Jump Linear WIP

I added some more breakdowns in the first 200 frames and adjusted the timing. I also animated the background (which will probably be tweaked later on, depending if it needs to be faster or slower - it works for now) to complete the look.

 I think this is looking good enough for me to leave for the time being so I'm going to leave it here, unless feedback tells me of a change I should do, and begin blocking more breakdowns in the later frames. After that I would like to start blocking another scene if possible so that we can keep to the schedule (which I will upload when I figure out how as it's a .PDF file.)

Rachel's Blog

Linear Arm Timing

Changed the timing of the arm movement. It works better now I think though it could probably stand to be a bit faster.



  Rachel's Blog

Linear Arms

Moved the first 100 frames of the scene I was working on into Linear to see how it looks. The timing is the biggest thing that needs sorting out.



The timing of the arms was the most obvious so I've added some breakdowns and I'm going to tweak the timing next.

 

  Rachel's Blog

11 Second Club: New reaction

Worked on Mrs Crawley's reaction. Tried to make her look envious of the belt so I hope that comes across alright. I've taken out her jerk back movement and just moved her to follow Grandma's movements.

11 Second Club: To change or not to change?

After changes made as per suggestion from last post.



I got my partner to watch it and he questioned why Mrs Crawley reacts so much to the wrestling belt because surely she'd already know about it when it's in front of her. He thought Crawley would naturally follow Grandma upwards she stood up.

Now I'm wondering whether to change it to having Mrs Crawley's eyes follow Grandma upward instead, perhaps sparing a glance at the belt. I've posted this playblast and asked the class what they think on facebook. We'll see what they say...

11 Second Club: Linear Test 6

Playblasted this off when I couldn't see anything else to do. I posted it up on the facebook group to get some feedback from the class.



Scott told me Grandma's hands don't reach the belt quick enough and should be on it before she's finished standing. He also said that Mrs Crawley was still kinda floaty.
So I've been working on that.
Will uploaded updated version after it's been looked over again.

11 Second Club: Linear

Both characters are now on linear. I've still only lip syncing one but I have tweaked that a bit and I've added and killed a few key frames here and there to help with timing.



Was a bit worried but the two characters are timed pretty well with each other, particularly when Grandma touches Mrs Crawley's hand.

Shall lip sync Mrs Crawley next.

Linear and Lip sync Test

Put Grandma into linear to see how the timing is working. I've also lip synced her in splines (I like to lip sync straight into spline as I can see the mouth movement clearly straight away, I don't know if that's a bad way to work but at the moment it works for me).



I kinda missed the Malcolm rig while I was lip syncing grandma as Malcolm has a really nice facial rig set up with which I find you can get a cleaner lip sync. I'm new to the Norman rig base so maybe I'm just not used to it but I can't seem to quite get the clean mouth shapes that I could with Malcolm.

Hopefully I've done an okay job for the first go though. I've posted it up on the facebook group for some feedback from my classmates. I hope they can give me some advice on how to perhaps make it a bit better.

Mysteriously broken wrist.

Sometime while I was blocking in the revised explosion actions, the right wrist broke and animated at an odd angle all the way through the animation. Had to correct every key frame but it's done now.

Clip is without camera cuts and sound because I wanted to show all the things that are happening this time. The camera cut will cut out the awkward animation between lying down position and sitting up position.



James Harris came in yesterday to record our final version of the sound and now I need to adjust the timing of my animation to fit it.

There are also a few things I need to fix such as the end walk off stage. It was rushed so that we could combine our animations for James to see so only the rough timing is down, it still needs breakdowns.

Noticed a couple of freak outs from different limbs of the character, will fix that now.

Also, I need to swap around the part where the character is first defining the box so that the hands define the bottom before the top, rather than the other way round as it is now. Just so that it makes sense and that the mime box doesn't defy gravity. Not even mimes can defy gravity.

WIP Vid for Show and Tell today.

Just a work in progress vid for showing the class today, with camera cuts but no sound. It's only up to explosion because I'm halfway through working on the bits afterward.



Will write later about any feedback.

Ticking Test 4

Another test playblast after previous feedback.



Looking better :)

Moving on to the revision of the explosion now though, will make changes to this later if needed.

Feedback for Ticking Test 3

I showed the classmates the last ticking test for the mime animation and they agreed it needed to be more subtle.

Kristian pointed out that the face would be the selling point of this part of the animation.
The character is currently looking up to the left, imagining what it could be inside the box. He suggested what if the character squints his eyes a bit and perhaps lifted a part of his lip to look like he's really concentrating on what he's listening to.

I really liked this idea so will definitely try it out!

Ticking Test: Feedback and test

Classmates thought hands were the best thing to tick with and that it would look better ticking side to side.

Here's the test to try it out. It's a bit floaty because for some reason, even though I copied and pasted the frames, Maya insists that they're different and should move when I wanted a pause.

Could do with being more subtle and possibly another one squeezed in but we'll see what the classmates think.

Ticking Test

I realised that I completely forgot to sort out the ticking mime.
Having sound was inconsistent with Raf and Rachel's animations so I'm testing ways of miming the ticking so that the sound can be taken out.

The only ideas we've really had are ticking the hands or head. I've done both for testing and am about to post them both on our Masters facebook group for votes.

Hands:


Head:


I don't really know which to go for as both do the job but I've looked at the character so much now that I can't really decide what's better. My head's still a bit lazy from my cold too so that doesn't help.

3rd Set

Gone through another set of 200 frames.
There wasn't a lot to fix here but I added extra keys here and there.



On to the more difficult bit; the explosion. My idea is make it a smaller explosion and not have him thrown off screen as it's too difficult to mime. I have some sketches but no access to a scanner right now so I'll edit this post when uni opens again (closed for Easter Bank Holiday weekend).

**EDIT** Scanned sketches of revised explosion.

Fixing more things.

Fixing the wrist freak out was easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought Maya was going to make it as difficult as possible but no, deleted a breakdown frame, problem fixed. Then keyed another so it actually moved the way I wanted it to. Done. ... Wow, must be getting better at this Maya thing.

Anyway, second lot of 200 frames done. Same as before, fixed some things, killed some children, added some frames where needed.

Fixing things

I went through the first 200 frames of the linear animation, fixing the walk and doing a bit of clean up as I go (which just me deleting frames that are no longer necessary or re-keying some things that have gone weird).

The walk is now about fixed. Won't do any more to it until the splines stage. Looking a lot better now, the feet are slipping about much less and the animation is generally a bit tidier than it was.



I'm going to wait until splines before I go any further with it because it's now about the timing and the slow in slow out principle, both of which would be easier when I can see the f-curves.

Moving onto the next 200 frames though and I have this little problem to fix:



I have no idea why this happens (I think it may be something to do with the way I move the joints while blocking - could be wrong) but this isn't the only time it's happened, there are a few 'spazz-outs' here and there. Should be fixable by deleting and re-keying some of the frames.