Avatar - Final Sprint

For the final sprint, I focused on smaller animation fixes and adding secondary animations (finger and facial animation). I had to check back and forth between Maya and Unreal since the model looked so different in both programs. I'm very grateful for the wonderful team I worked with on this project and I'm pretty pleased with our final product.

 

Avatar the Last Airbender - Sprint 5

For this sprint, I've been focusing on cleaning up the animation. I did some initial work on the proxy rig. However, I also had to go back in and update small parts of the animation when the rig mesh changed. The rig itself still needs some edits, most likely some corrective blendshapes and skinning adjustments. We will also be adding (small) facial animations so Aang's expression isn't completely dead.

Avatar the Last Airbender - Sprint 4

 

For this pass, I finished the first pass of the entire animation. I also started doing proxy VFX animation in Maya. We had some issues importing them into engine, but it's something we plan to fix next week. I also re-animated the camera in unreal to match the new timing of the animation.

For the next sprint, I will be focused on doing secondary animation and animation clean up.

Avatar the Last Airbender Project - Spring #3

For this sprint, my focus was on creating the first pass of the first half of the animation (up to the rocks breaking). I started animating the sequence in Maya, did a couple revisions, and then uploaded it into Unreal. I then re-animated the camera in Unreal to match the test camera I created in Maya. For the next sprint, we are going to focus on getting a lighting pass as well as adding the proxy VFX to the scene. 

Avatar the Last Airbender Project - Sprint #2

 

For this sprint, I took the proxy rig that Jacob made and brought it into Maya.

The first thing I did with the rig was a range of motion test. I did a quick animation of Aang doing a hurricane kick. I wanted to test a few things, such as the ability for the rig to rotate 360 and hand contact with the ground. There were a few things about the rig that I wanted to change, such as the shoulder orientation and adding a peel function to the hands. Those things will be added once Jacob reiterates on the rig.

Next I finished placing all the keys for the project, which will make the animation process go a lot smoother. I also started blocking out the camera for the scene, so we will have an easier time figuring out the camera in Unreal.

Avatar the Last Airbender - Common Art Project

 

Bending References and Videos

Avatar Schedule

For this first sprint, I started off with doing a ton of research on the different bending styles. I created a google doc that included the elements, the martial art they were based on, and reference videos that can be used for animation. The doc also has some VFX references that our Tech Artist (Jacob) can use in his research.

After pooling together all the animation references, I wrote out the basic story beats for what I wanted to happen. I wanted to be sure that every element was used and highlighted in this animation. From there, I started actually drawing out the storyboards. I worked with Jacob to ensure that all of the VFX ideas I had were in scope for this project. After a couple of reworks, I adjusted the timing and added the music to create the animatic.

For the next sprint, I will be working hard to recreate those key frames from the animatic using the proxy rig.

Lighting Workshop #4

Daylight

Even though this is a daylight scene, I still wanted to environment to feel somewhat dark. The colosseum walls are huge and oppressive, blocking a lot of natural light. I wanted all the light pouring in to focus on the main character, who is getting ready for battle. I did still have to light the architecture to keep it from being completely covered by shadow. My reference images for the daylight used a lot of blue and orange, so I created a LUT in photoshop and applied it to my post process volume in order to dull down the bright orange and bring out some bluer tones.

Sunset

 

For this scene, I had to cheat a bit to get the effect of light pouring through the window. An actual sunset would have the sun lower, but because the windows are so high, there was no way to naturally get in directional light, which I really wanted for this outdoor scene. I played around with the temperature to get the warm orange color. I adjusted the temperature on the other lights as well.

Reference (Daylight and Sunset)