Week 7's session of performance and character was a review session of our three walking exercises. I was feeling rather nervous about this week but knew what exercises and medium styles that I needed advice about.
I was the first to show my work and I did my exercises as a playlist to better show them. In my third walking exercise attempt Johny seemed pleased that I had considered his advice in the foot placements. Niall seemed to like the overall performance of my exercise but suggested I worked on the ending walk in terms of exaggerating it. Kira suggested that I should possibly do more stomping in the puddle as whilst she liked the use of circles and the splash it could be better exaggerated.
I felt this was reasonable feedback given I was working with unpredictable walks from younger children. My Maya limp exercise was one I knew I would need the most advice on how to improve. Stephan suggested I looked at the walk of the limp as the foot placements and walk seemed out of time and didn't show much arm movements. Joe our tutor for the review suggested I looked at the reference footage I had made and consider which foot was hurting.
This feedback was to be expected as 3D animation was one of my weak points and in hindsight I should've done the limp in 2D animation, but I felt the use of 3D helped to fulfil a criteria of the brief.
The feedback I received for my rejected lover was positive as Joe liked the use of tossing objects away. However Niall and Holly suggested that I should look at exaggerating the leaning over pose when the character walks away rejected in sadness. I did include this in the rig but Niall suggested I adjust the spine of the armature for a better performance. I could see what he meant and perhaps in hindsight I could've added that at an earlier stage in the week.
I felt this feedback on my work was helpful and hope to put it to use in my future exercises.
Looking at some of the groups responses to the exercise I would think that there were some that I liked the most. One of which was Niall's rejected lover piece as it showed the thoughtful and rejected lover in one film which was an approach I was considering approaching in stop motion. I liked the overall performance of the thoughtful side of the animation as it had some cartoon like influence such as walking on his tip toes. However I feel he could've improved on the movement of the shoulders in the rig.
Beth took a rather interesting approach in her child piece. What impressed me was the fact she recorded reference footage of her younger sister thereby showing ingenuity. I also liked the performance in the 2D animation, whilst slow and on a loop it was rather impressive.
Some animations were rather funny. An example of this was Stephan's work using motion capture in 3D. Whilst I felt that was rather clever he explained that his rig didn't seem to follow the performance, and turned into a destroyed, jangled mess. This to my perspective looked like the best way to destroy a Maya rig but the use of motion capture was still very impressive.
Adams example was most inspiring, as the performance of the walk in 2D was very good and it had the element of lip-synching to a song he included in his work. I felt this was rather impressive and suggested he should turn it into a fully rendered animation. One area of improvement would possibly be the movement in the shoulders as there wasn't very much present.
Joe then directed our attention to our next exercise which was dialogue. The idea being that we would use 11 second audio clips and translate them into a performance animation. This I felt sounded like the chance for some real acting and would need the use of lip synching. In planning the animation Joe suggested listening to the audio clip and think about what the story would be.
I already had an idea of which clips to use and what medium to perform them in. I remembered however the importance of not watching the actual film clip that the audio was from as it would be caught as copyright infringement. Joe also advised to consider the body language of the performance and consider the build up to a particular point in the audio.
Looking back on the session I felt that the feedback was very helpful in my exercises and would help me to improve upon my attempts at a later date. I feel a little confident about the next exercise but also a little nervous as it involved lipsynch and body language. However I had an idea of how to do the reference footage and of the possible story. I could understand what was asked of us and would put this to use in translating the footage.
In terms of seeing the groups responses I saw that a majority was done in 2D only and perhaps considered the possibility of only using the animation that I am good at using. Johny told us at the start of the session "We're all different" Which I felt had the right meaningful advice.
In conclusion I am satisfied with the feedback and look forward to starting the next exercise over the next week.
In future I shall consider what specialist animation to use in my animations preferably the ones that play to my strengths.
I was the first to show my work and I did my exercises as a playlist to better show them. In my third walking exercise attempt Johny seemed pleased that I had considered his advice in the foot placements. Niall seemed to like the overall performance of my exercise but suggested I worked on the ending walk in terms of exaggerating it. Kira suggested that I should possibly do more stomping in the puddle as whilst she liked the use of circles and the splash it could be better exaggerated.
I felt this was reasonable feedback given I was working with unpredictable walks from younger children. My Maya limp exercise was one I knew I would need the most advice on how to improve. Stephan suggested I looked at the walk of the limp as the foot placements and walk seemed out of time and didn't show much arm movements. Joe our tutor for the review suggested I looked at the reference footage I had made and consider which foot was hurting.
This feedback was to be expected as 3D animation was one of my weak points and in hindsight I should've done the limp in 2D animation, but I felt the use of 3D helped to fulfil a criteria of the brief.
The feedback I received for my rejected lover was positive as Joe liked the use of tossing objects away. However Niall and Holly suggested that I should look at exaggerating the leaning over pose when the character walks away rejected in sadness. I did include this in the rig but Niall suggested I adjust the spine of the armature for a better performance. I could see what he meant and perhaps in hindsight I could've added that at an earlier stage in the week.
I felt this feedback on my work was helpful and hope to put it to use in my future exercises.
Looking at some of the groups responses to the exercise I would think that there were some that I liked the most. One of which was Niall's rejected lover piece as it showed the thoughtful and rejected lover in one film which was an approach I was considering approaching in stop motion. I liked the overall performance of the thoughtful side of the animation as it had some cartoon like influence such as walking on his tip toes. However I feel he could've improved on the movement of the shoulders in the rig.
Beth took a rather interesting approach in her child piece. What impressed me was the fact she recorded reference footage of her younger sister thereby showing ingenuity. I also liked the performance in the 2D animation, whilst slow and on a loop it was rather impressive.
Some animations were rather funny. An example of this was Stephan's work using motion capture in 3D. Whilst I felt that was rather clever he explained that his rig didn't seem to follow the performance, and turned into a destroyed, jangled mess. This to my perspective looked like the best way to destroy a Maya rig but the use of motion capture was still very impressive.
Adams example was most inspiring, as the performance of the walk in 2D was very good and it had the element of lip-synching to a song he included in his work. I felt this was rather impressive and suggested he should turn it into a fully rendered animation. One area of improvement would possibly be the movement in the shoulders as there wasn't very much present.
Joe then directed our attention to our next exercise which was dialogue. The idea being that we would use 11 second audio clips and translate them into a performance animation. This I felt sounded like the chance for some real acting and would need the use of lip synching. In planning the animation Joe suggested listening to the audio clip and think about what the story would be.
I already had an idea of which clips to use and what medium to perform them in. I remembered however the importance of not watching the actual film clip that the audio was from as it would be caught as copyright infringement. Joe also advised to consider the body language of the performance and consider the build up to a particular point in the audio.
Looking back on the session I felt that the feedback was very helpful in my exercises and would help me to improve upon my attempts at a later date. I feel a little confident about the next exercise but also a little nervous as it involved lipsynch and body language. However I had an idea of how to do the reference footage and of the possible story. I could understand what was asked of us and would put this to use in translating the footage.
In terms of seeing the groups responses I saw that a majority was done in 2D only and perhaps considered the possibility of only using the animation that I am good at using. Johny told us at the start of the session "We're all different" Which I felt had the right meaningful advice.
In conclusion I am satisfied with the feedback and look forward to starting the next exercise over the next week.
In future I shall consider what specialist animation to use in my animations preferably the ones that play to my strengths.
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