I approached the bus stop task by first experimenting with rotoscoping. After attending Yuan’s lecture about animation techniques, I became very interested in the notion of rotoscoping- I really liked how rotoscoped animation looked.
I regularly play D&D with friends, and during one session while the only friend who’s character spoke under common was interacting with a goblin, my other friend expressed his boredom by having his character do a double backflip. The DM made him roll a dexterity check, which he got a high number from, and the entire group laughed at the idea of this bored Dragonborn Monk doing a double backflip out of frustration. Every time I pictured it, it made me laugh, and I knew I had to animate it. I thought it might be fun to have my two characters in the bus stop scene based off of two D&D characters, and I wanted to experiment with rotoscoping, so I made the below animation on FlipaClip.
I had fun with this experiment, but it was incredibly time consuming, despite the fact I tried to use as little detail in each frame as I could get away with. I like how rotoscoping looks, but I don’t think this is the right approach to the bus stop task for me.
Changing Approach
After deciding that rotoscoping would not be a suitable method for this project, I began looking at free rigged models to animate with in Maya. I had used the Azri rig before for the animation jam, so I felt confident in animating with a rig I was already familiar with. As the brief calls for two distinctively different characters, I had the idea that I would like the second character to be an animal. I saw the below video on youtube and really fell in love with the idea of a bird character:
After searching for free rigged bird models, I eventually found this one: https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-models/animals/bird/seagull-rig
I also found a free model of a bus stop to use for this animation: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/bus-stop-moscow-3d-model/769212
I really liked how the sea gull rig looked, particularly the big googly eyes! I then drew a few sketches for a story board.
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Sketches for storyboard
After figuring out a basic storyline, I began animating. I initially had the idea that Azri would pat the bench to beckon the seagull over, but this action was not obvious enough from a distance. I remembered drama lessons I had taken in high school, where the teacher explained how to act on stage. He explained that gestures and reactions must be exaggerated, so as to be seen by audience members who are sitting far back. Seeing as the bus stop brief calls for one camera shot framing both characters, I realised that the same principle applies to this instance of animation, as I wouldn’t be able to rely on camera angles to zoom in on certain gestures or movements. I would have to make the reactions and actions of my characters more dramatic.
I also looked to the animator’s survival kit when considering how I would animate Azri’s fast changing expressions and body language. I found the following pages helpful for this, particularly the “look for the contrast” illustrations. I wanted Azri to look optimistic and content whilst glancing around, waiting for her bus. I wanted this body language to contrast greatly with her “spooked” reaction when the seagull shouts at her. And again, I used her facial expressions to show the thought process of being spooked, quickly resolving to joy upon realising the sound came from a bird (in the context of my animation, Azri loves animals).
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The above was the first rough draft of the bus stop animation. I changed the motion of Azri patting the bench because this gesture was too small to be clear. I instead decided to make it look as though she was beckoning the bird over, but still this action was not clear. Some people I showed this to thought she was shooing the bird away, so I knew I would have to change this to make the character’s intentions more obvious.
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I made some adjustments to Azri’s hair in this version. Before it was clipping through her body, but here it glides over her body. I changed her reaction here- I added a subtle bounce to her shock reaction to emphasise the fact that the bird caught her off guard. I also changed her hand to point at the seagull whilst smiling- showing her shock resolving to a big smile, pointing at the bird as if to say “you cheeky boy!” She then pats her knee to call him over, as you might do with a dog. I think this makes a better transition than the previous hand gesture, as she leans in closer to smile at the bird with adoration and it flows a bit better. However I still wasn’t happy with the timing of the bird’s squawk and Azri’s reaction, and I felt that the bird became a bit static after the squawk motion.
I wanted to animate the bird’s eyelids but I couldn’t find a controller for them in maya. Luckily I found a review of the exact rig I was using, and I was able to find where the controls were from this.
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I fixed the timing of the squawk and Azri’s reaction, and I added eyelid movements to the bird. I also changed the bird’s walk cycle slightly so that he would walk onto the screen slower.
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I cropped out the edges in blender, and I also added background sounds and character vocalisations. I felt that this added more to the animation and made it look a bit more finished.
The day after I completed the above “final version”, I looked at it again and thought it was such a shame that it was a playblast and not a fully rendered sequence. I found some very helpful tutorials on setting up lights in maya and using maya’s hardware renderer to quickly render out the sequence as .png files.
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I found this lighting tutorial helpful, especially for explaining what the different types of lights are useful for.
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I found this video incredibly helpful, especially as I was concerned about my computer being capable of rendering out the scene. Needless to say, it was well able to cope!
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After I rendered out all 260 frames as images, I found the above video tutorial for creating videos from image sequences in blender. I was then able to export that video and replace the playblast in the video editing file that contained my audio! The below video entitled “Bus Stop – Cheeky Bird” is the final version.
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Reflective thoughts
If I was to do this project again, I would start from the beginning with the intention of animating in 3D. I feel that I spent a lot of time on the rotoscoping experiment, time which could have been spent modelling and rigging 3D characters of my own design. However I’m pleased with the result considering the time I had left. I am also very glad that I took the time towards the end of the project to learn how to render the sequence. Although it’s not the most important element, I think it really makes things like Azri’s facial expressions and the squash and stretch animation of the bird’s neck far more visible. And as daunting as it was, it was surprisingly easy once I figured out a way to do it that worked for me and my computer’s capabilities.
Rebecca Feeney MA Animation 