Hare Animation Update 03

Hare Animation Update 03

Today I have 'completed' the hare animation inspired by toon.

Below is the final result. The idea is that the hare has jumped into the scene but has messed up his landing.

I am pleased with how this has turned out overall; I had a tough time today sorting out the head. Below is an earlier version of the animation before the head was fixed.

It happens too sudden and I generally had a lot of problems fixing it. It has a controller for the neck and one for the whole head area for some reason and this created confusion in the keyframes. I managed to fix it through just deleting keyframes and adding a lot more to keep the head where it is meant to be towards the end.

Frames

Below are my five frames that exaggerate the most. This first one is him stretching as he comes down for landing.

Here he is still stretching on his way down.

I stretched his arms out as he slid across the floor, I did this to make it look like his arms were reaching the stopping point before the rest of his body. I genuinely can't explain why this looks good but, to me, it just does.

I also exaggerated his legs as he was stopping to show that his feet kept moving towards the left for a little while after his body had stopped. I got some feedback from class mates saying his feet coming down and hitting the floor was happening too fast so I slowed them down as they get to around this frame below, then I kept the original speed for when they fall and smack the ground.

This is the exaggeration when the feet are falling to the ground. This sort of exaggeration was done using the graph editor.

Summary:

The intention of this animation was to explore toon as a possible style that I work towards for this project, I plan to do one more toon animation tomorrow and Friday as part of this exploration. 

I got bogged down early on while trying to figure out how to properly animate with a toon rig and my methods are probably not the best but I have achieved a toon animation I am pleased with.

I don't think I prefer toon over non-toon, I prefer animating realistically but with exaggerated performances. I will have my mentor meeting tomorrow where I will show this animation and discuss my feelings towards it. I'll see what happens then.

Hare Animation Update 02

Hare Animation Update 02

So my update on this hare animation is that it is almost complete but there is one issue that still needs resolving, because of timing today I am going to quickly blog this with a more in depth analysis tomorrow once I have resolved my current issue. Below is a GIF of what I have so far.

The ending doesn't quite feel right yet. More specifically, the head doesn't move in a believable manner. This GIF below is just of the end to help highlight my problem.

This is a problem that I can identify but it is not something I can figure out how to overcome today, I have been staring at it for too long now today. I believe that when I come back to it tomorrow it will almost be obviously clear how to fix it.

I won't go into any other analysis of this since I will do it once it is complete tomorrow.

Summary:

Sometimes it is good to step away from an animation and come back to it with fresh eyes. Maybe it's a bad thing that I have that sort of time luxury so close to the deadline...7 days.

Hare Animation Update

Hare Animation Update

I have been working some more into the Hare animation from last week. I intend to finish it today/tomorrow but I have encountered a problem which I fixed which I feel should be blogged as a way of showing my interaction with the graph editor.

Below is the version of the animation before I fixed it.

* note: the timing hasn't been set for this action yet.

The problem is the way his legs come down at the end.

You can see in the image below, between frame 26 and 36 there are no keyframes but the interpolation has gone wrong for the legs.

Now to me, at first glance I can't see anything that would flag up as a problem. (we are looking between the last two keyframes in the graph editor). But I knew that the problem had to be there. My instinct told me that obviously I want the legs to be further up on the y axis...

...so I isolated it (the curves only look different because I had the graph editor zoomed in more on the image above). The image below shows the isolated y-axis, again, I don't initially see what the problem could be but the process of elimination, it has to be this curve. I broke the tangent on the furthest keyframe to the right and selected the left handle of that keyframe...

...that led me to the result below. It is one of these things that I don't understand the reasoning behind it but I know how to do it. This move essentially raised the legs up on the y-axis and fixed my problem.

This below is the final fix. The rig no longer appears broken.

This is the final fix (again, with incorrect timing).

Summary:

My use of the graph editor is getting more efficient and also I find myself using it more often than at the beginning of the project.

This animation will be 'completed' for the end of today or at the latest tomorrow afternoon. Then I will start one more animation of which I will blog for Friday at the latest. Then Monday and Tuesday will be dedicated to me creating my final word document for the pre-production submission on Tuesday evening.

Toon Animation

Toon Animation

The rig was created by Arman Musovic:

http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/hare-rig-free-maya-rig-cartoon-character-rig/

Today I have started another animation with the intention of exploring toon animation as a style while still creating character performances.

