Final render Animation and Conclusion

Final animation analysis

First of all I Feel the introduction gives concept to the work adding anticipation to the story while also establishing are character and his surrounding. The scene is convincingly staged as a hotel lobby. The use of the slow intro with the fawlty towers theme tune nicely contrasts with the later broader animation. the credits rolling at the beginning are inspired off of shows like Fawlty towers that show some of the main actors at the start. At 0:25 I used slow a close up to represent the viewer. Even Though the intro seems long it is a real time comparison of the actual show. 

I feel that the animation is very effective in most areas. The arcs I feel are well done and feel more natural. A huge improvement was using a mixture of fk and ik control leading to much smoother arm movement. The arms feel weighted like actual arms instead of light and floaty like my other animations. The follow through is also more accurate thanks to fk controls. However I feel the one part that can be improved is creating a separate rig control for when he crouches down on the table 0:33 this would allow more follow through during that specific part. The shoulders at 0:33 are too restricted and don't have much follow through this was because of the nature of the rig. I would look into this more next time if it was needed. The use of anticipation in this piece was well considered while also thinking about slow in, slow out and follow through. One great example of anticipation is how he holds his arm out lifting his body before punching the counter at 0:29. The back also is nicely hunched to look less robotic. This considers the principle of solid drawing. Another principle that was improved on was exaggeration, I found exaggeration easier in this animation because I was using the tone of the voice as a guide. During the animation there are 3 main exaggerated actions and poses that represent a phrase of dialogue, this consists of ponce 0:28, expecting 0:31 and hotel 0:34. I then peppered in secondary actions to add more exaggeration and more character. actions like twitching his eye at the start 0:25 as an example little psychological gestures like this make the character feel more alive and more believable. On the other hand some of my secondary actions are so subtle that an audience might not notice them, however this can sometimes workout as the secondary actions should not be to exaggerated as they distract from the main action.  The hands were a great use of secondary actions I feel the fingers are animated much better as they don't move in a robotic way they feel light and flexible which makes them more convincing for the appeal of this skinny character. They also follow through with the arm and shoulder.

For my first attempt at lip sync I feel I got some good results, the dialogue syncs up nicely and the use of the different blend shapes allowed me to create the different phonemes. The mouth movement is very exaggerated in shape like a cartoon this adds to the overall style of my animation. Since I was lip syncing someone shouting the mouth shapes were much broader in appearance. I even used the tongue on certain phonemes to look more convincing like N in run as an example 0:34.
The use of staging has improved both in the cinematography and overall set design. The rendering has improved with shadows and indirect lighting. I used mostly mental ray materials which lead to much more believable results. The sound effects add to the plausibility of the animation. Sounds like subtle vase smashing sound before the title appears is a nice touch, also not leaving out simple sounds like the tapping of fingers.      

Overall I am very proud of the results. I feel I really got to know the character and created
a marvelous performance. I feel my understanding of the principles of animation have been refined especially timing and pacing. The overall timing and emotional beats have been very carefully executed with the rhythm of the dialogue. This was thanks to careful planning from the start, developing a storyboard and tweaking the story and overall idea till it works. I also learned that acting out and channeling the character understanding situation really creates more effective animation.

Sound effects used.

Fawlty towers theme tune from TV theme tune factory
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00PI6Y2J6/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o04_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

chinese hotel ambience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkwHCgciRA

hotel sounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkwHCgciRA

finger tapping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04xZlPtuz5g

mouse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeZkAIMQ7jA

pottery smash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOVkixm5MZA

desk punch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xHX0wDOpQ

final render of character

 Front

middle 

 Side

Here are the renders of my character from different angles.

Lipsync

Final Lips Sync

Here is the final lip sync . In order to get it accurate I used a camera that I parented to the head control. This allowed me to always see the mouth and tongue when animating the dialogue. this camera technique was very useful since my characters head moves around allot.

