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1. Experiments
Sean cawood

2. For my production and experiments im going to use software that is available on the College
network. However I will have to do everything on my home computer as college software
isnt up-to-date and doesn’t have the plugins I require. For when I get stuck I can use youtube
tutorials, such as the ones offered by Video Copilot who are the developers behind many
After Effects plugins. If I have any problems I know a number of forums which can help
trouble shoot my problems or I can just ask. For Fonts I know lots of places to get them. Cool
Text is one of those websites that has a wide range of downloadable fonts
I will use Premier Pro to turn the uncompressed .AVI files to .Mp4. I could also use an online
converter, however the size of uncompressed .AVI files is very large and would take hours to
upload just a minute
19/03/18

3. ProcessFirst I Opened up my Unity Extraction tool and looked through the game files for the models I wished to use for this experiment. I decided to
rip pre-existing products from the game because it would take too long to create the models myself. I then Exported the files I wanted as .OBJ
files. This was the only 3D file supported by the extraction tool.
This worked for what I wanted the models for anyway. So I think this was okay even if it was missing skinwights because I could do that myself
I imported the .OBJ files into Maya. Im using maya because its one of the best 3D software's available. Its
used for many Professional products such as animated TV shows and Movies as well as special effects in
some live action movies such as space battles. I can be used for 3D modeling, Rigging and animating. I plan
to use it for experimenting with rigging and animating.
After I imported the model I started creating the skeleton. This would allow me to move parts of the models
like arms and legs so I can animate them to do what I want them to do. After I created the skeleton I then
made sure it was how I wanted it to move before I used the Bind to skin tool. Binding the Skin (Model) to
the skeleton is what allows it to move. I think this worked pretty well for how I wanted to use it. If I wanted
to use it for more complex things like eyes blinking or beak opening I would have to do a little more work on
the skeleton. But for now it does what I need it to do.
After I Blinded the skeleton to the model I started to get to work skin weighing. Skin weighting is what tells
the model how to react to the movement of the skeleton. This took quite awhile to make it work how I
wanted it to work but in the end I think I got it to a point where it was usable for my experiment with
animating.
After the skin weighting the models were at a point where I could animate. I started moving the joints on
the skeleton and creating key-frames for each movement I made with the joints. A keyframe is a point
where you tell Maya that a thing has to be a way at a certain time and the software fills the gaps between
each keyframe and completes the animation. This makes animating within the software possible without
having to go frame by frame. However it does still require you to go through between the keyframes to
make sure everything is moving as it should.

4. I then used one of the plugins I installed into maya to start exporting the animated model. The problem was
that while maya can export animations as .FBX files, the 3D plugin for after effects that I use (Element 3D)
Doesn’t accept .FBX files and instead only accepts .obj. .OBJ doesn’t support animation so I had to be a
little creative about how I imported the animations. I found out about this thing called a .OBJ Sequence
where each frame is saved as a single .OBJ file and you tell element 3D to change the .OBJ file each frame.
To export this as a .OBJ i had to open up script editor and run the star up script to open the export console.
Exporting it this way takes up a lot of space but It’s the only way I know of doing this.
I then Imported the .OBJ sequence using Element 3D inside after effects and textured the both of the
animations with the already existing texture files. This included the Bump Map, Illumination map and spec
map to help the models look as detailed as possible. I think so far its working very well.
I am using after effects because it’s a professional software that I know how to use. It also has lots of
plugins that allow me to do a lot of fun things such as the Element 3D plugin. I am using the element 3D
plugin because its one of the better 3D plugins for after effects and it allows me to import 3D models and
animations into after effects. Even if Cinema 4D is supported by after effects by default, it would be difficult
to use because you cant control the model in after effects like you can with the element 3D plugin. I also
have no experience with Cinema 4D.

5. After I imported the animations separately I then got to work moving them by parenting their
position in X, Y and Z Space to a group null that would allow me to move the objects within
after effects. I also put the animation on loop and sped the time up to help it look more
fluent.
After that I then started to get to work on improving the look of the animation by adding a
weak light blue ambient Light and a stronger Parallel light that was mainly white. This
helped me create a more realistic look to the animation as I said in my research good
lighting is very important to making things look good.
After i added the lights I added shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Motion Blur, Glow, and a bit of
fog. Shadows generates shadows based on the location of the source of the light. This
really helps make scenes look realistic because it increases the quality of the light but since
there isnt much to cast shadows on here it doesn’t make much visual difference. Ambient
Occlusion adds shadows near edges and cracks of objects. This can remove detail from the
object making it look too smooth if over used but if used right it can make it look very
realistic. Motion Blur makes fast moving objects blur between frames like something would
in real life when its moving
too fast. Using the pre existing illumination map I was able
to make parts of some of the models glow. What the
illumination map does it that it tells the software where to
apply the glow effect and how strong to apply it in what
colours. This is something I will have to play around with in production. Fog is an
effect that makes objects look darker the further away they are or you can change
the colour to white for example for a misty effect for a scene.
all these effects I applied makes the objects look a lot better than how they did
before. When I was happy with how it looked I Exported the animation in after
effects as a .AVI file

