Evaluation:
November 2016
Animation Process and Practice
During this project,
we were assigned to create a character animation piece to an audio clip. The
audio clip is from a film where the actor describes the physical
characteristics of a swan and the subtext is the character feels silly that he
has to describe a swan and becomes rather irritated towards the end of the
clip.
Research
Research included reading, reference and live
action video. I was surprised by the level of detail which can be compiled into a
short acting clip through both context and subtext. I attended lectures where
we discussed acting principles and how to apply these to our own work and I
feel I have learnt a lot from this including accents, ques, how the body reacts
to dialogue and much more.
I was influenced by my own live action video
reference, because I started with the extreme positions of my character, then
watching the reference I found I moved the character far too much. I believe I
added the necessary animated nature of the character by over acting some
aspects, but not over acting to ruin the scene. These included quirks such as
neck jerks, facial ques and hand positions; these were all important factors
which influenced the extremes of my character which created the foundations for
my animation.
Richard Williams’
book ‘The Animator’s Survival Guide’ was my reference throughout this project
through the principles and how to apply these to my animation. I found
remembering all of the principles difficult at the start of the project, but
with revision and blocking, I was able to manage the principles effectively to
organise my workflow and the book to guide me.
In addition I
reflected on my work almost daily with comments from both myself and others
including lecturers, I took notes upon what they said and amended changes to
improve my animation. These points almost always came down to a principle I had
incorrectly implemented in a section of my animation.
Reflection
I discovered that a piece as short as this still
has a significant work load to consider such as the long pipeline and the
infinite option of subtleties you can add. From this I have learnt the
importance of solidifying your ideas through thumbnails and storyboards to know
exactly what is happening within the scene. I understand that no project is set
in stone and that every aspect will be exactly the same from start to finish,
but the foundations must stay the same and allow details fluidity to develop.
I have learnt a great deal about Maya, much more
than before with previous projects. From the graph editor, render settings, settings
and preferences, etc. These are all aspects I have had to teach myself through
trial and error and I understand that this will be my workflow within the
industry.
Reflecting on the choices I made during this
project; I would improve the way I compiled the piece within Maya. Keys and
extremes caused myself to create many key frames within Maya, which caused many
problems later on with the graph editor.
I did this to create extremes which would break
down the animation to create the extreme poses within the animation. This
allowed me to time the dialogue with the poses without the distraction of
in-betweens.
However; the model would snap erratically
causing joints to break and not follow a natural arc because of these additional
points on the graph. In future, I would keep my keys and extremes simple,
organized and effective; that way my workflow would be far more efficient.
I chose to lead the extremes and keys with body
positions, as the body language is the fundamental point of a character. Using
this knowledge, I positioned my character in clear positions of what is
happening, along with facial expression and even lip sync.
Reflecting on this point I believe I worked
effectively to block out the body and time this with the audio file and this
created the foundations of what my animation would become. However I also spent
some time on facial expressions, eyes and lip sync at this crucial point. I
would improve this process by ignoring these details until later down the
pipeline. This way I can completely focus on the body alone, as this should be
the first point to send the message to the audience of what is happening, and
then the face re-enforces this.
I am happy with the choice I made with the
medium of 3D; because with the rapid development of technology I must keep up
with this change and join its evolution. I would have enjoyed trying 2D
animation as that was the medium I chose to do animation in when I joined the
course.
I did not expect these results with my knowledge
of 3D animation software, despite this I feel that I have created an effective
piece of work through my knowledge and revision of the animation principles.
Final Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhMgX_wmrwc&index=8&list=PLOr0uDukkOO38GYj3xsyWkpf62PTmjJTL
Overall, I believe
I have worked effectively on this project despite external factors including
medical reasons to hinder the time I could have spent on this project. I
believe I have learnt a great deal from both Maya and what to expect within the
industry.
I believe my final
piece of animation is effective because of the application of animation
principles and addition of learning acting techniques I have given my character
appeal and life to the performance. Despite this, I would improve a number of
points; Firstly I would improve the simplicity of the positions with clear a
clear line of action. As seen I the video I can see how the animation staggers and
the character may appear robotic, this would be amended with more time and
understanding on the controls to ensure the positions are clear and smooth.
I also would
improve the final compositing of the scene. I do not have a complete understand
of staging a scene including position or lighting and found this a challenge
towards the end of the project. I did research lighting basing my animation
lighting on interview lighting. However, I believe I must spend more time to
understand this effectively.
This project has
also re-enforced what I wish to become; a character animator. I have enjoyed
creating a performance with the character to bring a model to life, but I have
much more to learn from applying the animation principles to Maya software. I
have recorded all of my reflection in my blog by following this link: http://georgebowdenmanchestermetanimation.blogspot.co.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment