Advanced Animation - Project 3

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Nov 11th, 2022 - Dec 11th, 2022 (Week 11 - Week 15)
Rusydina Fazlin Athirah Binti Fauzi
Advanced Animation
Week 11 [Nov 11th, 2022]
Project 3 - Emotion Change Animation

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INSTRUCTIONS

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Project

Project 3

Week 11 - Emotion Change Animation

Project Brief

Nov 11th, 2022

To start the final project, the following brief, as seen below, are the requirements to be met to complete this project.

Project 3 - Emotion Change Animation - Brief:

Progress #1 - Reference:

Before animating the 3D model in Blender, Mr. Kamal assigned us to have our reference of the kind of emotional change of expression that would be displayed on our facial features.

Below is my attempt at a simple reference to get into emotional facial changes like; neutral, happy, shocked, sad, angry, and fearful.

We were encouraged to write short scripts with extreme/exaggerated emotional facial features according to the plot. 

Progress #2 - Blocking stage:

The second part of the project is finally working into the blocking stage, just like the previous project in advanced animation - action poses, the facial expressions are the extreme poses. Once each of those expressions has been blocked in the timeline as keyframes, changing the interpolation mode of the keyframes by:

• Hitting the "T" key on the timeline
• selection of the interpolation mode to "Constant"

There were two parts to blocking out the animation from the reference, first were the poses that compliment the kind of expression that was displayed from the reference translated to 3D model keyframes.

Figure 1.1 - Blocking body poses of 3D model

The second step was to change up each of the extreme key poses of the facial expressions according to what I acted out in my reference.

Each keyframe was put into the time once both the key poses of the body and the facial expression were rigged and altered. I continue this process until the end of the video reference.

Figure 1.2 - Blocking facial expression poses of 3D model

The next step was simple as it is, implementing a camera and lighting in object mode as well as putting in a scene.

Figure 1.3 - camera and lighting placement

-adding props like a table, chair and a phone for the character to hold was also part of the process, so it would make it not seem weird that she was just floating.

Figure 1.4 - props placement

Further into the progress was to look into adding a keyframe in between the extreme pose keyframes.

Progress #3 - Polishing stage:

When working out the polishing stage after blocking out each pose for the animation, hit the "T" key once again on the keyframe timeline, this time selecting liner/bezier as its interpolation mode, this helps identify the in-between keyframes.

I added in blinks and subtle jerks as in-between keyframes to make it appear as if the character doesn't react to the news through her phone statically.

Figure 1.4 - adding in-between keyframes

As well as making sure the timing of the animation doesn't fall off being too delayed or too early, each reaction and emotional change of the face should happen and transition naturally.

Adding subtle movements to a few keyframes before the extreme poses keyframes adds a nice touch to it.

Figure 1.5 - keyframes time adjustments

Figure 1.6 - phone prop rigging

-for the final step, I had to rig the phone to the movement of the character's hand, I edited the animation separately from the rigging model. Through object mode, I used a similar method by pin-pointing when the hand moves and adding keyframes to the phone prop.

Progress #4 - Visual Edit:

Once it was all completed, I edited the processes of the blocking stage into the polishing stage and all the way into the final outcome - with added background music.

Figure 1.6 - visual + bg music animation compile

 

Once I completed compiling the blocking stage and the polishing stage into one compilation, I added in a piece of simple and upbeat background music to showcase the animation as well as its final render.

Final outcome - Emotion Change - emotion change animation:

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REFLECTION

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Dec 9th, 2022

I have come to the end of the module's project and I have to say that it was quite the journey, taking up this module and being grateful that I had 3D modeling in my previous semester as a headstart to learning more about the Blender program made it a little bit easier to understand this module were animating in a 3D software (Blender) was the majority of what I had carried out my projects.

I definitely got to learn more about how to animate as well as understand the keyframes and how timing is associated with it, which was something that I struggled with in general. So these projects were very good practices!

I know that it is still a long way to go to the master's and be an intermediate when working out Blender, since it is a very technical process which is something I'm not very good at as well. Although, it was really interesting and fun to be able to experience the following.

I should also thank Mr. Kamal (our advanced animation lecturer/tutor) as well for being passionate in teaching us and attending to our concerns and struggles throughout these 14 weeks of lecturers, exercises, and projects!

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