When animating the eyes, make sure not to cut into the pupil; the iris can be slightly cropped, but only in extreme cases—such as when the character is intoxicated—should the pupil be cut.
The whites of the eyes should not be visible at the top or bottom unless the character is expressing intense emotions like fear or excitement. For example, when my character is looking downward, perhaps at someone with disgust—they are neither scared nor excited. Therefore, the eyelids should not be wide open in that pose.
The arc of the organic movement is crucial. The above synsketch includes notes on tracking the mark on the nose across frames to define the trajectory of the head movement. Since the nose moves very little, it should be used as a reference point for tracking the head’s motion and its pathway.
In the next steps, I’m going to adjust the head’s positioning—specifically its rotation—to ensure the movement feels more organic.
Right now, there’s too much happening in the neck area, making it feel like the neck is the pivot point. Rework the organic movement of the head first, and that should help correct the neck’s motion.
Remember that this shot is a 2D representation of movement, which will visually flatten things. Make sure to show both the upper and lower teeth. For example, if only the top teeth are visible, and too much gum is shown, the result may look like dentures.
The eyebrows need more animation to support the transition between expressions of surprise and disgust. Avoid holding the default pose for too long.
The mouth movement is currently exaggerated, which is fine—it just needs to be slightly toned down as the animation progresses.
As the head dynamically moves into the expression of disgust, there should be a clear preparation for that beat. The mouth will take on the shape of an inverted triangle, which forms the base for articulating that emotion.
Before: Visualising the nose’s trajectory. As per feedback, arcs have to be delivered and polished off.
After applying changes according to feedback given, the arcs for movement are delivered – (red line ) tip of the nose trajectory.
Motion trail animation feature is causing a lot of lagging. The better way of achieving the result is with animbot, motion trail function, more efficient way, may actually cant to be used, it’s not usable.
Importance of planning: “In order for the audience to be entertained by the characters, the shots need to be appealing in composition, posing, rhythm and phrasing, and contain acting choices that feel fresh.”
Emotional choices, acting.
What happens before the shot, during and after, in order to keep continuity across the shots.
12 rules:
1. Character does not always need to be in motion, actually, juxtaposition with still (moment of stillness) poses works best.
2. Dialogue doesn’t drive action, but thought does. Establish the emotional state of the character.
What are the main emotional poses? Decide on the timing of the changes between the emotional states.
3. The melody base = main poses middle = overlapping actions leading into and out of main poses and eight shift to support small gestures high = non-verbal body movement (head, shoulders, eyes) moments of stillness = punctucations
“character’s performance like a song—layering rhythms on top of each other to create interesting texture and timing within your animation. “
4. HANG TIME just like a bouncing ball, loosing its energy when boundsic back and getting stack in the air
HANG TIME = the thought processing moment, there must be a time allowed for the shift between emotions
5. Create a neutral pose for your character (Do not naimate on default T pose of the rig)
What are the character’s main traits?
6. What’s the style of the movement? Style fo the movement gives away about the charchters personality.
Contrapposto is an italian term, and is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot.
Contraposition: one side is stretched while the other side of the face is squashed
8. MOVE THAT BODY : Sincerity of the feelings to be expressed through an entire body movement, not only a face.
exaggerate the TY (Translate Y) value in the hips to connect the lower body more to the performance, which enhances the emotional delivery
9. EXAGERATION + extreme poses + smear
juxtaposition of opposites (extreme balanced out with subtle) that gives the animation MORE energy and life
10. Thoughts no words
When a scene does have dialogue, a great trick to figuring out how to animate to a character’s thoughts is to write out the actual dialogue on paper, leaving spaces between the lines. Then, in a different color, write what the character is *thinking* right below what they’re saying.
PHONEMES: the mouth movement is like a accordion, each of the letter has a different sound, so the mouth will move differently depends on the letter and also influence by the mood/ state of emotion of the character
each phrase in the story represent the pose in the story
animating what character is thinking not what they are saying, as per focus of the listener is on the eyes/face not the
The most important are 3 poses to established the shot
understanding what makes up a sound, helps established how the corresponding parts of the face are moving if the
talk, resting against the elbow, to help you understand better the movement of the mouth
twin machine and animbot
Dreamwall picker for Maya by owenferny YT
4 components of language
The “m” and “b”, to make sound the lips had to be close but the mouth have to actual open to make the sound, pressing and realising lips.
