Posted on November 27, 2011 |
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Filed under Acting, Animation, Education
I was watching a documentary on the Sherman brothers and found that really good eye dart video reference with two actors only few inches away from each others. It is striking how much the actress’s eyes move around when she is looking successively at the left and right eyes then at the mouth. Also pay attention to the timing of the darts, it is between one and two frames and the eye lid seems to be delayed by one frame at time.
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Posted on November 25, 2011 |
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Filed under Animation, Education
After Aaron Hartline ripped my shot last week I wasn’t too sure what to think anymore. It is very refreshing to hear someone showing you a very different perspective on your shot but it can also be a traumatizing experience if it is summed up by “you have some nice motion here but the story makes no sense“. Aaron suggested that I would change the story entirely as Palapatine “doesn’t have that voice” and Anakin “is blond and not a delivery boy“.
I guess it is like contemporary art, some people are more receptive than others. Some people prefer Picasso’s more figurative paintings when others prefer his cubist period. Some people prefer Jim Carrey’s humour to Larry David’s, I guess it is a question of taste.
Victor Navone didn’t have a problem with it so I will keep pushing and finish the shot with the original idea. Once I have the cloth simulation and the rest of the environment, it should make more sense for the wider audience.
So, here is where I am. A mess! 😉 The rig I am using (very old but really fast Bishop rig) doesn’t have FK/IK Snap or any fancy IK hands space switching so I am supposed to set up a lot of constraints and I am not to willing to go into that Victor is completely happy with the body animation. I was hoping to finish that shot WAY earlier than that but with only one review per week, changes can impact the completion of the shots in a dramatic manner and this is without counting the changes that were finally reverted to the original blocking and video reference and I have had several like this. Lesson learnt, show your video reference at every review! I am actually thinking of putting my video ref on a Nurbs plane actually. This way we can compare immediately the two instead of having to switch all the time which is not very easy with the shot review software we are using at AnimC.
Here is what I have today, it is not really at a presentable state but since I haven’t posted anything for the past 4 or 5 weeks, I felt it was necessary to finally post something. I am not going to pretend I have a feature animation workflow completely nailed, especially with that kind of rig. Also, let’s remember that this is a 17 seconds sequence with one long full body shot, two characters interacting and plenty of constraints. A lot of fun 😉
As you will notice, I have also done a lip sync pass as it is pretty unlikely Victor will ask for dramatic changes and it makes the shot a bit more presentable. Also… I love lip sync and close ups.
I am posting a Youtube version as it was quicker than Vimeo Vimeo version posted but the sound seems to be slightly offset despite uploading a huge uncompressed version.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32694320[/vimeo]
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Posted on November 21, 2011 |
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Filed under Animation
I am currently in L.A. attending the incredible CTN Convention and it is a blast! I would recommend everyone to attend next year as it is a crazy event for people interested in Animated Features.
I got to meet and talk to so many exceptional people for the past two days. Among them was a great workshop with Corpse Bride character designer Carlos Grangel and tomorrow an other workshop with Sergio Pablos. I will probably write a full report in the next few weeks with pictures.
In the meantime, nothing to do with CTN but it is always a good time to post some French wacky animation. Check out that crazy episode from Cube creative/Blue spirit’s Kaeloo.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32320946[/vimeo]
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Kaeloo
