Final Major Project: Animated Music Video

Software

3D Animation

For the 3D portions of my animation, there really is only one sensible option: Blender. This is software that I have used in the past for animation projects (as you can see in the video to the right), and so I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses. Of course, there are other 3D animation softwares out there, such as Maia or Adobe 3D Animation Suite; however, Blender is the one that I have become familiar with and intend to use.

There are many reasons why Blender is clearly the best option: it is the most readily available to me at college and at home (whereas software such as Maia would require downloading, which is a long, tedious process on the college computers); I am much more familiar with all aspects of Blender and therefore more easily able to troubleshoot problems; and of course, Blender is widely known for being one of, if not the most reliable, streamlined, and professional 3D modelling and animating softwares out there. Therefore, for any and all 3D animation I will be doing, Blender will be the programme used.

Blender Software Techniques

There is a possibility that I might be modelling things in Blender; if my character is at all stylized and it is not possible to simply grab a base model from online, then I might have to model and rig my own character in Blender. Therefore, here are some well-known blender techniques:

Box/Polygon Modelling

Box modelling is probably the most common type of modelling technique in Blender. This usually starts with a "primitive mesh", (e.g., a cube, sphere, or torus), and then you are able to model a complex shape. These meshes can be modelled in edit mode, object mode, or even sculpt mode. A more advanced form of box modelling would be poly modelling, which is where a mesh is created one polygon at a time. This gives the creator more control over how large each polygon is and the placement and proportions of the mesh before continuing to model.

Polygon modelling is very similar to box modelling, except instead of starting with a 3D primitive mesh, you start with a single vertex or edge. This method puts more emphasis on building your mesh from edges and vertices and getting more detail. The advantages and disadvantages of this method are pretty much the same as those of box modelling.

This technique has many advantages: it is very versatile and is a sort of stepping stone to the more advanced modelling forms. Anyone looking to learn modelling in Blender should start with a box. One disadvantage of this technique is that it's more difficult to get organic-looking shapes by starting with a simple mesh without things being distorted by subdivisions and smooth filters.

Curve/Surface Modelling

These are forms of modelling that I will probably not be using; it is all about algorithms, mathematics, and circles. Curves refer to flat edges, which can be edited similar to vector lines in Adobe Illustrator, for example. There are several different kinds of curves, such as Bezier curves or NURBS; however, what sets curve modelling apart from other kinds of modelling is that you get complete vertex control.

A "surface" is basically just an extended curve and is a 2D plane with only two dimensions: U and V. With this type of modelling, the creator gets intricate control over these dimensions and can create curved, dynamic shapes. The upside of this kind of modelling is that it allows you to create completely curved shapes, whereas with box modelling, your shape is entirely comprised of polygons, which can be useful for controlled hair or fur. The downside of curve and surface modelling is that it can get quite chaotic quite quickly and often involves a bit more mathematics than any other kind of modelling.

Sculpt Mode

This is a common type of modelling used in Blender to create organic shapes, such as humans or animals. The difference between this kind of modelling and others is that instead of working with sharp, shape-based primitives and manually pushing and pulling the faces around to create an asset, you use brushes to mould the asset organically.

A good thing to note about sculpting in Blender is that there is this technology called "multi resolution", which allows the modeller to create new levels of detail and store the mesh between each layer, allowing the model to get more detailed as the modeller needs it instead of having to work with thousands of polys right from the beginning. This also prevents the model from lagging behind the software and crashing due to too much complexity. This is something that I am definitely going to be looking further into as time goes on, since I am a huge fan of organic modelling and the human form.

Boolean Modelling

This is a type of modelling that is very closely linked with box modelling and is often used alongside it. Using this method, one can cut out whole chunks of mesh very easily. There are three different kinds of Boolean modelling: difference, union, and intersect. With difference, you take out the shape and volume of one mesh using another one, so that the cut-out becomes negative space rather than positive space. With union, you merge two meshes together, and with intersect, you keep only the geometry where the two overlap.

