Animation (6017) - week 05

TODAY

PART 2: Pantomime

We've turned this whole process upside down starting with the lip sync animation, but what the heck - it's all good fun. now we go back to the beginning and start the shot the way you would with any other assignment. PLANNING!

You have a few choices here:

Storyboard and thumbnail: Small simple drawing so show the intended pantomime acting for your characters performance. Think about showing keys and breakdowns and make sure you have enough drawings to fully describe the action - 2-3 sec is reasonable.

Find some video online: See if you can find some video that might match the physical movement you want for your character's acting within the short scene.

Shoot some reference: Grab  a video camera, get up and act it out yourself -- this is the best method. do several takes until you get the performance you like. Play the audio over and over and act along with it. You may find two or three clips that combine to make the perfect performance: edit them together into a final reference clip.

Whatever you decide, make sure you carefully analyze your reference with particular focus on timing where are your key poses and where are they going to occur on the timeline. You can use Photoshop CS5.1 (or later versions) to mark your keys and breakdowns.

Whatever you decide your preferred workflow is remember that reference and analysis is required to pass this assignment.   Don't "wing it"


Once you've got your reference done and analyzed, dive into Maya and start laying in your keys and breakdowns. To help you, check out all these video tutorials by Keith Lango on making good key poses here:












Here's another short page talking about elements of good posing. The drawings in this article are not great, but the notion is relevant:
http://posetopose.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/strength-in-posing/


Have your keys and breakdowns, timed out for next class


Week 06 ---- PART 3: Polishing 

Polish your animation using the following workflow and strategies. We'll have a brief discussion of polishing workflow and then group feedback on LS progress

Polish each item in order, using the strategies listed for best results

Week 07 ---- Final Lip Sync Feedback (LS)

The following week (week 07)  we will give the last round of feedback on the LS assignment.