Another chapter from my animation journey so far...
Character animator Jeff Lew, lead animator of "Matrix Reloaded" and widely known for his "Killer Bean" online animations, has made four chapters of his training DVD, "Learning 3D character Animation with Jeff Lew" available for free download.
The four chapters add up to 120mb and offer 34 minutes of free professional advice. This is extremely useful information for up-coming animators and is not to be missed.
You can find out more about the DVD and access the free download here.
If you're a Killer Bean fan then you just might be interested in some behind-the-scenes information, like how to make Matrix-style bullet trails. You'll find Jeff's "how-to" article for that and other visual effects, here.
Big thanks Jeff!
Showing posts with label character animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character animation. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Early Lip-Sync & Acting Tests
Here are some of my first character animation tests. The first two, "Yeah sure" and "Listen Up" were produced as entries in the now defunct 10 Second Club monthly competitions.
The first video began as just a three second short, just to see if I could do it. Before I knew it, I'd animated the whole ten second clip!
"Yeah sure" April 2006
This second clip shows that when doing lip-sync, words are not important. What really matters is that the mouth shapes match the sounds - and those sounds won't always be English words spoken in generic accents. Every character has a different sound and delivery and therefore, every character requires a unique approach to lip syncing. Even if two characters are saying the same thing, the lip-sync, acting and facial expressions would be different for each one, according to their character.
"Listen up" May 2006
The following test animation was produced using a sound file from animationmeat.com
"Attitude" May 2006
Shorts like these are a great way of testing a rig and your skills. One thing that is worth mentioning is that when attempting lip-syncing, the character acting is often more important than getting perfect shapes for the mouth. If the overall body action is right, then the animation should "sell", even without any lip movement. Then, when adding lip movements, consider whole facial expressions too as these are just as important as the mouth shapes.
Keith Lango has some great tips on lip-sync.
Aardman Animations lip-sync technique
My tutorial on lip-sync using shape keys in Blender is here.
NEWS: A new animation competition club has started up! The 11 Second Club takes up where the 10 second club left off. Well worth a look if you want to learn character animation.
The first video began as just a three second short, just to see if I could do it. Before I knew it, I'd animated the whole ten second clip!
"Yeah sure" April 2006
This second clip shows that when doing lip-sync, words are not important. What really matters is that the mouth shapes match the sounds - and those sounds won't always be English words spoken in generic accents. Every character has a different sound and delivery and therefore, every character requires a unique approach to lip syncing. Even if two characters are saying the same thing, the lip-sync, acting and facial expressions would be different for each one, according to their character.
"Listen up" May 2006
The following test animation was produced using a sound file from animationmeat.com
"Attitude" May 2006
Shorts like these are a great way of testing a rig and your skills. One thing that is worth mentioning is that when attempting lip-syncing, the character acting is often more important than getting perfect shapes for the mouth. If the overall body action is right, then the animation should "sell", even without any lip movement. Then, when adding lip movements, consider whole facial expressions too as these are just as important as the mouth shapes.
Keith Lango has some great tips on lip-sync.
Aardman Animations lip-sync technique
My tutorial on lip-sync using shape keys in Blender is here.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Out of the box
Well, here it is - my newest animated video. Not only is this my first truly original work but it is also the catalyst for me starting this blog.
When I first discovered Blender, all I really wanted to do was some simple matchstick drawing animations. But here was a suite of high quality 3D and animation tools at my disposal. So, after a few weeks coming to grips with the basics (The Blender learning curve is not that steep if you have some graphics experience, an open mind and a bit of spare time to get friendly with the non-standard interface) I started on a quick and dirty animation featuring a simple, almost realistic, matchstick bouncing around on a stage, in time with a soundtrack from the late Tommy Cooper
Trivia: you can see the original matchstick on the title screen of the new video.
I had written some rough one liners for a stand-up matchstick but had no means to record them digitally as my model of G4 Mac did not come with a standard microphone input (I won't mention my angst as a result of discovering that little surprise too late to change my purchase decision). So that's as far as the project went. In the meantime I continued to investigate Blender and learn all I could about animation, 3D modelling and CG.
Two years later, in May this year, I bought a Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 USB headset, with microphone, and it worked perfectly with the G4 Mac without any software installation. Wow! MS and Apple compatibility!
Using Audacity, an open-source audio editor, I recorded a comedy soundtrack. To complete the performance, I downloaded a bunch of audience sound files from the Freesound Project and edited these into the final audio track.
A few pencil sketches were done to develop a matchstick character and the modelling began. Two months later the video is finished and released for all to see...
Out of the box, 2007. By Andy Dolphin.
Click to play
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