Workflow for my animations

I first started off doing body movements on my character and timing according to my performance video.

I used the timeline on the animation to choose the speed of the movements and regularly played it to test out my speed. Once I completed the body movements, I then worked on the head movement.

I worked on getting the head moving around according to my video performance but also exaggerated it a bit to make it more animated and interesting. I also moved the eyes as well but before that, I moved the mouth which took a long time to do according to the audio I uploaded on Maya. I had help with the sound waves as well.

Once I done all head and body movements, I then worked on the eye brows movement as you can get support and better idea on how they move the eyes with the help of eye and mouth movement.

Once all them were done, I did a few tweaks on my character to give it that little bit more edge on the animation.

Research on the Animation Industry

Research on Animation Industry:
Pixar

Pixar is an animation company that has their studios located in Emeryville, California USA. They have creating Animations and short films for over 25 years which have been popular and famous for the right reasons.


The company started off as Graphics group in 1979 which was part of a computer division with Lucasfilm. In 1983 a man named John Lasseter has joined the graphics group with his help on developing the 1984 pool ball image as well as a short film called the Adventures of Andre and Wally B. John Lasseter then went on being the companies  Interface Designer. The animation at the time has complex well designed and animated characters, hand painted textures and motion blur.

In 1986, Steve Jobs brought Graphics Group and became the majority shareholder thus came Pixar which became a corporate company and independent. Steve Jobs was the majority shareholder. At the time 44 people were employed.

The same year, a short film was created called "Luxo JR" which was directed by John Lasseter. It was aired in August at the time at SIGGRAPH and then for the public in November. This was the first 3D Movie to be nominated for the "Best Animated Short Film Oscar".

In 1991, Pixar and Disney had an agreement to make at least one Computer Generated Animated Movie which was a big achievement for Pixar. Disney is the worlds biggest animation studio in the world.

The biggest achievement for Pixar was producing Toy Story in 1995 which was my first movie I watched in Cinema. It was released in Cinema  in USA on November 22nd 1995 and in the UK on March 22nd. It became the highest grossing film in 1995 making $192million in the US. Toy Story was nominated for numerous awards.

In 1996 John Lasseter received a special achievement Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He got the achievement for his inspirational leadership in the development of the First 3D animated feature film "Toy Story".

From 1997, Disney and Pixar had an agreement to jointly make 5 movies over the 10 years contract. They then make another short which was called Geri's Game.

In 1998 the company name changes to Disney Pixar and they then make another big film which was a feature length called "A bugs Life".
Another big movie made by Disney Pixar was "Monsters INC" in 2001.
Pixar became so big that it made loads of more animated movies like "Cars" and "The Incredibles"

Source: http://www.pixar.com/about

One Animator that stood out for Pixar and Disney is Kelly Asbury who was born in Texas USA in 1960.
He done art/animation and character design for Toy Story, Frozen, Wreck It Ralph  and also Tim Burtons  " The nightmare before Christmas" in 1993 for Disney and Touchstone. His upcoming animation is going to be for the new Smurfs Movie which will have CG Animation and it will be a feature film.

Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0038432/

Ball Movement Animation Link

Link for ball movement animation

https://vimeo.com/128168681

Proposal

PROPOSAL

Intentions for this module is to demonstrate my understandings of character animation with movement, lip movement when they are speaking and expressions for the audience to understand what they are doing and how they feel. This will be done by body language as well.

For each idea I do, I believe I choose them because of the effect it has when they move in my animation and with the expressions I think they will strike.

All my research and sources will be made from my actions live on video recordings.

3D Animation showreel link

Showreel completed and uploaded last week Thursday.

Link: https://vimeo.com/127857218 uploaded on 14/05/15

Lip Sync Animation

My lip sync animation done and completed.

Character with Ball animation

I feel this animation is good with the timing and movement. The only problem I have at the moment is the position of the ball on the hand which I think I can sort out with the graph.


As you can see, the ball is not touching the hand at the movement.

By using the constrain/ parent option, I have managed to get the character touching the ball at the key frame position.

Here I have managed to get the character not touching ball as he throws it in the air. I managed this by clicking on the object and turning the blend parent off in the key frame I have set at the time. and when the ball goes back onto the hand, I set another key frame and turn the blend parent on.

As you can see here, I have the little problem here with the ball not 100% on the man's palm. This can be sorted out soon by tuning the graph. I can access the graph by going to "Windows", then "animation editors" finally choosing graph editor.