Below are my thumbnails sketches of what I wanted to achieve. I just drew some of the key poses I was after to give me a rough guide.

 This is what I created so far below. I was really trying to push the poses coming down into the scene. I could still push things further when he is sliding along the floor. His ears also need to be worked into at the end. They should flop over but that is something I missed on Friday. His bum also could do with a lot more exaggeration as he slides. I don't think this looks too bad as a short action but I found myself doing what I have done in most of my animations where I start out with really exaggerated poses but end up toning them down to make them fit better together.

Lastly, I struggled with keeping the rig under my control, because I was stretching his legs way beyond his central control, it just would behave sometimes the way I was hoping. The control of the toon rigs will come with experience I'm sure though.

Summary:

This animation has not been entirely unsuccessful, at one point it looked like it was getting away from me but I managed to keep things together. I did find myself going backwards in terms of keyframing though, I ended up putting a lot of keyframes down to control the rig. This is something I managed to avoid with the walk cycle the other week.

Not sure if toon specifically is for me...I'll keep searching.

What now?

What Now?

So today I have tried my hand with a toon rig, I did a very basic action of the rig falling into the scene and falling over. The rig allows a lot of stretch so I played around with that. I have realised more that I don't get any more enjoyment from animating with stretch in a toon rig than I do animating normal rigs. I will blog the one short animation that I have done today or Monday morning, so it will follow this post most likely.

I think I enjoy animating exaggerated performances where the poses are exaggerated, not the rigs themselves. It's not that I don't enjoy the toon rigs but they didn't do anything special for me. It seems I am still searching for that 'something' to really ignite my project. I will still be looking into creating believable character performances and I will still apply it to animations as well as undertaking case studies on existing works to analyse character performances. It seems that every time my project changes a little, I question what I'm doing in general. I still don't feel like an animator.

For the next 10 or so days leading up to the pre-production submission, I will continue to do little animations with the toon rig to fully flesh out that concept for my project. I feel that my project will stay on track with the character performance study for sure. It is a topic that really engages me. I will probably go for an exaggerated style of animation that perhaps only involves exaggeration in the performance. I also need to make my characters appear alive, make them think on their own to convince the audience that the characters have not been animated.

Slight Change in Project

Slight Change in Project

My project has slightly altered since yesterday after the mentor meetings. My project is now going to revolve more around [car]toon animation (looney tunes, Hannah-Barbera). I will still research into character performance and how to create a believable character performance and how to bring a character to life but I will just be focusing more on the style of toon. Yesterday when talking with Brian, I told him about a meeting I had early in semester one with Lynn where she commented that based on what she could remember of my animations, I had good exaggerated poses but my characters didn't quite look alive. This was the basis of my project. Brian then asked if we could analyse one of my animations that Lynn would have been talking about. So we did that and he starting talking about toon animation and how I might want to look into that style instead. 

So I will still look into how to create a believable character performance but I will be doing this in toon style. I also asked Brian how believable character performance could actually relate to toon animation and he said that it wasn't necessarily about breathing and blinking but more about a performance where the character can be seen thinking, it's about those moments in between actions sometimes when a character is thinking that make them convincing.

Summary:

My project has changed slightly; I will now work more on a toon style of animation while still looking into creating believable character performances.

Toshiro Mifune - Scene Analysis

Toshiro Mifune 

Scene Analysis

This is the second clip I am editing. It is a clip of Toshiro Mifune trying to give a woman medicine.

The film itself is from Red Beard, (1965)

The original clip that I have edited can be seen here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpvR2GuHpi8

This embedded video below is my edit of one of the scenes from the main video from YouTube.
The things I have chosen to focus on is mainly eye contact and body language. The thing that made me select this particular scene was the overall engaging performance from all of the characters.

The premise of the scene is that the female is sick and the male on the right is trying to give her some medicine; the male on the left is perhaps the husband of the female or at least a relative. They are wary of what is being offered.

Below the left male is staring at the woman, it shows that his concern is with her. As the right male pours some medicine onto a spoon, he obviously looks where he is pouring, nothing special happening here. While he is pouring though the female stares directly at the spoon showing her curiosity towards the contents being poured. This is human nature to look at the spoon at this moment, she is curious and wants to see what the male is doing.

When the right male moves the spoon over towards the woman it takes an 'S' shaped curves towards her, I can't explain this properly but I can assume that the right male did it this way to help emphasise the small spoon, much in the same way a comedic actor over acts to draw attention before a gag. The right male exaggerates his movements of the spoon so the audience have time to register his action.

