CGSociety :: Tutorial
9 February 2010, by Richard Spriggs
The Runner movie.
The topic of 'Secret Agent' for the CG Society CGChallenge XXIV was very exciting for me. My goal was to make an animation that had an atmosphere of tension right from the start. I wanted it to be
fast-paced and exciting to watch. I began by making hand-drawn concept sketches, but in the end I planned out the work entirely in 3D which let the concept evolve as I made the work. As the Secret Agent
character was the main protagonist in the animation, I wrote the story around him: The Runner.
He would become a fast paced and agile character to tie in with the mood of the story. I knew that this character should not have the stereotypical 'Bond' persona, and so I decided he should be a more
atypical character who plays a fine line between a good and evil. It is only at the end of the animation that we find out that he is not the hero we have might have come to expect.
My main goal was to keep the story simple and execute it well. Other visual elements are placed in the opening hotel room scene to suggest a background to the story and which foreshadow the following
events. The end scene was important to loop the story back to the beginning scene to create a unity and shape to the whole animation. By looping the storyline it also might intrigue the viewer to take
another look at the whole animation again.
As there was no dialog to the animated film, I focused on making the animation of the characters carry much of the feel and atmosphere of the storyline. I tried to maintain a realistic feel with the
animation with some parts exaggerated to emphasize the Runner's sharp and quick skills. I watched a lot of parkour videos for reference to help portray these qualities.
One of the problems I faced was in trying to choreograph the actions of multiple characters to move naturally in relationship to each other without looking contrived. I spent quite a while trying to make it
look like each character was moving at their own pace yet within a reference to the actions of others.
When I work in animation I like to plan out entire scenes in my head before starting on the computer.
Once started, I usually try to have a balance of blocking and straight ahead animation. For the more complex sequences such as the fight scene, I like to break each shot down into one specific movement
at a time.
First I would start with the main action of the scene and then animate all the surrounding characters timed to that movement. For this, I animate straight ahead in spline mode as I find it easier to
determine the timing between characters.
I wanted the animation to be tight with no unnecessary scenes or events that would serve only to lengthen the animation, the action had to move the animation on at a fast pace that seemed appropriate to
the encounter.
The time constraints of the 'Secret Agent' completion meant that I had to make choices fast. This meant that I had to consider what I could save time on and also what I needed to spend the most time on to get the best result.
All the modeling for 'The Runner' was done in Maya. Many of the sets were built around the animated characters themselves.
I would animate the scene first with basic primitive polygon shapes to represent the set.
Once I was happy with the animation and camera angles I would then model the rest of the set. This was a way to model only what I needed for each scene so as not to waste time modeling backgrounds that
would not be in a particular shot.
I always made sure that the character models had correct topology, with correct edge loops, so that they would deform properly when animated.
The S.W.A.T. characters' faces were duplicated from the main character to save time and so that the same blend shapes could be used for them all.
The characters were stylized so that if I needed to exaggerate movements it would appear more believable.
