Dialogue Shot – Polish
In this week, I continued polishing my audio animation shot at the blocking plus stage. I used spline mode instead of using stepped mode in Maya. The teacher gives me important feedbacks regarding facial animation. I should focus more on how the face transitions from one key pose to another, and to consider which side of the face is open or compressed depending on the head direction.
In particular, I learned that facial difference is very important for creating more appealing and dynamic animation. For example, when the character looks at the right side, the right eyebrow and eye should appear slightly more open and larger, while the left side becomes more compressed. The same principle can be applied to other facial features such as the cheeks and the top of the head to emphasise the form and direction of the face. Based on this feedback, I would like to apply these ideas in my next polishing stage to improve the quality of my facial animation.
After receiving these advices, I realised that I sometimes forget important principles when moving on to new shots or stages of animation. From now on, I want to be more consistent in applying core animation principles across all of my work, even when starting a new shot.
Creature Study Blocking
This week, I started working on a creature locomotion animation shot based on the research I conducted last week. In the previous week, I focused on horse locomotion, but for this project, I decided to create a tiger locomotion instead, as I found it more interesting and suitable for my portfolio development. This was my first time animating a full creature locomotion cycle, as I have mainly worked with human characters and stylised humanoid creatures in the past. Because of this, the process was quite challenging, but at the same time, I found it very exciting to explore something completely new.
During the production, I faced several difficulties, especially in understanding how to animate the movement of four legs in a natural walking cycle. To solve this, I carefully observed tiger reference videos many times and analysed their movement in detail. While creating the blocking stage, my tutor advised me that for creature locomotion, it is more effective to use spline mode rather than stepped mode. I also learned that the blocking stage for this type of animation is usually around 70% complete before moving forward. Based on this advice, I progressed my blocking to about that level and switched to spline mode in Maya.
In my blocking, I focused particularly on the relationship between the hips, shoulders, and head, as these are key areas that drive the overall motion. I also tried to understand how each of the four legs moves and interacts during the walking cycle. Overall, this week was a challenging but very valuable experience. It helped me gain a better understanding of creature animation and gave me new insights that I can apply to future portfolio work.