Liam De Bolla
3D Character Animator
Collaboration
Collaborating with Sound on Showreel
When the music and sound designer students joined our lesson in the first week of FMP, I got talking to several of them and showed my work. I shared my email with the students I spoked to and one student called Jack emailed me and wanted to put some music to my showreel. From this, I sent him my showreel and we discussed what music would be best to add as background noise. Through this collaboration, I was able to have sound applied to my showreel as well as provide visuals, of animation I have made before, for Jack’s sound portfolio. Jack wanted a showreel of the cartoon Malcolm rigs so he can put together music/sound that can go well with them. From this, I took out the other rigs from my showreel and emailed him the new showreel, ready for him to apply music/sound.
Throughout the FMP I have been making several animations and was able to create a new showreel. I asked Jack if he could put sound over my new showreel rather than the one he was currently working on at the time. He felt that this showreel had a range of styles which made it hard to apply sound over. From this, we decided that it was best that the showreel did not have sound and so we decided to stop the collaboration on this small project.
Collaborating with a Rigging Student
From my animation class, I knew Claire was interested in rigging. From this, I messages Claire to se if she wanted to help me on my FMP project by rigging a few assets I plan to have for my project. She was happy to help but, on the 14th January, I would need to speak to her in person for her to understand what I would like from a rigging perspective.
Working with Sound for FMP
From my presentation in Portfolio, I met a sound student called George. For my FMP, I plan to have a script read that is a test with some voice actors. Once I finish my storyboard, I would like to use George’s knowledge to record a good script read that has good audio. I decided to message George asking whether he could help me in my FMP and through messaging and a phone call, he was happy to help in the final script read once the storyboard is finished. From the phone call with George, he recommended a video which showed the quality of audio a demo read can be. This video below shows rough audio applied to an animation so I know that the audio for the demo read can be rough and that I do not need to worry about the audio sounding amazing.
Voice Actors
I have planned my FMP animation to have two characters meaning two voice actors will have to be used. I message two students from Ravensbourne that I believe have the voice that matches the tone I am looking for from each of my characters. They both agreed to join the project as voice actors. From this, I messaged both voice actors what I plan to do which is two script reads, one being a demo read that can be used for my storyboard as well as a final script read that can be used for the final animation with the help of George the sound student. One of the voice actors could not do a day for the demo read. I watched this video of an animation pipeline for DreamWorks and in the editorial stage of the project, they say that the voice actors are not used for the storyboard read, but the people working on the editing do. What this means is that I can do the storyboard read on my own without having to worry about planning the demo read with the voice actors. I can save their performance for the final read. I informed the voice actors and the sound designer that we can do the final script read once the storyboard is finished. I hope to finish the animatic as well which will be beneficial for the timing of the script read.
Dialogue Preparation
As the story was changed and the planned animation was shortened, I decided to only use the dialogue of one character. From this, I decided to use only one voice actor, Bobby who is a Ravensbourne Student. I messaged George, my Sound designer for this project and my voice actor Bobby if they could do the dialogue on the 21st January 2020. From this, we planned for the dialogue to be read on the agreed date. We decided to meet at Ravensbourne as George had a lecture and I had a lecture as well. We decided to record the voice-over at George’s home where he has a sound setup for dialogue.
Voice Over Production
My voice actor and I went to the sound designers house to record the voice over from my script. From this, the sound designer set up a voice acting area in his house to record the voice over. From this, I was providing directions to the voice actors such as the type of tone and the emotion behind the words. From this, we had several recordings which we titled how each take was and from this, we agreed that take 13 and take 3 were the best for the animation. However, it was only till I listened over then again, I felt that take 4, 5 and 6 were the best so I chopped up the audio in Adobe Audition and saved them as 3 separate files and put them all together in one file, ready for me to record the reference. From this, I can now start recording the reference.
Rigging Deadline
I sent my reference off to Claire to which I set a deadline for the rigs to be finished by the 29th January. She was happy with this deadline and for now, I will work on small tests and receive the assets back but the end of January to start building the environment.
Rigging Assets Collaboration
I send three assets to Claire to collaborate on this project. She rigged these assets so I can animate them in my scene. Through this collaboration, I have the assets that will be animated, set up in my scene. I sent my project to Claire when there were scale issues with the rigs and once she fixed this, the environment was ready for me to animate. Below are parts of the discussion we had regarding getting the rigs to the right scale for the environment.
Pen Rigging for Constraints
Once I started animating, I noticed that the pen rig needed another control to allow me to parent constraint the pen to the hand, as well as manipulate its translation and rotation to fix perfectly in the hand of the character. I did not ask Claire originally for this second control when she rigged the pen but noticed once I started animating, that a second control will be required.
For this, I message Claire asking if she could adjust the pen rig and add another control. I sent her the file along with a circle NURBS primitive that I would like to use as the second control.
Once I explained why I wanted a second control for the pen and sent the file off to Claire, she updated the rig. Now I can use the circle control to parent constraint it to the IK wrist control of the Malcolm rig, and use the original controller Claire made to adjust the translation and rotation for the pen to fit in the hand of the character accurately.
Claire’s specialism of rigging was a great help to my project.
Training Room Collaboration
I intended to use a voiceover in this animation, so I contacted someone I knew who studies at Ravensbourne, called Ben Kelly, to be a voice actor. He accepted and we planned the date for when we can record the audio.
Training Room Voice-Over
I recorded the voice-over with my voice-over actor, Ben Kelly. From a few takes, I had the best audio, ready for me to edit for gaps and have ready for the animation. I edited in pauses in Adobe Audition and was ready to start the creation of the animation.
Before I edited the Audio
After I edited the Audio
Josh Texturing Help
Josh needed some help with applying textures to a character, so I received the project and was able to fix his issue of the textures by assigning the textures to the right areas. I also set up his project to be organised for him to work efficiently as possible. I consider this as a form of technical ability I am confident in which is a secondary skill I have along with animating.
Reference for Nadim
Nadim wanted to me to do the reference for his animation. I had a couple of my family members help me record it by holding the camera and telling me the actions at the right time. I enjoy the reference part in the pipeline of an animation, so I was happy to collaborate with Nadim by doing the reference. This reference can help Nadim for possible timing and motion to which he could add different emotions while he is animating. He wanted my reference to show more tiredness and annoyance so I recorded another reference, adding in these emotions which he liked.
Jada Robot Animation Communication
In order to animate the two robot animations, I discussed with Jada regarding what the robot needed to do and from the communication, I understood what she was looking for and was able to produce the animations she wanted.
Tarryk Rendering Help
Tarryk Black needed some help rendering so I set up the render settings and rendered his scene for him. I put the images together in Premiere Pro where I could then export it as a video. I then sent the render to Tarryk.