Rigging

Simple rigging in Blender is actually a lot easier than one might think, not only because Blender provides many pre-made humanoid rigs and armatures for you to use freely. A native addon called "Rigify" allows the user to create a pre-made human rig, and then one simply takes away the bones that they do not need and resizes the needed ones to the correct size for your mesh. In order to make your rig more advanced, you go to the rig options tab to the bottom right, as shown by the green stick figure, and select "generate rig." This will turn your simple rig into one with constraints, custom bone shapes, and other advanced tools. This is extremely useful if you want a character with complex movements.

Weight Painting

Weight painting is very important when rigging a character from scratch. It is, essentially, making sure your rig effects the correct areas of your character and smoothing out all of the joints so that the right vertices are moving at the right rate when you pose your rigged character.

Essentially, the best way to quickly rig a character is to take the rig, roughly outline which parts you want weighted, bend the rig in as many strange directions as you can manage, and then go in and fine-tune the weights in order to get it looking right. Each weight paint is going to be different for each character model, and so fiddling around with it is really the only reliable method of getting your rig perfectly weighted.

Blender Primary Research

In order to get the hang of modelling and rigging a simple character, I will attempt to do just this from scratch in Blender. This will be fairly easy, hopefully, since I am fairly well-versed in Blender modelling thanks to past projects.

I first started out with, of course, a basic cube before using box modelling techniques to turn it into a vague humanoid shape—arms, legs, and a head—with two flattened spheres to make eyes. After doing this rough draught, I switched on my subdivision surface modifier and pushed and pulled it again until it looked right with the modifier. Once it looked as neat as possible, I applied the modifier. This initial stage only took around 30 minutes, which, without a reference, is pretty good in my opinion.

It was still looking quite strange, slightly thin and boxy, and so I then took my model into sculpt mode, applied a multiresolution modifier to it in order to keep the poly count down as much as possible, and built on the mesh until it looked slightly more realistic. After this, I realised my poly count was still pretty high, and so I applied a voxel remesh to it and turned on smooth shading so you couldn't see the flaws. I didn't want to take too long on the modelling section since I was mostly looking into rigging and weight painting with this research, as that's the part I am slightly less knowledgeable on. Once I had my model looking vaguely decent, I began to rig it.

Using my resources, I used the "rigify" addon to create a pre-made humanoid mesh and fine-tune it to fit with my model. I then parented it to my mesh with automatic weights. I then went around and edited the weight painting, making sure that all of the bones affected the correct areas. It definitely isn't perfect, and the fact that I was rushing it certainly meant that I didn't do an amazing job of it. However, I think that overall I am now much more used to Blender rigging and weight painting and much more confident that I will be able to do this for my final product if the need arises.

2D Animation

Now, the 2D animated portions of my music video are obviously the most important aspects to be concerned over since they will take up most, if not all, of the animation. Because of this, I will have to think carefully about what kind of software I want to use for this portion. There are a couple options available to me, all with different pros and cons.

OpenToonz

OpenToonz is the 2D animation software that I am most used to; it's free software that I downloaded a few years ago in order to practise animation, and I have become accustomed to it since I've been using it for so long. It is based on the software "Toonz", and customised by Studio Ghibli for the use of its own animated works. Since it is free, it of course has many flaws and limitations; however, it works remarkably well and has a plethora of different brushes, effects, and functions. The interface is professional but easy to understand, with easy access to both vector and raster animation options and lots of interesting realistic brushes such as ink, paint, and airbrush. It even has more complex functions such as node editing and graphic FX, which can be used to edit and refine your animation. Overall, this is software with which I am very familiar and would be comfortable producing an animation.

Adobe Animate

Adobe Animate, formerly known as Flash Animation, is certainly a valid option for creating my music video. Adobe is often considered the industry standard, which would, by proxy, make Adobe Animate the industry standard for animation. I am sceptical, however, that this software is indeed fit for what I am intending to do.