It has been quite difficult to gauge where the left male is looking sometimes but here is appears he is looking at the right male as the right male offers the medicine to the female. the left male's brows are not quite down but they are not particularly up either. This to me suggests he is not being overly aggressive towards the right male but is acting assertive. He stares at the right male trying to mask his emotion which shows some distrust towards him.

Obviously the female is looking at the medicine that is being presented to her.

In this image below, the female has just hit the medicine away from the spoon. The left male naturally moves back suddenly due to the surprise while he looks at the female. He looks at the female to see her facial reaction. He does this because humans look at others faces to read emotions. He is trying to see the females face to see if she is distressed during this.

This image below has the right male sitting with the empty spoon now and the left male is still looking at the female, still trying to gauge her emotions.

He now looks at the right male with a facial expression that suggests he is taken aback by the situation.

Now as the right male pours more medicine onto the spoon, the left male then looks back at the female. His expression though seems more of unrest; he is looking at the woman because he doesn't know how she will react now as he sees her as being unpredictable.

Again, the female looks at the actions of the right male. There is also something about how the right male brings the medicine up and the spoon across while turning his head; it all just seems to click in the scene. This of course is acting and making sure the objects he is manipulating are visible and obvious to the audience.

Now the right male looks at the spoon he is moving, an obvious move to make sure he does not spill the medicine. The female also looks at the spoon to inspect what is being offered to her. The left male looks at the female still, in my opinion to gauge her reaction and to see what she is thinking.

Now as the right male moves the spoon over, the female looks at him instead of the spoon. In the context of the scene, she looks at him then back at the spoon. This is as if she is now looking to him for assurance, to see if he is being honest in his emotions and is not giving her something harmful.

Now the left male looks at the right male, perhaps to look at his intentions with the medicine. 

Here the left male looks back at the female, to look at her face to see her emotions. This male could either be the husband/relative of the female or he could be a colleague of the right male. He switches his eye focus between the two characters at times almost as if he is neutral in this situation.

Now again, his eyes change focus to the right male.

A nice head turn from the right male. This head turn in the scene makes him the focus of that particular moment, it draws the audience over to that side of the screen.

Now the left male and the female are looking for the right males next move.

They both look at the spoon (action). This also tells the audience to look at the spoon. Another note is where the female's hands are. They have been there for the whole scene; this is her closing her body off to the right male. This shows she is insecure about his presence and doesn't trust him. This fits in with the overall scene of her refusing the medicine twice before accepting it on the third time.

She keeps looking at the spoon and the left male looks back at her. He still seems to be observing this situation by looking back and forth between the other two characters.

The might male motions taking the medicine to show the female what to do when the spoon comes towards her. 

Now the left male looks at the spoon, implying he doesn't know what it is, which would mean that he is connected to the female, and not the right male.

The right male moves his head up then down a little bit to try and gesture her to lift up her head so he can get the spoon cleanly to her mouth.

Now they make eye contact, this feels like the female finally trusts the right male, she has accepted him or is at least willing to trust him in this moment.

at this point the right males jaw is open, this is hard to see but in the video you can see his jaw close into the frame below. This whole time, the left male has been looking at the female. out of concern?

The female and right male keep eye contact while she takes the medicine. This is similar to a child holding their mother's hand and looking at her while they are getting an injection. It helps to reassure them.

Now the left male is coming around to look at the female, this feels like he is curious to see what her reaction is to this medicine.

psychology of human behaviour study?

Summary:

This analysis has focused on human behaviour, I particularly focused on eye contact. The left male's eyes change focus constantly throughout the scene. If I were to animate more than one character, then I would keep this scene analysis in mind for the eye contact more than anything.

There is also a strong performance by the right male, he manages to capture the eye of the audience when he is pouring the medicine. It is the way that he exaggerates the movements but not in a pantomime way. It is subtle but effective, it shows what he is doing clearly.

After I had finished this, I looked up this film and found that the left male is the apprentice of the right male who is a doctor. This makes sense now, I thought his looks towards the woman were perhaps concern for her (some of it was I presume) but I was captivated by the way his eyes changed focus constantly and it is now clear that he was doing that in an observational way to see what his tutor was doing.

