Kieranayles's Blog

Alas, my project is now complete. Throughout this project I had some pro and cons when constructing the animation together. I had issues involving texturing where I was unable to import textures that I had created in Photoshop on my models that I created. My main issue was when it came to the rendering as this seemed to fail on me several times and would not seem to work. Eventually I overcame these and was able to correct the problems that fell my way.

With this project I had the idea of making a animation based on the disease Tourette syndrome. With this subject I wanted to relate this to the theme of perception. So when modelling my character i decided to only use a pair of lips as a way of expressing the disease as Tourette’s is involuntary tics that come from the brain but are expressed through the mouth ad to the third persons perspective thats all we see it as. I also felt that i created the meaning of perception by not modelling any other part of the body as when people usually have an experience with someone who has Tourette’s they ae mainly focused on the mouth so the body need not exist despite what qualities the person may have.

When recording the dialouge and playing it back to several members of the public, all I got were laughs. I am happy with those results as this just proves my point as people see this issue as a joke and a laugh and not taking it seriously and understanding the meaning behind it and that those people with this illness are not different from us. With research which I conducted many of the sufferers stated that people saw them as a joke and saw the disease as opposed to the person. With that in mind I wanted my animation to dwell on that point and test the audience to see if they would understand the piece and what it means or if they will just laugh.

I found this project very interesting as I learnt a lot of new skills in maya and i am beginning to progress quite quickly due to only starting this program a couple of months ago. Also I learnt a lot about the issue itself and how the sufferers deal with the disease and the many variations between them. I also read a lot about the history and discovered facts on what happened to these people before the disease was diagnosed and found that the majority of people through these different time periods such as Victorians and middle ages saw the disease as a demonic possession.

whilst developing my project I was able to constructively plan a timeline for myself on what I needed to do and the order it needed to be done. This helped me a lot as I was able to manage my time a lot more than previous units in the course.

Overall I am very happy with my animation and it has opened my eyes on all the amazing things that can be created in 3D programs such as maya. Now that I have learnt the basic skills I will be developing these in my time and will hopefully be making more animations in the next year to generate more experience and knowledge. I feel that with my completed project I was able to show the meaning behind it and maybe give the audience a better understanding of how diseases do not separate us from each other and that we are all equal. I also found this unit particularly fun as it when working in 3D it opened my mind and gave me the ability to think on how to produce animation in this dimension.

Below is my completed project along with the one that did not quite render properly.

Setting the scene

As my animation will feature a pair of lips who has Tourette’s I needed to think about how i will set the scene for my animation and a style in which I will use to visually convey the message. I decided that I wanted the scene to be set in a living room where the character was going to be interviewed. For this I would have to model several household objects and items that would make the scene seem realistic.

Before I animated anything I began by modelling different items that would make my scene. So the first items that I started to model were chairs, sofas, computer desk, PC, shelves, books etc. I wanted to model a lot of items and set arrange them so that it would look like an everyday living room.

Modeling

As I was new to maya I started on modelling the more simple items such as the chair and sofas. This was done by creating several polygons and extruding/ shaping them untill they formed into what I desired. Rather than going through every technical detail as this would be irrelevant I modelled most of my objects by just starting off with a polygon and basically played around with it using the key functionalities on maya untill I formed my objects. I used images from the internet as references to shapes and sizes so that when modelling i would not lose proportion and realism. During the development of this part I began to think that maybe I should go into interior design as I was spending so much time with this part making sure that everything was modelled and textured to perfection.

As maya was running slow on my laptop due to insufficient graphics capabilities I was finding it hard to keep moving the object around in different positions and changing the sizes according to the perspectives. This seemed to be slowing my computer down dramatically so I thought as a great interesting way of researching and referencing I decided to go out and buy a video game called the sims. If you are unfamiliar with this game, the idea is to build and decorate a home with the given tools and items. You then can live as a sim and basically have a virtual life, but I didn’t bother with that part as my life in the real world is confusing enough. As well as fun investment this idea really helped me with my project as i was able to play around with a scene and add/move and cut objects with a click of the button.  I also liked this as I thought that it was doing things in a different way, I would have expected that a simulation video game could benefit a university project. When I was happy with the room that i constructed within the video game, i used this as a guide into designing my 3D environment.

