My Rig and First Pass Animation

djamess91 · Mar 2015

Hey guys, working on my Final Year Project at Staffordshire University ad would really appreciate some feedback on my work s far. Both on my facial rig and blockout for my animation.

[ame="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhpYCntCcOY"]Facial Rig[/ame]

[ame="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqeRc7jgP3A"]First Pass Animation [/ame]

Thanks guys

slipsius · Mar 2015

The first video is set to private. we can't see it.

Your mouth shapes really need work. It seems you are just opening the jaw a lot, rather than forming the shapes your mouth makes. your lips arent closing during "Bee" or "mm". Lips arent puckering during "oo". Basically, you don't have any common shapes that dictate the words you are saying. Study mouth shapes. There are plenty of resources out there for it. Something like THIS. These shapes are very important for us to believe the character is saying the words we are hearing. It adds to the realism of your animation.

djamess91 · Mar 2015

Thanks for your reply slipsius. First time doing anything facial. Will get to work on this right away.

slipsius · Mar 2015

Facial can be quite difficult, Dj. Don't get discouraged! Keep at it and you`ll have something great before you know it!

javaniceday · Mar 2015

Djamess, very cool start.

I would not focus so much on the facial animation at this point. The thing that I would focus on is the overall movement of the head and neck. It feels like the head only moves in one or two rotation axis at a time, and during the holds it is literally just a hold, there's no overlapping or overshooting action going on.

I would also say to focus on part of the line at a time (2 minutes is waaay too long) and get every nuance of the line to come through on what the neck and head are doing. Once that is working, then start working on the facial animation (start with the eyes)

SuperSoupy · Mar 2015

I agree with javaniceday. The head is very linear and if it is not done right, it draws attention away from what the face is doing.

Also the length of this is far too long. Try just animating a selected bit of this.

Nice rig by the way! Loving the wiring that's going on there, good stuff!

djamess91 · Mar 2015

Thanks guys for the feedback

I have to do between 2 minutes and 5 minutes for my final year project. However, I might keep it at the length it is now. Would much rather have 2 minutes of good animation then 5 minutes of mediocrity.

egymer · Mar 2015

2 minutes is a hell of a long time to animate - it takes the 11 seconders' a month to do 11 seconds of animation. It might be better to practice on something smaller if you have the time? If not, this video helped me out:

[ame]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKjMvlP4CE[/ame]

also these are really helpful:

If you need some reference, either repeat it to yourself in front of a mirror a couple of times, and then find where the most important mouth shapes are - or do the same but film it (pro tip, if you film it, do it from the front and the side. Watch for where you open you jaw, when the corners of your lips come in and out, and where you hit the mouth shapes.)

Mark Dygert · Mar 2015

Quality over quantity. Try to focus on shorter clips, 2:26 is a lot of work and not needed, most people will know what you're capable of after 10-15sec.

djamess91 · Apr 2015

Guys thank you for your feedback

Here is the newer piece of animation rendered in Unreal 4 so would really appreciate your feedback on this. Thanks guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxH7OuCeM-Q&feature=youtu.be

My Rig and First Pass Animation

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