P and B work the same way.
How the jaw goes up and down, open and closes the mouth.
2. Corners: in and out.
The above picture show sketching for prepearing, trying to understand the mouth, jaw, tongue, movement, as per example from YT tutorial. Very good exercise, in understanding how different sounds are articulated, and how the movement should be created to approximate the movement, make it convining to the viewevr that actually is synced to the audio provided – the audio -visual.
Just like the jaw, corners should not be going in and out just for the sake of keeping going. The corners’ movement is driven by the adjacent sound.
E is a great example, like word never, E within never is going to keep the mouth wide open. Exaggerated E means the mouth will open quite wide, but it is possible to pronounce E just short.
3. Tongue.
The most frequently underestimated and forgotten, yet significantly important. Needs to be taken for consideration.
LET IT GO: The L and T are best examples, when L is pronounced the tongue touches the roof of the mouth hardly, same for T but less powerfully.
4. The Polish
Look up if the character is breathing in between lines.
Do not go for default poses, create interesting shapes that express the emotions.
Bes sure to have a little moment that will stands out.
Process.
1. Setting up the project. Referecnign rig. Ensuring all the texture files are waiting source images folder.
2. Regenerating node inside the hypershade to fit the texture of the rig.
3. Default position. The character is sitting at the table in the restaurant so therefore sitting position.
Optimising workflow:
Installing animbot
Installing Studio Library 2.20.2 in order to be able to create custom poses and then save them so these can be used later, throughout an animation.
Setting up the pose library that comes with the rig. It throws some errors and requires changing the namespace.
Solution:
Go to Windows > General Editors > Namespace Editor
Find your current rig namespace (e.g., character1)
Select it and click “Rename”
Rename it to mars_v01
Some of the lips coordination, when trying to match the sounds and approximate lipsync.
ssssssss
way -> w
she’s -> shhhhhhhh shameles->
eee- from sheee
jaw slighl;ty mvoes up
the – ffffffffffffffffffff
Approach:
Start with the lipsync to ensure it matches the soundtrack. The soundtrack is very helpful with keeping the timing.
The feedback from the TA:
If the head moves too dynamically,the viewer won’t be able to notice the face expressions, as the high speed of head movement will creat somewhat the motion blur like effect. For the sequence with a lot of text words, especially when character speaks very quickly, the movement of the head should not be so dramatic.
Tips: Use the animation layers instead of keeping all of the keys on the same layer. It will make the process of work much efficient and you will be able to toggle between the layers and blend all those together.
George’s feedback:
Get your GOLDED POSES: the start and the end of the body right, and work with the middle.
The non verbal part of the acting- the body language is equally or even more important than the lypsync. It must showcase the emotional state of the character.
WORKING WITH THE QUICK SELECTION (WAIST, CHEST, NECK, HEAD) ***OREDER IMPORTNACE***
1. Set animation to autospan legacy for working in spline. 2. Create quick selection tool using for the body part: COG + chest +neck +head (not this will differ depending on the rig and the acting pose, this is true for my sitted animation with use of mazu rig) 3. Get the golden poses. 4. Start working with the middle part, get your in-betweens. Answer to the questions, which poses am I favouring? Apply this with the use of moving holds. The middle mouse button, move over, then hit S for keying or use the tweeting machine. 5. Getting in between poses. Decide on how long the pose is being held for before moving to the next pose.
WORKING WITH CHEST
WORKING WITH THE NECK
WORKING WITH HEAD
The next step of the process in this method is to decide how head moves in correspondence to the rest of the body.
In my reference, in the first part torso moves then head follow, on the contrary in the second part head is leading the movement.
To extancuate this further, in the next step is to work with the chest and the neck. Only work with the parts of the body that appear in the shot, no need to work with the waist, as only the check, neck and head are in the shot.
Working with the chest:
translation z:
translation y:
translation x:
The graph editor screenshots of work in progress, the one above gives better results than the one higher up. The rotation Z and Y matches, which means as the character moves their head in circles, the head goes back and then left, which makes sense. However, the one higher up give worse, less organic and more jumping effect.