Now that I had my environment blueprints sorted I was then to continue with my modeling and knowing exactly what I had left to model this went by quicker than I expected. What did take a long time was texturing the objects so that they would seem realistic. For the sofas and chairs I created a texture in Photoshop that would give them a more material look. Being at an intermediate level on Photoshop this did not take long but when importing the textures into maya i came across a big problem.

When selecting in maya the default textures and colours to texture some of my objects I had no issues but when it came to texturing objects with the imported pre composed textures that I created, maya would not seem to correspond with these and I could not figure out why. After many hours of searching and asking others the solution was found and I had not selected in the texture settings the correct format. knowing that this was such a simple problem to fix and the duration of myself actually fixing it, I felt quite the fool, and so the modeling continues.

Progressing through my modelling now I did not really have any more issues, if I seemed to get a little stuck, I would use references or read tutorials on similar object that have been made to understand the techniques into forming a certain object.

Below are a few screen prints during the development of modelling my objects, I have only selected a certain few as I do not want to cram my blog and they are all the same really in terms of technique and the way they look during the development.

Modelling the Character

Now that the scene was modelled and textured I started to model my character ( the pair of lips). Whilst modelling this I realised that I had picked one of the hardest things to model and use as a main source of the animation as lips are very complex and they contain many muscles which in maya means that they contain a lot of geometry. However I constructed my idea a long time before and have conducted research in relation to the meaning of my animation so I was not going to back down now but I was not looking forward to the animation part.

During the process of modelling the lips I hit many hurdles and had to try many techniques and conduct more research in order to jump past this. There were many ways i tried to model the lips such as my first idea was to inset an image plain and use that as a sort of guide line to tray over using polygons. This did not work and I did not really feel that I was learning anything when using that technique. In the end I managed to model the lips to how I desired. I did this by making a rectangular polygon and inserting 6 sub-divisions and with that I gained more geometry to play around with. I treated it as though it were clay and I just kept playing around untill I got the right shape. I do not think there were any correct techniques used with this but i managed to pull it off and it looks good.

The Script

The sound for my animation was going to dialogue so before I could do any recording i needed to plan what the character was going to say and the message the character was going to convey to the audience. I wrote down a short script which will be used in the recording. Below is the script which I used to record the dialogue.

            3D Animation Script

 Location – In a living room – Day

 A Character who has a disease known as Tourette’s is being interviewed in his living room. This Character is taking to the interviewer/audience about his life and about the disease.

                                                                                         MAIN CHARACTER

                  Do I need anything before I start?

                                                                                               INTERVIEWER

                  No, its fine, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

                                                                                            MAIN CHARACTER

            Well, my name is Dave. I’m just a normal guy really. I like doing

           Normal things, I love snowboarding, been snowboarding been

            Snowboarding ever since I was a kid, love the mountain, had the

            Best times on that board, you forget about all things when your

            On that board and its like you detach from reality. Heh, I even

            Thought I would make it big someday.

                                                                                               INTERVIEWER

            What else do you do?

                                                                                            MAIN CHARACTER

            I enjoy watching TV, New series of 24 out now, looks pretty good.

            Love playing games on my PC, you know just normal things. Don’t

            Really have any friends though. Can’t figure out why though! Well

            Maybe its cos I have Tourette’s syndrome. It’s this disease that takes

            Over my brain and makes me wanna say the dirtiest things. It’s like this

            Itch, that begs to be scratched. Big mouth they call me at school…….  

            Big mouth. No one wants to be seen with me, let alone hang out. I’m

            Not a bad guy, given the chance. Heh.

Recording the sound

With my completed script I got the help of a friend who performed the speech for me. We recorded with a microphone that was linked within the software fruit loops. With this I was able to edit the sound adjustment levels accordingly. I used fruit loops as this software is one of the best around for creating audio pieces and gives out the best quality.

