Final Documentation

Abstract:

I entered this project originally as a modeler, but given the abundance of modelers in our group I ran out of work to do quickly.  As a result I took on a task that we hadn't even thought about previously: sound design.  Having sound in this animation brings the final product much closer to a completed, professional project.  The addition of the sound makes the animation a little bit more lifelike, since it allows the audience to feel a bit more immersed in the environment.  To achieve this, I used the software instruments in Logic Pro and sound samples from freesound.org.

Planning:

Prior to beginning any work on this, I spoke with Kevin about musical direction and he said jazz, to reflect the semi-imaginary setting our animation takes place in.  Other than this, the entirety of the planning depended on the animation.  I would have to match up sound samples to certain visual cues, and the mood of the music to the events taking place.  This took some studying of the story itself to ensure that it meshed well together.

Production Log:

The bulk of the sound design can't be done until the final animation is rendered.  This is needed to correctly sync up the timing of the audio and video events.  Since I began the sound design well before the final animation was complete, I began by writing some music in Logic to use.  As I wrote the music, I showed it to Kevin to get his feedback.  This resulted in a lot of music that ended up being scrapped for the scene I was working on.  This was helpful, however, because I ended up with a lot of music to choose from for the other scenes by the end.  All the music was done with midi software instruments, which I programmed in the piano roll.

We found a way to get the movie without spending the time rendering it using the Powerblaster tool.  This exports a video of what the camera view looks like before rendering.  Using this I started to add sound effects for the events taking place.  Since I started with the last scene, all I needed was some ambient city noises, party noises, and a kiss sound.  The ambient sound was easy as I could simply drop in the file and loop it if necessary. The kiss sample was a bit more difficult.  The only sample I could find was very short, and the kiss in the animation was a lot longer.  To fix this I used the sample editor to extend the duration of one part of the sample to make it line up.  I also changed the pitch of the sound because the original was too high and sounded a bit cartoonish.

The rest of the animation was done very similarly.  I used the music that I had written earlier and just edited to fit the time.  I used the same ambient noises, which were long enough to fill the entire time they were needed without looping.  The other samples I added were for the can being kicked, the door being slammed shut, and the curtains being drawn.  I edited these in the same ways as the kiss sample to get the sound to match the actions.  The can sound consisted of two samples: a beer can being tossed into a recycling bin, and another can rolling on a floor.  I lined them up so the can bounced then rolled, and edited the bounces so that they would line up.

Throughout the process I was editing the mix of the sounds, to ensure that volumes were appropriate and that no sounds clipped, which causes audio distortion.  After this I adjusted the automation, which means adjusting volume and panning (left and right) in relation to time.  This adds to the realism of the final product as it makes it seem as though the sounds are coming from a certain direction or from a distance.  Finally, I exported it to a .wav file, which we would later bring into Final Cut Pro, and edit together with the final animation.

Conclusion:

The result is a combination of music and sound collage that - I think - adds a lot to the final animation.  Everything with this was reasonably successful.  I was able to find the samples and create the music I need, and get everything to line up and mesh together well.

Self Evaluation:

While I am very happy with the final results, I believe this could have been a bit better.  The result I've gotten sounds very good, but I don't think its quite professional quality.  I wish I could have spent more time working on the music, and I think that some of the edits could have been more exact.  Also, since I was limited to free samples, the samples I got were all of various qualities coming from differing recording techniques.  I'm sure professionally made sample packages would be much higher quality, or more suiting.  In some places, I feel that the samples did not quite match the sound of what they were representing, but I had to use them because they were all that was available.  In a perfect world, I'd have the time and resources to make my own samples to use, then I could avoid payment, copyright issues, and quality issues.  Overall, I'm happy with my work, but there is still room for improvement.

Car #1 - Textured

Here are some screenshots of renders of the first car fully textured.  I'll update this later with detailed documentation of how I did it.

Sound Design - Part 2

Here is the SoundCloud account I made to document the progress of the sound design:



Latest tracks by Team Rags Sound Design

Also, I have now gotten a .mov file of the unrendered animation from Seth, so I can begin to add sounds and sync them to the movie.

Car #2

Car number two was completed quite a while ago.  It was based off of the first car model, but with altered dimensions.  This one is a bit shorter and longer.  I also added a different grill for this one, and did the windows myself this time, after figuring out exactly how Kevin did them on the first one.

Sound Design - Part 1

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on the sound design for the animation.  Kevin, the team leader, wanted something in the direction of jazz, so I've been writing some music in that style in Logic Pro.  I've been doing this simply by selecting different midi instruments and programming the music into the piano roll.  Currently, the TCNJ Shared drive is locking us out of our folder, so I will post screenshots and .wav files of what I have done later.

In addition to this, I have been looking for samples for the background noises and sounds that apply to the events in animation.  I have been finding these at FreeSound.org.  Here are some of the sounds I'll be using:

Party Sounds
This will be used for the party going on inside the building where Rags' love interest happens to be.

Tin Can
This will be used for the sound of Rags kicking an empty can down the road.

City Street Sounds
Car and Siren
These will both be used for the ambient city sounds.

For the presentation on Friday for Autodesk, we will only have the final scene of the animation completed.  The sound for this will include some music I have written as well as a few of the sounds above.

Car #1

After completing the fire hydrant I decided to attempt the car again.  I made several more attempts to figure out the best way to do this before coming up with the final design.  The biggest problem was deciding how to do the body.  My first attempt has one box for the passenger section and one for the engine section and involved connecting the two.  I ended up scrapping this plan because connecting the two became too tedious and problematic because I had used so many subdivisions.  The final design had just one box and slightly less geometry, though there was still a lot to allow greater detail.  At that point I just moved and scaled the vertices to get the desired shape.  Next, I did the fenders which are just spheres with a lot of faces removed, and running boards which are just elongated boxes.

The wheels were another tedious part.  The wheels from my reference images had spoked rims which had a few dozen spokes each.  I knew this would be ridiculously time consuming, so I simplified it by reducing the number of spokes and making them a bit wider.  Kevin added the windows, and I added the grill, which is just box with the center cut out and more long boxes for the slats.  Originally the grill was going to be textured on, however there will be a close up on the grill in one part of the animation, so we decided to make it more detailed.  We decided to added side view mirrors to it as well because, while cars in the '30s didn't have them, it just looked weird without them.

Warming Up

My first attempt at modeling for this class was a car that we needed, however when I tried to start that, I had a lot of difficulty.  This was the first time I was modeling with polygons not nurbs, and I wasn't familiar with the differences between the two.  Also, I hadn't done any modeling since my Animation I class two semesters ago.  So, I decided to do something simple that we would probably need: a fire hydrant.  Since the story is going to take place on city streets, there are likely to be a few of these lying around.

My work:

And later, after Greg's texturing:

Introduction

I will be working as part of Team Rags for this class with the goal of creating a short animation.  My main job throughout the course of this project will be modeling, however I will take part in other areas of the project as well.  Right now I'm working on some of the set and background objects; the progress on these will be posted soon.  All of my work will be posted both here, and on the Team Rags blog here:  http://rags-imm370.blogspot.com/