Animex

Animex was last week. While there i spoke to alot of interesting people from industry. After telling Dan Zelcs (senior rigger at MPC) about my final year project he told me about some interesting features i could add simulation which would make it worth while to industry such as wish bone feature which would work like a spring to the wings which would help spring each wing back when each flap is made. He also mentioned on making it worth while to animators in industy so instead of making it all automated which animators hate have a slider bar which set to max would be totally automated and when set to 0 it would be totally animated and have a meeting in the middle which would be automated and animated at the same time which is a really good idea so i will look into how i can do that.
I also spoke to a man of vfx from Double Negative (forgive me but ive forgot his name but ill edit this post when i remember) he was interested in my project and spoke to me about industry and like Dan Zelcs told me to make this project focus on how to make this project nessesary to indusrty so when applying for a job the company would understand why i made this my project and how they would use it for there own company, So i mentioned maybe adding a feathers or a flocking system to it as extention which we spoke about in depth and i enjoyed the conversation. i also spoke to Andrew Davies for Ubisoft and talked about the games industy and he mentioned how this is a good project for the games and how people with my skill range are rare to see which was really cool. So this has give me alot to think about and work upon and hopefully help my project flurish!

TED Talk

A video by TED about making a mechanical bird which flys like an actual bird not exactly what i am aiming to do but it is a very interesting talk and im going to look for and read the paper which accompaniys this video

First Stages

I have done some slight mock versions of how I would like my rig to work. I talked to Paul Noble (lecturer) and we spoke about how to use scripts in expressions and get the desired effect on the rig on a basic level and how i would elabirate on it to get a realistic wing simulation using the information from this paper  ClickHere To Visit Paper.  to get the right rotation on certain joints and even giving me information to show how the tail would rotate and move in conjunction to the wing the joints so i may add a tail to my project now which will give more realism to the rig and just be a nice feature which wont be too difficult to add to the rig.

Project Summary

My final year project is to script an automated wing rig which will simulate over a given path automatically saving the animator time. Using Autodesk Maya, MEL script and expressions, the rig would let the animator draw a path and the rig would automatically follow the given trajectory banking where necessary and preforming certain wing beats depending on if the rig is cruising, gliding , descending, turning etc. Fundamentally recreating an actual birds in flight. This project is mostly about the rig but I may make a simple bird model and skin to it to make it look a lot nicer.

Picture taken from Bendan Body's Blog Tutorials

 http://brendanbody.blogspot.com/search/label/Tutorials

Work So Far

 So far through the project I have done a lot of research on how best to get the intended result. I have also chose to learn how to rig, so I opted to rig the characters for my Animation Group Project module which has taught me a lot about rigging in general and a lot about using scripts and expressions on how to get my rig working in the desired way, which is so helpful to my project.

 Just a couple of screen shots of the character rig i have made.

Next Paper

Click here to visit paper

I also have been reading this paper which is significantly a good paper to read from siggraph I've read most of it so far but once i finish i will blog what i have discovered

Research Link

I forgot to post the link to Annah Hutchings paper so here it is

Click Here to visit Annah Hutchings Paper

The Video presented with Annah Hutchings work

Interesting Read/ Research

After reading the paper by Annah Hutchings  I feel I know a lot more about birds but her paper does focus on the feathers a lot which would be an awesome read if I get to the extension part of my project as I would like to add feathers to the wing I create and re create them in a realistic way.

Annah does talk a lot about different types of birds have different wings which I knew but she elaborates on this by saying certain birds who live in different habitats rock different wings for example a humming bird has wings that help it hover this is done by the joints been able to invert the wing and turn it upside down during the upstroke to help give an equal life and allowing it to hover, whereas a hawk has broad wings to soar through the sky which increase surface area to help it glide through the sky and there are high speed maneuverable wings which are placed so differently on a bird to the two other example, which tells me I need to pick a certain type of wing to simulate or this task will become too ridiculous if I find all this separate info and try implement it into the one wing.

I think her paper was really interesting and I’m definitely going to use her as reference she has given me a bit to think about and also given some good pointers on what to look out and research

Research Papers

Ive read numerous paper online about wing simulation and animation but the best so far is one by a 3^rd year student who studied at Bournemouth University named Annah Hutchings who looks throughout wing simulations which have already been done in the animation games and films industries already and studies the way that they were implemented and why they were implemented in that way and not another way and then eventually makes her own wing rig using the information she had collected. Im going to give a good read of this paper then post my findings once completed.

