Evaluation

Rigging and Building

       in Circus Fantastic

                                                         

Content

Introduction

Main section

• Rigging and building in Circus Fantastic

• Asset Sheet

• Talk and visits to studios, the influences they had

• Building rigs - node view  

• Jobs and careers for rigging and building artists

• What worked well / what didn’t work well

• What was learned and what would be changed

Conclusion

Introduction

This evaluation will cover the topic of  Rigging and Building in Toon Boom Harmony for the film Circus Fantastic. It will start with how rigging became interesting to me. Following this it will go into detail on what rigging is and how I went about building my rigs from assets sheets to final rig. Having explained what rigging is. The next thing talked about will be what was learned from professionals from different studios and the job opportunities the animation industry holds for Rigging and Building artist. Finishing up this essay by talking about what was learned by myself while creating the film Circus Fantastic.

How it came about that rigging was the career for me and my approach to my final film with regards to rigging.

In the degree year we were asked to think about what area of the Industry that you are aiming towards specializing in and to focus your film towards that.  Back in September there was a course at Animation Skillnet called ‘An Introduction to Toon Boom Harmony Rigging’ with Stephen O’ Keefe which I decided to do. This was a 5 week course focused on rigging in harmony. This course was very interesting it covered a lot rigging in harmony from masking shapes, inside shapes to using pre made nodes in the library. This course was very appealing to me and was very interesting and relevant  to my career choice. Enjoying the course and doing more and more rigs at home for fun brought me to the conclusion that rigging and building was the area that was the deciding factor for me personally to specialize in. The next question was how to go about doing this.

Deciding that rigging was the career path for me got me focused on my career goal. Thinking of how to go about doing this for a final film or project was the next task. There was two ways to go about doing this. One was a showreel showing different rigged character and props. Second was a short film using rigged characters to animate it. Due to the showcase being very specific souling basing it on rigging and building. I thought it was a very risky choice having only been doing a course for 5 weeks. Deciding that the showcase was too risky the story based piece was my next option. There was a lot more you could learn from doing a whole 2 minute animation, from pipeline structure to how to composite a shot. This also left a window open for me to change my mind incase my career path changed. This would also probably be my last year ever working on a film for myself.

Asset Sheet

Before starting any of my rigs an assets sheet was done to figure out how many character rigs and props needed to be built. This helped organise time and keep me on track of what needed to be built. Three character rigs and seven props were what needed to be built.

I broke down my time for rigging into three weeks. Two weeks for characters because they are the most complex to rig and then one week for props. This schedule ran smoothly which allowed for extra time to learn new stuff about rigging.

Talk and visits to studios and the influences they had:

Kilkenny animated festival was on the weekend of  23rd - 25th of February. As apart of this festival you could book tours around both Cartoon Saloon Studio and Lighthouse Studio. Cartoon Saloon use the software Moho. Moho also allows you to build 2d rig characters but works a bit different to Toon Boom.

Lighthouse Studio use Toon Boom and I got to chatting to a girl who was working on a new series. She was rigging a dog character. She gave advice about deforms and she said ‘that in Lighthouse Studio we use mostly envelope deformers as they give the most freedom for the animators”. When an animator gets a Rig they don’t want to be restricted and envelope deformers are the least restrictive.” (Rigging artist, 2018)  They did use bone deforms for more simple things like tail wagging but she also had an envelope deformer too so the animator had choice.

As I spoke before about doing the Animation Skillnet course with Stephen O'Keefe from Boulder Media. Stephen also took a trip to our College, Colaiste Dhulaigh to speak about how to work in a studio and he also spoke a little more about rigging.  Appendix A talks about the structure in the studio in terms of rigging. He talks about how all rigs have to be able to be read from left to right and that labelling of the nodeview is key to a good rig. He talked a little about getting into a studio at first. He explains that you shouldn’t aim too high and to go for more realistic entry level roles and work yourself up. ‘Be Realistic’- don't apply for a job that needs years of experience such as a director. Go for entry level jobs. Don't stop working on your showreel! Keep applying for the same job don't give up but don't send in the same showreel every time keep updating adding more shows that you want it.’ (Appendix.A)  

Building In Toon Boom Harmony and looking at the Node view

To build a rig in Toon Boom, all pieces that make up a character or a prop must be all draw on different layers. Separating all the characters into basic pieces, head, neck,body, arms, hands, legs and feet. And then if you want to be able to do more with a rig you might break it down even further for example upper arm, lower arm and hand, this allows for animating the rig without deforms and also with deforms depending on the type of movement is been made.

Below is an example of how the node view looks when building a Rig. Explaining from the Bottom Section 1 to the Top Section 6.

