Facial Modelling & Animation – Reflective Diary

Storyline

The basis of this storyline was to play on people emotions and to use them to create an atmosphere that was enthralling, scary and frightening. I therefor decided to create a serious piece of facial animation work based on the concept of fear.

To get ideas for the features of my character I carried out an in depth research of evil characters by reading comics and graphic novels, reviewing films and investigating various internet sites. One of the characters that was very influential in my finished piece of work was “Red Skull” from Marvels Captain America, Nemesis as it he portrayed a lot of the characteristics that I wanted my facial animation to have.

One piece of research I found to be very useful was when I reviewed the film “Unbreakable” which is about a man who discovers he has super powers. One of the scenes at the beginning of the film is where Samuel Jackson’s character, Mr Glass, is appraising the cover art of a comic, with a colleague, which has been framed and is hanging on a wall in front of them. He describes it as a classic comparison of good versus evil. The thing that makes it so special is the realistic depiction of the characters. His description of the evil characters inspired me with the development of my own piece of facial animation and the evil characteristics that I wanted to build into it.

I also scoured the internet for relevant sites portraying monsters, demons and villainous characters that would further inspire me in creating my horrific piece of facial animation. As I progressed through my research I began to develop in my mind the elements that I wanted to bring together to form my piece of work. I developed my ideas from reviewing various sites. I then meshed together different elements of my character including decaying teeth, lips, ears, nose, horns, protruding brain and rotting flesh. At this stage I started looking into gathering video / audio reference material that would support my character. Since my character needed to portray a threatening and scary nature I looked for videos where the character(s) had either an intimidating presence that they projected or voice traits that made them sound threatening, aggressive and or violent.

 

Audio

I compiled the audio track from a mesh up of Ultron in the Avengers 2 trailers that I brought together in Moviemaker. I felt that this gave the video the right atmosphere with Ultrons deep and calm voice emphasising the element of fear in the video.

 

Storyboard

After deciding upon and finalising the choice of the video / audio track that I wanted to use with my character I started on the production of my storyboard. The process that I had followed had helped me develop in my mind a draft plan of how the storyboard would flow and the message that it would give. The storyboard outlines the basis of the animation from the starting point where the evil character appears on screen and immediately begins his evil and malicious rant. He does it in such a casual way as to leave no doubt in the viewers mind as to what sort of character he is.

 

Facial Structure

I wanted to create a facial structure that would leave a lasting impression of fear in the viewer’s mind. I also wanted my face to have a unique and creative look but not something that would alienate the viewer. Using my concept art drawings as reference material I started work on the front of the face working down from the forehead to the chin. The basis of the facial structure was a gaunt, bony and lifeless face with extra lines being added around the eyes & mouth to give them extra manoeuvrability and to allow them to be stretched.

 

Ears

Following on from this I moved onto the ears, which I started off by extruding faces out of the side of the head, which I then gave an elf like appearance to. I also used a torus which I merged to the bottom of the face giving each of my earlobes a giant disgusting hole.

 

Horns

Next I created the horns, from cones, which protruded from the crown of the head, the cheeks and the chin. I started off with the horns in the crown of the head giving them a deformed structure and having 3 of them extending awkwardly upwards from each side of the head. I shaped them to look like goat’s horns in order to give them more character with a more complex, terrifying and interesting look. To add extra character to the face I added in a single horn to each side which protruded out like an overgrown whisker from the cheekbone.

 

Chin

For the chin area I created several horns so that it exhibited a horn like beard. When I was developing the horns I gave them raised crater like bases that the horn would extend from. This was the same for all the horns that appeared on the face & head. To connect all these horns to the head I started off by deleting the bottom faces of all the horns/cones, I then created these dents all over the face in to which I could place the horns. To create these dents I selected the face, extruding it outwards and then in again to create the dents. I then deleted the faces in these dents; positioned the horns in the dents, combined the horns and the face and then connected the vertices.

