Conclusion

 

Overall, I am fairly happy with the final animation. The character I have created is original and I feel would appeal to 4-14 year olds. It also attempts to convey the message of "Make the best of a bad situation”. No matter how many times the blob is knocked down or trodden on, he gets up and moves on. When he realises he can’t get the cake, he is still happy and celebrates his birthday.

The character itself finds ways to show it’s emotion, despite it’s lack of a face. Most of the expression comes from the eyes, but it also shows some human characteristics (yawning, gulping, smiling etc.) as well as animal expressions (wagging it’s “tail”). It has characteristic cartoon motions as well (the eyes growing and shrinking depending on the danger, the jumping for joy at the sight of something it wants).

The character is immediately shown as friendly in the intro sequence as he waves at the camera. His dream of the cake is realised pretty quickly, by his excitement when seeing it. His fears are also pretty obvious, shown in the eyes. His special skill is to be able to transform into most things it sees, and can take a lot of punishment.

This character has potential to be a main character of a story, but more likely will fit as a sidekick.

I had several problems during development that I noted in the individual scenes. Although creating emotion in such an undefined shape was pretty tricky. My first attempts proved promising, but by the time I realised it was harder than it seemed, it was too late to change it or the methods I used. I managed to create some character, and definitely made something that you can feel for.

Some improvements I would like is the ability to manipulate his body to form a mouth. I attempted to use a higher number of control points on a FFD Box, but it caused a large amount of lag on my system. I had a go at using the morpher tool, but had issues with the FFD Box, as it is used so much in the animation and I couldn’t really remove it.

The animation itself I’m proud of, and involved a fair bit of research to get it to the final version. Although it could definitely be improved, the character has been created and the concept is there.

Compilation

I imported all of the assets into Adobe Premier Pro, and positioned the scenes how I wanted them. The total time of the animation is about 1 minute 4 seconds for just the clips. The beginning and end add about 16 seconds. I chose to make the beginning blank so the viewer can focus on the music for a few seconds, and get the feel of the animation first.

The sound effects were added, and the animation was exported as a .f4v file to save space, but preserve quality.

Sounds

 

I added background music which gives a sense of mysteriousness and wondering. – Looking in The Air – Mike Vekris (www.freesoundtrackmusic.com)

The following are sounds to add effect:

Eye “pop” - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=108616

Yawn - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=34936 (PitchShifter and EQ effects)

“Squish” - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=47340

Knock - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=36789

Thud - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=108617

Happy birthday music - http://www.nifter.com/music_tracks_loops/birthday_songs/music_box2_happy_birthday_NifterDotCom.wav

All sounds are royalty-free.

Changes

 

Scene 2

The blob now yawns as he is coming out of the drain. Before there was a lack of any facial movement. He raises his arms and his mouth goes in (breathes in).

Scene 6

When the candle raises, and the camera zooms out, the camera wags like a dog’s tail when he’s happy.

Other features

 

Lighting

The lights in the scene were fairly consistent. Since I didn’t want there to be shadows in the scene, to maintain an aspect of cartoonism. It is mainly the default lighting that comes with 3DS Max 2010.

Skybox

The sky is a simple skybox, with a sphere surrounding the scene. It has a material that is self illuminated and 2-sided.

Materials

There is a mix of semi-realistic and cartoony materials in the scenes. The road, drain and pavement have semi-realistic textures that are controlled with a UVW Map and Multi/sub object. This was done so that the viewer can distinguish the scene.

The rest of the scene is block colours, to give it a complete cartoony feel.

http://www.cgtextures.com/getfile.php/AsphaltCloseups0063_2_S.jpg?id=28318&s=s&PHPSESSID=ba90cdcfb6220a89721de975b4de7af4

http://www.cgtextures.com/getfile.php/AsphaltCloseups0113_2_S.jpg?id=59339&s=s&PHPSESSID=ba90cdcfb6220a89721de975b4de7af4

http://www.cgtextures.com/getfile.php/MetalBare0032_M.jpg?id=5493&s=m&PHPSESSID=ba90cdcfb6220a89721de975b4de7af4

http://www.cgtextures.com/getfile.php/Roads0060_3_S.jpg?id=36892&s=s&PHPSESSID=ba90cdcfb6220a89721de975b4de7af4

Final scene (6)

Animation

The blob nuzzles the side of the bowl as it realises it can’t get in. It then moves back slightly and transforms on it’s own into a cake. A candle then appears.

The camera is mainly fixed, and zooms out towards the end.

Character

The blob nuzzles the glass affectionately as if it desires what is inside, but know he can’t get it. As he transforms, the candle rises and it becomes apparent that it’s his birthday. his eyes are placed to give him a happy, but defiant look.

Changes

Initially there was no candle.

Table Scene (5)

Animation

In this scene, the blob finally gets to the cake. He enters the scene hopping towards the table. He stops, and a football hits the side of the table, making the legs collapse. There are a few cartoonish moments here where the table hangs in mid-air, and you see the blob’s eyes duck down, expecting the impact. The table just misses him, and the cake falls next to him. He turns to get it, but the glass bowl lands on top of it, blocking access. He ‘gulps’ and the scene ends.

The animation is done using keyframing, and FFD Box later on in the scene.

The camera is very active in this scene. First it starts off from the cake, and moves round to give a good view of the football hitting the table. It then moves to see the blob’s reaction, and zooms in at the end.

Character

This scene has the most emotion shown in the animation. Firstly, as the table is about to drop, the eyes grow big and duck down inside the body, as if for protection. When it misses, the eyes shrink and the tongue (eyebrows) raise as he smiles.

When he moves towards the cake and is blocked, he pushes up against it and ‘gulps’ in frustration.

Changes

Initially, there were no expressions, and the camera angle wasn’t good enough to get a good view of the reactions I added in.