Another 11 Second club analysis

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/july07/winner

Animation from the 11 second club: July 2007


         This animation is interesting, although simplistic, it contains a lot of nice subtle movements in the hands and eyes. It is well timed, such as when the letter is opened and contains real characterisation. The use of the letterbox is nice to think about as the addition of a prop, something for the characters to intewract with other than themselves is something that can add a lot to a scene. The animator has clearly put a lot of thought into the little things here and the secondary action is incredible. I would really like to see this animation rendered out properly though. Looking at it again, there seems to be some small issues when the character on the right is moving towards the other character but it is mostly unnoticeable due to the well animated expressions on the character's faces which draw the viewer in.

         The movement of the lips themselves could be better as I feel that the synchronisation of audio to action is slightly off. The story is clear and looking at the other principles of animation, it is clear that squash and stretch are present on the character's faces as they speak, allowing for a higher and better sense of realism. The use of arcs is great as well as the characters move fluidly when turning and rotating their heads, arms and uperbodies. One final criticism that I have would be that the character on the right seems to have some movements and facial expressions that conflict the tone of voice making it seem slightly strange. I noticed this mainly around frame 20 with the character on the left. The character should possibly be slightly less calm about the situation when he says, "We have to."  
       Overall though, it is a nice, well timed animation in both body and face that was worthy of winning the competition that month.
          
              

Interesting Paper on Facial Animation and the science behind it

Facial Animation is an important part of this semester and so I have been reading up on the subject. Here is a paper that contains information on everything from muscle modelling to blend shapes and was quite enjoyable to read. It contains diagrams and the writer writes about pros and cons when dealing with the process of 3D facial animation. I found a lot of interesting things in this and I will continue to search for more relevent research papers in the future.

  http://graphics.cs.uh.edu/website/Publications/2007_facial_animation_survey_bookchapter.pdf

Interesting Animation Blogs

http://pixartimes.com/   

1. The Pixar Times is the first professional animation blog that I want to write about in this post. As one of the most influential animation companies of all time, it is interesting to read about everything that is going on with them and their research. Constantly updated and dealing with the vast empire of films that are in their collection, this blog covers characters and films with articles that link to the animation processes and research ideas. 

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/

2. Speaking of Animation is a blog that was created by four professional animators.  who work in industry. They give news about the world of animation in their posts as well as providing inspirational elements and educational bits on animating. They don't update the blog very often though and so the site suffers from a lack of regular material but there are still videos with interviews and industry related information.


http://www.animationphysics.com/

3.  This blog is a free educational site for animators. It deals with information from traditional 2D animation to 3D computer graphics and stop-motion related material. It contains lots of information on providing context to how the principles and laws of physics apply to the world of animation. Unlike the others on this list, it is less news related and more focused on teaching. It provides multiple tutorials, some of which i have looked at, The tutorials are organised into four categories for easier access and understandung, basic animation, character animation, effects and character effects animation and lighting and visual effects. Looking through these, it is clear that this blog contains some very nice content.

The modelling process

 I started off by creating the outline and a basic mesh with pointed ears and basic lamberts so i could visualise the images that I was working from.

 Following on from this, the character's face had to be molded a bit more to the shape of the character but still basic and generic.

 I mirrored the generic mesh and began to work on it some more, whilst manipulating both sides.

 I retopologised the character to try and fit the likeness a bit more. At this point, the humanoid features were getting closer.

 Extruding downwards I began working on the arm and hand. Two fingers and a thumb are all that Nightcrawler has on each hand so it was easier to use the extrusions on the fingers.

 Moving on, I mirrored the mesh again and joined up the central vertices, creating a basic clothing mesh.

 I had also made a tail at this point and soon began moving onto the hair. The hair was an extrusion that had been seperated into a new mesh. Following this, I had some of my classmates speak to me about the progress of my model and redid the arms based on this as I had accidentally made square arms instead of rounded ones. 

 Here is the fixed arm setup in rough mode. I made sure to retopologise at this point as i worked on the cave of the inside of the mouth and added nostrils, teeth, a tongue and eyelids.

 Finishing off the mesh, I worked on the hair and nails and fixed any small issues in the character's jaw etc, making sure to speak to other people in order to see how my progress was going. I then went on to fix any issues in the clothing and lower body before I was happy with the mesh.

I then used basic textures to create the character look, trying to make it like the comic character style that I had planned when I chose the character.

Storyboard changes

I changed the ending of the storyboard to incorporate the mirror idea as it added to the overall flow of the video and a twist at the end.

Star Trek quote: 11 second club

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/october10/entry/nkohIS

Feedback in class

Letting others evaluate my work really helped me with understanding how i was going with my production diary and storyboard. I graded my own work and it turned out that I had actually underestimated my abilities and got a higher grade from the others in the class. Comments were made on the timing of the storyboard and the Liam Neeson quote. I was also advised to stay away from using a phone in the scene, something that I had already decided. The use of a megaphone was suggested as the character could possibly be delivering the speech to a group but due to the fact that the quote references the kidnapping of his daughter, this may not be the best idea. The idea that a mirror could be used and right at the end of the scene, reveal that the character was just talking to himself in the mirror, somewhat like that of Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro's character in "Taxi Driver."

Had this been more of a full body animation, maybe incorporating the acrobatic nature of Nightcrawler but for this i need to focus more on the face. In doing so, the mirror idea might be a nice addition. The naturally misconceived nature of the character provides a nice change to portray him as actually threatening. Maybe the mirror scene could provide the character with the idea that he is trying to learn to live up to his demonic image and in the last shot he fails and has a saddened look on his face. 

Nightcrawler's Character story

The teleporting demon mutant is a member of the X men and despite his devilish appearance is a religious and extremely kind character.


Here is the character's biography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightcrawler_(comics)

Image found here: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/deathbattlefanon/images/9/90/Nightcrawler.png/revision/latest?cb=20150223183700

Wire Mesh

         Taking the drawing that I chose for the character of Nightcrawler, I drew around it in photoshop in order to create a topological reference for my model. Here is the finished product. It isn't perfect but the generalised idea of spider web like topology is enough to allow for an interesting reference that can be used to form better facial structure. By studying this proper topological referencing, it is easier to see that more edge loops in areas such as the mouth and eyes will provide better help when it comes to deformation problems.