Chapter 8 - One Step At A Time

It's Week 8!

I re-blocked my shot. My mentor really helped me a lot. He helped me re-building everything and tweak the poses that i had. I get rid all keys on the facial controls, get rid the in between keys and started tweaking the key poses. I really felt the pressure this time around. I occasionally felt a bit lost as well, and this is not a good indication. I have not found the proper workflow for a dialogue shot (well, duh! of course i have not.. this is my first ever dialogue shot ^^;) There was a lot of struggle and thinking whether i should do the lip sync first or should i do basic mouth shapes and then continue adding basic facial expression like it was mentioned on the brief. Meanwhile, the lectures are super informative and very helpful! My old habit of rushing in the process came up as well. This time around, i kind of force myself to add a bit of this and that on my shot, and then i began to add keys on every 2 frames, it was all over the place! Having keys on every 2 frames may work well on body mechanics shot, but i think it probably too much for dialogue test.. but i don't know! i really don't know.. there were a lot of thoughts and struggles for sure. ... :(

*breath...*inhale...Zen... So.. I followed my mentor direction to take a step back. I continue to work on my shot but this time around, I completely ignore the facial expression. My approach for this dialogue shot is by thinking this shot as a traditional 2d animation. I think about The Jetsons, Flintstones, and other Cartoon Network shows that i always watched when i was a little. The next step was to switch off all the lighting on my Maya viewport so that it will look like a 2d cartoon. Something like this:

I continue to add break down for the key poses.. i sticked to my last workflow, which was to add breakdown, overlapping action and the other principles on my blocking.. Below are the playblasts:

First Re-blocking stage, jaw opening-closing was still there. I tried not to delete them. However, we should not emotionally attached to our shot. I decided to delete all of the jaw keys as i moved forward :

Deleted the jaw keys and focus on the body mechanics :

Tracked the arcs ...

The 2d preview that i previously mentioned :

Added a bit of moving hold on the blocking :

Jaw pass, basic mouth shape, and eye brows :

During this stage, I kept switching the viewport light on and off, the 2d preview really helped me out to see if the Jaw movement works well or not... I actually have been doing this since my last shot for class 3.. the idea of thinking my shot as a 2d animation works pretty well for me..

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Chapter 8 - Grafitti

On week 8, i did my first past blocking.. I pretty much transferred what i had on my 2d test shot to Maya..

I vaguely remember that i tried to keep the key frames as minimal as possible.. but it was hard to do so.. i tend to rush to fill in the in between poses.. i had no idea why but this led me to have dozens of key again in my timeline.. i would say i did not offset my keys as bad as what i did on my first assignment. On my first assignment i bluntly offset the spines curves on GE.. looking back at it now, it was an awful thing to do! it mess up the timing and the overlap was out of control.. So here is the playblast from that week :

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Chapter 8.2 - P.U.S.H !

This week, there were couple of very pleasant distraction.. and i am still distracted..! i have a theory, if you have something that keeps coming back in your life, it might as well means something for you ^^ i never am a fan of regulations in my entire life, don't get me wrong though, this doesn't mean i love to raid a candy shop or do crimes ^^'' bottom line is that you are really in charge to write your own life story and nothing and/or nobody should stop you.. editing from other folks are necessary, but everything should come from your heart.
Uh well, back to the main reason why i am writing this entry, the blocking process of the PUSH shot. I will not say this is easy.. but i have to admit that all the lessons i got from the wind walk really help me out here. I struggled a lot to fit my shot into 250 frames..I exceeded 10 frames last week and i am still working on it now.. My mentor critiques really helps me to fix the problem. Below are the blocking and a revision I did for my rainstorm walk :

Push Blocking:

Revision:

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... let say, i am going to see Square Enix in a month? woot woot!?　：D

Chapter 8.1 - Push! Push! Push!

So, this is our final pick list for this term... i pick push and/or pull a heavy object. The reason is simple.. I want to learn correctly about the body mechanics.. and i really want to get it done right! so for this one, i keep it simple. It took me quite awhile to take the video reference.. I came with several acting choice that ended p horribly.. I'm such a bad actor... really... really.. bad.. -o-! anyways.. here are my planning, which i did it quite differently this time, i'm giving myself an opportunity to learn 2D animation software.. it's not a good 2D animation, but i think it will help my shot :)

Video Reference + animatic in the end:

Animatic only:

Keyposes:

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Chapter 8 - The Walk! part 3

Here are my blocking videos! the only difference between them is my first blocking didn't have rotation z which makes Ballie tilt to the weight where the foot steps (thanks to my friend Donna for pointing out this part!). Lesson for this week, never underestimated simple things! :)

1st Blocking:

Final Version:

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Chapter 8 - The Walk! part 2

I spent some days to really understand the walk cycle. I shot my own video reference and re-watch the lectures, i really think walk cycle is tricky and it's not as easy as it sounds ^^. I have my walk cycle planning here, i will post some of my try outs too :)

My first messy planning that i love!

Clean up :

Final Planning with some small revisions, thanks to my friends for pointing out the mistakes :)

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Chapter 8 - Stu Pose

My First Attempt applying one of the poses on Stu, it seems the silhouette is not clear ..

Change the angle:

Second Pose

I had some trouble figuring out which way the torso arch should go.. i decided to look for some image reference, and after debating with me self for hours, i really do think that it should go inwards, like this >> (

I also decided to use my Second Pose for my assignment since this pose is more readable by my friends, though i really enjoy creating the first pose :) So here is my final piece:

I'd like to thank all my friends who help me improving my work this week :)

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Chapter 8 - Physical Strength Poses

Below are my sketches for this week Stu Pose! I try not to over think about it cause I usually make myself confuse by doing that :p My favourite poses are the ones I circled.  I lean towards pose no 9 because there is no props involved in that pose and it is just pure physical strength, and it is a very simple pose. I might have to do a lot of tweaking to make it seems less effortless cause at the moment it looks like he's pulling his legs up easily. The other one is no 10, the reason is simple, rock climbing is cool hahaa. I actually like no 6 and 5 too cause they have strong and long line of actions.

I browsed more basketball slam dunk photos and found Nate Robinson's photos during Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on 2010! (He's still in NY Knicks ^^). I used these photos as reference for my strength pose and I believe lots of physical strength is needed to do a slam dunk. Below is the updated sketches:

I did few more sketches, you could see them on the bottom right of the drawing area. I'd also like to thank my classmates for giving me such an awesome tips for drawing!

Complete Strength Sketches for Week 8!

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Chapter 8 - The Walk!

It's week 8 everybody! This goes too fast! (>w<)
Anyway, this week we're going to do a walk cycle! I went to the park and since there was nobody there, i decided to stay inside my car and observed the crowds. A lot of them were carrying grocery bags, back pack, and other objects, so it was a good chance to observe how the weight effects the body.

My first observation was on this guys who walked across the park. He was quite far away from the place I was sitting down so it's good, i could observe his movement without him noticing. (well.. it will be extremely awkward and embarrassing if the person caught me staring at him -o- ). I notice that there would be always this subtle movement on the chest and the head will follow up. For those who were carrying the backpack on one shoulder, I notice that the shoulder that carried the weight was tilted up and it was stiff. The object also effect on how the person is walking. My further observation also give me some new info that the way the body moves is also effected by the body shape and the personality. It was hard to observe the torso area since it was covered by the person's outfit. I also notice that the hip makes ∞ arc shape when it moves. I also clarify one thing that  always confuse me, this was the hip movement when the foot makes a contact to the ground. The hip will tilt up.
Below is one of the sketch I did today, i think the observation was really helpful.

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