Working with the neck controller to define the head movement. So the order goes like waist, chest, neck, head. The waist is the closest to the COG. The body moves from below upwards.
Reflection:
I’ve approached this from the other way around, doing lip sync first and then moving to body movement. One could argue that this is not a bad approach, as it sets me off with a foundation of mouth movement; however, I’ll need to go back do it and reapply accordingly.
My biggest problem in design thinking is being biased to being a 2D visual artists, and often struggle to think in 3D. Going through George’s tutorial, I reminded myself that I often merely refer to what’s in the viewport, that’s a 2D representation, so when moving the chest, the translation does not only happen from side to side and back to front, but in 3 dimensions altogether, which outputs much better results.
I kind of ignored what was happening at the waist level. Too bad. The waist isn’t visible in my acting pose, but it’s still crucial. It’s fair to say it doesn’t move as much as the upper body, but whatever happens to the waist affects the rest of the body. That’s the FK (Forward Kinematics) system at work—think chain reaction. It’s also very important to animate the waist intentionally so that you can later emphasise the contrast between the movements of the head and the waist. One of these parts usually leads the motion, and that difference needs to be accentuated in the animation.
In gaming and virtual worlds, animation is crucial for communicating between characters in a non-verbal way.
Blocking updated video for feedback, after applying changes and following the tutorial in class:
Spline the COG first, beacuse COG drives everything else!:
Translate Y to decide about the weight:
– Remove all the keys which are no longer needed.
Adjust the timing.
Simplifie the curve: The goal of cleaning is to get the least amount of keys for the desired effect.
Settings for spline:
The common problem, that animation in spline sucks after moving from blocking, is the skipped part of blocking plus.If the ratio between the key frames in blocking against the entire timeline is small, like only 10 % ( 20 keyed frames for 200 timeline) men’s, that the majority of the work will need to be done by the computer. So here’s the good point, you’re the master of the own tool and not the computer, like the Maya is an extension of your abilities, but you need to dicatete the animation, so this should amplified the meaning behind cleaning the spline curves. (notes form Sir WAde Neistadt)
timeline: 150 key frames: 23
15%frames, the rest will get performed by Maya, which is likely for spline to be a trouble
the animation will feal very floaty (everything move all at once, at one speed at one direction – it’s like the hullication movement by AI)
the gimbal lock issue will occur
Moving holds: timing per body part -favouring the pose to stay in one position longer and then arrive quicker later
ADD MORE KEYS IN THE BLOCKING STAGE TO LOCKDOWN THE TIMING THAT YOU WANT FORM YOUR CHARACTER ACROSS THE ENITRE SHOT
GIMBAL is essentially a 3 ring axis, allowing for the rotation of the object. gimbal lock refers to the situation when 2 ring axis are overlapping, causing locking.
Rotation order by default is zyz, meaning that x is a child of y, y is child of z, so the z is the parent of the all.
Swithcing between: object, world and gimbla view : hold down W and + LEFT MOUSE BUTTON on the viewport
Lifting up the box: to make the process easier, let the character hold onto the box from below
constrain hands to the box -> then animate the box -> then copy animation over to the hands controllers (as per analogy to the in-class example with master controllers)
Adjust the timing at the beginning; currently, the implementation has a quick jump
The character approaches the desk with the box, then stops before getting closer to the box to lift it up
be sure to animate the legs accordingly to where the weight is distributed and bear in mind which leg is pivoting
Reshooting the reference based on the feedback given
Constrain
Step
Action
Details
1
Create Locators
Create locators and constrain them to the cube object with offset maintained.
2
Constrain Locators to Controllers
Apply constraints from the locators to the corresponding controllers.
3
Assign Box Locators to Controllers
Right, centre, and left locators are constrained to the right arm, chest, and left arm, respectively.
Initially, I constrained the central locator to the chest of the character, which was incorrect. Upon reconsideration, it makes more sense for the central locator to be constrained with the chest, not directly to it. This is because the character is holding the box with the arms, but part of the weight is supported by the chest.
