Animation Begins/Playblasts

We recently received the finished rig complete with attached blend shapes and I immediately began animating the necessary shots ready for rendering. It didn't take too long to find out how to use the rig efficiently as well as identifying its limitations. The rig itself as well as the blend shapes were by no means perfect but were adequate for the results we needed.

Below are some of the shots that I have been working on for the last couple of days. The shots themselves mainly focus on the upper body region and the facial expressions as Frank reacts to sounds he hears or simply the strife he finds himself in.

I do not regard myself as an animator, I usually concern myself with concept work, modeling and lighting. However, if we were to complete the project to a good standard I needed to get involved in the animation process to accomplish a coherent film. Many of the shots were simple in terms of character movement. Chris new the actions that Frank would perform but manipulating the rig to achieve the movement that was required was sometimes tricky. The film was always going to concern itself with the nuances of character and the facial expressions which would highlight his distress. Franks movements are realistic and subtle to suite the mood of the film. My aim while animating was to achieve realistic and emotive movements to his body as well as his expressions to convey his state of mind. Getting the right movements and timing was sometimes difficult. This was due to the fact that I had to create play-blasts for every animation that I created because Maya would lag because of the file size. This was not the ideal way of working at any rate, however, I had to persist with the resources with which I had.

Through a little trial and error and constant play blasting I came up with some animations that Chris and I were both happy with. Looking at the final play blasts I think I have achieved some nice emotive movements which convey character and state on mind. One thing I was particularly happy with was the way in which I manipulated the rig to simulate breathing. There were no specific handles or deformers for this and the movement itself was achieved by moving the handles appropriately to convey the movement of the chest area. I was very pleased with the final outcome. This was mainly due to the fact that you can now relate with the character. He is no longer a static model, he has become a living breathing entity. It is amazing what difference little movements make to a character and the way in which you perceive them.

Initially I was just playing with the rig and thought that the character would look far better if I could simulate some sort of breathing motion. The timing was key and I acted out the scenes several times to get an idea of the timescale that was required. Inhaling is usually quite quick in comparison to the exhalation process, so I factored this into my animation to get a realistic breathing motion which would hopefully make Frank more believable as a living breathing person with his thoughts, flaws and aspirations.