This week we worked on adding blendshape edits to a character and making their lips move according to a reference.
The main issue with the selected reference was that the character in the film was not expressing a lot of obvious emotions. Instead, every detail was moving only slightly and had a big impact overall. For example, even the eyelids were almost not moving, expect a moment, when we closed them but still not completely. I tried to show that in my animation as well.
The main topic of this week was an overview of the principles of writing introductions and conclusions.
There are a few main components for a successful academic writing:
As for introductions, the key points are:
A conclusion works to remind the reader of the main points of the paper and summarizes the outcomes.
For this week we had to finalise a walking ball animation. A walking cycle had to look smooth and without a proper character.
After the feedback I payed more attention the the weight shifting when stepping from one foot to another.
For the final animation I added background and lights:
After customising a face with the help of the shape editor, we created certain mouth shapes imitating different sounds.
With these mouth shapes and other parts of the facial expressions, we made our characters imitate a monologue scene. For my reference I chose a scene from a film “The silence of the lambs”:
At first to imitate a chosen monologue, we needed to make our character talk like a muppet:
The main aim of the class this week was to think of possible research topics that can be used for the critical report and the final thesis.
To make a process of finding a right topic more beneficial, we were divided into groups in order to share the ideas between each other and get feedback.
Considering my personal interests, I came up with a few topics:
Original paragraph:
The authenticity of a documentary is deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality.
Honess Roe, A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Paraphrased paragraph:
Honess Roe (2013, Animated Documentary) believes that the concept of realism as well as the authenticity of the images are significant for the accuracy of a documentary, as they prove that the events actually happened.
This week we needed to do a vanilla walk cycle in stepped animation.
While studying various references, I created a sketch that could help me to understand the key poses of the movement:
A first try of blocking in Maya:
After a feedback:
With the help of a shape editor, we customized a face and gave it expressions. At first, I created a model of my liking, slightly changing facial features, but in the end I decided to give it a little more character by adding horns and red skin texture.
With the help of the Blend Shape editor and sculpting tools, we were able to create different expressions:
A is for Atom (1953) is a short animated documentary film directed by Carl Urbano. It was created for promotional reasons and therefore was sponsored by General Electric Company (GE).
The film explains the nature of an atom and how it can produce atomic energy that can be used to benefit the humanity. Although the film elucidate on the positive aspects of the nuclear power, as it can produce energy used for electricity, it also touches the other side of the atomic energy – nuclear weapons and radioactive materials.
As the film has clearly an educational purpose, explaining a complicated topic to a wider audience, it can be classified as a documentary. Nevertheless, we can apply a Honess Roes’ ‘Taxonomy for documentary’ material to question the definition.
First of all, the animated film was not recorded, instead it was created frame by frame. Then, it explains the aspects of a real world we live in and how the research topic resonates with it. The last but not least, the film was presented as a documentary by its producers.
Stating everything above, A is for Atom (1953) can be classified as a documentary film.
For this week we had to study various poses. I decided to use as a reference one of the elements from a vogue dance – a dip:
While the reference does look good already, in the animation it can look different. In the sketches I polished the posed and emphasized attention of the detail of the hand:
The final pose in Maya:
I also added a camera movement to show it from different angles: