Two Men Enter

[Ilidrake]

So here's my WIP so far. I'm using this scene to test the Latimer model I have. This is a very rough blocking and I'm simply looking at the timing of it now. I would have used the frame burn post effect but it doesn't seem to be working. Anyway I'm looking for feedback on initail poses and how I could make them stronger and better.

finishes_here.mov

[robcat2075]

That is only 290 bytes so something must be missing.

 

 

To use a post effect, "Apply Camera's Post effects" needs to be ON in the "Buffers" settings.

[Ilidrake]

It is on it just doesn't use it for some reason. If I try to render shaded quicktime with any settings all I get is a sinfo file type???

[Ilidrake]

Interesting though if I do a Final Render everything works fine, just can't do quick shaded renders.

[robcat2075]

Interesting though if I do a Final Render everything works fine, just can't do quick shaded renders.

 

I recall spotty trouble with shaded renders long ago.

 

Since you have v14 try switching OpenGLDirectX and restart A:M

[Ilidrake]

v15j actually. Hadn't thought about swapping between OpenGL and DirectX but will give it a try and see what happens.

[robcat2075]

I have trouble keeping track of all the not-up-tp-date users.

[Ilidrake]

Well I would update but I usually like to wait for about two cycles before doing so. Anyway, thanks for the help. The OpenGL and DirectX swap really helped. So here's what I have so far. Remember this is simply a blocking pass. No refinement yet. Still trying to figure out the best way to start refining. I'm totally open to pointers.

finishes_here.mov

[robcat2075]

89 bytes? There's no way there's anything in that.

 

Are you by chance rendering to still images and compiling them somehow into a quicktime?

[robcat2075]

Back in the old,old, old... days of QuickTime it was possible to save a tiny something called a reference file that was quite worthless for anyone not on the same computer.

 

But I can't imagine that you are doing that so something else must be going seriously wrong.

[Ilidrake]

I got it down to 357 meg. Know of any good compression software that will shrink it.

 

Check that if I do a low render it hits 90 meg...

[Ilidrake]

Okay I finally got it down to something manageable. Take a look and tear it apart.

finishes_here.mov

[Rodney]

I think the volume on that one just woke up everone in the house!

 

My crit:

 

Watch the animation with the sound off and tell me what you see in his performance.

I don't really see any performance.

 

What is he doing besides reciting these words?

 

"Two men enter. One man leaves."

What does that mean to him?

 

Who is he talking to? The viewer? Someone just off screen?

 

 

I would take a really deep look at that dialogue and identify the accents.

 

Now when men get to fightingit happens here and it finishes here.Two men enter. One man leaves.

 

You got pretty close to an emphasis on the first instance of the word 'here'.

The second I can sense you tried to hit but it gets lost because the character stays in that same position.

 

There is an excellent tip in Richard William's book "The Animator's Survival Kit" that speaks of progression in the character. I think that would pay off well for you here. Having the character lean forward as he nears the end of his speach (you've got some of that in there already... just progress it forward... exaggerate it! If you consider where the character will end up at the very end you can work backward from there. Here's one possible take on it:

 

Now when men get to fighting (Perhaps looking away... disinterested... main body backed away a little)

It happens here (Explodes forward to arrive at the word 'here')

And it finishes here (Perhaps lowering to table and reflecting on what he is about to say... forming the words in his mind before he is going to say them)

Two men enter. (Serious face)

One man leaves. (Transitions to Smile at mid word for 'leaves')

 

These last two facial gestures could just as easily be switched to having the smile first and following with the serious face. That would convey that this is not a good thing. The important thing however is to get that change in expression (exaggerated to show his personality) He's being a showman. He's exaggerating his dialogue on purpose. He knows what is coming so he's having fun with this!

 

But seriously, you should watch the performance with the sound off and see if you can really get a sense of what he is saying. Not just the words, but the feeling behind them. What is he thinking? Find that and nail it.

[Rodney]

This is a very rough blocking and I'm simply looking at the timing of it now.

 

Whoops. If you were just looking for a timing critique... I definitely overdid it.

Sorry about that.

 

I really think you need to nail the performance first though.

That will give you most of the timing.

 

I'll add this:

Timing is largely dictated by the dialogue and specifically by the phrasing.

That phrasing can be translated into movement of the character.

That movement of the character should be motivated.

Emotion is what drives a character do act, to do and to say.

