The Story

Now the main character and the secondary character had been decided, I then started to write the story that the character would follow. The story had to contain a way of showing different emotions in the bench and different expressions the bench makes.

The story was not found to be difficult to write, from the research i decided the best way to handle the animation of the static bench was to use the morther tool to create different expressions.

The Story

The bench would wake up one morning after having a person waiting on him, the bench begins the day happy but over time the bench's happiness begins to fade as he gets bored. During the bench's boredom he looks over and the bus stop who just had another set of customers just leave.

The bench was very say from this and the weather changed for the worse and began to rain. The bench would awake the next morning and would begin his day bored, over time the bench gets angry and has an idea that may get the bench someone to sit on him.

The Bus stop watches with interest as the bench moves plants around him, the bench is pleased with what his does and waits for the next person to come sit on him.

From the story the storyboards where created, putting the camera in place where the morther animations would become the main part on the animation.

The From the story boards a list of objects needed to be created could be devised.

Story Board

Deciding the facial Features

The facial features on the bench seemed straight forward to pic out.

The slats in the back of the bench forming the eyes and nose of the bench, the top rest of the bench creating the eye brow, the end of the seat forming the upper lip.

The joints at the base of the bench would have to be removed to give the bench moveable legs. For the lower lip a bar just under the upper lip would have to be added, creating a whole for the mouth.

My Idea

For my animation i will be creating a bench and a bus stop.

The bench will start on as a bench but will morth into life using different asspects of the bench as areas of the face.

The research needed for the bench will be research into facial expresion and how different expressions in the face and show emotion or what the bench is trying to display.

The bus stop will also have facial funcions in the animation although these movments are less than the bench as the story involves the bus stop only watching the bench.

The 3 animation clips that where looked at for this research are monster house, toothless from how to train your dragon and lightning maqueen for the movie cars.

Monster House

Toothless

Lightning Mcqueen

All 3 of these characters use facial expression to show there emotions or the action they are doing.

The Character

After thinking and looking at the different objects that could contain a face that would stand out, i finally came up with the idea of creating a bench as my main character.

Once i had decided on a character i then decided what the animation would contain, this is when i decided to create an animation about a bench who is jealous of a bus stop

Character Designs

Further Research

After deciding that the animation would be object based, the next stage was to decided on what objects to base the animation on.

Looking at the different types of object animations for example

Moving

Sonny - I-Robot

• Walks on 2 legs
• has human like features
• believes he is human
• can dream
• Moves and speak like a human

The model for this character would have a biped, the mesh would be skinned to the biped using the skin modifier or physique. Basic biped animations build into max would aid in the animation, and morther would be used for facial expressions.

Lamp - Pixar Lamp

• cant walk, hops around
• very simple to look at
• emotion is shown using sound, the light and the shape of the lamp pole

For modelling this type of character bones would be used for the character and the mesh would be skinned to them. Emotion and expression are very difficult to achieve on this character and mother would not help as there are no facial expressions.

Static

House - Monster House

• has no visible possibility of movement attached to the house
• when moving uses objects from surroundings as limbs
• uses different parts of the house for areas of the face
• expression is shown by facial expressions

whilst stationary the character can use a morther to display the expression or emotion the house wants to show.there is no need for a biped but bones would be needed for the movement.

After a couple of different types of object animations had been looked at, monster house stood out the most, the character i had decided to create would a stationary object that would contain a face.

Character Research

When i was thinking about my character creation the first thing I thought about was whether or not the character would be organic or an object.

Organic

Toothless The Dragon - How to train your Dragon

the main characteristics of this character:

• Walks on 4 legs
• Can fly
• Has a broken tail wing, needs a rider to fly
• takes on some characteristics of a human
• uses facial and body language to show emotion

The model for a character like this would be made and the rigging would be done using bones. The character would be skinned and then animated, difficult to model and to animate. Morther would be used for facial expressions.

Shrek the Ogre - Shrek

The characteristics of this character:

• walks on 2 legs
• uses human like motion
• has many different facial expression
• can display expressions through body language

Although being difficult to model, once bipeded and skinned the inbuilt biped actions can be used to aid in animating the character. Morther again could be used fr facial expression.

Object

Wall-E the robot - Wall-E

Characteristics:

• Moves on tyre tracks
• uses body language/parts of the robot to express emotion
• limited language functionality

Modelling would be difficult, animations would be done on the time line, perhaps bones to make animation a little easier. Very difficult to animate, eye expressions and body language could be done using morther tools.

Lightning Mcqueen - Cars

Characteristics:

• Uses 4 wheels to move
• expression done using eyes and face
• front window screen makes the cars eyes
• can use wheels to walk
• can speak and has a mouth

Rigging this character would be done using bones for now, but further research would be needed into how to rig and skin a car. Facial expression could be done using morther tool.