ANI2038 - Acting Piece

The final part of the Character performance Unit, the Acting Piece. The dialogue is from the Coen Brothers film, FARGO. The original shot had two characters interacting with each other in a car, I wanted to try something different but not completely detract from the original scene. So I came up with the idea of the speaker sat in the back of a pickup truck, with his fishy friend, who has unfortunately fallen out of his bowl.

I'm quite happy with how this turned out, again like with all the other submissions if I had more time I'd iron out the kinks, correct some lip sync problems and some movement arcs. But for the moment I'm happy with the turn out.

Character motivation and dialogue breakdown:



I didn't do much paper planning for this one, more video reference to get the simple and defensive movements I wanted for the speaking character. Below are two takes of many shot in planning, the first is an ok take and the second is the take I based the groundwork of my scene around.

ANI2038 - Obstacle Course

This is the final output of the obstacle course part of the unit, but due to time constraints its not finished. Its in a state of part splined and part blocked. I think I aimed too high for this course, given the what little time we had to do this task along with the other two in the unit. Although I think the poses that are blocked show what I was trying to achieve, so I think I translated the course from my head into maya quite well.

As you can see its a very exaggerated style, I didn't want to go for too realistic animation because quite frankly, it would suck all the fun out of the task in my opinion. Although there are some realistic area's in there, so I didn't stray too far from real body mechanics.

I shot a lot a video reference with the help of Tom Weatherill for different areas of the course, I also observed a lot of Youtube video's for the monkey bars and the balance beam at the beginning of the course.

Balance Beam and monkey bar planning:




Quadraped planning for the dog jump, again if I had more time I would spline the dog and improve the poses, but it was not to be.



Some Misc. planning for the platforms at the end of the course and the get up action after falling off the ramp:

Video ref for exhausted "draggy" run after getting up from the falling impact off the ramp:



Video Ref for the speedy turn during running:



I'd upload all my reference videos but the rest are all bigger filesizes.

ANI2038 - Walk Cycle with Attitude

This is my final walk with attitude, render and a playblast of Persp, Front and Side. I wanted the walk to be a cartoon styled walk, like a jolly stroll, or over-enthusiastic march.

Using video reference taken from myself acting out the walk on a Uni treadmil, I got the main poses down for the walk:



Some rough planning concerning the upper body poses:




Given more time I would have liked to iron out some problems with the walk, it still feels a bit clunky to me, I think I got the flick of the foot across how I wanted it, but again there a still a few problems that need sorting out.

Walk with Attitude - Blockout

Just a quick post, blocking out my walk with attitude. The walk is a confident "taking care of business" type stride, aggressive kicks with the legs and a lot of bounce.

Revised and general Balls

Revised Heavy Vs Light, eased the bowling ball out a bit better, got rid of the dead stop. Still a bit dodgy though. I think the light ball floats too much to the impact against the bowling ball, looks like it gains a sudden burst of energy just so it can hit the bowling ball. Needs fixing methinks.




Two balls at a dinner table: I had a list of crit I got from my tutor on how to make this better, work with the principles of eye tennis, maybe break the sequence down into different camera shots as to not convolute the viewers gaze, what with the plate and cup movement, the dancing ball and the disgruntled ball.

But the Maya scene file has corrupted so I can't go back and fix it. I'm happy with the exaggerated arcs on the teacup throw and the impact, as I say I'd fix it if the scene file hadn't had broke.

Old Walks

Some old walks, pretty bad

Balls in general

Some timing excercises and laying the groundwork down for animating, still a little rusty.

Heavy Vs Light Balls



Lightweight Ball



A miscellaneous timing excercise