Adobe Animate, of course, has a lot of pros. For one, it is very specialised and has many different pre-set capabilities that are specially designed for animation: you can attach a rig to a character for easy fluid movement; it comes with advanced keyframing capabilities similar to Blender animation; and it also has advanced lip syncing functions (as I mention in my animation subpage) and a library of premade assets. Overall, it is very fit for purpose, and once you get the hang of the basics, it seems very versatile and in-depth.

There are, of course, a wide variety of reasons why I am reluctant to use Adobe Animate to create my music video, even after considering all of these pros. For one, this software, in my opinion, has a very confusing interface, and since I have never used it in the past, it would take a little while to get used to, whereas I could use software with which I am more familiarterface, and since I have never used it in the past, it would take a little while to get used to, whereas I could use software with which I am more familiar. Another huge thing to consider is that this software is specifically vector animation software. I am not a vector artist, and the style of animation I prefer is a lot more akin to hand-drawn animation. I personally am not a huge fan of the blocky, corporate-looking style of vector characters and animation. Furthermore, even if I did have a character that I could easily rig and animate with this software, it would be extremely difficult to get down a sketch layer or storyboard.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop might seem like an odd choice for making an animated music video; however, I have my reasoning. Photoshop is, at the moment, my primary choice for drawing and illustrating, and I recently found out that it has a timeline feature and the ability to animate. The pros and cons of this software are fairly obvious; I am very much used to drawing in it and would be able to easily create good-looking frames and drawings; however, it is not a specialised animation software and is extremely limited on that front. Plus, I would only be able to export each scene as a.gif file, which is not necessarily a problem but creates more work for me afterwards when assembling the animation. I will probably not end up using this software for any actual animation sections; however, I might use it for drawing still shots and bits with limited movements.

In conclusion, I am very conflicted on what software I should use to animate my music video; however, after careful consideration, I think that I am primarily going to use OpenToonz if I can. As I mentioned, I might use Photoshop for still shots, and depending on how my character ends up looking, I might be able to use Adobe Animate for some sections. However, I think that OpenToonz is my best bet for the style of animation I am most likely to end up using.

Animation Primary Research

In the past I have done many different animations on many different softwares, and here I will evidence my exploration into each of them.

Blender

Here are two examples of my past use of Blender animation. Both of these models were given to me fully rigged, and both are just me fiddling around and testing out my capabilities with this software. The video on the right is a 3D adaptation of a scene from the movie "The Emperor's New Groove", and the video below is a lip-sync test of a scene from the show "Breaking Bad".

Mista White.mp4

I am the danger.mp4

OpenToonz

I will discuss in more detail my use of OpenToonz in my Animation and Music: Primary Research subpage since the majority of my finalised projects regarding OpenToonz are animations to go alongside music; however, this is a good example of my capabilities in OpenToonz as of late. To the left is an animation that I made to pair with the blender animation seen above, as it is a lip-sync test to the same audio. I wanted to compare my use of 3D and 2D animation, and so I decided to make an animation in both softwares to the same audio. Of course, this is a very rough animation, using entirely straight-ahead action rather than keyframes, practising my use of expressions, and, of course, lip-syncing.

Photoshop

Here is a simple animation that I did in order to prove that I can easily animate in Photoshop. It's a cute little gif; however, the composition of it was surprisingly hard given Photoshop's confusing animation interface.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will be using a mixture of Blender, OpenToonz, Photoshop, and potentially a little bit of Adobe Animate to animate my final music video. In addition to this, I will probably also be using Adobe Premiere Pro in order to assemble my footage and add effects to my animation. Perhaps I will branch out into other Adobe software, such as After Effects and Illustrator; however, these three (Blender, OpenToonz, and Photoshop) will make up the primary sections of my animated music video.

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