Category: Advanced and Experimental 3D computer Animation Techniques

This week I made more details of the character, again using Maya to create the general shape of the hair; I wanted the character’s hair to look like clay material and didn’t intend to make it hairy, as the design of the art style I will make the hair glow.
I imported the basic model into Zbrush to sculpt the details and created some textures to make it look like a bundle of hair that had been tied up.
(The detail is barely visible after I add the glowing material to the hair..)
Similarly, I made the basic ear shape in Maya and then sculpted the details in Zbrush.
I also tried to make flippers for the character’s hands, but again, it needed to be made in a transparent material, so I abandoned that design.
I created more detail on the face, separated the upper and lower lips, and hollowed out the mouth.
Once the model was complete, I imported it into Maya and started topology, turning on symmetry mode and topping up the whole head, beginning with the eyes, then linking it to the chest, back, arms, and gradually the tail, which was a lot of work as I needed to think about the correct number and position of each line.
Similarly, I made the ears and hair, which will be imported into unreal as a low-poly model of the character.
The next step was to cut the UVs; I split the material into three parts: hair, eyes, and body.

The basic process of making hair

finish the basic model

import to Zbrush

starting made some details

The basic process of making hair

made the detail of ears

Spikes on the elbow, a means of protection for the mermaid

Flippers

Details on the face

Parting of the lips

low poly model topology

Face effect

Link the chest

Making Hands

Making the arms, linking the chest

Finishing the elbow line neatly

Topological body model

Make hair and ears in the same way

UV cropping

Acting

After checking with my teacher, I thought my reference needed to be improved dynamically, and there were too many movements pointing.
I indicated that I might need to focus more on my mermaid project, which my teacher understood and allowed me only need to make 3 seconds of animation.

At the teacher’s request, I needed to annotate the phrase:

And I found a model I liked for this animation, Zelda from Tears of the Kingdom. This flexible model was made by a YouTuber as a tutorial.

My job this week was to make a character model; I used Maya to make the most basic shape and then added details to this shape.
I used Zbrush to add detail, and as I kept using Zremesher, my model became a high-holy model.
At the same time, I put my design into Zbrush to check the scale of the character, and I found a big difference between 3d and 2d and that sometimes you can’t make the body exactly to 2d scale.
I used Zbrush’s default hand model to save time and modified it.
Face sculpting is particularly difficult as I needed to give the character the characteristics of a fish and still make her look good, and as we all know, the fish man just does not look good…
I also focused on the muscles, including the abs and the muscles on the shoulders, to make the character fit a whale shark’s character and make her look well-built.
I modeled her fins on those of the whale shark, which was a bit fiddly to sculpt, but worked out well, and the whale shark’s fins looked hard, so I carved them with sharp edges.

I learned this week that it’s tough to get a 3d model to look exactly like a 2d drawing…

The basic bady

Importing 2d designs into Zbrush to control the scale of the model

However, the model’s scale was not good according to the 2D design, so I changed it a bit.

It’s really hard to get a good sculpted face, especially with a flat nose

Because fish don’t need noses, and if I remove the nose, it may look like Voldemort …. that would be too creepy, so I changed it to a flat nose.

(What a perfect chest and abs)

Only a few changes were needed this week. What I found interesting was that a few details were changed to make the character’s behavior more vivid and to gradually show that this is a timid, naughty, and very mobile child.

To summarise what needs to be changed:

1. The movement of the hips is still unnatural and needs to be changed
2. Modify the problem of sliding feet
3. Some movements are not exaggerated enough

My shortcoming may be that it is difficult to exaggerate some of the movements. I subconsciously think that real humans do not make such movements, so it’s hard to make the animation achieve good results.

This is the result

This week I imported all the models into the scenes made by the group and, linked the materials and textures, set up a few effects shots, and they turned out pretty well.

I adjusted the angle and position of some of the stones and used Unreal’s terrain mode to change the shape of the ground to make it more suitable for the scene.

I also tried posing a few shots, and the results have been great.
I imported the prepared model into Unreal, created new textures, and linked the texture of this model to each material page.

