In-depth Analysis

In this post, I will discuss and analyse my animation that I have completed for the CCA module. I fear the general consensus of my animated piece is being overlooked for being overly subtle and/or simplistic.

The intended style of this piece is to be SIMPLE, CONCISE and EFFECTIVE to the needs of the story and situation. I strongly believe that an animation only needs to be pushed in certain ways if it helps to get the point across. Anything else is completely irrelevant and unnecessary. You wouldn't put an ice cream truck in the background of a set just because you spent hours modelling one if it does not fit in the scene you're animating. Similarly, you wouldn't animate a character dancing and/or walking around doing inappropriate large gestures when the voice clip does not call for it.

In this voice clip of A few good men, I have analysed and decided that the character is making a statement. Delivering a lecture, if you will. He is confident, cocky and knows what he is talking about. He is not deliberating, hesitating or giving any signs of doubt, thus the intensity I am portraying on his part as a character. A confident character generally does not fumble around, maintains direct eye contact and hardly ever blinks (depending on how intense). It is as such that I must emphasise my artistic decision to deliver a performance that is incredibly subtle and underplayed to add to the intensity of the character.

It can be overlooked to the point that I have been lazy in the animation and not animated enough gestures and/or big movements. This is hardly the case, and as I've explained above, unless the scene calls for it - will I feel it is necessary to do as such. I will not sacrifice good character performance to demonstrate a wider range of animation skills. After all, story is king and empathy is key. If we sacrifice that to demonstrate animation technicality and principles, no one other than animators would care and/or even notice.

It is also important to note that I did not rush this piece. Ample time was given to properly polish this piece and although it may not be immediately noticeable, I assure you the details are all in there if you look close enough.

More development videos

Here is the video reference comparison:


Some interesting notes:
1. It's mango juice in the glass I'm holding
2. My right eyebrow nerve was cut when I was a baby so I can't move it... ever!
3. In my right hand I'm holding a little mp3 player which connects to speakers so I can trigger the audio to play (which in hindsight, I should've just let it go on a loop instead so I can rest that hand for better referencing.
4. The Jack Daniels bottle was there to set the scene. I wasn't actually drinking it at the time...

Here is the splined version:


Here is the basic lipsync pass:

CCA Render

Watch in 720p HD
Watch in 1080p Full HD

Here is the render, as promised! I will post the other development videos up shortly (splined version, lipsync pass and video reference comparison)

Animation complete. Render tomorrow

This has gone surprisingly fast. Either I have vastly improved, or this could just be an easier scene (fewer body mechanics when he's just sat at a desk). I think it may be a bit of both. But the animation only took about a full week, with polish taking up about 3-4 days.

Will be sending it off to render tomorrow morning so expect the animation to be out around noon tomorrow!

Blocking Pass 2

Blocking Pass 2 - cleaned up poses. Refined a couple more breakdowns and adjusted some timing. Should be ready to spline now :)

Blocking Pass 1

First Pass blocking done for the day.
Tomorrow I will be adding more breakdowns and cleaning up the poses.

Deadline Extended by 1 week

Just got an email from the module leader that the deadline for this module has been extended by a week! Awesome, more time to enjoy the sun and polish (if needed). I'll still do my best to adhere to the original schedule though! :)

Golden Poses Done

Technically there is only just one golden/storytelling pose. The animation and acting is incredibly subtle in this piece and Sam doesn't actually move into any other pose. I have established about 6 major poses that he goes through in his delivery of the line and those will be considered my kind-of golden poses for this instance.

I will move on to cover all the extreme poses in the next few days and should be able to move on to splining sooner than expected due to the subtlety of the piece.

I haven't timed the poses just yet but will do tomorrow, so expect a playblast soon.

More quick renders

Worked more on lighting. And filled in the background with more gun props. I intend to light the background separately but I will come back to it another time. Now it's time to crack on with the animation blocking!

Scene setup and quick render

Been spending today posing my character in his main pose and setting the scene up with models. Not quite done yet, but here's a quick  render:

Work Schedule

Here is a work schedule that I will do my best to adhere to:

Scene setup by 16th April
Full blocking by 20th April
Full body spline by 23rd April
Full facial animation by 1st May
Polish by 3rd May
Render by 4th May <- hand-in date!

Character Design

Here is the character design for Sam. It's not final yet and more modifications might be made later on. It is using the Morpheus Rig by Josh Burton. I wanted Sam to look old and slightly overweight. He hasn't had to keep fit ever since his time in the army and has since put on some pounds. I also gave him a slight tan to show that he has been out in the sun often, and gets around.

I haven't really bothered with his lower half of the body because I have decided that he will be behind the counter for my scene and we will only see his upper body.

Establishing the Character

I have decided to make my character (Sam) a 50 year old army veteran. He has served his time in the army and has since retired and now owns a gun shop. His time in the army has made him very tough and bitter in some sense.

The situation is based in his gun shop. He is approached by the authority (off screen) and he isn't intimidated by their shiny badges. What the authority want him for is all up for discussion and interpretation by the audience.

Initially I had wanted to have him in a restaurant eating his breakfast as he gets approached by the authority. Then upon further listening to the audio clip, I felt it would make more sense if he felt secure and safe in his own premises as he delivers the dialogue. I made a note on how he says, "...come down here..." and figured it would make more of an impact if I show that he owns the gun shop and feels safer in his property (authorities are more limited to what they can do).

Analysing Voice Clip

Below is the sound clip in written form:

I eat breakfast three hundred yards from four thousand Cubans who were trained to kill me so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash your badge... and make me nervous.

After listening to the audio clip numerous times, I have broken it down into identifiable accents. The underlined text above shows where I believe the accents are located - this is simply a change in the tone and way of speaking that will often benefit from body animation changes.

I actually quite like that the character has no large accents in the first few seconds of his speech because it gives good contrast to when the accents come in a bit later. To be fair, most of these accents are very subtle anyway so this will be quite a challenge to get right.

Sound Clip

http://www.zshare.net/audio/89027738b065dab9/

This is the sound clip I have chosen from the 7 other clips that I had to choose from. One of the main reasons I chose this was because of its length - approx 12 seconds. The other voice clips are longer than this in duration and some go up to 20+ seconds. Considering the deadline for this animation is 4th May 2011, I only have about 2.5 weeks left of animation time. I feel that it is more important to focus on the quality than quantity.

Furthermore, the limitations of this assignment was that I was only allowed to animate one character on screen. The other sound clips has dialogues between 2 characters and I felt that a lot of staging and potential is lost when we aren't allowed to show the other character as they interact.

I want to discuss some of the limitations of this voice clip. The problem I have with this voice clip is that it is a one person monologue with no progression. The whole clip is more of a statement made by one character and has no noticeable change in emotional state or voice range. In many ways, this can make the animation appear dull or boring. I do believe however, that if done correctly, it can still be equally impressive when the character appears to be saying the dialogue from his own will.

About this Blog

This blog serves as a development blog for my Creative Character Animation module at Teesside University. I will be demonstrating my workflow of my lip-sync animation from start to finish.