 

Find that performance's key poses. I see five or six by my breakdown of the dialogue in the last post.

Consider what he is doing and how each of those poses play a part to build the whole thing.

There is something about the 'here' of it. This place is special to him and that's why he is emphasizing it.

[Ilidrake]

Yep I agree. I woke up this morning, replayed and almost chocked on my coffee. Terrible. Even I didn't know what he was talking about!!!! I think I was more interested in just getting comfortable with the curve graph that I forgot about performance. So I'm scratching what I have and redoing it again.

[Rodney]

Take heart. I was only going on first impression.

I SHOULD HAVE COMMENTED ON YOUR FACIAL ANIMATION but my brain refused to see it. It was too caught up in the main (body) activity.

 

I do really like what you said about sleeping on it and then reviewing again in the morning. That is sure to put a new perspective on everything.

[robcat2075]

I agree that there isn't much of a performance there, although minimalism in dialog is not necessarily bad.

 

We could spend a long time thinking of things to make for a better performance but it would take a long time because there are essential body mechanics principles that are not in play yet and we would be trying to solve many issues at once.

 

A problem with dialog animation is that it is whole-body animation on an extremely subtle level. I dread doing it. For your first steps in character animation do something that can be done BIG.

 

My suggestion is to table this dialog shot and step back to a full body acting test. A good early animation school assignment is to pick two contrasting emotions that can each be shown in a single pose (with no dialog) and animate from one to the other.

 

If you want to do that I would be glad to look in and coach on that.

 

First step, pick the two emotions and pose each one out in a hold with a bare transition between, like i showed in my "blocking" video. then we'll talk about what you have.

 

 

But back to your present clip for a second...

 

I'll note that there aren't many good occasions to have a character look into the camera. It's rare even in live action, but it' s really tough to make an animated character look good in that situation. If I were doing this I'd have him addressing imaginary listeners off-screen so he never looks at the camera.

 

That pose he has is very symmetrical (another danger of facing into the camera), he almost looks like a tripod. If we were pursuing this shot we'd really want to rethink that. But again, I say table this for now.

 

The way he moves from pose to pose, I realize this is only blocking now, but if we were to pursue this we'd talk about how to shift weight and overlapping action. But again, we could do that better working on a simpler two-pose test.

 

 

I know why your movie is so big. The "animation" codec will always make large files and you have ti set to "millions +" so there's probably an unnecessary alpha channel hidden in there two. And the audio is uncompressed Stereo

 

A better codec choice would be Sorenson or H.264. You can load a large render into the Images folder and "Save animation as" to a better codec.

 

A neater solution is with Quicktime Pro that not only re-compresses video but also gives you audio compression options. A:M doesn't have any audio compression ability.

 

I applaud you for not gesturing with two fingers and one finger for "two men enter, one man leaves..." That is what they call too "on the nose"

[Ilidrake]

Thanks for the feedback guys. So here's what I have so far. In case your wondering I kinda jump around a bit and I figured I'd try this out for giggles more than anything. Anyway, Robcat I'd love to have some coaching as I have no formal schooling in animation and I figure I have to start somewhere. So if your serious I'm all for it. I just don't know where to really start.

finishes_here.mov

[Rodney]

That is much much better!

 

There are some composition problems that distracted me the first time through so I missed a lot.

Specifically, that we can't see Latimer's hands on the table. They look as if they are missing or inside the top of the table until he raises his hands.

Yes, I know you are blocking but any place that your character makes contact with something in the scene is of maximum importance. Try to find and lock down those contact points as early as you can. Those contact points are what you are really blocking (placing/blocking out things). The rest is refinement of the character's performance.

 

As a rule lipsync is accomplished toward the end of animation (although I can think of a few exceptions).

Body language... now that's the thing.

And you've got it showing up in this take.

 

A note regarding the gesture on the (second) word 'here'. It's refinement but I would push that back even more until it no longer overlaps the election poster. That would likely be an overshoot and where you have the arm/hand stop now is the point that is at the minor extreme. It could then go past that point and slowly settle back to where it overlaps the poster again slightly on its return to (or near) that minor extreme.

 

I'm tempted to say... toss that one out and start anew again because if you keep improving at this pace every time you do... you Sir are going places!

 

For your first steps in character animation do something that can be done BIG.

 

I'm quoting these words from Robert because I really appreciate what he is telling you here.