Bugs Bunny and Sam - Scene Analysis

Bugs Bunny and Sam
Scene Analysis

I have had the go ahead to edit videos from YouTube so long as a reference the original video. So my first scene analyses is from Looney Tunes, Bugs Bunny Rides Again, 1948.

The clip that I have edited can be seen here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4JcgD3vq0

Below is my edit of the file:

Some of my edits are only for a frame so I have screenshots of them below with my analysis.

The first part of the edit shows Sam pointing his guns at Bugs which begins a conflict in the scene.

This first image (below) shows Sam directly pointing his body towards Bugs. Bugs on the other hand is curving his body around the guns, He is essentially trying to avoid them since they are the conflict in the scene. Bugs also creates a minor 'S' with his body showing some human articulation in his body helping to make him believable. His weight revolves around his hips.

Here (below) is the change in Bug's attitude; initially he was scared but now he is picking himself back up. This can be seen in his almost straight posture, he is no longer avoiding the conflict but is rather standing up to it. Sam is still pointing towards Bugs. Even though I have drawn a straight line for Bugs, His legs come in at a slight angle and so does his torso, this again shows his movements revolving around his hips.

Now things have changed around a little, bugs has turned the guns back on Sam and now Sam is the one who's body is curving away from the gun, he is on the back foot. In contrast, Bug's body is now curving around Sam as he becomes the aggressor in the scene.

Sam isn't having any of this so he straightens back up pointing straight back at Bugs. Bugs does not curve away like before, he continues (from the last image) to curve around Sam. This shows that the two characters are both trying to intimidate the other.

This is where the scene boils down a little, Bugs is straightened up and Sam is not pointing his body into Bugs. They now have some respect for each other at this point and see each other as a possible threat.

After this scene, Bugs draws a line in the sand and dares Sam to cross it. This is interesting because as he points to the line, Sam is looking where he is pointing and Bugs is looking at Sam. The reason for Sam looking at the line (and not at Bugs) is because Bug's finger is pointing to something of interest, so naturally Sam will look. The reason Bugs is looking at Sam is because he already knows what he is pointing at so he looks at Sam to wait for the reaction. This is clear human behaviour here where we look at others faces to react to their faces.

Between the image above and the image below, Bugs draws a lot of lines in the sand to draw Sam towards a cliff edge. His pose below is still roughly the same as when he drew the first line in the sand. He is opening his body up to challenge Sam into crossing the line.

After Bugs draws the final line in the sand (the one that will make Sam fall over the cliff) his body posture changes. His body relaxes as he now has Sam committed in his trap. The angle of his head is also different, in the image above his head is pointing downwards as he is staring down Sam; in the image below his head is raised up as he waits for Sam to fall. This subtly shows a pleasure in completing his trap.

The scene after involves Sam chasing Bugs, as Bugs is riding his horse at full speed, his body matches that of the horse. Even though this is accurate in some sense that a rider would get close to the body of the horse for aerodynamic advantages, Bugs exaggerates it and gets really low down and parallel with the horse.

Suddenly Sam appears in front pointing his guns. Bugs and the horses body change drastically, this also happens in a matter of frames. Everything is pointing towards the top left. In contrast, Sam and his horse are all pointing in the same general direction with the guns. This is a very visual clue as to what is going on. Sam is clearly the aggressor in this scene with all the power and Bugs is trying to avoid him.

This is later on when Bugs is turning and running away from Sam. This image below shows the anticipation of Bugs leaving the scene. Everything moves left before moving right. This is one of the most common occurrences in anticipation. I also want to point to the horse's head and how they have exaggerated it to allow Bugs to be seen behind the horse. This is a clever trick to keep one of the main characters visible.

This is a repeat of the same action but just used again. It really is a simple but effective trick. Even humans do this in minor ways. If I am standing still and I suddenly have to start walking my body moves slightly backwards before I move forward.

This focuses on Sam and his horse now, as his horse flies forward, Sam is left behind almost. This is emphasized by the curve of his torso. Since his hips are on the horse, they stay relatively the same, but, his head is far away from the horse so it is left behind as the horse jumps forward. This creates the opportunity for a nice curve.

This is the same example further in the episode. Some really nice curves going on. His hips act as a pivot for his body on the horse.

Now it's bugs' turn to be all curvy. You can really get a sense that the characters match their personalities with their horse. As Bugs hunches in a sneak, so does the horse. This helps to create a harmony between those two characters.

