Week 2: Introduction to Camera Sequencer in Maya and Project Proposal & Plan

Introduction:

In this blog post, I’ll be discussing what we covered during this week’s lecture, which was primarily based on the camera sequencer tool in Maya. We were given a small task to complete in class to familiarise ourselves. We then had the chance to voluntarily pitch our collaborative project ideas to our class to receive feedback to help further improve our work. I’ll then be speaking about my collaborative unit’s project plan, which was established after our first meeting together in person.

This Week’s Lecture:

In this week’s lecture, we were introduced to the Camera Sequencer in Maya. This was new to me as I have never composited clips together in Maya. However, as I opened it up, I got the hang of things fairly quick as it was similar to Adobe Premiere Pro – Which is software that I use on regular occasions. To help familiarise ourselves with the camera sequencer, we were given a task where we had to import an environment and characters into a scene and create a scene consisting of multiple shots.

To get familiar with the camera sequencer, I decided to keep my scene simple and not do any complicated animations. This was necessary as the aim of this task wasn’t animated related and was to learn how to composite clips in Maya simply. Therefore, I animated the characters as if they were walking out of the water and onto the shore. I set up three different cameras, all aiming at the characters, each animated to mimic the character’s movements, similar to how David Fincher directs his films.

After I had all the cameras set up the way I wanted them, I composited them together in the camera sequencer to play one after the other. Once they transitioned perfectly from one to another, I compressed all cameras together to create one called the Ubercam, which consists of all three camera shots.

Final Playblast

Project Pitch:

As mentioned before, the second part of the lecture was about us pitching our collaborative projects to the class receiving helpful feedback that would help improve our work. However, as my group and I were still deciding on our concepts, we couldn’t go up and pitch our idea as nothing was set in stone.

Project Plan:

Project Members:

• David Edwards – MA 3D Computer Animation
• Michaela Bruckner – MA 3D Computer Animation
• Sophia McPolin – MA Game Design
• Hisham Jarad – MA Game Design

Project Description:

The game we’re aiming to develop is a 3D simulator Unity game/experience, focusing on the importance of bees and how they sustain nature. The game will require players to roam around a 3D world, imitating an abandoned world, as a bee, restoring it to its naturally beautiful form via pollination.

Genre: Adventure, Indie Game.

Target Audience: Open to everyone of all ages and gender.

We were inspired by the video game “Flower”, where we highlighted key elements that we would like to implement into our project.

• A barren land, which was caused by a natural diaster, that eventually gets restored as the bee continues to pollinate.
• The bee pollinates through hibes, which gradually grows bigger, and enables other bees to fly out into the outside world.
• The title sequence will have a close-up shot of a animated flower, whilst displaying scenery in the background. A bee would also be flying around the title scene.
• After the user selects the “Start” button, the screen will fade to black, where the player would begin to hear the natural disaster emerging. The camera will then pan upwards, introducing the bee in the middle of the wasteland, starting with one distinct flower in front of the player. This would be the tutorial, whereby the player would be required to move forward only towards the flower. However, the player would then be able to roam anywhere around the 3D world afterwards.
• The flowers would have particles lingering around, resembling pollen.
• The bee would roam around the 3D world, flying through the flowers and collecting pollen. As the bee collects polleen, the bee would enlargen in a bouncy way, similarly to when Nintendo’s Mario collects a power item.
• The music would change throughout the game, depending if the bee is travelling through barren land, or a restored land. Barron land would consist of ambience noises, whereas the restored land will consist of uplifting music.
• Eventhough the player has full control of the bee, the player wouldn’t be able to view the bee’s face as the camera is continously following the bee.

Roles:

Each of our group members has a rough idea of what they would be contributing to the project. However, nothing is set in stone yet, in terms of who would be doing which task. With that said, this Friday we would all be meeting up for the first time in person, where we would establish the final concept of the game and assign tasks to each member. I and Michaela will need to discuss among ourselves who would be best suited for each task as we both have different strengths and weaknesses.

Title Sequence:

• Title of the game (fades away into dust particles once the player starts the game)
• Text
• Background animation – 3D environment of the game itself (includes the flower that the player will first interact with once the game begins).
• Bee animation
• Tumbleweed animation

Cutscenes:

• Once a beehive is fully restored, the 3D camera would zoom out to show a section of the 3D world being restored – from barron land to restored land.
• When player restores all beehive, an endgame cutscene will occured – We haven’t decided yet how the game will end.

Grass:

• Animates in the direction that the wind is blowing
• Colour of the grass transitions depending if the environment has been restored

Flowers:

• Untouched – Animates in the direction that the wind is blowing
• Touched – Wobbles and communicates to the player that the flower has been pollinated

The Bee (Protagonist):

• The 3D bee model will consist of legs, fur, and wings that all animate differantly from each other.
• Flying
• Hovers (Roaming around slowly)
• Grows briefly when collecing pollen

Group of bees:

• Flying around inside the beehive at the start of the game
• When beehives are restored, swarm of bees fly out into the 3D world

Spider:

• Spiders crawl around on their webs
• Webs are attached onto trees which blow in the wind

Deer/Wild dog Animations:

• Walk cycle on flat ground
• Run cycle on flat ground
• Wild dogs appear on barron land, whereas deers appear on restored land

Debris:

• Tumbleweed
• Rags flying in the air to indicate it’s windy

Additional Animations:

• Flying birds
• Clouds
• Insects
• Fishes

Game References:

The concept and mechanics of our game are fairly similar to this Flower game. However, our game will have a different theme and art style. The player would instead need to fly flower to flower in order to restore the wildlife.

Our game will share a similar art style to this Journey game. I could imagine the settings of our game, whilst the player is exploring through the wasteland, to look very similar to this game’s aesthetics.

Objectives For Next Week:

• Organise a group meeting where we establish our individual tasks.
• Start working on my first task.