Animation Process and Practice: Progress So Far

6th - 17th October 2016

Due to medical reasons I have not been able to attend recent 3D workshops, however I have continued to work on my character performance assignment. I asked friends who attended the workshops what work has been done and what is expected for the next session. I was told the character needed to be blocked out with no animation. Therefore I have to create the keys and extremes of the character as well as figure out how to turn off in-betweens in Maya.

Notes: Animation Process and Practice Lecture 6th October:

Notes: Animation Process and Practice Lecture 17th October:

I had to find out myself the tools within Maya on how to turn off in-betweens as well as create all of the poses before the next week. I simply searched for the answers on the internet regarding the tools within Maya, and soon found the Animation preferences and graph editor. In addition to solving a number of problems with Maya I learnt how to ‘step’ my character which changed the positions of the rig without creating in-betweens.

Now that I had learnt the technicalities, I now had to plan how to create the performance. Firstly I recorded a number of live action reference videos of myself performing the dialogue. I mimed the words by playing the sound file through my phone and considered how the voice sounded and recreate an appropriate expression and act the piece effectively. I incorporated a number of my own quirks by naturally acting the part and exaggerating my movements which could then be further exaggerated in my animation, without over-acting the scene.

After I had recorded myself, I watched the footage and used the extreme positions as reference for the model. Moreover I had to learn this keys and extremes again by re-reading Richard William’s book on what to call these positions. Once I gained an understanding of this, using the video as reference I sketched more positions, expressions and takes to further plan my animation.

Using this technique, I started with the key positions, as this was a short scene I broke it down into giving and receiving. What I mean by this; my character will take/ or process information by physically leaning backwards and then slightly leaning forwards as he talks like he is giving information back. I believe this is an effective visual way to both give character life and visually support the character’s motivations.

Once I had create the keys, I moved onto creating the extremes, which are the positions in which the character is at his furthest point within a movement. These will act as the in-betweens of the keys to further break down the animation and give it structure.

I met with my 3D tutor during a workshop and he gave me feedback on my poses. He said he liked them and that I needed to secure my camera to ensure my poses are staged correctly. I will do this by locking my camera in a fixed position and staging my character effectively in front of it to give the best possible performance.

I believe I have worked effectively given that I have not been able to attend recent sessions, because I have continued to work and teach myself in this time. I plan to use further reference from other actors and continue to read books on both acting and how to animate a character effectively using graph editors in Maya and with the animation principles.

Continued work will be ensuring the camera is secure, staging my character, lip sync and the in-betweens.