 

Nose

In order to maintain the creepy image that I wanted my character to have I gave it a skeletal like nose with very little visible nasal passageway and 2 darkened holes for the noses entrance similar to that of a fleshless skull.

 

Brain

To make my character even scarier I crated a crater like indent on the side of the skull by extruding it inwards and then extending it outwards to create the organ like image of the brain protruding out of its skull. At this point I deleted the right side of the face, Duplicate Special the left side of the face, I then combined both sides of the face and connected the vertices, I was now able to see what my completed face looked like.

 

Mouth

For the mouth area I removed the lips revealing the decaying gums, which were created with a cube and moulded to the shape of a pair of gums. Next I developed a set of rotten piranha like teeth which I created from pyramids. The top and bottom sets of teeth meshed together with a vice like grip when the mouth closes.

 

Tongue

I created a basic tongue shape, from a cube, for my character then extended the tips on both sides so that it protruded out of the mouth to give it a forked “V” like shape similar to that of a snake. I then added dents and indents to the surface and underside of the tongue to give it a more realistic look.

 

Eyes

I started these off by drawing out a sphere to the size of my characters eye socket. For this process I didn’t lower the poly count, placing the eye ball roughly in the centre of an eye socket. The next step was shaping the eyeball to give it similar characteristics to that of a character from Lord of the Rings called the “Eye of Sauron”. To add more detail to the eyeball I extruded the front face of the eyeball inwards and then extruded the face inwards to create the pupil for the eyes.

 

Eyelid

To create the eyelid I drew another sphere that was the same as the one I had used for the eyeball. I then deleted half of the faces, so that only a half was left. I then selected all of the remaining faces and extruded them to add thickness to the eyelid. This was then duplicated to create the bottom half of the eyelid. I then duplicated both eyelids again to create a second pair of eyelids.

 

Body / Torso

Next I followed the tutorial video that created a basic body for my model. This consisted of cylinders where their topology was reduced to 8. I then started work on the upper part of the torso, stretching out the top part of the cylinder to enhance the muscle structure (i.e. pectoral, deltoid and abdomen) so that they were clearly visible. On the top part of the torso I then extruded out what was going to be my shoulders and neck where my head would be attached. On the stomach I selected six faces that I extruded outwards and shaped it into a six pack (Rectus abdominis muscle).

Arms

I created an arm using a cylinder where the topology was reduced to 8. I then developed the upper part of the arm by stretching the top part of the cylinder which enhanced the muscle structure (i.e. biceps and triceps) so that they were clearly visible. Once this process had been completed I copied the arm over to the opposite side of the torso using duplicate special.

 

Legs

I used the same basic process to create a leg with a cylinder where the topology was reduced to 8. I then developed the upper part of the leg by stretching the top part of the cylinder which enhanced its muscle structure (i.e. bicep femoris, gracilis, gastrocnemius etc.) so that they were clearly visible. Once this process had been completed I copied the leg over to the opposite side of the torso using duplicate special.

 

Connecting Arms & Legs to Torso

I deleted faces on both sides of the body where the arms were going to be placed; I also deleted the faces on top of the shoulder. I combined the arms with the body so that I could then connect the vertices. I then completed the same process for the legs. Having connected all the limbs to the body I then went on to smooth out the mesh to give it a more natural shape.

 

Hands

For the hands I initially drew out a cube, I then drew in several lines on the cube to create separate faces that I could extrude out for the fingers and thumb. After having shaped out a properly formed hand I then went on to add my own personal characteristics to the hand. I selected certain faces on the fingers and thumb and scaled them in to give the hand a bony appearance, like an old lady’s hands. I selected the faces on the ends of the finger tips and thumb and extruded those inwards to give a slightly sunken appearance. Having done that I created finger nails, out of cones, from which I removed the faces at the bottom of the nail and deleted the faces from the extrusion at the top of the finger. This allowed me to combine the vertices of the finger tips and nails. Once the hand was complete I removed the faces from the base of the hand and arm so that the vertices could be combined to provide a completed arm and hand.

