Even though I wasn’t able spend as much time on these pieces as I would have liked due to health issues this term, I’m happy with the results and how much I learnt.
For 3D animation, I was able to get more familiar with body mechanics and figure out what I want to improve on going forward. I also learnt a lot with the acting shot, including a lot of nuance with how the face should move when expressing emotion and talking.
For the experimental project, I was able to learn so much of Marvelous Designer and make a head start on creating the clothing for my FMP characters. While I would have also liked to have experimented with some visual styles, I’m glad the project allowed me to experiment with a new software that I might have felt too time stressed to do otherwise. I also really enjoy using Marvelous Designer despite the difficulties I had with it, and seeing the similarities between the interface and my experience physically making clothes and clothing patterns.
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
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
Most important thing is the vowels, the rest of the letters are there to help shape those vowels
When talking, it isn’t just the lips moving to create the sounds: tongue, lips, jaw, teeth, and vocal chords all go into this as well. Furthermore, these parts moving are followed by the rest of the face as the skin and muscles stretch and contract (eg nostrils, cheeks, etc).
The tip of your nose typically moves along as people talk, very subtle most of the time, but you will see it if you pay attention.
Phonemes: “smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the element p in “tap”, which separates that word from “tab”, and “tan”.
When we talk our jaw moves up and down, and the corners of our lips move in and out, these two things being the primary main movements to convey sound.
This week’s assignment:
Blocking pass: keys and breakdowns only
The week after will be blocking plus, so just put the essential keys to convey the idea for this week.
3/4 perspective view, stepped keys only.
Week 5 Assignment: Final Body Mechanics + Acting Plan
I again had the issue where I really struggled to get one reference with all the elements I wanted. I did enjoy making the planning sheet, and it was a good exercise to really get into the mindset of the character I’m animating.
Final Body Mechanics + Acting Plan Feedback:
Body Mechanics:
Hold the pose at 192 (when the character stands up and notices the audience/camera) until about 205
The transition following these feels a little odd, so could do with some tweaking
As she bows, the hips lock a bit so try to keep them moving
Acting Reference Footage:
Recommended going with reference no.3, as the cup shouldn’t go up and down as it does in no.1. No.3 and no.1 could be combined though to avoid the cup issue
Make sure IK/FK switches are smooth, and there’s no popping
Make sure animation is following nice arcs. Might need to animate on 1s/key certain parts of body every frame to achieve this
Make sure scene/props are set up at this point
Intro to Acting:
Jeff Gabor: Animator, very animated in his reference footage, great acting. George showed us some of his progressing showreels. He’s also good at animating women, and has clearly paid close attention to the small details of how women move and talk compared to men. With newer animators, it tends to be easier for people to act out reference and animate with characters of their own gender, since its what people know better.
You need a break in the line/in the acting, can’t just be one emotion through an unbroken monologue
Even if parts of body aren’t fully visible to camera, you should still roughly (at least) animate them to make rest of body more believable. If I adjust my feet when standing, the rest of my body will follow.
When starting this shot, some things to consider:
What is happening with the character before the shot that leads into this one?
We should know our dialogue by heart by next week, as we should be really familiarising ourselves to it in detail
Reference is absolutely needed, even if we’re taking our sound from a clip of something
We shouldn’t just recreate the scene our sound is from, we should be adding our own spin on it
This week’s assignment:
Final polish on body mechanics
Audio clip we will be using added to filmed reference
Plan sheet (example below)
Close up shot, chest up, 1 character only.
Avoid overacting in reference, don’t move around too much.
Blue line is the sort of wave the sounds takes, emphasis on different words, etc
Come up with a little bio for the character we will be portraying to give some direction for how we animate them
Week 4 Assignment: Polish 1
I had an easier time this week compared to last week with the spline and polishing, but it was definitely still challenging. I keep running into the same issue where the animation ends up looking quite janky and jittery. I tried to follow the advice of working from the core outwards to avoid some of this, but I found it still happened a fair bit and took a while to fix. When I have more free time I would like to go through a few quick shots and work on improving this issue.
I do really like how the body movement on the opening stumble improved from last week, that portion of the shot already feels heaps better.
Polish 01 Feedback:
Track the arcs of the hands on the shot opening, and make them more satisfying
The arcs of the hips and chest during the fall could be improved, would be good to have them go up for a few frames before curving downwards
The elbows and knees should be locked when weight is being put on them, currently they wobble around the floor a fair bit when the character is pushing themselves up after the fall
I really struggled splining this shot, and I do wish I had added a lot more poses into the blocking before splining to avoid having to redo a fair bit of the animation. I do like the overall progression of the shot though, and I’m hoping to have it looking a lot better by next week with some polish work.
Spline Feedback:
Track the arc of the hips as character stumbles into shot. Arcs should look like bouncing ball arcs to reflect the heavy landing of the body with the stumble as apposed to more gentle arcs seen when walking
During the fall, rotate the body and legs upwards more so upper body really gets ahead of the legs
Fall could also be quicker, at least for the upper body
Have her start raising a little earlier after the fall
Peel the body off the floor, with her head lagging behind for a while
Could remove the first pause where she notices the camera/audience, have the pushing/standing up be more continuous to help it feel less clunky
As she stands, again have the head and neck lag behind
As she bows, have a leading hand that reaches the chest faster, with the other spaced out more. Then have them swap since the previously non leading hand will be on top, so it can move into the final position faster this time
Finish up blocking this week, apply the feedback, then go to splined for next week.
Week 2 Assignment: Blocking Plus (+ Redone planning)
I replanned my shot and redid the blocking. I was able to reuse a couple of the poses from last week since the start was the same. Reflecting now, I do wish I had pushed myself even more, but I still learnt a lot and I’ll want to do more body mechanic exercises and shots in my own time anyway so I can push myself more then.