Here is the final lips sync

final animation

The importance of IK and FK switching

IK and FK explained

Ik stands for Inverse Kinematics while FK is Forward Kinematics.To create more believable arm movement you have to be careful what setting you use to animate. Ik may seem easier to control, however I have learnt from experience this leads to much less natural body movement and allot of other problems further down the animation pipe line.. In nature peoples arms work like an FK rig where the rest of the body follow throughs with the movement of the arms. FK also allows easier portrayel of arcs than IK. while also looking more solid and less floaty than IK.
This overall is an important discovery to creating more believable and appealing animation. Ik still has a use but more for the effect of contact with a surface when a hand is pressing against a table or a door as an example. Even better is to use a split between the two when having difficulty with more challenging arm movements. As an example when I animated my characters arm rising behind the counter press his hand against the table I used the Ik Fk switch on half so it would be a bit of both this is only used once in my animation but it worked out very well.


Here are some tutorials that describe the differences between IK and FK in more detail

IK vs FK

When I made my changes from IK to Fk the difference became so obvious. Here are two videos of mine, one made with IK and one made with FK.

IK

The IK looked less realistic since the arms actually looked like they were broken there was no realistic anatomical movement. Because of this the Ik appeared more floaty and un-natural.

FK

The FK on the other hand appears sturdier more dynamic and more solid. Since the FK is much better for arcs the movement looks more believable and less woolly. The other reason for this is FK is effected by the other joints for example I moved the spine or shoulders the arms will move with them. Ik is only used for small amounts of time. One when he punches the table with his left hand and two with his other hand pressing against the table. 

So the lesson I learned is don't just use Ik. It is only right for certain actions in small amounts. This is such an important animation tip that I never understood until now. Any 3D should take this on board because no matter how surreal the animation believability is crucial or else the audience are going to lose interest or even find the work unappealing to look at.

reference to videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euFe1S0OltQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrhsDkQWTOc

Animation: Blocking and rough animation

Blocking

blocking is a very important ingredient to a good animation. It involves focusing on the timing and poses to really sell the movements of a character. I have learnt that Blocking is very crucial to a successful animation. Bad blocking leads to allot of troubles later down the animation pipeline. You have to be satisfied with your blocking before going any further with it. Since I am animating to dialogue this is crucial to get the character timed to the beats of the story. I feel that If I compared this to my storyboard it is quite accurate While also gaining new ideas since then.

I also learned that blocking is easier when using more keys this allows more control of the animation when changed from stepped to spline tangents.

Blocking in the industry seems to require lots of keys yo a point where every movement and pose has a flow. here is  an example

Example of Industry standard Blocking

In this clip we see a progression breakdown done on Walt Disney Animation's Frozen (2013) When it shows the blocking at 0:27 It is obvious to tell that they used allot of key poses and emotional beats. So far my blocking hasn't got to this but it is an interesting fact that opens up the possibilities of quality blocking. Here even the facial expressions and mouth movements are all blocked out.

copyright of Walt Disney Animation 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z_k2z5m6H0

Short Animatic with live action reference

Short Animatic with live action reference

Finally here is a link to my performance of Basil Fawlty I did to understand how my character was going to move and to really become the character. I feel however the ending of the clip is too exaggerated and I will have some pictures of me in the future doing the new end poses.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/135570618@N07/33407686131/in/dateposted-public/

My experiences in acting    Not professionally

overall it was a good experience to really get to know the character. In secondary school I did drama and I have also experience from performing in shows both in school and out. I feel I understand the importance of good acting and doing good impressions of people. 

I feel in animation you really need to know the characters to a point where they feel as real as anyone else. 

You must not just think of any character as just a stereotypical accent, I actually find it insulting. Understanding what drives a character is what makes them special, taking into account  there goals and fears and inner emotions Also . Study the mannerisms and the way a character moves. Laban is a term used in dance and acting to analyse the movement and tone with in a performance. I learnt this also from the book Acting for Animators (Hooks E 2011)

Get to know your character

For Basil Fawlty I felt when you look closer into his character there is allot of deeper psychological problems. I don't think of him as an idiot I understand his conflict and situation. this is from the fact  having to deal with awkward guests and the fact he has been running the hotel for 15 years. I feel he is more likely lost his marbles from the many years of trying to keep everyone satisfied. Which is a relateble situation for people, it is hard to keep people happy and it can seem very stressful. 

