Finished Artical!

Here is the finished Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWLTXkmdsRk&feature=youtu.be

I'm pretty happy with everything up until the very last scene. I could not get the timing right at all and it looks all jumpy. I played around with the timing for hours but this is the best I got it to. I recon its because He moves pretty slowly. You can get away with more when the subject is moving quicker with things like that.

I'm very happy with the opening for both characters. I love the expressions of them too, I successfully brought out the characters in with the facial expressions and movements. Lip syncing was pretty easy and I recon it looks pretty believable. The eye movement were really fun to play with. I did all the expressions and face tweeking last, and really brings the whole thing to life!

As for the movement itself, I think its pretty natural. I do think it may have it bit too much movement in there for it to be completely natural. But I did go for a more exaggerated look to everything so I guess it works! I tried figuring arcs and curves out but its so difficult in 3D, not having a reference or onion skinning function.

Overall, I'm happy with my first attempt at properly animating in 3D. I do think i need to consider timing alot more and how people stay still in poses at times. I need to think about how body parts react other parts moving. As i learn more features of maya, i'm sure things will become easier for me. Maybe there is a stabilizer or arc function...

But for now, I'm pretty chuffed with this!

Progress...

I'm having a lot of trouble with curves and arcs in the piece. I can't draw them in, I have to guess and adjust accordingly, which is so hard! Also, maya doesn't arc in itself, If I add a key frame in an arc, it wont automatically view that as an arc, It will just go roboticly from one bit to another.

I have been using Rinohouse.com for movement references, and youtube. Lipsyncing Is really easy I have found and I LOVE playing with expressions again!

Poses in Maya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrOPTJ_Wxjc


Here are he key frames but into action with the eleven rig. Looking pretty cool! The rig does have its flaws but I find it easy enough to work with. Ignore the spinning hand, I fixed that later on.

Posing the rig is pretty time consuming and tedious, Can't wait to see what animating the whole thing will be like!

AUDIO PROBLEM. I had to reduce the bit rate for it to be accepted into maya... yet evertime I exported the file, in after effect or premier pro... The audio skipped. I tried all kinds of file formats and different ways of exporting but I just could not figure out how to change this. Therefore I worked around it in the animation.

Story board and chosen expressions.

Here are the chosen expressions for the animation. It took a while but I eventually came up with these. I put then into a quick video file too and they all seem to flow pretty easily from one to another. Well its working in my head right now anyway.

Expression tests

Here are my sketches that explore the possibilities of expressions. I really enjoy a lot of these and i'm going to have trouble deciding on just one!

I do enjoy doing expressions and they do seem to be one of my stronger points, I tend to pull the faces im drawing while im drawing them too. This way I get a great idea of where to put the eyebrows, and how to exaggerate parts to really make the expression work!

The Sound file

Below is the sound file I have been given for this project. I'm pretty happy with it as the two characters in this scene are very different. I can imagine what the personalities are like and therefore, i'll try and build that character when I animate it.

To start, I split up the speech into segments so I can set golden poses to each. These will help me work out how the animation will flow from pose to pose.

• Ma'm
• I'm sorry to have to tell you this
• But your'e son has been forging cheques
• Forging cheques?!
• Wait
• i'm sure we can work this out
• I'm working part time with the church now
• Just tell me how much he owes and i'll pay you back
• So far its about one point 3 million dollars.
  
  From what I can gather, the male is not shocked by this, he may see this thing everyday so this may even be a bit boring. Never the less it doesn't stop him from have nervous feeling as he is the barer of very bad news. So he may pull a worried expression when breaking the bad news. But still, he remains composed and somewhat un-phased by all this.
  
  She, on the other hand, is very distressed and tries to mend the situation with good will. She tries to cover for him and herself. Maybe she doesn't want her family to look bad? Thats why she mentions she is working part time at the church.