11 second club entry

My first 11 second club entry in a while. Certainly is not perfect, but pleased to have submitted.

Ninja jump

Wanted to produce a ninja jump, inspired by Mario's double jump. The anticipation is pretty fast to fit within a game world

Horse galloping

dialogue shot

This was a clip I produced while studying under the guidance of Mike Safianoff at CGTarian. I wanted to find an audio clip that showed a conflict and possible change in attitudes. Since leaving Framestore, I have been soaking up both reading and video material on body language. In this case, a man changes his mind to go on a road trip. The audio clip dictated much of the story's direction, but I wanted to take this further by adding an additional character. So the man rejects his mother-in-law's idea of a road trip, before seeing glaring stare of his wife. He's forced to sit up and reluctantly accept that this trip is happening.

Another aspect I wished to include was the involvement of a hand, or in this case two. Hands can reveal much of a character's thoughts. The chin rub in body language, is related to gesture of covering your mouth. He also uses it at the start, to help prop his head up to listen. The comedy he sees at the start, breaks this connection.

For any who wish to check out the original source of the clip, please see here:

Facial muscles part 2: Lower face

Our eyes are the window to the sole, telling much about character. Glen Keane would advise, if you are going to make an error, do not make it on the eyes. However, what about the lower face? It certainly feels to have lesser importance when animating, but can learning the muscles help decision making regarding shapes and controls? I'm not sure, but that's no excuse not to study.

  
A friend tonight sent me a link regarding the facial action coding system. Click here. As a simple starting point, my plan is to go through the list of action units and action descriptors and see what I can find out.

Starting with the orbicularis oris, which, when contracted, pushes the lips together. Note that the lips are pushed together and out.

The middle of the lip cannot raise independently. Instead it is lifted by the levator labii superioris, pulling from either side. Note how the nose wrinkles with this movement. (videos taken from Valerie Martin 's youtube collection).



Pulling from either side, is the zygomaticus major muscle. This allows us to smile.


Notice how the risorius pulls the corners of the mouth sideways. 



*to be continued

Polishing

Polishing of my shot.

This week has been an interesting learning experience. Becoming ever more fascinated regarding the relationships within the facial structure.

Expressions like rage and mad/anger, may seem pretty similar. However, if the frontalis pushes the brows down when angry, why do they appear to be lifting for rage (something which would require the occipital belly)?

Mike Safianoff summarized it as the following:

Expressions work in a series of progressions. Think of it similar to verbal communication. Rage is a louder version of mad, but the face can't get louder, so the only way to show MORE anger is to get more muscles involved. The occ pulling back, the frnt coming forward, and the corg down, combined with sneered lips/raised nose for disgust, compression around the eyes and an open jaw creates rage. Anger is isolated to just the occ, frnt, and corg...with maybe a little asym sneer in the mouth or the lips rolled in (no teeth).

So the more intense the facial expression, the more muscles we may use to communicate.

Though a detailed understanding of muscles is not necessary to animate the face, it certainly helps, especially with the mixed messages that surround particular workflows.

In an old video series, it was told that the inner brows lead the action. Considering the positioning of the frontalis, this advice seems rather odd. If the inner brow was to lead, surely it would depend on the activity of other muscles, such as the currogator. For confirmation, I quizzed Mike on this:

The brow is very much a combination of muscles and should be treated as whole. There are times when a muscle group fires first or is more prominent in a move but it all depends on the situation. But its important to remember any time one muscle group fires it has an effect on the others...everything is connected.

Lastly, here's a link to an interesting resource: http://www.artnatomia.net/uk . It shows the action and range of each facial muscle.

Cgtarian week blocking and next pass

The brief for week two was to produce a blocking pass for our reference. We were encouraged to choose a few key poses, then build breakdowns that occurred every 6-7 frames. This would produce our idea as a simple pass that could be signed off by the director, though the spacing would be extremely loose.



After watching another hour long video, we were requested to produce a next pass. I'm finding Morpheus a little sensitive in order to push appeal. However, I hope the lesson's in anatomy are slowly sinking in.