JBarrett

This year is already full of surprises, the first one being pointed out by Robert: my account is still active! And on top of that, I somehow remembered the password! Thanks to Robert for being willing to start this thread on my behalf. I hope that Animate a Face will still prove useful to the community!

Dang...nice can! And I don't say that to just any guy... Seriously, very well done. Great job on all fronts.

Lookin' good, JT! Always an inspiration. One of these days I gotta take a crack at modeling...

Any specific places in particular? The shampoo bottle works pretty well overall, partly 'cause he's so limited. Very nice work on lip sync for that character, although I'm not sure the "teeth" (when that extra shape pops into place for some nearly-closed-mouth shapes) works that well. Because it flashes on and off, it doesn't really feel like teeth coming together. The way he's constructed, I'd almost say it would be better to drop that element entirely. I think it might work just fine for the style to ignore his teeth completely. That's how the VeggieTales characters operate, pretty much. The teeth only appear when they need to do a toothy-grin, not during regular speech. Most of the cleanup is needed for the soap and sponge. I don't have time to dig in super deeply into specific segments, but I'll try to point out some global issues quickly... There are many places where acting choices could be better. One that jumps to mind is the "I can't believe my eyes" line from the soap bar. He's referring to seeing the shampoo bottle, but it feels a bit awkward 'cause he's not even looking toward the shampoo during that line. Some moves feel unmotivated. During that same line from the soap, some of his body motions put him in awkward poses. It almost feels like he's moving just to move at some points. Pick your poses carefully, making sure that they're motivated by what's going on. You can insert bits of "business" where appropriate, but even business should fit within the larger structure of appropriate, clear poses. Lip sync for both the soap and sponge is pretty good, but feels slow at times. Could be a bit snappier. And as with the shampoo, the flashing teeth don't really work that well. Because these two are more realistic in their facial design, they definitely call for more more realistic handling of their teeth. But the more I think about it, I think you could also get away with nixxing the teeth entirely. It could go either way. But the flashing doesn't really fit. Too jarring, distracting. Body movements could use a hair more snap in some places. Stronger holds. That's what jumps out at me right now, looking back through the first little bit and going from memory on the rest. One spot that works really well is the "hand" gag w/ the soap. Even though it's really obvious that the gag is coming up once the shampoo's line has been sung, the way you stage it makes it work well. You did a nice job conveying a sense that the soap character believed he actually had hands at first. Cool stuff! Just take a bit more time to spit and polish it. Not too much spit, though, or the soap will just turn into a pile of goo.

Wow.....now THAT would've been a nearly instant win, methinks. Animation could used more polish, but the creativity and storytelling still make it a lot of fun to watch. Now, where's my hat.....oh yeah. It's already off. Kudos!

Hehe....very fun piece, Stuart.

I've tried getting to the "theatre" page several times, but keep running into "bandwidth exceeded" messages. I'll keep trying...

Whoa...tough to read such a dark character against such a dark background. Start by cranking up your lights, and consider a lighter background as well.

I'm glad you like the tute, Michel. Re: your clip, the lip sync feels way too soft and subtle overall. There's a lot of variety in the sound of the voice, but very little in your character's mouth shape creation. It shouldn't be super-duper snappy, but it definitely does need to be punched up a notch. It's a pretty good start, though!

While he doesn't have something that resembles a human jaw/chin, he still has to have something inside his body that controls the way his mouth opens and closes. Even though he's a highly stylized alien creature, you've chosen to give him a fairly human design in many respects, so it pays to follow human motion patterns when designing his animation controls. The mouth should work like the hinge on a door. One part of the hinge stays locked in place to the door frame and doesn't move. In the mouth, this is similar to the way the upper teeth are attached to the skull. They don't slide up and down as we speak. The lower teeth are attached to the jaw bone, and as the jaw opens, they go along for the ride. The lips are essentially on a separate "layer" of movement, but they are affected by the movement of the jaw bone to some degree. When the mouth opens, the lower lip will generally go along with the jaw bone, but it can also move independently. The upper lip also has independent movement. However, in your rig, it appears that the upper lip is automatically going up every time the character opens his mouth, which isn't always the way our lips move when we speak. So in addition to locking the upper teeth in place, you could get even better results by creating a separate control for moving the upper lip up and down. To carry this further, instead of having the "pivot" of the pseudo-jaw movement happening from the corners of the mouth, shift it so that it happens from around the top of the upper lip. That way when the "jaw" opens, the mouth corners will actually move down, causing the mouth to stretch open in a similar fashion to the way our mouths stretch. That's all just a long way of saying that looking at the way the mouth operates in reality will help you create a better feeling in your character's mouth operation. It pays to observe.

Not bad for a first attempt! Here are some things to address for future stuff... One core issue you may want to address w/ the rig is the way his mouth opens. It feels too much like a puppet, with the "jaw" opening up and down nearly equally. Even though he's an alien-ish creature, it will read better if his jaw performs in a more human fashion, which is to have the jaw bone (lower hinge) handle all the raw open/close movements, with the lower teeth and lip moving along for the ride. The upper teeth won't move, as they're attached to the skull. Admittedly changing the rig to this system will take a bit of additional time, but the end result will have a better feeling to it. Most of the closed-lip shapes don't close quite enough. The level of closure at the end of "job" is the best one. The rest don't really read as fully pressing the lips together 'cause the teeth are ever-so-slightly visible. The jaw doesn't close quite far enough for sounds like the "j" in "job". The teeth should be practically touching, while currently they are still a good distance apart. Try making that sound yourself with your jaw open similarly, and you'll find you don't get nearly the same sound. Work a little more on getting more overlap between the wide/narrow and open/close movements in the mouth. This will create some nice arcs in the corners of the mouth, whereas now a lot of the transitions feel fairly linear. Again, it looks pretty slick for a first try at lip sync...better than some other firsts I've seen. Keep it up!

Looks fun! Can't wait to see this guy in motion!

Looks fun! Curious to see more...

Thanks for the kind words, Mark. As for making more...well, that all hinges on (1) coming up with an idea, and (2) working with Anzovin Studio to put it all together. Right now (1) is the biggest challenge. Jot me a note if there's something you'd like to see. I'm open to suggestions!

I'll echo TurboKitty's comment. The technical part of the lip sync looks pretty good, but it could use some more snap and exaggeration to really match the tone of the vocal better. Also exaggerate the other facial expressions, too. I like the interface you've set up for the facial rig. I've been using Osipa's rig on the project we're doing at work, and while I initially had some gripes about its operation, I gotta admit that it's really grown on me over time, and I'm losing my interest in sliders for facial work. I heard about Bill Young's test at implementing an Osipa-style rig in A:M, but never checked it out. Seeing your implementation here, though, has really piqued my interest. I think I'm going to take a whack at adding it to the Eggington model I used for the Animate a Face tutorial. Oohhh...and this has suddenly given me an interesting idea for a new hand-control rig....hmmm.....