Section 1 . Main Composites

‘The Composite node allows you to use several images and output a single image’ (Toon Boom. Composite Node)  A Display node must be attached to the Composite in order to view in drawings in camera. A write node must also be plugged into the bottom to be able to render an image sequence.

Section 2. Composites

Next up the hierarchy would be the composite for each element. This is done to keep node view tidy and easy to make your way around. If this is not done it could look like this below. Although this doesn’t look the busiest.

Imagine this node view without multiple composites, it would be impossible to read. Keeping your node view labeled and tidy is the easiest step to having a good rig. It also makes it easier to fix problems.

Section 3. Drawing layers

Drawing layer is the layer the drawing is drawn. You do not animate on the drawing as you can’t just erase all animation, where on a peg you can.

Section 4. Drawing Pegs

Each drawing layer must be attached to a Peg in order to animate on. Pegs keep everything clean and clear to read.

Section 5. Master pegs

Each section of the body would then have another peg so that you can move it as a whole. For example this eye has 9 pegs. It is like a puzzle, each piece has to connect together in order for it to look and work correctly.

Section 6. Highest Master Peg

The highest master peg is so that all pegs are connected as one so it can move as one

Example

My Final Two Riggs

What worked well / what didn’t work well

For the most part my rigs worked and functioned well. Coming to the end time was running short so a friend (Yazmin) decided to lend some help animating a 10 seconds scene for me. Yasmine had never  animated with rigs before and she found my Node view easy to navigate around and was able to animate perfectly with my rigs. Her animation turned out great and she was able to add a lot of weight to the rigs.

What didn’t work so well was the arm elements. When the rig was first rigged the character had a vest dress with no sleeves, this didn’t allow the characters arms come in front of her body which caused a problem. When doing my first animation presentation the tutors noticed this and suggested that a piece needed to be added in order for animation to work. A small shoulder piece of fabric was added to Penny’s character to allow her to juggle with her arms in front. This worked and it wasn’t a hard fix.

Before Adding a shoulder piece                  After adding the shoulder piece.

What was learned and what could be changed

Reflecting back at the overall process of rigging the character I wish I done a little more in terms of rigging. I would of liked to rig a turnaround of a character and some detailed props. But as there were  time restrictions, 3 character rigs and 3 or 4 rigged props was all my schedule allowed for.

If  given the chance to do this project again, the story element may have been dropped from the project and my focus would have been on a showcase of rigs within the scene with sample pieces of animation. In saying that, the story element definitely did push my rigs to perform more complex animation. This  shows how well my rigs did actually work. It also helped to figure out what more the rigs needed.

Jobs and careers rigging could get me

At the moment I only know how to 2D rig in Toon Boom Harmony which is what has been used for production in a lot of studios now such as Boulder Media, Jam Media, Brown Bag and Lighthouse Studios. Knowing Toon Boom Harmony is already a step in the right direction but if I wanted to further my knowledge and experience, learning to rig in other softwares such as Moho which is another 2d software used for rigging in studios like Cartoon Saloon, is necessary.

Conclusion

Overall, it may be said that choosing rigging as my main focus for the year was the right choice for me. A lot was learned about rigging and having the chance to speak to people from the industry helped me to understand what is needed to become a rigger. My film was a success due to my rig’s. They could perform all acts of animation needed which was the main goal from the start. Having done a course in rigging and having strong animated rigs in my showreel I am confident that a rigging job will come my way.    

Appendix A

Stephen O'Keeffe Head of Rigging at Boulder Media talk on industry and how to get in. (20.02.18)

Stephen main talk was tips and hints to get your foot in the industry door.

Be Realistic- don't apply for a job that needs years of experience such as a director.

Go for entry level jobs.

Don't stop working on your showreel!

Keep applying for the same job don't give up but don't send in the same showreel every time keep updating adding more shows that you want it.

In terms of rigging Stephen talked about organisation is key to be a rigger. He talked about how an animator needs to be able to navigate around your node view so labelling and organising node view to be able to be read left to right is what they do in boulder to keep organised and the same for the animators.

Bibliography

Toonboom. 2017. Composite Node. [ONLINE] Available at: https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-12/premium/Content/_CORE/_Workflow/026_Scene_Setup/073_H2_Composite_Node.html. [Accessed 23 April 2018].

O' Keeffe, Stephen (2018) Talked and Interviewed by Animation Degree Class in CDCFE for Industry Report Assignment [20 February 2018]

Rigging Artist (2018) Talked and Interviewed by Michelle Kiernan in Lighthouse studio, [24th February 2018]