This week, I focused on refining my acting animation based on the feedback I received from George. Here’s a rundown of my progress and the adjustments I made:
- Reshooting the Reference: I reshot my reference, adding a head turn at the end and changing the angle of the camera. This gave me a clearer perspective on how the character should move and interact with the environment.
- Blocking in Maya: I started the blocking process in Maya. During my feedback session, George pointed out a few critical issues:
- Camera and Hat Size: In my reference, my face took up a lot of space in the shot. However, in the animation, the cowboy’s hat was too big, which required the camera to be further back. This caused timing issues. To fix this, George suggested using a smaller hat and adjusting the camera focal length and transition.
- Head Turn Mechanics: In my animation, I animated the whole body and head together, but in real life, the head turns first, followed by the body. I need to correct this in my animation to make it more natural.
- Expressiveness and Poses: Some of my poses made the character look robotic. I need to add more emotion to the poses to make the character feel more alive.
- Movement Issues: When the character walks into the scene, there are abrupt movements in the hip. George drew over my animation to help me understand the correct movement.
- Blocking Plus and Lip Sync: For next week, I need to:
- Complete Blocking Plus: This involves refining the poses and transitions to make the animation smoother.
- Add Lip Sync: This will be a challenging task, as syncing the character’s mouth movements to the audio is crucial for believability.
I’m excited to see how these changes will improve my animation. The feedback from George has been incredibly helpful, and I’m looking forward to presenting a more polished version next week.