Prep scene file (camera, rig, environment if needed)
Blocking Phase Goals:
Blocking Plus (Blocking with Moving Holds)
Include moving holds to keep the animation alive even in still moments
Maintain rhythm and weight with subtle in-place motion
Blocking in Steps
All major keys placed on the same frame per pose (stepped tangents)
Emphasize strong pose-to-pose structure
Weighted tangent
By default, Maya comes with unweighted tangents within the graph editor, which makes the process of adjusting curves cumbersome, f.e, when adding hangouts to baking ball animation and then changing the position of the bounce. To solve this issue, the use of weighted tangents is recommended.
You never have to break the tangents with the weighted tangent option. Breaking the tangents to change the direction.
Animation
Reference the rig.
Perform animation on master controller.
Adjust the graph editor.
While working in spline, break the tangent first, before applying the weighted tangent (default is unweighted tangent)
Working with weighted tangents. Select it all -> change to weighted tangent -> MMB + shift and drag, (shift just like in the other software, keep the line straight while expanding)
Troubleshooting
Maya stop showing the rig/model in the viewport, then: select the view →show → viewport → check for what stuff is unchecked.
Working with the weighted tangent. Translation Y, going up and down.
So the slope is steep to start with, which means that the character will pop up. On the contrary, the slope is easing down slowly which means character will smoothly and steadily come to rest.
Here. The slow, steady start gives an anticipation. The quick steep end, mean character gows straight down in.
This graph describes Translation Y. Before the character goes up, it goes down at first, the start of the graph goes to minus values, before it goes up again.
The tangent gets rotated to get more of the “hang out” time. Hanging out in the air, reaching equilibrium, losing momentum, before again starts falling down.
Baking keys & transferring it over to limbs
result:
The elbow constraints are only visible in the IK, be sure to change the IKFK to 1. setting IKFK = 1 switches the arm from FK mode (0) to IK mode (1).
In an IK (Inverse Kinematics) setup, the elbow is usually constrained via a pole vector or some specific control to guide the elbow’s bend. In FK (Forward Kinematics), you manually rotate joints without the system solving the bend, so “elbow constraints” (like pole vectors) don’t really apply in the same way or may not be visible/active.
Workflow:
Select the elbow control group or object (which has the constraint) →
Shift-select the elbow locator (driver) →
Apply a parent constraint (Maintain Offset OFF) → This way, the control moves exactly with the locator — no offset.
The above shows the correct constraints.
Once all 9 parent constraints have been applied, proceed with baking the keys.
After baking the animation key into locators (selecting all the locators and then Key -> Baking), selecting all the constraints and deleting them, the animation made on the main controller, and when playing the animation, the locators kept on animated in the viewport.
“You never should animate on the master control, but you can use the master control to your advantage” in order to do so, you follow the following process:
1. Animate on the master control and adjust the animation to fit your timing. 2. Create locators for each (9) foot, knee, arm, elbow, X 2 right and left sides respectively, + COG (usually the pelvis)
3. Create parent constraints for each of these locators with the parent (driver) of the corresponding control (do not apply the offset) and locator as its child. 4. Bake the animation key onto the locators (after checking that the previous step was done correctly). 5. Delete the constraints. 6. Perform the reverse copying of animation from the locators onto the controllers (this time with maintain offset), watch out: the elbow and knees polar vector constraints only allow for translation and no rotation, you won’t be able to copy it over, which may yield an error. 7. Select all the controllers via the quick selection tool (no master control included, no constraints). Baking the animation key onto the constraints now. 8. Deleting all the locators afterwards.
This is a wrong selection set; again, no animation on the master control.
The Tangents configuration for the animation in blocking, as per the image above.
1. Update the settings. 2. Open the graph editor, select all of these and opt for stepped tangent. Essentially, this will allow to see all the poses.
Moving holds.
Get your poses done, according to the planning you prepared before this exercise.
Let’s say you’re gonna pose 10 and 16 (since animation is baked every 3 frames) and leave the 13 unposed.
1. Select controllers via the quick selection key.
2. Narrowed down key frames to 10 – 16, and applied spline animation for this section within the graph editor. 3. Copy the animation from frame 11, given to you from sthe pline by Maya, into the frame 13, via the MMB and this would essentially create the moving holds. 4. Go to frame 13 and slightly readjust the animation, such as the head moving slightly the other way.
