Compositing

For my compositing I choose to use this video from the stop motion film 'Fantastic Mr Fox'



I choose this scene because I thought it would look great for my character to be mimicking the possum doing the little dance at the beginning of the scene.

Character Profile

Age: 10years old (in fox years)

Gender: Boy

Family: He's an only child, and his parents adore him, except from when he's being a little terror.

Education: Homeschooled by his parents

Religion: He believes in religion, and is a big optimist

Dreams: to be just like Mr fox when he's older.

Sense of Humour: Enjoys fart jokes, pulling silly faces, just childish jokes really

Hobbies: Playing football and juggling

About: He is easily persuaded, and is the friendliest boy you'll ever meet, alway's trying to make you laugh, and looks up to his elders alot.

Simple storyboard for the Animation

This is the key poses for

the dance at the beginning of the scene that the possum does, I watch the dance many ti

mes and studied it throughly, and wrote down the timing of each movement to sync it with the possum character.

2nd Key Poses

These rough key poses are for when Mr Fox say's "Is that your new trademark then?" which my character then responds by nodding enthusiastically at Mr Fox, then turns around to the possum seeing him shrug, so then turns back around giving a "i don't know" shrug. says "Is that your new trademark" and then my character responds by

3rd Key Poses

These key poses are for after Mrs Fox say's "I'm pregnant again" and my character reacts to that in an awww fashion by bring his hand together and swaying his head to the side, but then he gets a little bored while The two foxes are talking and then just looks at the floor while scratching his head.

Animated Key Poses

Stepped Key's FFox from Sarah Jurgens on Vimeo.

These are my key poses so far, that i've just stepped out, i used the storyboard poses above. This is just the beginning part of the animation, of the dancy bit, i made the arms symmetrical just like the possums, so it will look more stop motion and mechanical. 



Linear and stepped from Sarah Jurgens on Vimeo.

This is the animation stepped out to the full time, 453 frames, the first part i have made linear, and the rest is just stepped out at this stage.


 
Lineared & need to be splined from Sarah Jurgens on Vimeo.

So far i've lineared the animation ad you can see above,  I'm just needing to spline it now and i want to add in the character doing something at the end like maby scratching his head because he doesn't look like he's doing much, and nobody stands still, so i think i'll add that in.


Nearly there from Sarah Loweez on Vimeo.

This is everything splined so far, the parts where the character isn't moving is because he is going to be rotoscoped out of the scene.

Rap & Clap

For my Rap & Clap i wanted to do my character driving in the car, singing along to the radio (Prince-Kiss)


I did a reference video of myself singing the (prince-kiss Song!) I think it looks way too forced and i wasn't really getting into the song as much, so i got my friend in the video below to do a reference video for me singing and dancing to the song.


I found this reference video from scary movie 2 i thought it was quite nice how she taps her hand off the dash board when she's singing.






This is my favourite reference video which i think I'll be using most of the poses from this video


This reference video is just the first bit with the guy singing in the car.


I Like how he's signing words of the song, with his hands, which is quite nice and his little shakes of his head.

Character Profile

Name: Lucy
Age:23
Gender: Female
Occupation: Commis Chef ( works all day 5 day's a week)
Ipod: 80's Music, Chart Music, Pop/Rock, Country
Dreams: To be a pastry chef one day
Education: School, Catering College
Sense Of Humour: Cheesy and silly, loves a good dad joke
Health: Goes to the Gym on her day's off, tries to eat healthy by having a salad now and again.
Hobbies: Xbox-ing, watching Boxsets, going to gigs (concerts)
Fears: Anything with more than 2 legs scare her, especially spiders
Friends: Has a close knit group of friends, that she's known since secondary school
Addictions: Clothes, she's a shopaholic!
Attire: Skinny Jeans & slogan Tee's, but if she has an excuse to dress up, she will go all out.
Status: Just below middle class i would say
Marrital Status: Boyfriend, who she argues with alot, but loves him all the more
Religion: Atheist
She likes to sing loudly in her car while she's driving.

I've put my customised (Morpheus Character) in a free rigged Car from (www.creativcrash.com) here's a rendered frame of the character sitting in the car.







This is the second attempt at my open & closes of the lip sync on the rap and clap. Because i found it hard to figure out.


