This week is final feedback before submission, so no assignment this week.
Week 8 Assignment: Spline
When trying to get some of the mouth shapes to look more appealing, I found it difficult to do so with some shapes without them losing a semi realistic look. For these instances I usually went with something in-between what I had and the shapes George drew in the syncsketch.
When I initially went to spline, the animation still felt very floating in areas, so I went back again and added more blocking keys in before splining again. This helped a lot, especially for the more subtle movements.
Spline Feedback:
Track the arc and ease in/out of the nose tip as the head shakes back and forth in the beginning, and soften these arcs
Push the mouth shapes more on the big open shapes
Careful with the blinks to not have the eyeball become too static on open/close
Play with spacing of the nose arc on “Everything”, its pretty evenly spaced currently
I remembered how much of a pain splining my body mechanics shot was due to a lack of blocking keys, so with this blocking plus I wanted to block as much as possible to make the splining process less daunting. I really like the results, and I’m actually pretty excited to go to spline this time around.
Blocking Plus Feedback:
Asymmetry is there in the face now, but needs pushing a lot more at points
Lead into the start of the dialogue with the mouth shape more
Have eyebrow lift and lead the head (then body) upwards
Expression should turn sooner during dialogue pause
Work on getting some of the mouth shapes into more appealing shapes
This week I managed to do a lot more work on the clothing concepts, and while I haven’t decided on a final look for the FMP character I’m happy with the designs for progression onto learning Marvelous Designer.
To start, I exported the Minerva M-Rig out from Maya in a neutral pose, and imported that into Marvelous Designer. I decided to try making the bodysuit first, as I assumed this would be the easiest garment to make. While the basic pattern was pretty easy to mock up, refining the cuts of the cloth along with getting such a tight fitting garment to simulate correctly proved very tricky, especially as I was completely new to the software.
In the end, I was able to cut the pattern up in a way that resembles my concept for the item, but I am still struggling to get the garment to simulate on the model. I am already wondering if tight fitting items would be more suitable as skinned meshes within the rig rather than simulated on top of the animation, but I want to keep pushing forward in order to learn as much as I can since that is my overall goal with this project rather than the visual output.
This week we were shown 360 videos. After creating animation for AR in term 2, I have wanted to improve on traditional 3D character/creature animation implementation with 360 output, as I wasn’t satisfied with the results due to the differences in how the animation is viewed not being considered as part of the process. However overall it isn’t one of my current primary interests, so this will most likely be a passion project I do in the future outside of showreel work.
Project Progress
I’ve still been struggling to make much progress, and I am currently debating the schedule for both this project and my FMP with the limitations I am now realising more.
While I want to create cool visuals alongside 3D Animation showreel pieces, I lack a lot of the technical skills needed to understand even what is possible for my project, let alone how to do it. It is a bit overwhelming with the time constraints, and I’m starting to think it might be best to focus more on learning Marvelous Designer for this project so I don’t overload myself.
As for the wider picture, including FMP development, it would be worth sitting down with friends of mine who work in industry in (what I would consider compared to myself) much more technical roles. I feel that sharing my ideas and thoughts with them and asking for feedback on the concepts will help me better plan what is feasible for me to do for my FMP.
Ultimately with my current health issues in the mix, I feel the need to cut back my current projects and push some of my FMP concerns to the backburner until after this term’s submission. While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to achieve as much as I wanted to this semester, I would rather cut back and still have enough space to learn Marvelous Designer and create some clothing concepts than overload myself and only manage to do the bare minimum work and learn very little.
In regard to the clothing concepts, I have drawn out two more tops and I’m trying to get the shape down for the trousers. I’m finding it quite difficult to design the techwear pants, with the shape being very difficult for me to capture in a way I like.
I really enjoyed blocking out this shot, especially with the lessons I learnt from the previous body mechanics shot. I also enjoy lip sync in general, and with the added knowledge from last weeks class I like how the blocking came out. It feels a little chattery, but I think that will be easier to see and fix when I get to spline as I wouldn’t want to scale things back now and have to rebuild those same keys during spline.
Blocking Pass Feedback:
In general, make the face more asymmetric (raise one eyebrow more than other, have one corner of mouth lifted/stretched out more, have head tilted but brows/mouth tilting opposite way, etc)
On the beginning of the speech (frame 58, “so”) have the head turned more to the side so when the lips are pouted its visible in the silhouette
Have body moving into the flow of the speech, so have the body lift and sink at certain points following the tone
On “sacrifice?” have body sink into this, as the character’s emotion begins to switch
Could have him go to take a sip of his drink during dialogue pause, but stop and then slam cup down. It shows how erratic the character and his actions are in this moment
Body should go down with the cup and only lift after the cup makes impact, not on the impact
On the “Eh” of “everything”, push the expression more to really show that rage
In general, keep mouth shapes more simple and boxy, as it keeps them readable
The outer ends of the brows shouldn’t move nearly as much as the inner and middle portions, so keep an eye out for that