I also study his psychological gestures he tries act tough and in charge but his wife already wins that role. just some examples

Overall being a good actor is ideal as an animator. I will leave this study with a quote by animation Director Brad Bird in the book read from an extract of (Acting for Animators) Ed Hooks 2011

"If the public watch the faces of the best animators when caught up in the act of drawing an emotional scene, they would see artists as fully invested in the moment as the best live actors. The difference is that an anmator stays in that moment, often working for weeks to express an emotion his or her character takes only seconds to perm onscreen"  (Brad Bird 2011).

advice from animators on the 11 second club

great articles on the 11 second club websites for starting to animate and over coming the problems. This particular advice is about giving yourself permission to spend more time on each pose in blocking to create a smoother and well thought out animation.

http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/givingYourselfPermission

Reviewing 11 Second Club Entries.

Reviewing 11 Second Club Entries.

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/june16/winner

First of all I am going to review the winner from June competition


I find that the animation is very fluid and portrays the dialogue through most of the animation however the female voice coming from the man at the start is a little distracting.  The scene transition when it switches to the other character is a very fluid and unusual it creates a nice touch to the style of animation which seems to be more abstract like a cartoon. The body language of the two characters has both greatly exaggerated and subtle mannerisms. The way the character flicks his nails at  53 is a nice subtle gesture that is synced up well to the sound clip it also shows an anticipation before the next key pose. "we need you to do"  at 70 has some nice subtle gestures with hands and fingers. On the word "accent" it is nicely exaggerated and the body language is readable. The overall clip is well animated however the story could have been staged a little better. This is noticeable in the backgrounds. Adding a more readable environment would add to the animation.

Next I am going to review two different videos from the same competion from November

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/november14/winner

The first that won has good animation however the story seems not very interesting. They went for the principle confronting a student in his office which works well as a concept but the execution comes across not very interesting to watch.

Also at the end when he reveals a firework, it doesn't have enough context. Therefore doesn't gain my attention. The scene overall needs to be staged better and needs more focus on why the kid is brought into the office. Jason suggested the little boy could have a black eye then when the principle pulls out an object

 it could be something more to do with the boys actions that is more plausible, e.g he stole something off someone and got in a fight. overall this type of concept would make the story make more sense to the viewer. Another way would be to make the pack of fireworks more recognizable. shape them like a rocket for example.
One last problem is the calm relaxed tone of the voice doesn't fit with telling off a student. especially at the end of the animation when the headmaster shows an angry confined gesture.


http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/november14/entry/o6al20




The second entry however creates a much better idea for the dialogue and makes more sense. However even though the story concept is better it is still quite awkward considering when the other character is revealed the conflict for the squirrel isn't very plausible considering he tried to get the acorn from a mouse. The problem is this ruins the story concept. Also the expressions of the secondary character of the squirrel are not very dramatic for what has happened. He should react more and show more emotion adding more exaggeration.

The acting of the animation on the tortoise however does fit more with the relaxed narration of the track. The story is more engaging but falls flat on believabilty. through the concept. maybe changing the characters to another two animals may have fit more, However the tortoise does fit a chilled relaxed voice and fits with his overall character.

Improved Tongue and Teeth controls

Here I made the tongue using a rig with flexible controls. I used 6 joints to make sure the tongue would look more convincing. The technique of rigging I used was the same technique I used on a tail rig. Each controller it's own group which means when I select them to together they can move together like this 

 I also added a system of controls for the teeth so that they would follow the jaw. I tried to create a control for the teeth earlier, but the way I was parenting it was the wrong way. I decided to create rigs for both the teeth and gums and then parented them to the rig. I also took the controllers and parented them to the rest of the controls. This allows more freedom of the teeth allowing place and key them for the more awkward mouth positions like U, A and other positions where the mouth comes down or presses inwards.  The teeth have also been improved visually not just for appeal but also to make them easier to move into certain positions and adding more emphasis to each mouth position. Allowing more readable mouth shapes. The gums were added for a more believable appearance not to mention attention to detail.

Overall I did all of this procedure as it will make the lip sync more efficient.

Blend Shapes

Blend Shapes

Here is the refference I used of the different mouth shapes. Understanding the way the mouth moves is important for lips sync I also learnt from a video posted on the 11 second club. When lip syncing characters you need to show the shapes after or before a spoken word or phrase. This is for accuracy when playing the animation back, other wise it can look more like a bad dubbing and not look as convincing.

http://www.11secondclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=10078

image from https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/325385141801081584/

The process 

Here I modeled the different mouth shapes for each set of letters in speech. However when first making the blend shapes I realized the face was too simple in topology. There were a lack of polygons around the mouth, which made it more difficult to make convincing shapes, especially when it came to lips when they puckered. So to resolve the problem I went back and added more topology on a new main head and then deleted the old one. I made sure to delete history on the new head and freeze transformations before re-skinning it and copying over the skin weights from the old head. This now means my face has more flexibility with extra edge loops around the mouth and brows, this adds more freedom of manipulation while looking smoother and more convincing.