6. Finally I finished this experiment. When I was happy with how it looked I Rendered the
Composition and and changed the render settings to what I want before exporting it
with Alpha Channel. I exported it with alpha channel because it makes the
background transparent. It works similar to a .PNG file. However this would mean the
render wouldn’t be able to work in some software that doesn’t support alpha channel
in a video format. But premier pro is able to handle the it so I finally exported it in
there too to condense the file size down

7. I started a new Comp and applied a Particle Effect to a Plain Black
layer using the Particular plugin.
I am using particular because its one of the best particle plugins for
after effects and it works very well for things like this.
I then Changed the Shape to a custom Sphere I quickly built in
maya and increased the size dramatically to make it move as little
as possible and to react as similar to real stars in real space.
I used maya because it only creates particles in edges between
verts in the model you import. The pre-existing sphere doesn’t
have many so all it was doing was making a Sphere out of triangles.
I found out a way to fix this problem by creating a sphere in maya,
using the smooth tool twice and that gave me the effect I needed
where the stars were spread out and in a spherical shape, not
filling the center
However this process isnt very useful with a moving camera
because the starts don’t move with it. So for now I can only use
this technique on cameras that don’t move but they can turn.
After a few edits and adding a rotating camera I finished my
experiment and I think it looks good because the stars move
realistically. So ill defiantly use a similar thing during my
production if I can solve the problems Im having with it.
Discuss the tools and processes used in
your production. Log your thoughts and

8. Because of the problem with the alpha channel not being usable in most video editing
software I decided to do another experiment doing all the same things I did in the first
experiment but with a green screen. I Ripped, Rigged, Skin weighted and animated
the reaper and exported it into after effects the same way as I did before. Im sure
exporting this animation with a green screen worked well and because its digital there
are less problems to worry about with a green screen that would be a problem in real
life like shadows, lighting and correct colour don't effect it.
While I would prefer to work with an alpha channel I realise I don’t have much choice
because of the limitations of some software.

9. After my last experiment I was thinking about what I would need to figure
a way to add a lot of ships into a frame but I only have 5 groups to work
with that I can move by hand within after effects so I devised a cunning
idea. I decided to put a bunch of pre existing, unedited ships into a single
group.
I then played with them by using the particle replicator where It
duplicated the single group a bunch of times but this ended in a mess of
ships. So I decided to remove a few and Increase the distance between
each one of the duplicated groups which improved the look greatly. But
then it was too easy to tell the groups were replicated and they were all
doing the exact same thing in line with all the others so I used the scatter
tool to make the groups have a random extra distance between all the
replicated groups and I think that ended up looking a lot cleaner and
more realistic. I tried improving the look by adding lights, AO and Glow
but unfortunately there were too many models and it kept crashing so I
kept it the way it was before without the improvements.
This is a really good technique to use because it helps me solve the
problem of how do I make the scene look busy without using up all my
groups. But it also presents the problem of creating a good looking
render. I might have to cut back on how many ships I use in the
production because it was just too much to have literal thousands
However i don’t think its that big of a problem because I probably wont
be using that many ships anyway

10. For my final experiment I decided that I wanted to see how i could
do the shirt designs.
First I went to my old Deviant art account and used one of my old
Vector art images and uploaded it to Red Bubble. On redbubble I
simply moved the image around and sized it to where it looked best.
After awhile of sorting this out i finished it and it went up for sale. I
then looked at the products and took screenshots.
I like how easy it is to upload a design to redbubble. Most Products
are manufactured and sold without a middle man (such as
redbubble) but redbubble Is for people who cannot manufacture
their own products to print their designs on because redbubble has
to do the manufacturing and shipping they have to take a large cut
of the money.
I Think I will use this for some of the final products but instead of
using one of my old drawings ill create a new one or even a new
render to put onto the products.

11. Reflection•
What elements of your experiments will you include in your final products?
•
Im not sure I can include rigging and animating models in maya In my main product because it would take too long on top of a lot of
things that I want to get done in this project. Even though I want to do it there may not be enough time to do it. However I can still use
maya for other things like breaking apart models.
•
If I can somehow fix the problems I am having with making the star map within After effects I will defiantly use it for in my project and
it is a lot better than just having a bunch of Pictures of stars like I have done in some of my other projects.
•
I will make sure I use the Particle Replicator in my project to create lots of ships the same way I did in the experiment. I will just have to
make sure I don’t use it to create thousands of models because that would create a lot of problems and I would loose a lot of quality
on the render.
•
I will make sure I use redbubble for my products in my final production because its very simple and easy to use even if Im losing money
from it because its being manufactured and shipped by a third party. I think it works very well for what I want to do and I think it will
be very helpful