I did a reference video of myself pretending to drive a car and sing to the song at the same time, i think theres some nice movements in here like the quick glance to side as if there was passing cars. And closing my eyes on the cool with the head shake works really nice, i'm going to use a few of these little quirks in my animation.

Below is my short storyboard of what i want to be happening in my animation i've just done a few poses to words in the song, and hopefully going to bring them into my animation.








This is my key poses for my Rap & Clap, since the characters in the car, she doesn't move very much and I just wanted it to be more about her shaking her head and shoulders and slight arm movements, it's more about the facial expressions and her attitude.





Here's a playblast of the breakdowns i put in aswell, which make it a little better.

This is the page of notes i drew and wrote about what the mouth should look like when the character is saying each word







Here's the mouth shapes, I had a few goes at getting the mouth shapes right, i did try video referencing myself singing it but i found it to hard to see what shape was each word. So i said the words a 100 times or more in front of my mirror and drew the mouth shapes of each word, then i put them into here, i did the mouth shapes very subtle, because i seem to over-exaggerate everything way too much.





Here's a playblast of my animation with the spine splined.

This is the Part of my animation which is pretty much done, just need to spline the rest of my animation until it looks smooth and natural.



I wasn't able to finish animating my Rap & Clap so I have it rendered in just the blocked out & breakdown stage.

Lip Sync

Character Bio

Name: Rachael
Age: 34 Years old
Marrital Status: Married
Religion: Agnostic, she believes in a life after this one
Humour: She has a dry and a little childish sense of humour
Health: She's quite athletic and healthy, but can't turn away a dessert.
Her Ipod: Ballads and Female Singers like Adele, Amy Winehouse, Paloma Faith
Habits: Bites her nails
Fears: That she'll be alone
Attire: nice loose clothes, mostly block earthy colours
Occupation: Office Administrator
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Hobbies: Reading, Painting, Watching soppy movies, Swimming
About: She's been married for 3years, she's a down to earth girl, likes walking the dog, meeting up with the girls, staying in with a take-away with the hubbie.



For the Lip sync audio I have chosen the "Believe" which say's this
"You keep telling yourself what you know, But What do you believe, What do you Feel"

I am using the Morpheus rig, and i have started off doing just the opens and closes of each word, i did this by counting syllables, and just using the jaw control to open and close the mouth.

"You Keep tell-ing your-self what you know, but what do you be-lieve, what do you feel"

I have also video recorded myself saying the line to see mouth shapes.



Here's a playblast of the open and closes, and the last sentence " What do you, feel" with shapes added in, i think the last word "Feel" works perfectly.



I used this website to help me pose the mouth shapes

www.garycmartin.com/mouth_shapes.html

I was watching Chicago and came across this scene, and thought it was very helpful for looking at opens & closes and the general mouth shapes, because you really focus on the mouth's, since the actors are trying to come across as puppets





I've added in the mouth shapes, i think there not too over the top now, because when i first keyed them they were way too exaggerated, so i toned them down, and i think they look more subtle now.



I've acted out the line a few times in this video, I wanted my character to be talking to another character, and showing alot of emotion through the face and hands.
I think i might have the character being sympathetic with the person she's talking to.


I've Blocked out the poses, I haven't done very many poses because i want the moving to seem subtle and so you concentrate more on the facial expressions.



I like the way the actress in this scene moves her head with every word and expression, it's just the subtle movements helping get across what shes saying and feeling.




I love the lip sync in this animation and the subtle head movements & eyebrow movements work perfectly on this, i want mine to be similar in the subtle movements



I think my animation is pretty much done, but i think the little tweaks i need to add in are, tone the head movements down just a little because when she says what you know, she moves her head to much when it should just be a little nod, so she's disagreeing with her body language aswell. And the believe head nod needs to be toned down, because it looks like shes head banging, and i want it to be subtle head jerks like my reference videos above.

My Final Rendered Lip Sync

Basic Walk Cycle

For my basic walk cycle i followed Penny's Blog and also used "Richard Williams- the Animator's Survival Guide' they were both very helpful and useful to my final walk cycle. I did the walk cycle about 4 times before getting it perfect. Here's one of my failed examples

After this attempt i had 3 more goes at trying to get my walk looking normal so i payed closer attention to the richard williams book. And drew out rough sketches of what the poses, just because it helped me understand them more and was easier to animate once i understood the anatomy.

