Free Rigged Characters

I am using Free rig characters for my animation, just to save time and so I can do the best character animation possible. The rig I have chosen to use is "The Morpheus Rig" which you can download from this site, http://www.joshburton.com/projects/morpheus.asp

It's a customizable rig, so I should be able to produce characters that fit the characters descriptions I wrote earlier on. So far I have customized the Morpheus rig to fit the character, which is "Jason" (the runner)

I have given the character some simple clothing by selecting the faces on the rig, and applying materials to them with just basic lambert colours.

The Second Character

I have customized the second character to fit the Character profile of Leo "the chaser" and I did the same for the clothes as I did for the first one.

The Girl

I'm using the Eleven Rig, for the girl character, which you can download from this website http://elevenrig.blogspot.co.uk/p/changelogs.html It's a nice rig and very simple to use, and is customisable.

Here's what the girl character will look like.

UV Mapping & Texturing

I've been making my own UV's for each object in my scene, so the textures fit perfectly and look seamless, here is an example of the UV map for an archway on one of my buildings.

I've started doing a bit of texturing for my environment, I'm just starting with the small assets first, leaving the more complicated models till last. As you can see in the image below, I have textured a few items such as Roof Vents, Wood Planks, and some plant pots.

More items such as a wheely bin or "Dumpster" I made the textures myself by just using colours and the brush tool in Photoshop.

I've also been collecting some Tetxures, that I have photographed myself such as brick and pavements, and uploaded them to my Flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/35740584@N02/

I've textured the base of this building using a photograph of some bricks, I took myself, then I painted over the bricks to make them different colours I think it fits perfectly on this building, and goes well with the new York style.

Progress on the texturing, two buildings textured so far, I have used my own textures so far, from the website that is mentioned above.

More Progress, almost finished 4 out of five buildings now 

Finally texturing the last building, still having only used textures that I have taken myself which you can find on my Flickr account.

I have one more Item to left to texture and that is the "Fire Escape" which is located on the top of the 1st building (orange brick one on the right)

I have finished texturing my first environment, as you can see from the pictures below, and I am now starting to texturing the other environment, which is the Stairwell, shouldn't take too long as there's not that many items.

Stairwell Environment

I haven't really got that many wood textures, So I did a search for some wood textures. I came across these two great sites, which I have downloaded some textures and started applying them to my environment. I have listed the websites just below.

http://www.textureking.com/index.php/category/wood/page/4

http://freestocktextures.com/texture/

They were very helpful and had a big variety of textures to pick from.

The Textures so far

I have almost finished with the texturing of this environment, as you can see from the Image below, all I have left to texture is the stairway landing and the wall, Which I will probably finish today.

I'm pretty much finished with the texturing of the stairwell, I'm not too sure about the walls but I can always come back later and change it, here's a quick render so far.

I changed the staircase to the left to match the reference video staircase, just for ease of matching the poses.

Door Swing

In my animation when the Fire Escape door swings open, I wanted it to look smooth, and swing from the characters forceful push. I have gained the smooth action by parenting a locator to the right side of the door, and key framing its rotations, as you can see below in my video.

Reference Video's

I like this video, because it fits in with the part of my character running to the end of the rooftop and skidding when nearly falling off of the rooftop. This scene is from the movie "Kick-Ass"

I've also recorded some of my own reference videos, for when the character is running up the stairs, which are just below.


Still need to rotate it, but I can do that on the VLC player when I'm stepping out my animation.


Getting him in the midst of running so it looks more real.


Focusing on the legs.
 

The Stumble (when the guy run's into the girl making her stumble)

Here are some reference video's I took for this scene.














I think I'm still going to look around a bit till I can find the perfect reference for this action, because I don't think my reference video's for the stumble give it justice.

The Chaser, Running towards the chasee (Reference Videos)




And one more.




For the main characters Jaunty "happy" walk at the end I think something like this would work but with lots of bounce, and a strong facial expression to match.



More Reference Video's

I have recorded a few more video's to help me with my animating, such as running up the stairs which I will need a lot of because I'm new to animating someone running up a set of stairs. 
Below are some of the stair running video's.

The one below, I really like because it's kind of a clumsy run, which I wanted because it show's the character is to preoccupied with the chase, to be careful and is just running for his life basically.



I got a few more head turns in the one below, which I think works nicely



These two are for focusing on the feet much more, so I know how to position the feet.






The Fall (Reference video's for the fall)

I have changed what the "Girl" character is carrying, from a bag to a box, because dropping a box give more motion, which means a better fall.
I have got some good reference video's for this below.









The End Part

Basically these below are the reference video's for the stand off bit at the end of the film, where the "Chaser" catches up with our main character, and basically stares him down for three seconds before tagging him and running off.









There not that great, but i'm just using them as basic reference, I can look more into emotion, because I think it is lacking that. I do like the long pause in the last to video's, I think it works, the stare is a nice.

Animation Reference

Here is a basic run cycle from "Richard Williams-Animation Survival Guide" I am going to tweak this to the style of running I need and incorporating the reference videos too, so its more real.

I've been watching my reference video's very carefully, going frame by frame, and also watching some more YouTube reference videos to get the footing right. I've drawn out some quick leg positions of how a person would run up some stairs. What I've learned is the feet are never perfectly flat, always on the toes.

3D Models

I've been modelling one of the background buildings for my environment scene, I've used the concept art to model the building and planned out what goes where, as you can see by the rough sketch below.

The building I have been modelling is from this concept art below, it's a very simplistic building with very box like features.

And here is a simple rendered JPEG image below of my 3D model. I mostly used cubes to model this apart from the door knob which is a sphere. I think it starting to look like the concept art and will look much better when its textured.

Using my concept art for the building I have produced these models in Maya, here is just some rendered images with some quick lighting.

I did some quick sketches of how I would model "building#2" which is the (deli building) and I planned out how I would model the fire escape which runs down the side of the building. You can see my planning in the rough sketch below.

And below is some rendered images of my environment so far, I am quite happy with how it is looking, because it's very much like the concept art, and wasn't to difficult to model.

It's not finished yet but it's almost done, just a few things to add in, such as the roof assets some less detailed background buildings and some assets for the pavement.

And below is some shots of my fire escape I have attached to the side of the Deli (building#2) I think it fits in perfectly with the rest of the buildings.

I've added a few assets to the building#1's rooftop, such as the rooftop access door, some planks of wood, some long and small rooftop vents and some empty plant pots, as you can see below.

Here is the other roof with the assets on, I've just added a few items and will add more later if they are needed.

I have also started to model the other environment, which is the stairwell inside the building, I have just modelled this environment in a different scene for ease and not having too many items floating around in the one scene. but here is my progress so far.

Just some simple boxes, for the girl to be carrying in the scene.

Finished Storyboard

The timing is not set in stone, it's just there as a guide to go by, the animation is looking to be about 57 seconds long.