Got Milk? Commercial Project

Got Milk? Commercial

Target Audience:

Those wanting to master their basic LightWave skills under the supervision of an expert animator and have an demo reel piece to show for it at the end of class. It focuses on the advanced displacement mapping features used for character animation.

Course Description:

In this class students make a 30 second Got Milk? commercial in LightWave 3D. The project is modeled on a "real world" commercial production. Fully surfaced objects are provided, but the students animate and render all scenes.
On the first day, a storyboard is pitched to the students who make an overall project plan and an FX breakdown. Animating with MetaMation is also covered. The second day covers displacement mapping, morphing, and using Morph Gizmo for facial animation. Day three introduces bones and bone hierarchies. Day four adds inverse kinematics (IK). On day five, bones and Morph Gizmo are combined while the students continue to test and render different scenes. On the last day, students finish all remaining scenes, compile completed animations, and lay them off to tape.

Course Prerequisites:

Competence with keyframe animation and spline controls. Competence with Modeler's basic tools (Move, Rotate, Stretch, Magnet, Pole2, etc.). Familiarity with null objects and parenting. Familiarity with MetaNURBS.

Course Outline

Day 1: orientation to the project
- what the project is/how the class will go
- story boards/rough video edit
- fx breakdown
- animation plan
- make folder hierarchy: scenes, objects, images, Gizmo files, renders, animations, motions
- some raw materials (objects)
- animation style:
-- head and tail
-- stand-ins with substitution at render time
-- saving revisions
-- check safe areas
-- render with rev numbers
- about the content directory
- animate gm07 (correct objects, lighting, camera settings, render settings)
- lunch
- check gm07 render
- MetaMation: what it is, about Metaform Plus, applying the Layout plug-ins

Day 2: displacement mapping and morphing
- theory: point location and displacement
- non-keyframed displacement mapping:
-- math morph (shark example)
-- image mapping (face? text? circle-> circle moving)
-- procedural mapping (waves, fractal bumps, other?)
- keyframeable displacement maps: twist
- keyframeable object-to-object displacement mapping: morphing
- animate gm04/06
- lunch
- Morph Gizmo
- begin animating Jailkeeper face shots
-- list all face "positions"
-- plan targets

Day 3: bones
- theory: keyframeable point displacement controls
- setting, placing, sizing, activating bones
- hierarchies of bones and a taste of IK
- lunch
-problems and solutions for working with bones
-- gimbal lock->null bones
-- undesirable distortion->model spread eagle, limited range (min. and max.), "one over" influence setting
-- garden hose crimping->joint compensation
-- muscles needed->muscle flexing; seam tearing->pinning bones
- students bone and animate Prisoner

Day 4: inverse kinematics
- Inverse Kinematics
-- what it is, inverse vs. forward
-- setting up a goaled chain
-- constraints
-- example on backhoe
-- example on bones
-- multiple goal chains, stiffness, goal strength
- lunch
- students continue to bone and animate Prisoner

Day 5: animation techniques
- using bones and Morph Gizmo together
- test rendering: for timing, for surfacing, to predict render times
- lunch
- Foreground keying
- special effect plug-in on last shot
- students continue to animate

Day 6: finish the commercial
- "render->view->tweak->repeat" cycle
- students animate and render all remaining scenes and elements
- make credits slate
- lunch
- compiling the animations and layoff to tape