30.11.2020 – Introduction

Should write something in my introduction about my methodology. I should write how my research and sources come from information provided my other developers, animators, researchers and programmers. Artificial Intelligence is a fairly recent frontier in computer animation research and many of the discoveries made within AI in CGI (such as DeepFakes) are far too

15.11.2020 – Crowd Simulation

Crowd Simulation is the process of recreating the movement of a large number of 3D characters or organisms and is used in films and video games, as well as architecture, urban planning, crisis training and evacuation simulations. I found out about Reinforcement Learning, which is a process where agents undertake actions within a set environment

26.10.2020 – Motion Capture

Another field of computer animation which will be greatly affected by Artificial Intelligence is Motion Capture, which is the process of recording movements of people, animals and objects and turning the information into data to apply to rigged 3D models. One of the most challenging tasks for any animator is animating animals and creatures. Animators

15.10.2020 – Environment and object generation

Environment and Object generation in both games and films is a perfect field to apply artificial intelligence. NVIDIA recently produced a machine learning system called GauGAN, which is essentially a smart paintbrush. The four main drawing categories are Building, Ground, Landscape and Plant, and within each of those there are more options one can choose

24.09.2020 – Audio-driven facial animation.

Haven’t worked on my thesis much in the past month, since August. This post will focus on my Audio-driven facial animation chapter. One of the most important aspects of computer animation for films and videogames is animating facial expressions and speech. Just like most other performances, facial performances can either be animated traditionally using 3D

08.08.2020 – Rigging and modelling

Two of the most laborious and time-consuming aspects of computer animation are rigging and modelling. To fully understand how these two areas of CGI can be automated, one needs to have a basic understanding of what they are and how the entire modelling process works. Modelling in CGI is the process of creating a full

11.01.2021 – Last minute problem with my rig.

For some reason both my neck and chest controls are broken. They seem to have been disconnected from the rig’s joints. I must have pressed something by accident or I must have accidentally set some keys for the joints and not the controls. No idea how this happened, but it messed up my final animation.

09.01.2021 – Polishing (third pass)

Third and final pass before facial animation. Animation looks complete. It just needs one final pass, straighten some arcs throughout the scene and I can start the lip synching process. Just need to fix and straighten head movements at “welcome to vatican museums” bit. Facial animation. I’ve decided to sort out the facial expressions before

08.01.2021 – Polishing (second pass)

Pacing is almost perfect. Few things to correct now: The head turn at the beginning (4 seconds in) still too fast. Slow it down. At “welcome to the…” smoothen out the arcs. Head bobs slide around too much and rolling when head should be bouncier. Contact points need to be straightened out and need to

07.01.2020 – Polishing (first pass)

Much better pacing overall. Still some minor things to improve before lip synching and facial expressions. At 5 seconds, smoothen out head’s arc even more, delete the movement of the whole bust going up. Just keep the head turn. At 24 seconds slow down the head shakes. Forgot to do it in Splining. Maybe fix