I drew the poses without the arms because it was easier so then i could just focus on what the legs should look like . I then added the arms into the animation without drawing them, because there much easier to visualise.






Here's the final playblast of my finished basic walk cycle, I think it turned out well, and the other walks i did helped me correct my errors and get the final result which is shown below.

Here's the Final Rendered Version of my Basic Walk Cycle

Walk with Personality

Character Concepts

Character #1
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Weight: Heavy and Muscular
Where's he Going: He's Going to for a meal with friends
Mood: Happy and Hungry
Where will he be going after: He'll be going for drinks with his friends
What's he want: Food & to see his friends
Power Centre: Shoulders/chest

Character #2

Age: 20
Gender: Female
Mood: Hungover, so feeling a bit tired and sick, and generally can't be bothered.
Where is she going: To work
Where's she going afterwards: back to bed
what does she want: Her bed and not to be at work
Power Centre: Knee's ( really downward as if her leg's are dragging her to where she's going)


Character #3

Age: 65
Gender: Male
Mood: Angry and annoyed ( because he had to pay full fare on the bus, because he didn't have his pass)
Where's he going: Trying to get on the bus.
Where's he going afterwards: home to complain to his wife.
Power Centre: Chest (so his back is hunched over)
What does he want: To get on the bus for free

I decided to go with character #3 and in our tutorial session we got put in groups and acted out each other's character's walks, i have put the video's i thought were very useful towards my walk below.



I really like this one, because she does the hunched over perfectly and i love the look back she does at the driver to tell the driver once again "i'm not happy with you".

And the look back in this video is just perfect, so if i did a look back in my personality walk i would definetly take reference from this because i think it's brilliant and shows the mood perfectly.

This would be quite good for the walk off, wrapping himself up, just some different idea's to think about here.



I like Mr Fredickson's walk from Up, but i couldn't really find a good reference video so this one will have to do, i think it show's it enough. I like that he is quite hunched and never really looks happy and thats how i want my guy to look.



I quite like the way this guy moves, its very hunched and slow.















Before I animate a walk cycle i like to draw out the poses, so then i can visualise what the walk should look like. Basically for this walk i've planned out that i want the characters back hunched over quite a bit, and high shoulders with clenched fists, so you can tell he's angry & annoyed. I'm going to add in more arm movements during the walk cycle, to give him more personality.


Here is a few poses of the walk stepped out. It's just a more exaggerated walk cycle with a head turn. I plan to add in some more arm movements like shaking his fists in anger, or a nice head shake, which would show he's annoyed.




I was having alot of trouble figuring out how to animate this walk cycle, so i started again, with a different character (Morpheus Rig)above, and i found this reference video on youtube and found it very helpful to use some of the poses in my walk.



I started my walk again because i couldn't get it quite right, i'm now using the (max rig) and using an angry walk cycle from "the animators survival kit" by Richard Williams.
Below is a playblast of what i've done so far, its just quite basic but i'm gonna add in all the details in at the end and get the important stuff done first.

Final Rendered Personality Walk

3D Character Poses

This is a rendered Frame of my Pose for "Troubled By Result"



Basically this guy has just got a letter telling him that his child has been expelled from school again and he's annoyed and fed up. I thought this angle looked the best because it shows his face expression well.

This is the Pose for "what's under there" basically he's playing that cup & ball game where someone puts a ball under a cup then moves the cups around really fast and you have to guess which one it's under. So the moom is looking in the cup because he picked up an empty one. I don't think the expression works too well, so i might change it because i wanted his expression to say "hmmm wheres the ball".

And this Pose is " Pleased To See" this guy is casually sitting waiting for a friend to come, and when he see's the friend he does a laid back wave as in to say "hey" with a big cheesy grin on his face.

And Below from a Front view just to see his facial expression.

Character Poses

Character Poses for the phrase " Pleased to see"

Character Poses for the phrase "What's Under there"

Character Poses for the phrase "Troubled By Result"

Heres a reference picture i took to figure out how to pose 'whats under there'.