The scene is a key part of this work, because it is a key element that sets off the atmosphere. Depending on the storyline, three scenes are required. They are hospital corridors and wards, forests and bedrooms.
Some references about the hospital scene
Some references about forest scenes
Some references about the bedroom scene
Character Reference
The character reference is mainly the little girl He He in the TV series “Dear Child”.
This is a reference to the character’s childhood.
The role of adulthood I will adjust according to the role of childhood.
The story was inspired by a Chinese TV series “Dear Child”. This TV series is adapted from the movie “Left and Right”. It tells the entanglements and choices that a pair of divorced parents have gone through in order to save their daughter suffering from leukemia. The story of where they should go. The main inspiration for my project was He He in the TV series who had leukemia, and I was very touched by that. Illness can destroy a family, and it can destroy the spiritual world of family and friends.
It is recommended to skip to 06:12 to watch
Theme Setting
My final project is a character animation of a little girl who is sick. First the heroine’s name is Ellie. She has leukemia. This short film tells her story and dreams while waiting for a bone marrow match.I’m going to use something emotional to describe these scenarios.
First is the character setup. Here is a sample I made with DAZ. Alongside are some references to villain costumes. These include patient costumes and little girl costumes. I want a 3D realistic style, so I will use UE4 for this project.
Then about the scene. The first scene is that at the beginning the girl is being treated in the hospital and she falls asleep. In the dream she was walking in a dark forest. In the dark forest, Ellie walked for a long time, looking for the exit of the forest, but the forest was too big for her to find. At this time, a stranger suddenly took her hand and led her to the sunny forest. Then woke up. The girl woke up to find that she had just fallen asleep. (the metaphorical girl had a bone marrow transplant and survived)
The difficulty of this short film is how to express emotion. Because I can’t monologue. There needs to be a feeling of oppression from the very first act. Express fear and other atmospheres in the black forest. Walking out of the Black Forest, we must express a vibrant artistic conception of life. Among them, the stranger who rescued the little girl needs to express a feeling of strangeness and kindness.
There are also many problems. For example, the cloth simulation of clothes is difficult to handle. Finally I had to change to shorts.
I also learned a lot of new things. Such as CC3 and iClone. There is also the real-time link technology of iClone and UE4. They taught me new ways to do an animation. Faster and more convenient than the traditional animation production process.
In the end, I learned a lot from this project. I hope I can continue to explore, learn more ways to solve problems, and make better works.
I learned a lot during this project. Have a deeper understanding of the construction of the scene.
Especially modeling, although not difficult, but very boring. Although the process is boring, it is very rewarding after seeing the finished product. What bothered me was the fusion of AE and the 3D model, and in the end I didn’t solve this problem and gave up on this scene. But I chose the harder way…
The biggest difficulty in this work is the linkage between UE4’s lighting and music. I found a lot of video tutorials on the Internet, slowly explored, and consulted many classmates and teachers, and finally completed this scene. Controlling Blueprints bothers me a lot, as a UE4 newbie.
In short, I learned a lot of new things in this project, and also learned a lot of ways to solve problems. I will continue to enjoy my animation journey.
This week I blended and rendered the character with the scene.
First I used Live Link to link iClone with UE4 in real time. This makes it easier for me to adjust characters and scenes. Although this crashed my computer many times…
With some shot changes, it feels really good. The picture is real.
UE4 rendering is fast. When you set character movements and scenes, it’s like a real filming location.
I set up different cameras and shot a lot of video footage for me to edit my videos.
Then I imported the Premier video clip (the source file was deleted due to insufficient capacity and forgot to take a screenshot(ಥ﹏ಥ))
I added some footsteps. Added the sound of the forest, which contains the sound of the wind blowing leaves and the sound of birds. Also added the sound inside the cave, with some water flowing. Finally added the soundtrack to finish my work.
Chenghao Su and I finished the character animation this week.
We divided the labor, put the characters into Maya, and completed part of the animation separately.
Chenghao Su changed the character’s clothes and hair. Because the weight of the clothes is difficult to deal with. Cloth simulation is also difficult to accomplish.
We imported the finished character animation into Blender and attached the textures.
Added camera movement.
Next week we’ll be putting together scenes and characters.
