Introduction:
In this blog post, I’ll be talking about the research I did on how birds fly and how the wings move. This was my first object to complete in my previous blog post. I’ll also be talking about my second attempt at the flying bird animation and how I tackled the original problem. Afterwards, I’ll be speaking about and justifying the changes I made to the title design, highlighting my ideation behind the design. Furthermore, I’ll be showing and discussing my second attempt at the title screen animation, where I implemented the feedback I received last week. Lastly, I’ll be listing the objectives I made for myself to complete by next week.
Research on Bird’s Flying:
So after receiving the feedback from my first attempt at animating the flying bird. I browsed through reference images and videos of birds flying, monitoring how their wings curl. My group member, Michaela, sent me a reference image to use as guidance, which became very useful.
I used this reference image as inspiration; however, I also used a reference video for additional clarification.
The bird within this video also flaps their wings similarly to how the bird flies in the broken down reference image. Therefore, I thought this was the right approach and tried to mimic the same movements in my animation.
Flying bird Animation:
My 2nd attempt at the flying bird animation was successful as all group members were happy and satisfied with it. It didn’t take me too long to re-animate the wings, so they appear more curly. I didn’t need to change the rig or the model itself. All I had to do was slightly alter the rotation of each joint in the rig and offset the keyframes, so they’re keyed one frame after each other. Doing this resulted in the wings following through & overlapping, creating the curly motion.
As you can see, I didn’t create a complicated rig because it wasn’t required in this case. All I needed to do was to develop joints within the wings only.
These were the positions where I positioned my keyframes during my first attempt at animating the flying bird.
As you can see in the picture above, I repositioned each keyframe one frame away from each over, causing the follow through & overlapping effect.
Title Design:
So as I mentioned in my previous post, I aimed to experiment with multiple fonts to see if they appeared better. I did so; however, a brilliant idea came to my head, which was to implement a liquified effect to the text to make it appear as if someone had poured honey all over the letters. My reason for this was because of the strong relationship between bees and honey, and they’re both heavily associated with each other. Therefore, I executed my idea and sent the title design to my group via Whatsapp, and they all approved, saying it was a great idea.
Above is my first attempt at the title design. I liked how the liquify effect worked with the text, giving the honey drip feeling. However, after looking back on it for a while, the drips hanging off the letters seemed a bit off to me. They appeared too pointy, in my opinion. Therefore, I looked at reference images for inspiration about how honey drips appear.
As you can see in the reference image above, honey drips are more round than pointy. Even though my title design looks appealing, I also wanted it to appear realistic simultaneously. Therefore, I chose to tweak the title design.
My second attempt on the title design consists of rounder honey drips rather than pointy ones. In my opinion, I like the aesthetics of this design as it looks as if honey has been poured all over the text. Furthermore, I added the effect on top of the letters, rather than just the bottom, which added realism. I sent this design to my group, and they were more than satisfied with the design, meaning I could move on to the animation stage.
Title Screen Animation:
My second attempt on the title screen animation was also successful as I tackled the feedback I received from the first attempt. The most significant change in this animation would be the text design which was the original concern. However, I tweaked the particle animation so the particles fly toward the right side of the canvas after the letters explode. Everyone thought it was great; however, Hisham asked if I could animate the honey drips on the letters. I’m not sure how to do so just yet, but I made it one of my primary objectives to complete for next week. To create this title screen animation, I used Photoshop to design the assets and After Effects for the particle animations.
To create the particle effect I used CC Particle Systems II. I experimented with this effect for a while to achieve the correct look and movement. I needed to make sure that the particles looked as if they’d been blown away by the wind. I played around with this Physics section primarily to produce this effect. Furthermore, I duplicated each later and added the Linear Wipe effect onto them. This allowed me to transition the text of the screen, going from left to right.
Objectives for Next Week:
- Attempt animating the honey drips on the letters of the title design.
- Try placing the title screen animation to fit on top of the 3D world background (Only if my group member can get the environment done by then).
- Begin modelling the spider.