An overhead view of the whole scene

The outliner in unreal

Camera testing

Imported models and textures

Terrain pattern in Unreal

I also recorded a first view of the underwater, which worked very well

This week my teacher gave me feedback, and it turned out that many things could have been improved with each revision. Although they were all small and minor details, my animation became more vivid because of these details.
To summarise what my teacher needed me to change this time:

1. The movement of the character needs to be more significant. It is still very stiff and needs to be revised.
2. When the character raises one foot, the hips must be slightly lowered.
3. Keep your head looking in the same direction
4. when the character moves. Other parts have some delay and drag.
5. Add some necessary intermediate frame movements

This is a note from my teacher

This is the effect of the change：

And according to the teacher’s request, we drew a draft of the following assignment and filmed the reference using ourselves as models. This time, the assignment was to make an animation based on lines 3-8 seconds long.
I felt so shy …..
So before you can be a good animator, you must be a good actor？
But I have to say this method can create accuracy and can significantly improve the animation’s accuracy.
Although Im really shy about acting this.

This week I am still working on the stone models, and although I have completely mastered the method, the stones take a lot of time to carve, and this has made my week very tedious and tiring.
Meanwhile, my classmate has finished building the general scene for UE5, and now what is needed more is my design of the scene and the models in the background. I have made many underwater things simultaneously, such as water plants, sea snails, corals, etc., so she does not waste time, and I have also drawn the general look. To save time, I designed the details at a reference, the final items that needed to be made were these:
Water plants, moss, conch, coral, jellyfish (do it if have extra time) and fish
All these things need to glow, so she is working on the glowing materials for the scene.

Draft design (undersea scenes are references)

Removing the design of the underwater scenes

The stone models made this week

This is the model sculpted in zbrush

Draw a texture for each stone

All textures

This week all worked in the same way as last week, so no particular techniques need to be explained, and our underwater scenes are taking shape, which gives me a great sense of achievement.

This week I revised my animation and checked it with my teacher, who was very generous and patient in giving me lots of advice.

To summarise what the teacher has asked to be changed:

1. The body and head will be delayed to varying degrees when the character moves
2. The character’s waist and hips move in a figure-8 trajectory
3. Removal of the hand propping on the floor
4. Lift the body before the head when the character bends down and gets up
5. Baseball bats should fly faster
6. In a scared pose, the character’s upper body should sway with the shaking.
7. Characters should run away faster

Here’s the effect after the change.
Blocking is an exciting way to make basic animation. I rarely animate this way, which may also be why my animation could not be more varied.
Blocking helps me to see more visually if each movement is appropriate so that my teacher can give me more straightforward feedback.

I submitted the assignment last week and got 38 corrections from my teacher …..
I was shocked to see this number…
But each suggestion was pertinent, making the movement more exciting and smooth to follow.
My summary of my teacher’s suggestions is these:

Note the delayed movement of the character in different body positions on each action.
Some movements are not entirely natural, mark them and change it
Remove frames where some body parts move individually
Bugs in the middle movements, e.g., hands coming off the bat
The escape move was not added. The teacher gave some hints on how to do it, so follow the teacher’s instructions

Based on the teacher’s comments, here is the result after the change. I have added a simple background to the character and will gradually improve the details of this background later on：

This week I’ve been working on the rock model, and because of time constraints, I’ve used the free modeling resources I found as a base to re-model the stone using Zbursh on top of that to make the look of the stone simpler and more stylized for the Cel-shading style.

I made two sets of stones in total, which needed to be reshaped, so it was very time-consuming.

The way I make the stones is as follows:
1, reduce the number of faces in the model, keeping only the approximate shape.
2, add planes to this and sculpt with Zbrush.
3、Adding details to the model
4, Re-edit the lines with Zremesher
5、Reducing the number of faces of the model with z-plug
6、Export low-poly

Next, I needed to import the model into the Substance Painter to draw the texture. I started by baking the normal mapping using the high-poly model I had just created and then using the textures to add texture, desired effect to the model.

This is me adding texture to the stone model with different materials.

This is a technique for outlining the edges of the model, which brings the model closer to the Cel-shading effect.

Render in Substance Painter to see the rendering of the texturing.

Export the texture.

Use the same method for the rest of the stones

In the meantime, I have created a rough Previs of the general animation using the free resource model. Here is the result:

I added the environmental element to my teacher’s advice, who felt that my animation needed clarity, so I prepared two identical scenes to show the ocean before and after pollution.