Character Animation Show Reel - Summer 2012

Check out my Character Animation Show Reel - Summer 2012!! :)

Artefact 5 - Miner

Improvements on the first draft

Feedback I got was that I wasn't showing enough of the weight in the hammer. Also I was parenting the hammer to the hand control and animating the hand control when I should have been doing it the other way. By changing the parenting I was able to quickly keep the hammer stable, grounding it and gave it the appearance of weight.

Evaluation of final artefact

I wanted to try and get the most I could out of the rig in its overall performance in this artefact which I believe I have done. This is definitely my favourite artefact and is also the longest. It have the most content in my eyes, content being character animation, not referring to the environments. I think it communicates the story and context and well as the frustration of the character all without sound which again confirms my research that you can indeed communicate a story with just character animation. This is best case of my character animations and is more refined than the others. Even taking the refinement away I can personally tell that my skills in character animation have got much better in these past few weeks and importantly I enjoyed animating this sequence. There is good timing, anticipation, it's clear to the audience I just as important its entertaining to watch which is what this is all about.

Artefact 4 - Honey I'm home

In this artefact I wanted to tell a story without words. I did this by implying the context. That the woman is at home and the man just arrives back from work (you can tell he has been at work as he pops his briefcase down on the floor after arriving through the door). As he slams the door the picture frame that the woman has so lovingly been adjusting falls off the wall and that annoys the woman. From the feedback I received people understood what was going on and in that regards it is a successful artefact. As this was pretty much a blocking pass there is a lot of room for improvement on the actual animation from as it is all rather jerky. I still need to take in previous artefacts and learn that I need to work on my over lapping actions from each action. There isn't enough eye movement and this becomes very noticeable as there are many close shots in this artefact and this is where subtle nuances come in to play, another major improvement I need to make to my animating skills is learning the fines of animation. Although the story and context is understandable I need to focus on the emotions behind the characters. In this the last shot is of the woman understandably being angry but straight away the feedback I got was that she was far too angry and it didn't sit right when viewed by my peers. If I extended the shot by a few more seconds and had the woman shake off her anger and become happy then this would make for contextual sense. Another comment made was about the linear time flow. In this sequence I have a close up of the door slamming and my tutor, Andrew Love didn't like this as it didn't flow with the linear time. Even though I do agree with him in that sense I believe it is necessary as just by having that shot there it communicates to the audience that the door slamming is what is causing the picture to fall off the wall and it would be difficult to portray that to the audience in such a precise way without that close up.

Client Project - Finished animation

This is the YCN 2012 Heniz Salad Cream Entry - Teddy Bear Picnic, enjoy! :)

   

Clint Project - YCN Presentation

When I submitted a version of my Heinz Salad Cream breif of the 30th March you had to enclose a pdf presentation of the work you created. I think this sums up what I wanted to achieve as well as what I did achieve.

Client Project - Feedback & Changes

On a previous version of the Bear's texture the bump mapping was a built in 'cloud bump' texture, this procedural texture mean that as my Bear moved the texture moved also. This meant that the texture moved around on the model and this was very noticeable on the close up shots.

I simply just made my own image based bump map and rendered out the scenes again eliminating the previously stated problem.

I had completely over looked giving the flask and flask lids a better texture and it was pointed out by one of my peers Jaz Worrell that I should texture the flask! So keeping it simple I just gave the flask and the lids a blinn texture with slight reflections giving them a glossy plastic look.

After the shot where the bear is revealed to these two characters I wanted an obviously relationship between them and wanted in this short clip to try and portray both individuals personalities. I wanted to swap the stereotypes and have the guy that is scared and not the girl. The feedback that I received was that although the audience can understand what I have intended, she still seems too relaxed at the sight of an angry looking and roaring bear. I remedied this by adding more a reaction from her but not as exaggerated as the males reaction. 

I have kept the final shot in which the guy is still frightened of the Bear even though it is obvious that he isnt there to harm anyone and the girl laughs off the guys worries, for this you shall have to wait until I upload the final film!

Client Project - Final Environments & Assets

A close up look at the final environment for the Heinz Salad Cream client project.

This is my primary environment for most of the major shots.

I added a little extra detail to this with the 'No Swimming' & 'Don't feed the bears' sign. This just adds a little more believability to the scene.

This is the secondary environment and I use for the opposite angle shots. I move around the assets from shot to shot to create the sense of differing environments.

A close up on the lunch for the picnic with a nice glossy finish on the flask and flask lids added as well.

Client Project - Render Scene Test

Playing around with the scenes with environments and lighting with the daylight system.

Client Project - Renders

Here are some test renders for the three characters and some assets in this advert/video.

Client Project - Storyboard

Quick updates. I've just been cracking on with work and haven't been updating my blog so here is some stuff! This is the storyboard to the advert/viral video I am making for Heinz Salad Cream at the YCN awards.

