Research into Digbeth (Heritage)

One of the first things I decided to do was research into Digbeth, and find out a little about its history. As a knew very little about Digbeth, other then the Custard factory. I was hoping by researching into Digbeth's history. I would gain some new ideas learning about Digbeth's  past. 

Widely regarded as the birthplace of Birmingham "Digbeth" was 1st settled upon in the 7th century by Beorma, who is alsothe founder of Birmingham which is Anglo-Saxon for Beorma's  home. The area where  there is a crossing on the River Rea  was the birthplace of what became the city. Historically the land to the west of the river was in the parish of Birmingham. This is Digbeth. The land to the east was in the more significant parish of Aston and is called Deritend. 

It is believe that Digbeth was originally called "Duck's bath"  in reflection of the water supply in the area, it has also been suggested that it came from Dragons breath, referring to air pollution during the industrial revolution.

During the late 19th century Digbeth had become one of the poorest areas in Birmingham. Poor quality houses, many of them in courts of back-to-back tearraces, were interpersed with industry. These  houses would later be demolished. People were moved out of  inadequate housing and the district was redefined as an industry zone.

Westley's 1731 map of Birmingham.

Narrative Construction, Adaptation and Interpretation

My first project in 2nd year is "Narrative Construction, Adaptation and Interpretation", For this task we would be working with the landscape architecture students in a group of three  consisting of one architecture student and two animators. The brief for this assignment was to create an 4-5 minute animation piece centered around a place in Birmingham called " Digbeth", as the brief for this task was pretty open this would give us room to experiment and create something that is hopefully new and original.

Maya 3D animation

Here is my final animation!

O Sorry, that was my rendering test, Here is my final animation! 

Okay, so I am happy with my animation, however I do believe it could have come out better. The main problem I have with it, and what I have been told from feedback. Is that the brightness burns out most of the detail on the objects. This apply specifically to the domines falling, because of the transparency you can not see them falling as you should. I like the cartoonie radiant look of it however, the lack of shadows (basically none) is not what I wanted. 


So the main mistake I made in this animation was in rendering. I rendered my animation in metal ray however, I failed to check the rendering settings which would have allowed me to  lower the brightness. This mistake also caused my animation to take a longer and because rendering had taken such a long time I did not have time to render it again.

Maya Animating/Filming

I first animate the objects in my animation and the filmed it. I used the perspective view to animate the objects  once this was complete I filming it with the camera. 

Perspective view where I can see
where the camera  is and move it
in the scene.

Camera panel this shows me what the
 camera will film.  

The graph editor was another tool, I used this to add weight to the bowling ball as it fall down the stairs and adjust the movement of the ball. 

The graph editor is not an easy tool to use. As I struggle to use it to get the result I wanted. The wave on the graph gives you an idea of how the ball rolls down the stairs. Adding curving and points to the line effected how it would falI. I made adjustments to the line but however was not able to get the weight and fall of the perfect I am however fairly pleased with the out come.  

I enjoyed animating in maya. One of the scenes that took me a long time to  animate was  the dominoes falling, I did this manually and not using dynamics (which was how I intended to do it). I  did not use dynamics as I  was advised not to by my lecturer. As a beginner just starting animating it was better for me to learn the manual methods of animating in maya before using the dynamics tools.

One of the principles of animation I used was the "Follow through and overlapping action". This was acted through out my animation, however the most vital use of this principle was in the beginning  sequence. This is where the picture frames collide with each other, it was important that I applied this principle here as it added a sense of realism to  the animation.  

Maya Animation References

Before I could start animating  I had to take in to consideration the 12 principles of animation and how they apply and take effect in my animation. However not all of the principle where relative. The main principles that   I had to consider when animating where Anticipation, Slow In and Slow Out, Arcs, Secondary Action, Timing and Solid Drawing. Getting all of these things right are essential to making my animation run smooth.


Another thing I did was  find a lot of reference video on the objects and items that would move in my animation such as the bowling ball. It was very important for me to do this in oder to get the movement and physics of the object looking real.

Bowling ball References

Maya Modeling Part 2

Continuing on modeling I went on to model the desk I would use in my animation. This desk was base on the rectangle desks. With my desk the sides look to smooth and where to big. I was not happy with it so I decided to redesign it.

This is the redesgin of the desk still keep it as a rectangle desk. With this desk the main difference is that i have made the sides out of different rectangle unlike the first one which was made out of one.

 textured

Tube which the ball would fall down was made using the line tool and a circle I extrude the circle alone the line make my tube.I also made a bars to hold the tube this was done using to cylinders.

I texture the tube using blinn and made it transparent so you could see the ball as it goes through it and give the bar stands a metallic texture.

The design for this lamp was base on my lamp however when creating it I made several changes, the reason for doing this was to make a more simple lamp.

Socket and Plugs

Attention to detail !

Dominoes!!  Dominoes!! 

Too many dominoes.

Less after taking some out

This was a pretty easy object to make. I made transparent because I thought they would look more interesting.    

Picture frames

Laptop

Cannon

Blocks

These are most of the other objects I made for the animation. The blocks and applying the bcu logo required the use of  photoshop.

Maya Modeling Part 1

Modeling, I started my animation by first designing the room. This started as a simple box but I add a window and skirting around the bottom only as you would not see the top. The two missing sides are separated on to their different layer this would let me now see the inside. I also struck with my chose to paint the room blue.

I made the window using two frames the main frame and the glass. These were both made separate to the wall. To fit it in to the wall I used the edge loop tool to create a square in the wall and then extrude the face and place the frame and glass in.

The first object I made was the small shelve for the ball to roll down. However once complete I realize that this design was flawed, the ball would be too small  and the object would simply look out of place in the it  room.

The object I made to replace it, was the bookcase. The object fitted as part of the room. However  I soon realize a flaw in use this design in my animation. It was that the shelves would not have any room to fall and late the ball down.

I finally found a winning solution it was to create book shelves really simple I have to say. This is what is use in my final designs in Illustrator and Photoshop. The shelves simple to make and fitted well on the wall. I made three and lowed them under each other.

As for the bookcase, well I made books and used the bookcase as one the objects in the background item.

The chair was another object I made. This design was base on two different chairs, one of which is Nero leather faced chair and the second traditional banquet black frame.

Another object I made was the cup and met this was done. I however made the cup from a cylinder and not using nurbs.