Advanced 3D Art and Animation

1. Advanced 3D Art and Animation Compositing 2: Bringing 3D Elements Into Moving Camera Footage

2. Final Film: Character Diagrams Next week we begin modeling the character/s for your Final Films. This week we finalize designs and create well-proportioned Ortho diagrams for these characters. Focus on clothed, organic, bipedal humanoids; a robotic/ prosthetic limb is fine, but these characters are expected to walk and express emotions with full body and facial animation, and full robots make it harder to demonstrate well-articulated organic face and hand motion. Most clothing elements will be cut and extruded directly from the body. Exceptions include flowing items like a cape, scarf, open coat flaps, skirt, or hair, all of which will stay distinct objects and be rigged separately. We want 3 views in T-pose (stand straight up, arms out, legs and fingers spread): Back, LeftSide, Front, as shown here. Make consistent proportions: line up the head top and chin, the eyes/nose/mouth, the waist, knees, ankles, and shoulders (arms should come straight out below neck). Include top arm view above extended arm. Fit all into a single PNG: 2048x2048, 72ppi, black lines on gray background.

3. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking To Composite 3D content into MOVING footage, we need to analyze and export the camera motion information from After Effects to Maya. We then set up our scene and animation in Maya, render frames, and bring them back into AE for compositing and color grading. Because the Maya scene is rendered using the camera tracking data from the footage, the 3D content should be able to stand on the ground and appear to move with the footage as if it is meant to be there. While there are programs like Match Mover that will do the analyzing and exporting stages, we will use the 3D Tracker built into After Effects and a free plugin script, AE3D_Export.jsx. Start with footage that includes PANNING (camera tilts alone do not produce good tracking data). We want to produce and export a tracked 3D Camera and a Null to replace with our 3D content. NOTES SOURCES: • https://lesterbanks.com/2015/03/use-after-effects-3d-camera-tracker-data-in-maya/ • https://vimeo.com/121829515 • https://vimeo.com/121829516 • https://vimeo.com/121829517 • https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/tracking-3d-camera-movement.html

4. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 1 EXERCISE 1: Get Tracking Data from Panning Footage: • Download provided footage clip. [Cmd/Ctrl]+[i] import into AE and drag into the film-icon to make a Comp. • Render sequence for Maya reference: name.[####].jpg. • Open Window > Tracker. Select the footage layer in the Composition (one click) and hit [Track Camera]. This is a two step process: Analyzing and Solving. • When the initial Tracking is complete, scrub and jump through the footage second by second. Choose a “stage” area where you want the 3D content to go.

5. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 2 • OPTIONAL: Delete extra tracking points from lit areas far from your stage region, to focus tracking on your stage (only needed if your stage has few points). Return to frame 1 ([Home] key), and select in order: (a) the Layer, (b) the 3D Camera Tracker Effect name, and (c) the Viewport Window name. We can now click-and-drag in the viewport to select around tracking points we don’t want (instead of moving the footage out of frame). Hit [Shift] to add more tracking points. Hit the [Delete] key and AE re-solves the camera. • Choose tracking points to define the stage: Click or ClickDrag around points ([Shift] to add) to select at least 3-5 points surrounding the area, to create a flat plane. • RightClick the Target icon in the selection center, choose Create Null and Camera. Select the Null layer and scrub or jump through the footage to see it track that location.

6. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 3 • Set keyframes at start and end of theNull(only on the Position track) and the 3D Tracker (only on Focal Distance and Zoom; delete any old zoom keys first). • Save the AEP file to use later, and close AE. We will install a java plugin to export the tracking data to Maya. Download AE3D_Export.zip from the course site, open it and drag a copy of the .jsx script into: PC: Program Files > Adobe > Adobe After Effects > Support Files > Scripts > ScriptUI Panels MAC: Applications/Adobe After Effects <version> / Scripts   (if the last folder isn’t there, create it). • Edit > Preferences > General: turn on “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network”. • Reopen project in After Effects. Open Window > AE3D_Export.jsx. Default options are for Maya (including units = centimeters: 1 : 0.01). Select the Track Null and 3D Tracker Camera layers, hit [Export]. Find resulting Maya file on the desktop ( “Browse” button does not work).

7. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 4 • Move the Maya Tracking file to your project folder, and open in Maya. Open the Outliner to note the two items: the Camera (with animated transforms baked into every frame) and a Null. • To “see” the Null, create a Sphere. In the Outliner MiddleMouse drag it onto the Null to make it a child of the Null. It will squash flat at the Null’s location. • Create this Box: 3,9,3, 3,12, 3. Move up to sit on ground plane, hit [d] to move pivot to bottom. Copy the Null’s X/Y/Z Position values to the Box. • Animation module > Deform > NonLinear Deformers. Apply Squash (Low Bound 0, High Bound 2, move X to bottom) to animate a short “breathing” (base should stay put). Hide the sphere.

8. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 5 • In Camera view, import video JPEGs as an Image Plane. Set depth=4. Scrub/ play to see Box stay put against footage. • Create Lighting: a Rendering shelf > Directional (scale larger and angle to imitate footage shadows) and an Arnold > Lights > Skydome (move to center around the Null, scale big, in the Attribute Editor set camera=0). • Add plane (width/height=50), center on box and copy Null height. Apply a AiShadowMattematerial, in Attribute Editor set Shadow Opacity = 0.7. • In the Attribute Editor, set the Image Plane’s Display Mode = None. • Render Arnold EXR sequence. Composite in After Effects

9. Maya Compositing: Footage Tracking 6 In After Effects, use the RotoBrush to let foreground elements pass in front of your 3D content: • Duplicate the footage layer in the After Effects Comp and put the duplicate above the 3D render layer. Double-click the new upper footage layer to open its own view window. • Click RotoBrush in the tool bar (person-with-Brush icon). In the Brushes panel choose brush Diameter size (try 20 to start). • Choose the frame when the 3d passes under the foreground shape. Draw over the shape. RotoBrush has good edge detection; just gesture through the middle to get a purple outline of the shape. Draw more to add, or hold [Alt] to erase extra bits. • The RotoBrush can resolve 20 frames before and after the draw point. Click 20 frames beyond that to Roto-draw again, if needed. • Move the view-timebar scrubber to the start, hit [Spacebar] to calculate the full Roto (only calculates gray). Hit [Freeze] to lock it in. • DoubleClick the main Comp to crop the RotoBrush layer to the length of time needed and see the full composite.

10. Save Your Work! To guard against crashes and loss of work, please Save and Save As a new file everyhour (so you can never lose more than an hour’s work): YourName_Film01.mb, YourName_Film02.mb, etc. Save your work to an online repository every day (Dropbox.com, Google drive) so you have a backup in case your computer fails.