for example the function of parameter TransZ does not fit into a straight line resulting in a kind of “twitch” of the object’s displacement in the Z direction.

The gif shows the version submitted in Week 8. There are still many details that need to be further improved, and I will solve them gradually in the future training.

3DCA Fundamentals, Unreal Engine 5

WEEK 11: Render & Composition

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Step 7: Render in UE5

After setting up the scene and lighting, the next step is rendering. For detailed rendering parameter Settings, I refer to the following video.

(Compared to Maya’s Arnold renderer, UE5’s rendering speed and image quality are much faster XD)

Step 8: Composition & Sound effects

According to my personal habits, I edited the video in AfterEffects, restored and calibrated the color space, and then add sound effects in PR, thus completing the entire film production.

3DCA Fundamentals, Unreal Engine 5

WEEK 8 – 10: Rigging, Animation & Scene design

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Step 3: Rigging

Once I finished texture painting, the next step is the rigging my model. I usually use the ADV plug-in in Maya for rigging, although in the course we introduced the Control Rig system in UE5, but I really need more practice on it, so I still choose to use the ADV plug-in to complete the robot rigging in this project.

Rigging in Maya with the plug Advanced Skeleton

Step 4: Scene design

I chose a UE5 factory scene asset, selected the model needed, and redesigned the texture in substance painter to match the visual style I had envisioned.

Once the components redesign is complete, the models are imported into Maya and ready for character animation.

Step 5: Animation

After integrating the model and building the scene, the next step is to do character animation and add camera animation.

Step 6: Import scene from Maya to UE5

Once the scene was built in Maya, the next step was to import the scene to UE5 for lighting and other rendering Settings, and in this step, especially the transfer of animation files, I encountered technical difficulties that took a lot of time to resolve. First I tried to export the FBX sequence of the character animation, but after doing so, the following problem occurred:

The animated sequences were strangely stretched, and the models were wildly split.

Unfortunately, even when I finally asked the technician for help, it didn’t resolve the problem, so I had to use another export solution: the alembic cache file.

way to export alembic cache file in Maya

Before exporting, follow the following Settings:

  1. Merge all meshes
  2. Optimize the model, especially the non-standard mesh
  3. Select the options shown in the following figure in the alembic cache export window

Once the abc file has been successfully imported into UE, you can open the animation cache file, which should have the same number of material slots as in Maya, and paste the corresponding material in to get the correct animation sequence.

3DCA Fundamentals, Unreal Engine 5

WEEK7: Project initiation: Character design

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For the final assignment of this semester, my idea is to make an animated short film that depicts the robot escaping from the assembly line to pursue freedom after awakening its self-consciousness, focusing on action performance.

Step 1: Reference collection

I wanted to make a cute robot character, a humanoid robot with science fiction characteristics, so I started to refer to some cute Q version of the robot image. Transformers, as a classic robot IP image, inspired me in character design. I extracted some design languages from the classic characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee respectively to design the following role.

mood board for character design

Step 2: Modeling & Texture painting

Based on the above inspiration, I designed this robot character (which looks like a combination of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee XD).

Three Views

The next step is UV unwrapping, I finished this step in Rizom UV. Then, I drew the material of the robot in substance painter. In this selection, I referred to the yellow color of Bumblebee. At the same time, the UDIM workflow allowed me to design some details on the texture, such as LOGO painted on the surface and scratches on the metal painted material.

UV unwrapping in Rizom UV

Texture painting in Substance Painter

In the next chapter, I’ll cover the process of rigging model with the advanced skeleton plug-in in Maya, and introduce the workflow I used for environment design.

Unreal Engine 5

WEEK6 —- Control Rig

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The new Modular Control Rig system in UE 5.4 makes the rigging process much more easier that the traditional 3D workflow. This revolutionary tool steamlines the rigging process, allowing UE user to quickly set up a robust animation rig for ant character or skeleton.

With the Modular Control Rig, artists no longer need to spend days or weeks building complex rigs from scratch. Instead, they can quickly assemble a fully functional rig using pre-built components, each designed to handle a specific part of the character’s anatomy. This modular approach not only speeds up the rigging process but also ensures consistency across multiple characters or projects.

To get started with the Modular Control Rig, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new Modular Control Rig asset
  2. Assign the character skeleton to the rig
  3. Drag and drop modular components onto the character’s sockets

Create Control Rig Asset

1. right-click on your Skeletal Mesh Asset and select Create > Control Rig. This creates a Control Rig Asset in the same directory with the postfix _CtrlRig. Double click the Asset to open it.

Remember to manually assign the Skeletal Mesh to your Control Rig Asset after opening. This is done by clicking Import Hierarchy in the Rig Hierarchy tab, then specifying your Skeletal Mesh.

Rig Hierarchy

The Rig Hierarchy panel is used to view and select your control hierarchy in an outliner-type view. This is also the primary area to create new Controls, Bones, and Nulls.

Create these elements by right-clicking in the panel and selecting New > Control, Bone, or Null. Your selection determines the location where these elements are created. If nothing is selected, then new elements will be created at the origin (0,0,0).

Unreal Engine 5

WEEK5 — UE physics

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Chaos Physics is a light-weight physics simulation solution available in Unreal Engine, built from the ground up to meet the needs of next-generation games. The system includes the following major features(Unreal Engine Community, 2024):

  • Destruction
  • Networked Physics
  • Chaos Visual Debugger
  • Rigid Body Dynamics
  • Rigid Body Animation Nodes and Physical Animation
  • Cloth Physics and Machine Learning Cloth Simulation
  • Ragdoll Physics
  • Vehicles
  • Physics Fields
  • Fluid Simulation
  • Hair Physics
  • Flesh Simulation

The class mainly introduced the collision, Destruction and Rigid Body Animation system in UE 5.4.

Rigid-body dynamics

Chaos Physics provides many features for rigid-body dynamics. This includes collision responses, physics constraints, and damping and friction. In addition, it provides asynchronous physics simulation and networked physics.

Physics Fields

The Physics Field System provides a tool to directly affect Chaos Physics simulations at runtime on a specified region of space. These fields can be configured to influence the physics simulation in a variety of ways, such as exerting force on rigid bodies, breaking Geometry Collection Clusters, and anchoring or disabling fractured rigid bodies.

Similar to the concept of “domain” in C4D and Houdini, Physics Fields make a large number of objects interact with the mechanical environment in the scene by simulating force fields, so as to make regular movements that simulate real physical laws.

Fields are set up by creating a Field System Component Blueprint and specifying which systems are allowed to query your field. You can configure a field as a World Field to allow Materials and Niagara systems to sample the Field. You can also configure it as a Chaos Field to allow Geometry Collections and other physics objects to interact with it(Unreal Engine Community, 2024).

Reference

Epic Developer Community. (2024). Physics In Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.4 Documentation. [online] Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/physics-in-unreal-engine.