CAGD 493 Week 13 Reflection - Christopher Coombs

 Hello, my name is Christopher Coombs, and welcome back to my weekly blog! In the previous week's iteration, I had a half-decent blockout of how I wanted my scene between Wall-E and the AT-ST to play out. This is what I had at that time:

    
    Considering this was one of my longer and more story-centric animations, I decided it'd be best to break the work down into smaller sections, so that I'd have more time to focus on refining each part. This week's goal was to get the AT-ST turnaround completely splined out so that I could work on the refining process. I believe that I was successful in reaching this goal. Here is what I managed to create for this week: 

    This was my very first time animating a fully in-frame turnaround for a bipedal character. With how unique this bipedal character stands, it certainly wasn't an easy character to start with, but I got it done. Similar to my previous assignment, using the AT-ST provided me with another opportunity to experiment with large, heavy characters. For this animation, I added some shake in the legs, torso, and hip controllers to sell that strong impact every time the AT-ST stomped on the ground. What sold it even more was the moment I added a camera shake for these steps. Of course, Wall-E is significantly smaller in comparison, so I've been thinking up some more ways that I could portray that. One idea I had was launching Wall-E off the ground for a brief period during every stomp of the AT-ST. I also believe that a change in camera perspective would make a huge difference in making the AT-ST seem a lot taller than it actually is. As of now, the camera pulls back quickly and comedically, showing both characters fully in frame. However, if I were to instead implement a camera swap such as this, I feel that it'd make the AT-ST appear far more intimidating to both the audience and our iconic trash-collecting droid: 


       These were just a few ideas that popped into my head while writing this blog reflection, and I'll definitely be playing around with them more during week 14. Returning to the work I've done for this week, not only did I manage to finish the turnaround animation, but I also touched up on the moment when Wall-E crashes into the AT-ST. It's a lot quicker of an impact reaction, now fully splined, including the moment when Wall-E slowly looks up at the giant machine. This week, I also managed to fix nearly all of the severe technical issues I've encountered from the previous week with the Wall-E Model. To reiterate, this model was made way back in 2012, and many aspects of the model and rig don't work as well as they once did. I had to re-parent the left arm in the previous week, as it wasn't following the rest of the body. This week, I noticed that the wires on the head were exhibiting the same behavior, so I parented those back to the head. I'm no expert on constraints and character rigs, but I managed to get it all working. Everything animates just fine now. As for the texture issue for Wall-E, at first, it got significantly worse. Loading it up this week, I noticed that the arm mesh was almost completely see-through from most angles, and half of the C-shaped rails the arms slid on were missing. This is what it looked like:


It took many hours to figure out a working solution, since the issue seemed to be so scarce online. Eventually, I learned that in the attribute editor, you can go to the material settings, right-click on transparency, and break its connection entirely. As you can see below, I finally managed to remedy that issue:

    
    The only thing I've still been unable to figure out is how to move the treads manually. Unfortunately, the only way it works is through translating the entire character, and the treads only spin when the character is moved on the Z-axis. I haven't given up just yet on it, though, still looking for potential solutions. 

That's all I have for this week! For week 14, I'll be focused fully on retiming and refining Wall-E's movements. As always, I'll be sure to keep everyone updated! Thanks for reading, and have a fantastic Thanksgiving Break! 
                                                                                                             - Christopher Coombs

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