The goal of this document is to track my progress and development of my workflow. By doing this I can find ways to work faster and more efficiently. By sharing I can help others who are just starting or want to see a certain perspective. Written in mostly real-time during the project so expect to see changes in my thought process.
Lupin House Anim Challange
Requirements :
1) Use Bleu rig to animate an acting piece with dialogue.
2) The shot must be a minimum of 200 frames.
Idea
Bleu goes to a bird bathing fountain that is turned off. Upset, she tells off the statue figure and flys away to find somewhere she can bathe.
Challenge
- Creature
- Wings/flying
- Object interaction
RIGS & Props
-Bleu (character)
-Glasses
-Book/Reading Material
Reference, Study, and Inspirations
Birds are very unfamiliar territory for me so I wanted to do alot of research into flight and behavior. I've been looking at real life footage for the behavior and body mechanics of birds. Then, I looked at some of my favorite animated films that have birds such as Angry Birds, Spies in Disguise, and Rio I watched how appeal was given to the fingers/wings, feathers, mouth shapes, eye movement, and the feet. The part I needed to understand the most was the wings, there are groups of feathers labeled Primaries, Secondaries and Tetrials I noticed from Angry birds they styled the primaries into a more human like hand, whereas Spies in Disguise and Rio kept the winged look, but treated the primaries as dominant fingers. This was an important note to make for me since I have Bleu holding an object, and being expressive in her gestures. I also started a reference board for expressions that I liked and body shapes with birds. Bleu is a round ball but resembles more of an Angry Bird to me, so I leaned a bit more in that direction for the expressions sheets. Anyways, heres a bit of reference compiled that I'll be referring to when I begin blocking.
Layout
Basic scene layout, some basic materials and complex models from sketchfab. Did a basic rig setup on the glasses and book. Messed around with the camera & set. I may change the camera to be in closer for a better look at the expressions, however I do like it being wider so that the viewer can immediately recognize the situation and story. Maybe after a first pass on story telling poses and lighting I will adjust it but for now this is where I am at.
First Pass - Blocking
Excuse the video format, I playblasted the first pass wrong and it wont load correctly in any of my video editing programs so I had to screen record the only only version I had. Anyways, my main focus on the first pass was getting down the general story telling poses. I want Bleu to fly off at the end but I didn't want to block in the mechanics of the flight yet, I want her to have a more unique and delicate flap of her wings, something I'll need to experiment with in spline- I also might run out of time and need to cut the ending! Im also playing with camera shots, I may start wide then cut to a medium shot. I really want to keep it simple though so I'll be experimenting in later passes with the camera.
Second Pass - Blocking Plus
Blocking Plus. I went back over my major story telling keys and pushed expressions and silhouettes. After that my focus was to really sell the personality of the character and shot, so to me, this meant adding in little things that complimented my major poses. If I felt a pose needed more breakdowns or energy I spent more time there, I tried not to get caught up in a formula and just add a pose that felt right and ignore parts that didn't. I have a habit of overblocking to the point where I end up just wasting time that I could've been in spline SO the goal with this shot was to spline as early as possible. I splined immediately after this pass.
Third Pass - Spline
This pass I took it very slow, going from blocking to spline without extensive breakdowns I knew it would be very rough in certain areas. I splined 50frames at time. Refining the keys and breakdowns I already blocked and straight aheading the inbetweens and the holds. I'll be taking this pass into dailies and getting feedback.
Fourth Pass - Spline+
Went to an Alumni dailies session hosted by Beau Pratt at Animation Mentor and received lots of great notes. Since the competition was coming to a close soon I asked for the major notes to address. We talked about Bleu's facial expressions and pushing them (their wasn't enough of a contrast in several moments) a foot pass and working through the ending where she flies away. We also talked about some minor notes to polish the performance and some environmental and camera adjustments. The more obvious areas are lip sync, hair and tail -those areas I planned on straight a heading for my Final Pass.
Fifth Pass - Submission
Addressed major notes, did a pass on the hair, tail and lip sync. This will be the pass I submit for the challange. For my final pass I want to add some water splashes, more feather polish, lip sync polishing and whatever else I can get feedback on.
Final Pass (WIP)
Conclusion (WIP)
Learned a lot from this shot. I should note that unfortunately I didn't make the cut for the deadline (I posted 10PM EST on the 21st) but I didn't factor in timezones so my post most likely showed on the 22nd (past the due date). Thats okay though! It was still a challange for me and I can put something I think worth adding to my demo reel. The winners work was really amazing you can see their post here : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lupin-house_massive-congratulations-to-this-months-competition-activity-7122930642471800833-kSiN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
In the future I'd probably spend a tiny bit more time in blocking plus. I missed a few breakdowns but I enjoyed straight aheading from spline. I think my key poses were strong enough, and not too complex to work inbetween them without a headache in spline but I think if I had a much more complex character that I would've had a harder time straight aheading so I got lucky this time around. On to the next!