Frank Lean in Light Shot 14

Below is an image showing the lighting setup I used. I constructed a lighting feature to act as a "barn door" in order to more easily control how much light was hitting Frank's face. This took a lot of work and trial and error to get right. The lamp shade itself was not working well enough. I decided to remove it from the scene, after all it wasn't showing within the frame. What I was after was to effectively disguise the top half of his face in shadow so that when he leans in towards the table, his face is gradually revealed by the light.

Below was a test render. I was not satisfied with this particular result. Frank's face was still too well lit. And the light itself was to low in its intensity. I decided to switch the light from no decay to linear to get some realistic drop-off on the light and to avoid an even spread of light which was apparent in the initial test render. I also turned the light samples from 8 to 55.

This was the result after much trial and error. I needed to lower the barn door too to get it to create a shadow that was not too harsh to be cast across his face. The render below is far far better and I think this is just what I was looking for. Enough shadow to conceal the top of his face and yet enough light to illuminate the rest of his features. I think this will look stunning when rendered completely as an animated sequence with a little compositing.

Below is a composite test. I increased the contrast and darkened the shadow. I am very pleased with this. This looks great. I especially like the eye reflection detail in his eyes, it really brings his eyes to life and breathes character into this model. Credit goes to Alex for doing such a great job with the texturing of Frank's facial skin. This is probably some of the best work in the whole film. I would be happy just presenting this sequence at the degree show.

Shot Order & Editing

Although I have tried to stick with the original storyboard and the ideas for the shots as well as their order, new ideas have surfaced and I realise now that the order of certain shots will change. For instance some shots will not feature in the final edit and some will be replaced by entirely new shots or different compositions. I have also thought of new shots to include to hint at what is going on such as the close up of the envelopes with the words "overdue" to suggest that Frank is in a bit of financial difficulty. The last shot with the apartment exterior will feature as the first shot of the film as a establishing shot, to inform the viewer where it is taking place and at what time. I will also indicate the mood of the film. There is no doubt that when it comes to editing I will come up with new ideas and the order of certain shots may change so as to perhaps make the narrative/ clip more coherent and understandable and also refine the shots in terms pace.

Shot List/ Schedule

This is the schedule/ shot list which I used for the third term.

Most of the shots have been rendered and composited, but due to problems with the character rig, the character animations were put behind schedule. Although we did manage to animate all the necessary shots we needed to form a partial narrative. I was surprised that we manage to get all the character animations done within a week. Now that deadline is almost upon us we are still in the process of rendering.

Rendering

Some problems were encountered when rendering, such as blotchy renders and rendered frames seemed far too over exposed. We solved the blotchy renders by re rendering and increasing the samples in the light attributes on the lights within the scenes and also increasing final gathering accuracy. We increased light samples to 50 and final gathering accuracy to 200. This will increase render time but it is worth it. I want my shots to look good and I believe that the better the quality the more appealing to the viewer.

Animating

For all these shots I wanted to make sure that they resembled the composition of the original storyboards. When Animating I wanted to keep things simple and subtle. I tried to evenly share the shots to be animated with my brother. I figured that if we are animating on different shots at the same time, we would speed up production and save time. There were occasions however where we both liaised with each-other to give advice and suggestions. I would say that I am particularly good at animating, nor do I wish to become an animator, but animating and bringing something to life can be fun, and when you finally manage to create a nice fluid animation there is a great feeling of accomplishment.

Shot08

Original Storyboard

Camera View

Animating this particular shot was a pain and took a full day to animate. Even when I had finished I still was not fully satisfied with the animation. But due to time constraints I told myself that for what it is it gets the point across. This was perhaps the trickiest animation I had to do out of all my shots. What I found most difficult was the fluidity and speed of the motion of the right hand that would toss the card.

Storyboard - Additional Shot

Camera View

This was the most fun to animate. It was a challenge and tricky to get right. The animations is still not exactly perfect. I would of liked more overlap and exaggeration. However this is by far the best character animation that I managed to do. I am very proud of how it has turned out. I think the slow in and slow out are especially effective and the way that his head arcs and makes a transition from a relaxed pose to a straighter position was perhaps the best bit of the animation. I am also proud of the nuances I managed to successfully introduce to his face in the eye brows mouth and eyes using the blend shapes. I like the way I had Frank chew on his cigar.

Storyboard - Additional Shot

Camera View

This was another animation I was proud of as there was some nice exaggeration I introduced to the hand spread attributes. As Frank's hands landed as he tapped the table there was some slight spread of the fingers. It is a nice animation but it may not feature in the final edit because I conducted a test render and the UV texturing on the fingers look terrible and completely ruin the shot. There were nasty seams visible too which ran the entire length of each finger. I tried shooting from another angle but this did not improve the look of the hands. The whole point of this shot was to show the animation close up. If I shoot from a distance, the viewer cannot fully appreciate the animation and it would be a waste. The hand is also top lit which limits what I can do to try and disguise the textures.

Shot07

Original Storyboard

Camera View

Because of the limitations of the rig I am unable to animate Frank's hands above his chest. If they are pushed beyond a certain point above his chest or if his hands are posed near his face his arms and shoulders begin to fold and distort. This means therefore that I cannot animate Frank throwing the card into the hat. This is a shame. I also thought that it would be nice to animate Frank either stoking his hair or rubbing his nose, but sadly I am unable to do so. What I have done instead is have him smoking in a relaxed position. I have also animated a breathing motion so that he is not completely static.

The following shots I gave to Alex to animate and I helped to light the scenes.

Shot01

Original Storyboard

I thought that this was a nice shot where frank is obscured in shadow gives a sense of mystery. It is supposed to be symbolic and emulate Frank's clouded state of mind. I also thought that the venetian blinds would be a way of indicating that Frank feels trapped as if he's in a prison. If rendered nicely with some nice lighting this could look stunning. I want the light to highlight his form, blue light fro the outside suggesting the coldness of his profession and the warm light which represents the love in his heart.

Camera View

For this shot Alex has done some very nice breathing motion. I suggested that we shoot the same shot but have a close up of his eyes.

Shot04

Original Storyboard

Again I thought this was a nice shot, to indicate that there there he is being watched. Primarily however I thought a shot looking down on Frank would indicate that there are forces greater than that of Frank. I particularly like the perspective here and the composition and layout of the shot.

Camera View

Shot17

Original Storyboard

Camera View

This was quite a tricky shot to render as there were no real effective upper body manipulators. I wanted Frank to move from a relaxed position to a straight position and to have him lean towards the camera. Getting the head to arc in a realistic fashion was a challenge. The animation is far from perfect but it could be worse.

Shot27

Original Storyboard

Camera View

For this shot I thought we could focus more in his facial expressions and focussing on his eyes. This was a relatively simple shot to animate as there is not much within the frame. I told Alex to focus on the eyebrows, the eyelids and blinks. I also wanted some movement in his eyes and introduce some eye dart. We also introduced a slight zoom in with the camera.

Limitations of the Rig

There is an issue with the Rig in that when you bring the arms/ hands up to the face the rig begins to break and deform. I would have liked to do some nice animations where Frank scratches or strokes his hair and rubs his nose. Unfortunately I was unable to do so despite many attempts of experimentation with the rig. I tried switching from FK to IK and switching the SC solvers to RP solvers but there was no difference. I assume it is due to a weighting issue.

Solved

We found out what the problem was, Andy helped us out and explained that it was due to the geometry render stats. Primary visibility, receive shadows and cast shadows had to be checked on. When we re rendered our geometry was now visible and renderable.