MA Character Animation

Archive for the ‘Stairs’ Category

Finally got the stairs animation finished and rendered. Added in some extra props and cleaned out all the motion. Added a lot of extra eye darts eye lid motion and baby crying in the scene so its not like a fake toy when you see the character head on in the last scene.

Enjoyed this animation and with the audio made it a challenge to put together. I already finished this animation last week but coming back to it when its all ready to ship in the morning I saw things I didn’t see before, so had to make some last minute changes. All in all its a joy of an animation to create with the input of Ed Hooks as the director/client of this project.

After the positive feedback from Ed Hooks that I nailed the “Action – Objective – Obstacle” in my animation. It was finally time to clean the animation and add secondary motions. Had some issues with the head popping which took a little longer than expected to fix.

If i have some time later I’ll be making a new set for this animation. As everyone else in show and tell seem to have fancy staircases which makes my rectangle look square. But for how I’ll stick to what I’ve got.

So after the last feedback I decided to add:

1.the glance up at the start.
2. Glance at the source of the creaking.
3. At around 25sec she thinks everything fine and is about to set off before the toy starts playing again.
4. Swapped out the donut for the bear, thanks to Michael Mo for the free bear model.
“Teddy bear kids plush toy popular gifts” – 3d model
5. Added a lot more expressions and eye darts.
6. Fix mesh skinning around the thigh and hips was not deforming correctly.

I’ve been focusing on the facial animation that now the body animation is left behind and looking blocky. I’ll leave the body and the offset of motion till Ed Hooks has a review of the animation as any changes could make it difficult to re-animate if I’ve applied the offsets. (Fingers crossed)

I was working over my first pass animation and was focusing on the facial animation as the story that was told in this animation will be on Kim the mothers face. around 75% (OK it was more like 60%) I ran out of steam and lost focus on the facial animation. It was time to post on the MA Character Facebook group for some feedback. this is what I showed the group.

Again the Audio was updated with the help of my son Ryan who wasn’t feeling a little poorly and was moaning while he was sleeping so it was time to get recording. (Poor kid) I decided the add a basic face rig on the baby as the last camera angle shows the baby’s face. I think its working nicely for what it is. The last thing I’ll be looking at will be any secondary motion on the baby leg las its dangling, but that will be the very last thing I’ll be looking at if time permits.

The feed back I got was very constructive:

Daniel Natland
“Looks good Chi! My only suggestion is to kind of almost freeze her at the first creaking step before she turns and looks at the baby. Dunno if it makes sense, but have her think “aww crap, please don’t wake up” and then look at the baby.”

Siobhan Fenton
“Hi Chi, this is really coming along well. The audio is much better by the way. I see what Daniel is saying and you do go for this idea later on with the toy, perhaps on this early bit she glances to the source of the creak then looks to the baby. For me the section that needs some attention is around 0.24, 0.25 because she is directing her attention to nothing in particular – she is happy the baby has quietened down and should look like she is setting off again but she seems to freeze? If her body looks like it is about to setoff again then the reaction to the sound again will work well. One tiny point, when she first enters, have her slightly glance up [just with her eyes or head] to where she is going OR glance to the baby. Great stuff.”

Blockout 1 (stepped animation) here was my first blockout of the stairs animation. Not much to see apart from a rough story.

Feed back from ed was the baby was a little to big… Well a maybe not to little. So back to rigging/scaling and carefully re-importing resize baby to scene. Other comments was that the the baby was crying way to hard. Camera was a major issue as it wasn’t telling the story. I wasn’t really thinking about the camera when I placed them. Which was a bad mistake as it brought the animation down by not telling a story.

Blockout 2 (linear)

With everything in-place the first step was the camera and fine tuning the timing of each section. the face animation was still stepped so not much changed. Feed back was she was looking very angry but thats just something I’ll be looking at later. The blockout was coming along nicely but I had to take it a notch up to push me pass the blockout stage.

After getting input from Ed Hooks and a few story changes we decided to go with this shorter version.

redraft version 4:
Kim is carefully carrying the baby up to his bedroom, on the 3rd step the floor creeks. the baby cry’s, as she hold her breath the baby stops. She over steps this time to miss the creaking step. carrying on her way up she kids a teddy bear that starts to play an awful loud song. She freezes till it finishes then sighs relief as the baby stops crying. The bear starts again and baby starts crying again. without looking she stamps on the bear a couple of times and it stops, the baby stops crying once again. and she carry on up.

After shooting the video reference it was apparent that my inital story was to long and the character was off screen for a lot of the time. So after talking to the class and tutors we dicided on shortening it down.

Objective: to go down stairs to make a cup of tea
Obstacle: stairs and crying baby


redraft:
Baby mobile finishes playing. Kim (mother) walks in to view of the camera on the landing and is quietly making her way down the stairs, not to wake the baby.

1St Attempt:
She takes a first step down and it creeks setting the baby to cry. she has a slight sinking feeling in her face. she goes backup and off screen and the baby stop crying.

2nd attempt:
She tries to skip the first step down and makes a light thud. Again the baby whimpers, this time she’s cringes almost holder her breath. The baby stops. relieved she starts walking down the stairs again, a couple of steps down she steps on a squeaky toy and the baby starts crying again. she shakes her head in despair she heads back up off screen again.

3rd attempt:
This time you hear the baby contempt making baby sounds. the baby is curled with his knees up to his chest and slung over her shoulder with one of her arm supporting the baby’s bottom while he sleeps. she takes every step “Creek… thud… squeak…” without waking the baby.

Objective: to go down stairs to make a cup of tea


Obstacle: stairs and crying baby


Baby mobile finishes playing. Kim (mother) walks in to view of the camera on the landing and is quietly making her way down the stairs, not to wake the baby.


1St Attempt:
She takes a first step down and it creeks setting the baby to cry. she has a slight sinking feeling in her face. she goes backup and off screen and the baby stop crying.


2nd attempt:
She tries to skip the first step down and makes a light thud. Again the baby wakes, this time she’s slightly annoyed at herself for being careless and she goes backup and off screen and the baby stop crying.


3rd attempt:
This time she uses the banister to support her weight so she can get down to the second step without making a noise, she’s relieved and happy with herself, she takes a third step and steps on a squeaky toy. she pauses gritting her teeth… Again the baby cry’s. back up she goes to comfort him.


4th attempt:
this time she slides down the banister but ends up sliding down very quickly off screen. the viewer hears a thump as if she falls off at the bottom. again baby cry’s she darts up and the baby stops crying.


5th attempt:
This time you hear the baby contempt making baby sounds. the baby is curled with his knees up to his chest and slung over her shoulder with one of her arm supporting the baby’s bottom while he sleeps. she takes every step “Creek… thud… squeak…” without waking the baby.