Animating the Character

Now that I had my audio ready and my character modelled it was time to put them together and animate the character to correspond with the dialogue. As my skills in animation are very limited at this point I used a blend effect in maya. To do this I had to duplicate my character several times and model each individual one so that there would be a variation in mouth poses. I then blended them together and used this technique to make the character look as though it is speaking along with the audio. This was not done perfect as lip syncing is very hard to do and usually done by extreme experts. I researched lip sync withing the games industry and found out that even high-resolution video games have still not managed to generate perfect lip sync. So if they cannot do it with all the experience and technology behind them then i had no chance. I basically just opened and closed the lips when there was dialogue. However even doing this it still looks good so I am happy.

Lighting and Rendering

I wanted to add certain lighting to my scene to make it look realistic and to make it seem as though light was coming from the window. Lighting is not one of my expertise yet so I had a play around with a few different lights and adjusted settings untill i got a result that i was happy with. In the end I used a spot light which gave me enough to make the scene seem more realistic.

When it came to rendering I suffered with many problems. At first I tried rendering 8 times and all failed at different points. I blame the macs. I  finally managed to get a render ready for the crit but it did not render all the textures and smoothing of objects which I had implemented. This generated more annoyance. As each render took over 2 hours and none would seem to work properly I managed to rectify a small fragment of the animation but still with not all textures. I am still in the process of trying to fix these technical faults and hopefully will have the complete piece soon. If by the crit I have to show the piece with no texturing I made sure that I had many render previews of different angles of the scene of my animation. These previews showed all the textures in all there glory. This way I am able to show what I actually did. Below are some render views that I have imported.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a comedy sketch show series which features Tourette’s in one episode. This is just a video i found hilarious and it kind of relates to my project. Ok maybe it does not portray the message that i wish to as it is comedy however it does include Tourette’s. The idea of this part of the show is that people are dining at a posh restaurant where the chef has Tourette’s. When the chef expresses his Tourette’s then everyone looks very uncomfortable. What then makes it funny is that everyone starts to voluntary swear and make inappropriate outbursts to make the chef feel and equal and less uncomfortable. Watch it and see.

I have been researching Tourette’s over the internet and have been watching documentaries and interviews of people with the illness in order to gain a better understanding of what it is like for them and how they see the illness. It was interesting to find out the many sufferers have different reactions or also known as “tics” than each other. There is also different perceptions of the people towards themselves as different sufferers see the disease in different ways despite it being scientifically diagnosed.

Tourette’s was founded in 1885 as a neurologic disease in which forces the body to create outbursts or what is known as tics. However some people who suffer from the disease perceive the illness in different ways. Watching documentaries and hearing the people with the disease speak about their condition I discovered that some of them believe that it is some what of a demonic possession and that there is a demon inside of them which is causing them to generate these unnatural reactions. Some describe it as a feeling as though you were sneezing and no matter how much you try, you cannot hold it in. So relating to the demonic theory they believe that a demon is overpowering them and trying to expose itself.                                                                                                                                                                     There are other people who have the feeling as though there is someone on their shoulder taunting them to say violent words and outbursts. They describe it as a feeling as though a parrot would be on a pirates shoulder.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Some sufferers say that they feel that it is demonic but there feeling is as though the demon is external and is controlling them like a puppet and controlling their dialogue. They relate themselves to a puppet and the puppet master being the person who manipulates their actions and speech but rather than a person the puppet master is demonic as the outbursts are commonly violent ones.                                                                                                                         These experiences and theories developed by the people with the disease we know as being incorrect as the disease has been diagnosed, however thats not to say that they do not feel the way they do and maybe there is some 3rd person or spiritual demon controlling them but these theories cannot be proven. There is no reason to ignore them though as before the disease was diagnosed and especially in the middle ages, people with such dysfunctionalities such as what tourettes would be, were killed almost instantly due to the beliefs of demonic possessions.                                                                                                                                                                                                              Below I have uploaded some videos which I found useful to gain better understanding and to help me create me animation piece linking it to the theme I am going for.

