Modeling problem:

During the whole process, I have been struggling for creating a nice body of the character, as there are certain edges not connected to each other very well, which affected the whole character’s movements, due to the tiny holes everywhere; different methods have been experimented to pursue for a better visual effect. Even though I didn’t employ it at the end, but I would like to mention it here, as it was a valuable study process for me to gain some extra skills and experience apart from the classroom-exercise. Modeling the whole body with reference image is one of the useful methods, which I learnt from the tutorials that existed online. The tutorial source is: http://www.bauervision.com/3dsMax_Modeling.html

First of all, import the relevant images (including front and left view) a material bitmap in a plane which will be used as a reference image placed in the background. Start with drawing a box from the chest and then Convert it to Editable Poly to clone a lot more boxes down to the ankle (the same methods as we make the clothes, pant and shoes earlier). It is important to see both the mesh and background image, so I set the object (box) visibility: 0.5, so that the box becomes transparent, which makes it easy to follow the shape of the reference image.

Following the same procedure, make the arm and then apply Symmetry as to get the other side of the body and Material IDs has been used to enrich the color of the clothes . TurboSmooth has been employed to make the mesh more accurate and to smoothen the whole object.

However, after I completed the modeling by using this method, I wasn't that satisfied with the result, because the body didn't look like a clown’s style or either the costume. Even though I considered and tried to modify it into a clown’s jumpsuit, but it became even worse and difficult to proceed from that point. Finally I gave up with such an “advanced” tutorial and turned to the original method and my previous experience with creating clothes and shoes by using a plane, which Jo gave lecture in the classroom. It seemed that I learnt more from what she taught and more convenient for us to adopt it and bring it into practice.

Regarding the bones, I was planning just to envelop the bones by adding a biped and I did try that at the beginning, as I took for granted that it would be quick to complete skinning for the whole character. However, something unexpected happened. For instance, the mesh didn't go well with bones and quite hard to adjust the single bone from a biped, especially the fingers, which would influence each other so easily if there is a slight overlapping in between. Furthermore, as the size of biped was originally fixed, so that it was hard to change one single bone within a biped. Also, the distance between two objects, normally it is the joint area which makes it mismatch with bones. According to all the disadvantages above, I turned to adding bones one by one and skinning it at last.

Render problem:

A certain render problem has been encountered in this process; I also consulted some fellow students regarding my problems, they really tried to give me good suggestions but still couldn't find out the reason why it happened like that. Eventually I figured out that the Exposure Control under Environment and Effects option was set to be Logarithmic Exposure Control which resulted in low quality of the rendered images as well as all the animated scenes. Then I set it back to Automatic Exposure Control and it rendered out quite high quality images.

The animation itself is easy to complete, yet the lighting (Omni light) for the first scene is more important, because it is the beginning of a show. Therefore, the stage lighting starts with dark and gradually becomes very bright by adding its Mutiplier value under Intensity/Color/Attenuation section. Also, the camera moves towards (by reducing the Target Distance) the character as it is going to get closer to Mr Joker and make an emphasis.

Scene no.2

The second scene is that Mr Joker demonstrates his big red nose, which is one of the most typical representatives of a clown’s image. In this scene, Mr Joker is pointing at his nose, the significant part here is to show how to rotate or twist the fingers by simulating the human “finger-pointing” action. The camera here is placed also right in front of the character. As is shown, the shadow is behind the character, meaning that the light is ahead. However, I begin to use the Target Spot as a light in this scene due to the lighting condition/problem. Omni light was applied before, but the animation didn't look bright enough after being rendered, hence, I turned to employ Target Spot according to 3d max tutorial. Moreover, , the shadows were set to be Area Shadows under the General Parameters section and the shadow color was set to be grey with 0.7 Dens under the Shadow Parameters section. All these setting have been chosen after a few times experiments with comparison on the character.

Scene no.3

This scene is to display Mr Joker’s costume by following the movements of his hands pointing from the head until facing two hands toward the audience. The difficult part in this scene is that it is an action for two hands; therefore it is not easy to manage them having exactly the same movement at the same time. In addition, there is quite lots of rotation of both arms and hands, which might result in that certain area is distorted by mistake without any notice. As it is shown in the last clip, the right hand of the character has been distorted after the animation, which I couldn't even “remedy” it, as envelop didn't work so well in this area.

Scene no.4

Mr Joker is trying to show off his special clown shoes that differ from the others. The animation in this scene has been improved after I did some user-test. A good advice has been taken into consideration and then the animation was revised again. The reason inducing this difference in the transformation is that the movement of the foot affects the calf slightly, which makes it obvious to see whether the foot works well or normal. In the old version, I only made the foot move but with the calf static, which looked a bit weird. However, this movement succeeded in the new version and looks much better.

Scene no.6

A clown is always good at many things such as juggling. So is Mr Joker! He is one of the best jugglers who master the skills how to juggle three balls or even more at a time. Look! He is pretty enjoying juggling and amusing his audience simultaneously. A good point in this scene is to consider how to juggle by oneself and calculate when the ball drops and when to rise the hand to catch the ball. After having several times of experiment in the real world on my own and I found out how to deal with the timeline as to enable my character to be a “best juggler”! On the other hand, the movements of the eyes are important as well, for it is a reaction among the body, eyes and concentration. It is the eyes that connect the brain and body language together.

Scene no.7

The last scene is to use the Morph modifier for simulating facial expression. It sounded complicated and difficult as I expected earlier, however, after I have viewed Jo's and some fellow students’ notes regarding morphing, I finally managed how to use it onto my character.

The entire procedure is as below:

Detach the whole face from the rest of the body, as it is only the facial animation that will be morphed. Then highlight the face and clone it.

1. Rename the copy one as “surprise” (expression word) and change the expression of either the eyes or the mouth of the mesh. Note that it is a complete copy from the original one, I attempted to delete some vertices on the face, and then the morpher didn't work.

2. Select the original face and apply Morpher modifier from the modifier list.

3. Click on an empty channel under Channel List, a small box appears saying pick from scene. Pick the “surprise” face and now the morph starts to work with showing a green sign next to the panel. The facial expression will be changed by adjusting the small arrows on the right side showing the weight (0-100) of the morph.

The final facial animation has been done through the mouth to a great extent and slight transformation of the eyes. The camera stays right in front of the character and then drastically gets close up to the face in order to highlight the morphing details.

Final character animation