Animation, some research and some sketches

Today most of the time has been used working further on the lip sync animation. I've been struggling a lot with eyes and the feedback I got today also confirmed this. As I understood the feedback the actual movement and lip sync seemed to be working, but there was an issue with the eyes. So I tried to find some more information on it.

This site was really useful to me today:

http://www.animationtipsandtricks.com/2009/08/animating-eyes-and-eyebrows.html

Great article on the subject!

I also checked out the video at:

http://www.animationscout.tv/#1996248/Eye-Movements

But since I had already read the article on "animationtipsandtricks.com" I saw that a lot of the
the video content was the same as the written words in the article. But repetition can only make you remember better I guess.

I also changed the animation on the hands slightly in the animation, since I got comments in the feedback saying that the walkie-talkie blocked the lips a few times when the character was speaking, so since the focus is on lip syncing I realized this was something I needed to sort out.

I moved on to spline-mode just before I finished up for the night and it looks like it's working okay. I will be tweaking and polishing curves next + try to tighten and try to make the lip sync as good as possible.

Here is the result after today's animating:




I must admit that after several hours of almost only eye-animation I got a bit "sick" of the piece.. Hehe. So I found out I needed to end the night with something different, so I sat down and sketched some characters in different situations. Pretty poor line-work on this, but it was mostly to "get rid of" some leftover creativity.. Hehe.

Here you go:



Gooood night!

Another lecture, some research and more animation.

Today we had another lecture, a bit unusual week but we are having presentations on Tuesday and show and tell on Wednesday in the following one so the schedule was changed to make sure we got all the lectures.

Today's lecture was about the emotional and thinking side of a character. A lot on facial-expressions and how and when to use them.
We learned that there are seven basic emotions according to Paul Ekman, and these are:

- Happy
- Sad (pain)
- Surprise
- Fear
- Anger
- Disgust
- Contempt

But after some more research I found some additional ones:

"in the 1990s Ekman expanded his list of basic emotions, including a range of positive and negative emotions not all of which are encoded in facial muscles. The newly included emotions are:
Amusement
Contempt
Contentment
Embarrassment
Excitement
Guilt
Pride in achievement
Relief
Satisfaction
Sensory pleasure
Shame".


I know one shouldn't trust wikipedia too much, but interesting non the less.


Here is a very useful video I found on the subject:



We also talked a bit about micro-expressions. And these are expressions that we show for instance when we are lying.
Say for instance a person is angry about something. This person could put on a fake smile and pretend to be happy, but without knowing it his/her face will for a brief moment show a micro-expression that shows how they actually feel.
I have seen a tv-series that is based on this called "Lie to me", and it's really useful as a reference source.

Here's a promo for it:




So, back to my animation. I've tried t work in some more facial-expressions in the piece and also worked more on the timing on the actual lip sync. But the biggest change is in the body. I found that the body was both floaty and moving about to much, so I've worked in holds and got rid of one of the turns to calm it down. I'm trying to get the sense of him being both worried and thoughtful and therefore thought that more subtle body-movement was the better choice for this piece.
I also tried to work on the eyes, so I read up on eye-darts (which we learned about in yesterday's lecture) and tried to implement this in the animation. Also in the reference (for the lipsync - posted earlier) you can see my eyes moving slightly, but fast from left to right - almost "scanning the situation" he is in. I have been struggling a lot with the eyes on this so I needed to do some additional reference on that as well. Here is a short clip that I recorded of my eyes moving to help me along:




And here is the animation as it looks at the moment:



Posted this preview in MA-character group on Facebook as well, so hoping for some feedback on it.

But now; Time for bed!

Lecture and work on the lip sync animation

Today we had a lecture on facial animation and a bit on emotion. Had been through some of it last year, but it was very useful non the less. I'm trying and include some of the things we learned about emotion in the piece now, because the task isn't just matching the lips to the soundtrack, it needs to be a believable performance as well.

I also learned a useful lesson today and that was to include facial expressions in the blocking. This is not only useful for me, it helps the audience to better understand what's going on in the shot as well.
As you can see in the last video I posted on the blog (Friday December 2nd), I had only blocked the body-movement. But since I've already moved on from the blocking stage it's a bit late to do that now, but I'll definitively remember to do that in the block in the next task.