Tourettes, I swear i can’t help it

A documentery from the BBC, this follows the life of a male who has tourettes and how he has suffered because of this. It also shows other people with the disease and shares thier experiences with it.

Tourettes Camp

Marc Elliot

Marc Elliot just graduated from Washington University and has a complex form of Tourette’s syndrome. He makes sounds and says words that he cannot control. Now 23, he is now inspiring audiences across the country by sharing his life story in order to convey the value of tolerance and the basic mental attitudes and behaviors that allow it to flourish. This documentary attempts to give the audience an inside look at how people react to others who are different and Marc’s day to day life. In addition, Marc details the progression of his Tourette’s with personal anecdotes.

Born in 1857, Georges Gilles De La Tourette was a French Neurologist who became the eponym of the Neurological Condition “Tourette Syndrome”.

During 1873 Tourette began medical studies at Poitiers. He later relocated to Paris where he became a student and house physician of his mentor, the influential contemporary neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, director of the Salpêtrière Hospital. Charcot also enabled him to advance in his academic career. Tourette studied and lectured in psychotherapy, hysteria and medical and legal ramifications of mesmerism (modern-day hypnosis).

Tourette described the symptoms of Tourette syndrome in nine patients in 1884, using the name “maladie des tics”. Charcot (His Mentor) renamed the syndrome “Gilles de la Tourette’s illness” in his honor.

In 1902 Tourette’s disturbed behaviour necessitated his removal from his professional post and he died in a mental hospital in Lausanne in June, 1904.

“Who Named It”.1994-2010. Ole Daniel Enersen.                                      http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/357.html

 ”Wikipedia”.2001-2010.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Gilles_de_la_Tourette                                                                                                                               

For my animation i will be trying to visually convey perceptions of Tourette’s in an abstract way which will show meaning behind this disease and provide the characteristics of the disease itself.

In order for me do this to a high standard i have been conducting research of the history of Gilles de la and been reading through many different theoretical approaches to what this disease indicates. Also I have been watching documentary’s of people who have the disease to generate a better understanding of how they perceive themselves and the illness and whether they see it as medical or supernatural.

Studying the brief and knowing that the basis of this animation piece was to combine a short animation with sound, there were no restrictions of what I can do and achieve. I started doodling and writing down words etc, as this is a key element in self on how I accumulate my ideas.

Being someone who has a passion for animation films and is a great fan of companies such as “Pixar” I wanted my animation to involve a main character which strong characteristics. This is due to characters being the main source of animation films, as the film itself can visually look stunning and can be action packed but if their main characters are not designed and animated in a way to convey their characteristics then the animation would not be very effective despite the other visuals and technical elements.

So as i now want to produce an animation piece with a strong character, the sound in my piece will be dialogue. My animation is going to be of a character who has Tourette’s. This character will be the main source of the animation so in order for this animation to be effective I need to visually convey the meaning and background of this character in an abstract approach. As the main character has Tourette’s this gives me the opportunity to really branch out and bring some life into this animation. My intentions are to grab the audience’s attention immediately and try to establish a connection with the characters emotions so that they have an understanding of the character and the issue that has been arisen.

How I came to the idea of the main character having Tourette’s was I wanted to produce an animation which showed a variation of perceptions and how we see ourselves and others. I particularly chose Tourette’s as this is a well-known illness and also it is an illness that has character within itself. With Tourette’s as the theme, this relates to the idea of perceptions as when people with Tourette’s are encountered with others the outside person will just see them as someone with the illness rather than the person themselves and other qualitys they may have. They will usually just focus on the mouth as this is the element of the side effect of the illness. Whereas the person with the illness sees themselves for who they really are and the Tourette’s side is not apart of them.

I am still working on how i am going to design and visually show this through a 3D animation piece. i have been working on some sketches and designs and will be posting them up when I have finalized them. For the sound piece I will be producing a monologue to go with this character which will hopefully have the effect of the character communication to the audience and sharing emotions.

As the development continues there are aspects that may change as new ideas are always floating through my head but the above mentioned will be the main source of this project.