Introduction

 

In this animation project I set myself the task of animating a simple and a complex animation consisting of a dance from the Henry Stickmin games and the other of the 1980’s Music Video of the Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime. I did not strictly make them for a game to use actively but more as an Easter egg or a subtle nod to them being rather interesting to look at and to have a good laugh.

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I am Evaluating the overall quality of the 2 animations as if they were one whole because of the simplicity of the Henry Stickmin one and because it is rather short.

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Practical Work 

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I used Maya as the building grounds for a rig and the two animations and Premiere Pro to compile a video from the animations. The first animation was from the Henry Stickmin collection where he Distracts both you and some guards and the second one being from The Talking Heads 1980’s Music Video for Once in a Lifetime.

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The self-made rig is based on a Bakugo model I found earlier on in the year and as that did not function, I used an auto rig with finger extensions to animate the two animations.

The first animation consists of 44 frames and a Maya Playback speed of 120 frames, so it looks smooth but is not too fast.

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The second animation consists of 6733 frames which is the exact amount to be the same length as the original video. This one also has an animated lighting setup and background switching built into the animation.

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I have reached a conclusion that as I screen recorded the first animation that it turned out in a rough but satisfying way and the second animation had a full render and compiling of all its frames in Premiere Pro it turned out to be much higher in quality than the first animation.

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Self Evaluation

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I learnt how to manage file uses which came in handy for the final export of the second animation not getting mixed with my source images.

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I also learnt how to adapt a simple software generated rig to a slightly more complex one. This was helpful for the second animation because it had more finger poses than the first animation.

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I believe that the second animation went better than the first because I had put more time into it to make it look and feel the same as the original Music video and because I had implemented a fully animated background switch and light setup to replicate the fuzziness of the original video.

The first animation could have been considerably better but due to time constraints it had to sit within a very simplistic feel and appearance while the other one looks ten times better because it had considerably more time put into it.

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Next time I will allocate a similar amount of time to each animation to have a polishing run and to export and compile them with enough time to alter them if something does not look right or if something has broken during the Maya Rendering process.

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Target Setting

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The Targets I am setting myself are.

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Time Management - To allocate better timeframes to specific tasks and processes and to make a plan of action to use my time effectively for a specific task.

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Better workflow - To refrain from getting distracted and to allocate breaks at appropriate times and to keep track of what needs to be done.

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Effective Software utilisation - To get the most out of a piece of software for the required task at the best possible quality it can go.

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Quality Control - To make sure the item or animation or image is a high quality and resolution for its intended purpose.

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Conclusion

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Overall conclusion on the rigging and animation is that my self-made rig did not stand up to what an auto rig turned out to be, but my edited auto rig turned out to be of a much higher quality with more adaptability that could be done if necessary, like a face rig to then animate spoken lines or to give more expressions.

The overall outcome of my performance is that I did not allocate an even timeframe for the two animations or plan regular breaks or use my effective time to overcome small issues like rigs not behaving properly but I did accomplish a polished animation with a fully rendered video.

The project went very well even though i had some issues, but I found a way to continue and get the tasks done with a high level of effort and quality in the final products.

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Bibliography

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 Byrne, D. (2018). Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime (Official Video). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8 [Accessed 29 Jan. 2021].

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Henry Stickmin Wiki. (2021). Distract. [online] Available at: https://henrystickmin.fandom.com/wiki/Distract?file=Distract.gif [Accessed 8 Jan. 2021].