Basically, the bear wants to get involved in the picnic because he is all about the Salad Cream!

Artefact 3 - Spider

In this piece I wanted to show how a heightened emotion such as fear/panic can be portrayed through character animation alone.



I had a good critical response to this artefact in which my tutor Andy Love went on to dissect it. I really need to work on the timing and spacing on this. Timing refereeing to how long a shot will take, for example, how long will it take for her to enjoy the aroma of the coffee. Spacing refers to the keying of frames, whether it will be fast up and slow in etc. The feedback I received was very useful and made me think about why she is smelling the drink opposed to me just thinking about the gag itself. You want her to savour the aroma, slowly bringing the cup up to her nose, slowly enjoying its scents before returning to its holding position before having a taste. By showing how much she is enjoying this drink this really sets up the gag of; she is really enjoying this time by herself and the drink, then it gets ruined by the visit of the spider thus making the arrival of the spider that much worse making the overall gag better in itself. I need to think more of the thinking behind that character itself. This all links back to timing and spacing, she brings the drink way too fast up to her nose, if this was real life she would be getting drink all up in her face! More keys there would slow it down a little! The way in which she jumps out of the seat is both physically impossible to which my peers physically tried to re-enact and the transferral of energy is all wrong. Her hand needs to stay firmly attached to the sofa when she grabs a hold. The amount of energy in which she is grabbing the sofa would make it more than likely fully tip over. I need to re think the way she would pop out of the chair and the angle in which she would turn. Overall I think this is a good artefact, my peers had much to speak about which gave me much useful evaluative notes and my tutor said that the reason he could pick it apart and speak about it so much is because it is a good artefact. I need to carry on to work on all said points above and the points said in earlier artefacts to eventually make an excellent artefact. I will go over this when I have the time and re post it without and evaluation.

Artefact 2 - Slinky

This is my second artefact from the classic slinky scene in Ace Ventura, When Nature Calls:

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In this piece I wanted to show a strong physical and emotional performance in my character. I decided to chose the classic slinky sequence from Ace Ventura, when nature calls. He has a strong physical performance with the underlying emotional performance of someone that is rather self centred and confident. The performance is very exaggerated and extrovert and this comes across in my animated version. It was very tricky to try and capture Jim Carreys energy in such a short period of time to animate it but overall it's an OK artefact for character animation. Some of the feedback I got an audience of peers was I needed to tone down the facial animation that I created in my version. The reasoning behind toning it down was that everyone who has seen Jim Carrey in action will know about his over the top performances and whilst in live action that is all good and well its sometimes not a good thing in animation to portray it in that way as everyone knows what I am trying to do, create an animated version of Jim Carrey whereas I should be creating a performance based on his own, not a copy. This is feedback that I will need to take in and remember for future animations as it is a very true statement. I also need to again work on strong poses and not float from one action to another. Stronger poses and motions are needed on direct words again also to back up the strong emphasis on words, this reiterates what was said on the last artefacts evaluation and I really need to work on it. on the whole I think it recreates the scene very well, recreating his strong emotions he portrays through his physical movement and the exaggerated performance he gives.

Artefact 1 - "You talkin' ta me?"

First of five character animations being created for my Research Doucment in my final year of Univesity at Nottingham Trent studying multimedia. Using the famous "ya talkin' to me?" speech given by Robert DeNiro from the 1976 classic Taxi Driver I re worked that scene in animation as the original speech was physically very stiff so I loosened it up a bit in this animation.

 

 In this piece I wanted to make the performance from the original film a little more animation (no pun intended) but at the same time subtle. Still focusing on the upper half of the body I wanted more dynamic movement in not only the arms but in the eyes. In the original, even thought DeNiro's performance in classic he is very still apart from a shaking in his shoulders and head. In hindsight this as a first animation artefacts was quite too ambitious and although I'm pleased with it, not overly I might add, I don't think it quite captures the intense performance as the original. I still believe I have created an performance of a character that has real intent in both his mannerisms and in his psyche. He portrays that of a man that is confident and strong minded believing that he better than the person/audience that he is speaking to, this is noticeable by the breaks in eye contact. The animation overall is ok but it lacks strong key poses. Its needs more weight. Someone that stands still in one places doesn't not move, they sway side to side displacing their weight from one leg to another every now and then. Even though I have keyed in breathing it isn't noticeable enough to the audience and in lack of movement the characters starts to 'die'. It needs more emphasis on words that are spoken, strong words are normally backed up with strong poses and movements. This goes on throughout the animation, over all it is all too smooth, moving from one pose to another, movements sometimes need to be more strong and sharp. I will need to start animation from the torso outwards to the rest of the limbs more efficiently as I did start by animating the waist or hips but sometimes got inpatient and moved onto trying to animate too much too quickly I will need to make sure I have a good base of animation in my coming artefacts.