 Here is the shelf of many different blend shapes that have all been named to save confusion when making controls. The see will be deleted when I am happy with the blend shapes.

 The blend shapes process overall went very well. I used two different groups to separate group layers . One for the eyelid shapes and the rest for the other facial features. This allowed me to move the eyebrows without manipulating the eyelids. For this I used a paint blend shapes setting to paint out what I didn't want to be manipulated on my two layers. To do this I selected the skin weights for the first layer which consists of most of my shapes not including the eyes. I then started to paint what I wanted to be manipulated and what I didn't. Here on this example the eyes are painted out in blue so they won't manipulate with the the eye brows.
However this lead to a smaller issue, each blend shape was manipulating a bit of the eyebrows which looked unnatural, to solve this I painted each blend shape on the first layer including the mouth shapes painting out the eyelids in blue so they wouldn't be manipulating anything but there chosen area. This eventually created some very successful deformations.

While doing this I was also making my control interface for my whole face. This involved using curves to make the switches and and set driven key to effect the different settings.

Examples

 The blend shapes allow full control over the face allowing to create all kinds of emotions and interesting expressions. This will be key for the animation process.

Setting the Scene

Scene Blocking

 First I set out the scene using simple shapes.

update 06/03/2017
Here I practiced getting the lighting and rendering correct. I feel it is looking good at the moment. The scene is very appealing and will look interesting when animated. The challenge is not getting render times that are too long.

I also modeled a little mouse with a suitcase for the end scene.

downloaded textures

http://www.textures.com/

http://www.textures.com/download/substance0002/125724?q=marble

http://www.textures.com/download/wallpaperforties0013/18831?q=wallpaper

https://uk.pinterest.com/coleyanna19/art-textures/

Rigging and Skinning the Character

Rigging

The rigging process was straightforward. I used an automatic rigging system which saves allot of time. This involved being accurate in where the joints would be positioned. especially in the fingers and hand area. 

Skinning

Fingers

DQ weight map adds easier manipulation of finger joints.

Skinning of the fingers. My character is extremely expressive with hand gestures so the skinning has to be top notch.

The jaw rig has been skinned. I will use blend shapes to alter the different shapes that the mouth makes in speech. 

The rig also has a jaw Which I improved on by adding a tounge and extra joints to control the top teeth.

Testing out the skinning

Here is an example of the movement that my rig will allow. It has loads of useful features that will help when animating.

Eye controls

Eye controls The eyes have been parented to the rest of the controls with an aim constraint. This allows me to control the direction the character is looking.

Experiment Animatic

This short animatic takes the storyboard and times it with the dialogue and sound effects. So far a rough animatic of the dialogue has been done here is how it looks so far.

It is useful to see how the dialogue and tone of John Cleese voice works with the poses however thsi will require further tweaking

Texture Research

The Face and Skin

For the face I want to to give Basil a stylized but believable face texture.
Here is a detailed photo of John Cleese Face. I hope to exaggerate features such as the wrinkles on the forehead and under the eyes. To add exaggeration I thought I could darken under the eyes to make my version of Basil more creepy.

basil face reference

I feel like having a close up reference of Basil's face will help me when texturing the character.








image references

https://uk.pinterest.com/sparklyjenny/fawlty-towers/http://teresachinn.co.uk/communication-switching-on-and-basil-fawlty/

UV Unwrapping the Character

Face UV mapping

For the face I decided to learn how to do a more complicated UV map to add more freedom when painting the face. The process involved using the automatic mapping on the face and then stitching it and unwrapping is as I went along.

The next step was to stitch the two sides of the face together and then stretching out the UVs.

Lastly I used a tool called unwrap that automatically soften out the map.

Finished face UV map

Using Photoshop the skin and hair has been painted in simple texture. The map will go through more alterations in the future. I hope to add more attention to detail in the texturing.




update 06/03/2017
I eventually went back and improved the texturing of both the face and clothes here is an update of the character using the the mental ray skin shader.