The Matrix, Neo, is... (a short character animation exercise)

[unknowngod430]

the link does work. it sends me to a marist college site

[LGM]

Okay, it's fixed now. I resized it and uploaded it again. I'm not sure why it didn't work in the first place, that's never happened with that server before.

Thanks,
LGM

(A marist college site? That's really strange. It didn't do that when I tested it.)

[LGM]

After I had posted the first movie, I let the file sit for a bit. Almost immediately I started thinking of ways to improve the hands and fingers and eyes. So hopefully I will have improved the animation in this new installment.

Character Study #3 (first update) (http://blender.sixmonkeys.geek.nz/albums/LGMProductions/matrixchar2.avi)
Time:15 seconds
Size: 2.81 megs
Encoder:X-vid

Thanks for watching, and please review. I would like some serious constructive criticism on this animation.

LGM

[GuzzaBee]

Just a couple of notes in general; the poses seem to lag too much, like they are reactions to the dialogue instead of an addition/extension. Try working with stepped keys, they're useful to see the character hitting a pose on the right frame, this might also help with lip-sync too.

Regarding the posing of the character it's a bit square on to the camera a few dinamic poses would help here, & don't forget the clavicles they can add a lot to the expression of a character.

Just an opinion :)

[LGM]

Thanks for your ideas, Guzzabee. I tried to fix the lag by moving the entire animation up three keyframes. I hadn't noticed that until you mentioned it. What are stepped keys? To lipsync I used Magpie (the freeware version) and just kept my spreadsheet while doing the gesticulations.

By the clavicles do you mean moving one shoulder without the other? Or is his movement in that area somewhat muted alltogether? This character isn't rigged that great (I'm still learning) so his independent shoulder movement is limited (as I have just realized).

After trying to incorporate your suggestions and working more on his fingers and hands I have:

Character Study #3 (second update) (http://blender.sixmonkeys.geek.nz/albums/LGMProductions/matrixchar3.avi)
Time:15 seconds
Size: 2.89 megs
Encoder:X-vid

Thanks for watching, and please tell me what you think.


LGM

[LGM]

On the suggestions of a friend, I've tweaked it a little more (adding foot movement when he waves behind himself and generally smoothing some poses). So here is a new update.

Character Study #3 (third update) (http://blender.sixmonkeys.geek.nz/albums/LGMProductions/matrixchar4.avi)
Time:15 seconds
Size: 2.92 megs
Encoder:X-vid

Is there anything that needs work?

Thanks,

LGM

[GuzzaBee]

Hi LGM,

OK, stepped keys; In 3D Studio Max you’ll need Bezier/Euler controllers, access the track view curve editor, select all the keys and ‘set tangents to step’. In Maya, open the graph editor, select the keys & set the keys to ‘step tangent’, I can’t help you out if you’ve animated in anything else.



Clavicles – yes these are shoulders, sorry it’s a trait of having worked with Character Studio to refer to them as clavicles. It will help a lot if you can free these up, it will go some way to reducing the creasing around the shoulders, If you do a search on rigging you may find a few tutorials to give you a good shoulder setup.



As for lip-sync try and ditch the software plug-in and have a go at doing it yourself. I’m not familiar with it, but as a default, they’ll try to put everything in & it’s often best to leave some mouth movement out and emphasise the key sounds, I’d also say that some of the mouth shapes could do with being a tad bigger, but this may not be needed if you can hold some of the mouth shapes for a bit longer.



Hope this helps, looks like you’ve sorted the lag. If you get stuck for ideas try ‘acting for animators’ Ed Hook, it could give you a different slant on things

[LGM]

Thanks, GuzzaBee. I'm actually using Blender 3D (http://www.blender3d.org) for this. What exactly are stepped keys? I think I may have seen something like them. Is it where the poses don't blend into each other, but jump from one to the other sharply?

I tried sorting out the shoulder thing. The crease is almost completely gone now. So thanks, that really helped!

Magpie isn't a plugin (at least the freeware version isn't). It simply breaks down your audio into frames (at whatever fps you choose). You can select frames in the audio and play back the audio before the frame-selection, after the frame-selection, or just the audio in the frames you've selected. It has a simple mouth with all the vowel and consonant shapes. Once you've selected some frames where you can hear the sound "a" you click the "A" shape and it is added to a spread sheet like this:

Frame - Mouth name
1 ------ closed
2 ------ closed
3 ------ th
4 ------ a
5 ------ m
etc,

So anyway, it all boils down to the fact that I did do the lipsync by hand. I just added every vowel shape as you said, because this was my first try. So then I had a look at "The Animator's Survival Kit" and tried to smooth out the lipsyncing. I took out a lot of the unnecessary shapes and (hopefully) it's a lot better now.

So, here's the new version. I've rendered this version (plus I've included the cloak this time).

http://www.maj.com/gallery/LGM/threedimensions/matrixdude.jpg

Character Study #3 (fourth update) (http://blender.sixmonkeys.geek.nz/albums/LGMProductions/matrixcharrendered.avi)
Time: 15 seconds
Size: 2.36 (I finally realized I need to compress the audio too!)
Encoder: X-vid

Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

LGM

[LGM]

I'll take the lack of replies as a good thing, so I'll send this up to the top one more time. Here's a very small (and probably last) update with the shadow fixed, and a very small tweak to the lipsync.

Character Study #3 (fifth update) (http://blender.sixmonkeys.geek.nz/albums/LGMProductions/matrixcharrendered2.avi)
Time: 15 seconds
Size: 2.31
Encoder: X-vid

Thanks for watching,

LGM

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