Otherwise I've Been working more on the lip sync animation today. Been mostly focusing on the actual lip sync itself today, so there is a bit of crazy eye-movements going on. But since we got some pointers on that in today's lecture I'll hopefully manage to sort that out.

Here is a preview:



Got some feedback on the piece today as well, so I know I need to work a bit on the body since it's a bit too floaty. It needs some holds, because it's moving to much at the moment.
Also got some tips on the actual lip sync, it was only some minor changes so it might seem like I'm actually on the right track.. I'll keep working on it tomorrow, gone a bit blind on it now.

Working on the presentation, a bit of lipsync and new sketches.

Today I've done a bit of everything really. Started the work-day with the lipsync task and got most of the body animation figured out. I want to have a solid "foundation" before I start to work on the lipsync. I know that when I start animating the face it will take a lot of the attention away from the rest of the body, but I still want the body to move with purpose and not just because it has too.

After that I continued to work on the presentation. Penny sent us an e-mail today telling us that we will do the presentation next Tuesday so we have quite a bit of time to work on that. I have a lot of material to sort out though, because when you start to analyse a 20 second clip you discover how much that is actually going on. I'll have to figure out what's most important since we have 5-10 minutes to present.

Last, but not least I've been doing some more sketching, and here is some of them:

Lipsync on paper, key poses and blocking

I've been working mostly on the lipsync task today. Continued work on planning the animation. I have finished the character profile, the key-poses and the lipsync-poses (on paper).

The animation is going to be pretty subtle so I tried to keep the key poses to a minimal this time, to focus on the lipsync since this is the main objective in his task.
Here is the key-poses on paper:



The character-profile:



And the pose-sheet for the lipsync:



(I guess it isn't necessary to do it this way and I'm not sure if I'm going to use it that much, but I like to plan out most of the animation on paper before I start to do any work in 3dsMax.)

I then started blocking the body-movement for the animation. Still trying to keep it pretty subtle and without any major gestures:




Will keep working on this tonight, but I might jump a bit back and forth between the two tasks since I need to get a lot done by tomorrow. I've planned to take most of the day off tomorrow because I'm having the class + some other friends over tomorrow night to celebrate my birthday, so I won't get much else done then.

Preparations for presentation and the lipsync animation

It' been a while since I posted anything on the blog, but I'll try and sum up what I've been up to since Monday.
Since we just finished the first module we where told by Penny to take a day off - which I did. Tuesday was a day to relax and just enjoy animation from "the other side", meaning I put on a animation film that I've wanted to watch for a while; Cars 2. I enjoyed it quite a lot, it surprised me since I usually don't like sequels. On Wednesday I went to the lab and met up with Jørgen, Rachel R and Em from class and we took advantage of the projector there to watch a film. I had not seen "Princess and the frog" yet, so I finally got to see that one as well. I must say it was a delight to watch a Disney Classic again - Enjoyed that a lot!
Afterwards I went home and started to work on the presentation. I had a film in mind, but I was not sure if we had to have a feature film or if I could use a short for my presentation, but after a quick e-mail to Penny that was sorted out. So I am going to use Blue Sky Studios latest short; Scrat's Continental Crack up (Part Two).

- I've mentioned this one on the blog before, but since we are going to show examples of use of animation principles etc. I feel the animation in this film is very relevant.

I have also chosen the sound clip I will be using for the lipsync-task.
I chose to use the "alarm"-clip;

- "I don't mean to alarm anybody, but I think... We're being followed."

In my head I pictured a guy catching up with a group, out of breath trying to warn the rest that they are being followed. But after a lot of reference-shots on that I found that the acting and tone of voice in the clip did not match. The voice is to controlled and the breathing is heavy not rapid and "gasping for air" as it would have been if he had been running. So I threw away the first reference shots and started over.
I knew he needed to warn someone about being followed, but instead of exhaustion the heavy breathing in the clip might represent fear. So I came up with the idea that the character is talking to a group through a walkie-talkie. I could then act it out as a character who's all alone, scared, breaths heavy and almost whispers the words:




I picked out the three shots I was most satisfied with and I guess I will be using bits from each shot to find my key poses for the animation.
(I might play around with the camera angle when I start staging the scene, but I kept it pretty close to make sure I got a good look at the face and especially the lips. We have to keep the camera at shoulder-height in the animation as well.)

Animation Practice 2