Week 14: Fine-Tuning and Finalizing

This week's Advance Production work was focused on the added frames for Shot 6 and fixing the poses on Shot 12.

Using the feedback received last week, I added a new pose as a reaction to the cookie being thrown into his mouth. I also added a sneer and lean towards the camera as well. Between adding these new poses, I also went in and cleaned up some rotations and translation on related limbs like the arms and neck.

I noticed in last week's render, that the cookie was not colliding as needed and needed some refinement in the rotations once it's in David's possession. Additionally, I added an extra pose after the fall where David sits up. 

After fixing these issues for Shot 12, I noticed some other issues with the animation as well. I ran into some complications trying to parent the hat to the top of the head controller. This resulted in David's head increasing in scale. Additionally, when importing the alembic file into Unreal the first couple of times, the hat would float and David minis would appear as well. There were numerous textures created for David in Unreal that did not match or reflect the ones that were in Maya.

While the animation for Shot 12 is complete and ready to go in Maya, I need help getting this set up in Unreal. I'm not sure whether it's an issue with the textures or the initial export of the file, but certain parts of David's face (like his eyes, eyebrows, and teeth) phase through his rig. This makes it look as if these features are lagging in the Unreal render.

After checking the initial Maya file for Shot 12, David's eyebrows were gone and detached from his original model and stuck at the center of the world. Despite it having no values in the channel box, the eyebrows separated completely from the animation.

I decided to continue from a previous Maya file of Shot 12 to reanimate the Shot again and make it as similar to the original. The issues of the hat and duplicate controllers were addressed in this version of the file and will be tested into the Unreal scene.

With the help of my team, I aim to successfully render this Shot in Unreal with no errors in the animation and the geo.