Friday, December 20, 2013

Overview - Long Time No See!

Hello everyone.. :) Hope everybody is doing well.. :))
So.. It has been a really long time since my last post and it has been a really interesting year for me..
The great stuff that I discovered during class 6.. well, thank goodness they are still in my brain (yayy!) . I unfortunately could not upload the playblasts from my last shot because I am in my hometown now and left them in my PC in my second home.

However, you can check out the shot on my reel here. It is the first one on the reel.
There are couple things that I did differently in this shot. I still feel that the facial animation is still very weak, but here are some of the approach that I did and some discoveries that I found :
  1. During my planning stage, I tried to find a way on how to make this little girl more appealing. I could not remember where I got this from initially.. maybe from alumni tutor q&a, the lectures, I couldn't remember.. but it was about Clint Eastwood and his remarkable facial expression when he talked. I thought.. I should try that out! So I decided to make her mouth shapes move sideways, to the screen right, when she talked or smiled.. the idea came from my own habit hehe.. My mouth tends to go sideways when I talk :p
    I guess this would be a great idea to add to our shot, I kind of feel this could add more personality to our character.. :)
     
  2. At some random moment when I was animating the shot, I think I was animating a blink and having a hard time with it.. The thought appeared out of the blue, 'I think I am going to try to use an X-Sheet next time..' .. I should have realized that we could use it to add details too.. :/ So, a note to myself: use an X-Sheet when you plan your next shot.
  3. This time around, I added the facial animation at the very beginning of the blocking stage. As always, I made 2 different groups of controllers; All Body Controllers and All Facial Controllers. The aim is to avoid confusion in the timeline. I blocked the body first and then the face came along..
  4. On my class 5 shot, I was thinking about how the character talked and behave.. This time around, I tried out the method that was taught on the lecture.. I used my dad as a reference :D I was thinking what my dad would do if I talked to him about becoming a fireman.. My mentor gave a very nice suggestion too! He suggested that when he tries out to find out a nice acting flow, try to listen to the dialogue.. and then, listen how the tone of the voice flow, and then go with the flow of the voice of the actor.. It is kind of hard to explain it.. but, I hope you guys get it.. Please let me know if this part is not clear! :O
  5. I think I have better understanding of video reference now.. My mentor taught us to quickly take a new reference if we got stuck with our shot.. and it was really helpful! I think I get more patient when I plan my shot as well.. Studying the body mechanics before we bring the poses to Maya is very, very helpful..
Those are some of the stuff that I learned from my Fireman shot, that I could remember :)

However, The Ultimate Thing that I learned from my last class is ... 'To look back on the process and be Grateful' .. a quote from my mentor that I will remember forever :) Shout out to my awesome class 6 mentor Mark Oftedal! :D I couldn't even describe how grateful I am to be able to become a part of AM and finish the course.. so, Thank You very much everyone, the support has been incredibly amazing... this thing called Animation is my light at the end of tunnel.. :)

Have a great day everyone and Keep Animating!
Don't forget to enjoy the sun and fresh air out there! Holiday Season is coming! :D

---

No comments:

Post a Comment