3D Production - Week 5 - Facial Animation and Animation Layers

“The Eyes are the window to your soul” Shakespeare

So if the eyes are dead the soul is dead, mastering the eyes in animation will add so much humanity to your character.

Doll Face http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl6hNj1uOkY (3D mixed with live action)

The link below shows the latest technology for games and how they are animating character to be more lifelike by using motion capture. It is really fascinating to see how they have done this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7RYCsE9KQ

https://vimeo.com/64639747  Lydia animation on v4.20 of the rig

Test animation on 3Lateral FACS based rig with contextual shapes.

To get the best facial expressions and emotions you need to plan and make sure to notice things that people do when they react to certain things. Then try and capture that into the animation. The easiest way to do it is to plan and look at the reference footage and thumbnails.

Blinking Tutorial: https://vimeo.com/50135405

Blinking guidelines:

· Keep eyes closed for at least 2 frames

· Top lid come down 80%, bottom lids come up by 20 %.

· Eyes role up slightly when we blink.

· Other things move round the eyes. (Eyebrows, cheeks etc.)

· Often close slow and open faster (slow in fast out)

Eye Darts:

Consider what makes us change the direction of our eyes and the impact it has on the person watching us. I need to make sure I focus on the eyes.

Working with animation layers, man push box with different layers for various body parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFfyCUV7nz8

Class tasks

As a class we got into pairs, one would react to certain things (ask them to remember something, imagine something, think of something they love, think of something they hate) and the other would write notes on what they did.

Remembering something- looking down, eye darts – side to side, staring

Imagine something – looking up, eye darts, slight smile

Love – smile and eye quint (smiling with whole face), looking up

Hate – eyebrow twitch, eyes darting – up and down, lots of blinking.

Our next task and Homework was to think of a phone call reaction without talking. Reacting to something someone is saying on the phone. I will blog this on a separate post.