Guard Rig

Today I finally received te Guard rig, although I haven't had much time to play with it. He is also on his scooter which helps me especially for the lightening scene that I can start work on straight away this weekend. I also hope to have completed the NEVER lip sync by Sunday so that I can start on his body movements. I am still waiting for the Captain rig and Walker, but at least I should be able to block out at least two of my scenes by the start of next week.

Pirates Scenes

Today I finally found out which scenes I will be animating for the Pirates of the Produce Aisle team. I originally only had three scenes, so asked my fellow team member Marliuz for a couple of hers as she had around eight scenes in comparison.

Screenshot of the shot list:



I have also had access for the first time to some of the models the team have made that were on the Public folders. I am pleased to see the ship and the other characters apart from Patches in particular because I will be using them in my scenes. The characters I will be using are Walker, Breadbeard and The Guard. Here I have been experimenting with the Pirate ship and Walker, even though he is not rigged in this case and I will have to wait a little longer to be able to animate him.





Ship close up, (Walker will be firing a melon from the cannon in my scene)

When I imported Walker into the ship scene he was extremely out of proportion to the shio, so I had to scale him down. I must warn the team to make sure they realise this so he can be scaled easily when rigged and ready to animate, as it may cause problems further down the line.

Here is the animatic for the three shots I was initially given, as well as this I will be animating scenes 17 and 18 where the Guard is struck by lightening.



For now, I will have to wait until the rest of the characters are finished, and start blocking out the animation as soon as I receive them. If I am emailed the Guard by tomorrow I will hopefully have him blocked out by the end of the weekend , and have at least finished his lip sync for the final scene. I aim to have a rough animation by the end of the week, ready to improve the week after. Hopefully this will be acceptable for the Pirates team.

Lip Sync Test: Usual Suspects

So this is what I have been working on today, using a scene from the Usual Suspects, I have lip synced the Kevin Spacey character of Verbal Kint. I used this scene as he is quite emotional and I could use a lot of exaggeration on his mouth movements. Having finished the lip sync, I am going to move onto animating his eyes to give him suitable expressions of being quite upset. Finally I will use his body language to make him hunched and similar to how he is in the film.

Another aim for the week was to start drawing, and here is my first one of Lara Croft :) I know I have messed up the guns somewhat, but I like her facial expression and that her head is tilted to one side. I am unsure what to draw next and think I will look into more full body poses so that I can show the whole of the human anatomy. I may also do some very quick sketches to show a range of timescales.

Animation Principles

One of the main things I want to convey in my Showreel is a knowledge of Animation Principles and that I can apply them to my work. I have been reading The Animator's Survival Guide by Richard Williams and mainly The Illusion Of Life for research into the principles. Here are a few of my drawings/research pages:

I am particularly looking into adding Follow Through and Overlapping Action and also Anticipation to my work, to make them seem more realistic, for example having the hands continue to move when a character is walking even after the step, or building up to the step. I also want to make my movements more exaggerated but not in a fast pace where it will look blocky and odd.

Reflections: Week Three

I am now into my fourth week of the term, and I cannot wait to get started properly on the Pirates film. I have enjoyed playing with the Patches rig, but think I personally animate better when I have something to work towards, so it will be better when I have a purpose for my scenes.

Otherwise, I realise I did not do much work at all last week due to being at the Mill and running, but I am now fully focused on my University work. I am quite pleased that I achieved my goal to choose areas to work on and I am going to start to do so this week, especially with the character animation pieces and the Mr Bean walk cycle as i think this will add humour and personality to my showreel.

I did receive an email from the Whack'd team saying they may not use me to animate unless they are struggling at the end of the project, which in a way is good for my schedule so I can concentrate on the Pirates project and my own work rather than trying to rush everything.

Positives for the week:

• Running at the Mill I got to see some Maya cloth work, which I may try and use in my own showreel to show I am able to use it
• I know a walk cycle I wish to re-create by the end of the term, and I will focus on this one for now and try and get it to a high standard before continuing with the other sneak and run I started
• I also have a clear aim in working for the Pirates team

Negatives:

• I didn't actually do much animation last week
• I am still waiting to see which shots I am going to work on for Pirates and also if the rigs I need will be ready for me to use

Aims for the week ahead:

1. Start the Mr Bean Walk cycle, even if just blocking out
2. Continue with the Usual Suspects lip sync
3. Find out which shots I am doing for Pirates (hopefully will be Wednesday)
4. Start animating these scenes!
5. Begin drawing some more, I want to add some images to my disc if I can of my drawings. This will include concepts from my environment porject as well as character and fan sketches.

I have a busy week a head of me, but I feel if I get the main starting blocks done this week then I can just keep improving my work over and over to get it to an impressive standard by the end of term.

Side note: I have not placed a schedule on here yet as I am going to wait until the Pirates meeting to see when they are setting deadlines for. After this I will create my own to incorporate their project as well as the side ones I have listed so that I have clear time set aside for them all.

Patches 02

My aim for today was to experiement a little more with the Patches rig and how he would walk. I have tried to make the walk more bouncy and here are the results. The first walk is bouncy by making the passing position quite high, but it is still quite slow as there is 12 frames per step. I tried to make the second one faster by making it 7 frames per step, although this is too fast for my liking and it looks all over the place.

Finally, this one is just for a bit of fun, but i made Patches hop rather than step. I quite like this one in that his movement seems more together and his arms flop nicely by his side, but as a walk cycle it isn't very convincing. I am going to try and do some lip sync with him next, but I will wait until the meeting tomorrow to see which characters I should focus on.

Mr Bean Walk Cycle

I have also been watching different programmes for walk cycles so that I can create an individual one for my showreel. This will give my walk an edge rather than being quite basic. I have chosen to use Mr Bean as my inspiration, and in particular this scene where he has a stone in his shoe because it is over the top and I believe it will be different to what you normally see on a showreel.




I think I will use the Max for Maya rig for this and see how it looks, if I am not completely happy I will try one of the rigs I downloaded at the start of this project.