Software Competance and Tutorials

After looking through the net about wings I discovered that Digital Tutors offer a tutorial about rigging wings in Autodesk Softimage XSI, Autodesk Maya and Cinema4D. I feel as I’m a strong user of Maya I will use it to do my implementation and for when it comes to the scripting part of my project I will be able to use MEL or C++ which I know how to use more or less already. If I have further time in my project then I  may implement the same thing in XSI just to show I have competence in 2 software’s and still offer the same skills. 

When it comes to using Morph Targets I will most likely have to learn say Autodesk Mudbox or Zbrush or software on those lines to make the wing deformations and then revert them back to Maya to make the simulation.

Update Wing Anatomy and Joints

I could change my final year project instead of just implementing a rigged wing and then simulating it along a path to a comparison of the way it would work doing this and then comparing it to the morph target way and even implementing the morph target way so I can get direct comparisons rather than assumptions and having to find people who have do wing simulation in this way. I could also consider combining the 2 together having a wing rig and blend shapes having them work hand in hand to give a more hybrid simulation in whole.

As I know a very little on how the rigging process works I’m going to have to start my project on defining the wing bone structure, how it works, how it expands, how the wing is structured. Like a human bone structure some wings bones only rotate in certain direction causing constrains on how the wings movements are.

just a couple of reference pictures I took off www.google.com

Blend Shapes and Project Update

I do apologise for not using the blog till now i forgot i need it for expotees and i kept my blog in diary form so im just uploading my thoughts on my final year specification to date. 

In my specification I do state that I would rig a wing which I then would simulate. After talking about my project to some people and my supervisor I thought instead of rigging the wing for industry needs would it be easier/ more efficient to use morph targets/ blend shapes. So deforming the wing in certain positions conveying its flight in every scenario and writing a script which flips between each deformation depending on the flight trajectory. Which may add more fluidity to the animation as I understand a lot of facial rigs are made in this way.

Blend shape example on facail animation 

Just an example of Blend shapes in maya taken from http://cgterminal.com/2011/10/15/maya-blend-shape-tips-and-tricks-by-steven-roselle/

Specification

Bsc Animation and Visual Effects Programming

Final Year Project Specification

Sunjay Dayalji H8012115

Supervisor: Mathew Holton

Project Overview

My Project aims to study birds through flight and produce a procedural wing which emulates how an actual bird would fly depending on the forces applied upon it. The rig I produce would be simple to animate, reusable and realistic to an actual bird in flight. If I have time I would extend my project to include feathers to the wing simulation to apply a more interesting wing effect which would be visually pleasing when rendered. I feel this would help animators who are animating huge wing based projects as the rig would constrain in the right place so it would be easier to make a better looking product

Scope of the Project

During my project I am going to research how a bird flies and how their wings react to different conditions. With this research I hope to implement a reusable bird wing rig in 3D software preferably Autodesk Maya using either the C++ API or MEL scripting API to technically achieve wing simulation. If I have extra time during the project I would like to add feathers to the simulation as the feathers would need an extra rig because the move in a different fashion on the wing itself and they apply the resistance which is essential for the wing itself. Another extension I would like to add would be adding the tail, during flight the tail helps the bird fly and that rig would also include feathers.

My Aims

My main goal is to have a C++/MEL scripted wing which simulates over a path in a realistic fashion. To make the rig itself easy to apply to a model or asset I would like a menu system or its own Maya tool which would make the whole applying the rig an easy task. I would also like once this task is finished to be fluent in C++/MEL scripting API and be able to create rigs a lot easier in 3D software’s.

Schedule

I plan to use my time wisely throughout the project. I would like to spend most of November and part way through December doing research on wings and gaining a good idea on how a bird’s wing moves throughout flight and see how the wing is affected. Once I have done my research I will start analysing and planning how I want my wing to actually simulate which will be done mid-December till early January. Throughout the rest of January till mid-March I would like to implement my solution in the API of my choice and hopefully have something which is up and running which shows a good understanding of my actual project. March till the end of April I wish to have my Project up and running and have my Dissertation proof read and finalised ready for hand in. Throughout the next 20 or so weeks I am going to try keeping a blog noting my progress through my course showing how I am advancing and experimenting. I wish my project to be 6000-10000 words in length.