 

Feet

For the feet I again drew out a cube and drew in several lines thereby creating several faces that could be extruded out to create the toes. Once the foot was completed I removed the faces on the leg and foot where they were to be joined so that the vertices could be combined to connect the foot to the leg. Having done that I created an ankle bone on each foot by selecting a vertice around the ankle area and pulled it out slightly to create the shape of the ankle. I also created an indent on the underside of each foot (representing the instep) and arched the top of the foot (representing the main foot bone).

 

 

Texturing

The body was now complete; the next stage was the texturing. All the texturing was created using a combination of Maya Miax Passes, Layered, Ramp, Surface Shader, Noise and Lambert. The body was textured using a combination of Mia, Layered & Ramp; this created a faded effect going from black below the waste to the feet and red above to waste up to the head.

The nails on the hand were next to be textured. Using Mia I gave them a dirty yellow colour to make them look infected. Using Mia I gave the gums a dull purple colour to make them look moist but lifeless. At their intersection with the gums I gave the teeth a yellow decayed look which gradually changed to a normal white colour as you moved towards the end of the tooth. This effect was created using a combination of Mia, Layered and Ramp. Using a combination of Noise and Lambert I gave the tongue a normal red colouring with a moist look for added reality. The combination of the Noise with Lambert helped create the visibility of the taste buds on the tongue. I used a combination of Mia, Layered, Ramp and Surface Shader to create the colouring for the eyeball and give it a glowing effect. The design of the eyeball was based on the character “Eye of Sauron” from Lord of the Rings. The final piece of texturing was for the horns. With the use of Mia, Layered and Ramp I again created a decaying look for the horns by giving the base a black aged look then changed the colouring to yellow, which gradually faded before becoming white at the tip of the horn.

 

Rigging

The layout of the rig gave an accurate representation of the anatomy. On my character I placed my first joint around the sacrum and then I placed three joints going upwards with a curve along the spine. I then placed three more joints going from the cervical vertebrae to the cranium. I then started work on the joints for the left leg by drawing in the joint that went from the hip down through the patella and then onto the ankle. I then created a joint for the sole of the foot which allowed me a closer and more accurate control of its movement. I then duplicated special the joints in the left leg so that there were the same joints in the right leg. Next I started work on the left arm joints. The first joint that I put in went from the first rib to the shoulder down to the elbow then the carpus finishing up at the palm of the hand. This then spawned three joints for each of the four fingers and two for the thumb. As the arm joints were now complete I duplicated special giving the right arm the same joints as the left. On my model I then placed two joints at the centre of each eyeball in order to give me complete and accurate control over them. Following on from this I placed eight joints around the mouth three on the top and bottom and one in each corner. This allowed me to have complete control over the movement of the lips and teeth and to produce various facial expressions with my model.

 

Skinning

To start the skinning process I selected the root joint, which was the sacrum and then my character and smooth bind it, I then flooded it with weights. Now the body is affected by the root joint only with all other joints becoming inactive. This gave me a more precise way of painting skin weight affected by particular joints.

 

Curves

To give me greater control over my character and to make it easier to move I created a network of individual and linked curves. For example, on each foot I attached 3 curves (to the ankle, sole and the toe end of the foot) which made it easier and gave me greater control over the movement of the feet. Overall this allowed me to easily move individual parts, selected parts or the whole of the body without detracting from the reality of the movement.

 

Blendshapes

I utilised this functionality which exists in Maya to create short-cut keys. This was beneficial when producing the animation as it allowed me to easily vary the individual characteristics of my character as well as synchronising its movement in line with the audio track. This process was achieved by creating several copies of my character, changing each one to portray a specific action, movement, emotion or look. I then selected all the blend shapes that I had created along with the main characters body before selected Blendshapes to bring them all together and creating the controls that enable manoeuvrability.

 

Control Buttons

In relation to the above I created control buttons and gave them parameters and the confines within which they had to operate / function to allow the appropriate control of my blendshapes and their settings. I then selected specific blendshape actions, movements, emotions and looks that I wanted my character to portray using these controls.

 

 

Done