I do need to get better at shooting reference, as I always struggle to capture all the elements I like into one shot so I end up with multiple references. This isn’t terrible, but does mean I end up pulling from multiple clips and then having to match up certain movements later.
Blocking Plus Feedback:
Have the character come in a lot more strongly, really stretch back the arms and arc the spine
Currently the character catches herself a bit too well before falling, the way she steps down looks like she should be able to avoid falling. Have body angled backwards more just before step down and then have her quickly leaning too far forward
Keep the second step down closer to the first foot, again to make it look like she isn’t able to balance herself
Arc the body more as she falls, create some nice lines of action
Be mindful of her upper body making impact first, with the head and hips hitting next, then the upper legs, then the lower legs
Twist the body as she is pushing up with different hands. As she pushes with one hand, that same shoulder should be raised with the pressure of the push upwards, with the other shoulder dropping as that arm hangs looser
Bend toes more as feet push up
When she stands, have torso straighten sooner and knees bent a little
Add some difference to the angles of the body in the pose before she bows, tilt shoulders one way and hips the other
During the bow have variation in arms and hands, they look too mirrored at the moment
Have the shot end with the character centre stage, she’s too far to the side
Blocking is like the bones of the body, aka: the blocking is the foundation that everything else is laid on top of. The poses shouldn’t be the same as those from reference, be mindful of line of action and the other fundamentals to push the poses and make them and the movement more visually appealing.
Some tips for blocking:
Time can be saved while blocking be copying similar poses and making adjustments on top
Don’t forget hands and fingers in blocking. While the detailed finger movement can be left until polish, they should still be moving and posed nicely at this stage. Don’t just have open basic poses for the hands in every pose.
Establish your key poses that tell the story
Don’t worry TOO much about timing right now, get the poses down first. You can do retiming later if needed
Don’t forget to use FK/IK where needed
Finished, not perfect! Getting the base of the shot down at this stage is most important
Don’t key parts of body on different frames, everything should be keyed to same frame for blocking
George also showed us a cool video explaining how important the ‘finished, not perfect’ approach is when making progress in learning. I definitely struggle with this myself, and find it difficult to finish tasks due to focusing too much on the smaller details. It was good to hear and understand the idea that in a year what I consider perfect now won’t look great to me because I will have improved, so why should I waste time trying to be perfect now when I can spend more time on learning.
Blocking Plus:
Essentially a way of adding in more keys to get that feeling of polish within your blocking
Moving holds: when pose is holding, adding some movement in (breathing, dragging, settling into pose, etc).
Copied pairs: a technique where a keyframe (or pose) is duplicated and repeated for a specific duration, creating a hold or a static pose within an animation sequence.
Breakdowns and Arcs Breakdown: a pose somewhere between two key poses that better shows the movement
This week’s assignment:
Apply blocking plus stuff to current shot blocking to take it to the next level
Should be in stepped still. Poses are important at this stage so make sure they are really strong.
Week 1 Assignment: Body Mech + Planning
Filmed reference:
I both filmed myself and one of my housemates for my reference. I was struggling a bit to do a natural fall/stumble myself, so I asked one housemate to push the other into view, and gave the one on camera directions on how to act out the rest of the shot.
Thumbnails:
Individual poses:
Week 1.5 Assignment:
As mentioned before we’re a little behind due to losing a day last week to the bank holiday, so this week I did the blocking on Thursday evening for review on Friday alongside my plan.
I didn’t add as many poses as I would have liked due to the time constraints, but I am happy with the poses overall. I do need to hide the skin under the clothing at some point as it clips through the clothes several times and is distracting.
Plan + Blocking Feedback:
The fall and skid along the floor is too simple, I should be pushing myself more. Either have the character fully stumble or completely face plant the floor
Could still do the turn and punch towards the hidden person who pushes them, but George recommends instead just having the character realise where they are after the fall, pause, and then go into the dance/wave
Poses in current blocking are nice, but overall idea needs pushing before I move more into animation progress
George went over the work we will be doing with him this term, including how it can be incorporated in our FMP and with Serra’s side of the Adv&Exp unit.
We will be doing two animations with George, an advanced body mechanics shot and an acting shot. For the advanced body mechanics, we will be also covering some acting on top.
What is pantomime?
Dramatic or dancing performances with expressive body or face movements to convey the story.
Acting with the body: Creating clear, full body expressions. To fully convey this, staging needs to be set up first for the shot which includes:
Elements: Characters/Props/Sets
Camera: Placement/Angles
Action: What is happening in this shot?
Idea: Keep it to one idea at a time to not overwhelm the viewer
Point of the shot: What purpose does this shot have? Why include it? Make sure that is clear
Workflow Checklists:
George showed us some workflow checklist examples, aka ways to approach working on an animated shot. Workflow checklists are especially useful when starting out, later they become second nature but shouldn’t be forgotten. These checklists should include:
Additionally, it is important to consider the order of working with different parts of the character’s body. The example given to us was: hips > spine > head > arms > fingers > legs > feet
You don’t want to do clean up work on the arms and legs only to then change the hip placement and have to go back again to adjust the arms and legs. Work on the core first, then work outwards. This will change slightly if you have a specific shot where a different part of the body is leading everything else in place of the hips, so adjust accordingly.
This week’s assignment:
Rough planning drawing
Reference (video/filmed reference)
Shot thumbnails
Maya layout would be good, but not a requirement
Keep the shot to 5-10 seconds AT MOST (aim for 5 second range though, George would rather us have a nicer, more polished shot that is shorter than an unfinished longer shot)