In the early stages of (learning) animation it is really hard to animate too big.

Really exaggerate. Be fearless.

That's why I suggest throwing out the second take and starting fresh again with a new take.

This will get your mind into the habit of quickly ramping back to the place you want to be and pressing forward to the next level.

And with each time you do you get better and quicker and your keyframes will be more organized and clean.

 

 

*Of course when I say throw out I really mean Save!

While it's unlikely you'll ever go back to that take again... you may need to some day.

Save often and incrementally (ex: filename001a.prj)

[Ilidrake]

Thanks Rodney. Actually I will be going back to this take because I spent so much time doing the lipsync. I know your supposed to do that near the end but I really wanted to play with the dopesheet function a bit. I'll be playing with this take until it really flows smoothly and I learn to really push the animation. I guess I'm just feeling myself and my character Latimer out to see what we can both do. So I hope I get more feedback as I complete more sequences.

[Rodney]

I hope I get more feedback as I complete more sequences.

 

Count on it!

 

(P.S. You still owe me a script. )

 

 

BTW: Have you seen this on phonemes/lipsync: http://www.garycmartin.com/phoneme_examples.html

It's by Gary Martin who animated with A:M long before he got all famous.

[Ilidrake]

It's interesting but the more I work on the script the thicker it gets. I've been finding all the little loose ends and better ideas for dialogue, better shots, etc.....*sigh*.....fear not it is still in the works and you good sir shall recieve a copy soon.

Yes I actually have those sites converted to PDF files. As for Latimer I may have to go back inside each phenome pose and stretch them a bit because I don't think I took them as far as I need to.

[robcat2075]

On the revised shot... One thing that is working against you by having him look into the camera is that his nose is almost completely covering up his mouth. What ever work you are putting into the lip sync is getting obstructed.

 

But dialog shots are bad way to be learning character animation. At animation school, dialog is literally the last thing they let you do.

 

 

Here's a mini curriculum I'd be interested in trying with you, that would also inform my current efforts to devise a NewTAoA:M

 

1 bouncing ball

2 broad jump

3 three emotions

 

if we were to recruit a couple of other people wanting to do the same exercises that would make an interesting class.

[Rodney]

Here's a mini curriculum I'd be interested in trying with you, that would also inform my current efforts to devise a NewTAoA:M

 

1 bouncing ball

2 broad jump

3 three emotions

 

if we were to recruit a couple of other people wanting to do the same exercises that would make an interesting class.

 

I really hope you can do that.

[mouseman]

I'm coming here at least a week late, but I'd also suggest you video yourself acting to that sound effect. Do it about 10 or 15 times. Make different acting choices each time, and pick what you like about it. Get a performance of yourself that you'd like.

 

Some reasons:

 

Fixing animation is very time consuming. Doing it right or nearly right (in the right ballpark) the first time is a lot faster.

 

We tend to think that since we are human, we understand how our own body moves, AND that we can of course translate that into a 3D character/puppet. This is not the case. So much of what we do is subconscious. Working with video reference -- whether to rotoscope or just use as reference -- is quite an eye opener.

[Ilidrake]

Thanks for the feedback mouseman. I know I should film myself but to be honest I've just been too lazy to go by a camera LOL. I keep meaning to but I wake up, get my morning coffee, fire up the PC and the day just disappears LOL. I'm going to have to get one in October because me and the wife are attending the Ren Faire in Planetersville and she wants more film. Any suggestions on a good brand to pick up? Money isn't the problem so go crazy with the suggestions.

[mouseman]

Thanks for the feedback mouseman. I know I should film myself but to be honest I've just been too lazy to go by a camera LOL. I keep meaning to but I wake up, get my morning coffee, fire up the PC and the day just disappears LOL. I'm going to have to get one in October because me and the wife are attending the Ren Faire in Planetersville and she wants more film. Any suggestions on a good brand to pick up? Money isn't the problem so go crazy with the suggestions.

I have made reference video once or twice with the webcam built into my laptop. It just has to be "good enough" for a lot of cases.

 

You could always get an iPhone or Android or whatever. I'm super-impressed with my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I was never a camera elitist, so I can't speak on a very technical level, but I am overall very happy with its ability to take photos and videos. I can take more than an hour of 720p video with plenty of storage and battery space still left over, which impresses the heck out of me. Basically the cameras in the latest phones are higher quality than my ability to hold the phone still.