This image below shows the full weight of the hammer. It appears that the weight of the hammer is dragging Sam's arms behind him. Observing his legs though, they look as though he is running normally, but, look at his torso and we get a different story. Everything is being dragged backwards by the heavy hammer. This also acts as anticipation for the swinging of the hammer.

The way his body curves as well could be interpreted as him using his body as a counter weight against the hammer. I can already imagine him puffing out his chest as he attempts to bring the hammer down, all this helps to create a believable character performance in terms of this scene. If Sam's body did not convincingly convey the weight of the hammer,then we would not believe in his actions with it.

This is image below is after the chase when Bugs tries to reason with words. There is just a minor change in his arms but it manages to change the overall tone of the scene. In the first image his arms tense as he almost pleads with Sam about the situation they are in.

Then his arms drop and his body straightens. This shows him opening up his posture to show Sam that he is no longer trying to be in conflict with him. By doing this, Sam can read from Bugs that he is somewhat submitting from the conflict. This helps to calm down the situation.

This image below shows Bugs now encouraging Sam to come and play a hand of cards. Not only does he point with his thumb but also his head. This seems like something humans do in general. We use our bodies to help us convey messages, we use it to enhance them and compliment them. It makes sense that people would do this while pointing in a general direction.

Now we see Bugs 'cutting' a deck of cards with an axe. First we have the anticipatory pose first. The whole body is preparing for bringing the weight of this axe down.

Now his whole body has arced to swing the axe. Whereas before he arced his body away from the table, he now arcs it around the table. This arc allows Bugs to use the full weight of the axe as part of his swing. He is swinging from the shoulders more that his actual arms.

This is the reaction of the blow of the axe causing an effect on his whole body. It's as if once he has struck the table his body has gone rigid and absorbed the strike. His elbows have tucked in to steady his arms and keep the axe in his control. His legs have come up to keep his body from shaking.

This next example confused me for a little bit. This bit involves Bugs looking at Sam's cards and helping him in his next move. Just before the image below, Bugs has shaken his head for, 'no, don't play that card'.

Then he leans forward which helps us to read that he is looking over at the cards and engaging with Sam.

Now this pose below is just after he has nodded his head for 'yes, play that card'...but as you can see, this pose is almost exactly the same as when he shakes his head for no. This is what confused me, it felt as though they should have been a different pose after he shook his head for 'yes' and 'no'.

This is when I realised that the difference came in the pose following the pose above. Whereas before when he shook his head for no, he then leaned forward and looked back at the cards. Here, after nodding 'yes' he puts his hand on the table. This shows some sort of acceptance of the card for Sam to play. By putting his hand on the table, it signifies him giving his support for Sam's next move, Bugs is almost using the hand to pull himself closer to Sam to feign this acceptance of his move.

Here is Bugs now carrying a heavy weight. This is perhaps one of the most common animation exercises to teach animation students about weight. He arches his back to accommodate for the weight of the luggage pushing down on his waist. That brings me to the other note, he is holding the weight close to his waist/hips, this is to accommodate for the heavy weight. By keeping it close to the body, the weight can be carried by his whole body. He can use his legs more and also his biceps. This explains why he curves his body. It is allowing him to get the weight as close to his centre of gravity which makes it easier to carry.

Here is Bugs trying to put Sam on the train out of the town. You can clearly see the weight being put on his left foot as he drags Sam. His whole body curves from this point through his arms and the curve even continues through the body of Sam.

Now Bugs is pushing Sam onto the train. Bugs has straight arms to emphasize the push on Sam. His shoulders also go stiff and up a little to further increase this sense that he is pushing a resisting Sam.

Sam on the other hand, His body is straight, with all his weight going on his heels. His hands are also facing where he is going, the fact they are palm out shows his desire not to go on the train. They are miming his resistance.

This is what's in the train, suddenly the two main characters have a change in actions and now they both want on the train.

As they both point into the train, their bodies arc around, leading with the head. They are literally pointing with their whole body.

Summary:

Overall, this animation uses curves a lot to emphasize movements. The performance between the two characters is very back and forth and they often switch between them on who is the aggressor. This experience gained from analysing this has been immense. It has shown me some of the subtle tricks employed by the animators. Not only through how the characters physically distort and move around the scene but also how they behave, the actual character of performance of them is solid. It is convincing because of the elements of how humans actually behave being implemented.

I have more clips that I am going to do this with. I would Like to get a few more done for the end of semester submission but I will have them all down for the beginning of semester 2.