Character Animation for Film and Games

Getting dog-walked by walk cycles 

Animation is intimidating and brilliant. It is performance, storytelling and very technical. After 3D modelling, 3D animation is almost an entirely different beast. So I decided to break it down : 

Page from my journal

With prior tinkering in 2D animation, I know a couple of things, but I have yet to be able to execute those theories in practice. Down below are pages of independent study from my journal covering the basics:

My home-cooked curriculum from 2023

HOW DOES THIS MOTION FEEL? 

This is an important question I ask when critiquing my many attempts at walk cycles, posing and breakdown poses. I can gauge whether something is working based on the way it feels. As humans we can tell when something ventures into the uncanny valley, it's the same with movement, any slight hesitation, glitch or jumpiness and you can tell that something is off. I rely on this intuition.

ANIMATING IN 3D: 

At present, I have some undeniable but big questions I need the answers to:

What is the approach to making an animation sequence in Maya? (b) And what do all the numbers mean? (puzzled face)

I am an intuitive learner who relies on feeling it out / understanding the basic physics before moving on. I understand that there is a difference between the application of 3D animation and traditional 2D, but I know that they are rooted in the same principles. 

I studied the hierarchy of poses: How to structure a sequence based off of the story-telling poses and then proceed with in-betweens to “cushion” the action. Here I have provided sketchbook scratchings and notes on my independent study:

[Time charts, timing/spacing & frame breakdowns]

Practicing how to break up frames

I outlined key learning outcomes that I wanted to nail on the head by Week 3

1. Complete a 3D Walk cycle.

That’s it. 

I have a feeling that If I can do a smooth, complete walk cycle with an appropriate timing then I can move on to more complex, colourful sequences but before that, I need to focus on nailing the walk cycle.

THINKING IN 2D: 

I think in 2D before I can translate to 3D. I wanted to learn the art of the timing chart so I implemented this learning process with timing and spacing and went straight to the pen and tablet to do a quick 2D walk cycle.

(I have been using  ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’, by Richard Williams as a point of reference/study for most of this process.)

A quick walk_cycle study I did before going to Maya

The walk cycle is very fast in the GIF above, running at a rate of 30 frames, but it helped to drive home the contact, down etc positions before I went into Maya to do this on a Rig. 

Week 2: In class:

I practised posing from references using a simple rig sourced from Ugur ulvi yetskin. I found this exercise surprisingly fun and an excellent exercise for people like myself, who like tinkering to get the exact pose. It helped to interact with a basic rig and use the controls available. I realised a gap in my knowledge of the FK / IK controls so I took note of that to delve into my independent study. 

At home:

I really wanted to get stuck into animating, but I knew I needed to go in order. For some time now, nailing the walk cycle has been a thorn and compass in my animation journey. I have been practicing walk cycles in 2D for some time now and have a firm understanding of the main extreme poses but executing a clean, smooth walk cycle is still something I am working on.

My very first attempt with no direction: 

Rig Credits: 'Rocket Girl' - vmcomix on Gumroad

I found an excellent tutorial taught by Mark Masters on YouTube for animating a 3D walk cycle. Per Mark's video, I used this great body rig credited to Anim_Matt to pose out the first two contact poses. 

I used reference images from a video to pose the two extremes seen above.

There is a Contact pose on frames #1 and #32 with the usual Down, Passing, and Up poses in between.

Please excuse the quality 

 The walk is off. 

It looks wrong because at this point I did not fully grasp the importance of each pose. 

Switching to 24FPS and Trying Again: 

For a change of pace, I wanted to try something more fun and exaggerated. 

Snapshot of my poses for this walk_cycle

I loved pushing the heel placement and the pelvic rotation
to mimic high heels

There has been progress since the last walk cycle but there is room for much improvement.  I didn't use any references for this walk as It was just for fun but going forward I will be stricter about using references.

FEEDBACK: 

A valuable piece of feedback was to check if the hip control would create a figure 8 shape using the motion trail. This allowed me to slowly understand how weight is distributed and rolled from one leg to the other. 

Week 3 - POSE-TO-POSE & PLANNING PERFORMANCE

Posing is significant in the readability and planning of a sequence/shot.

I want to get to juicier action sequences so I practised a couple of poses as a warm-up. 

[BEFORE THURSDAY 15/02]

After doing a practice analysis in class with this clip, I wanted to test how much I understood by going into Maya and trying to mimic the sequence with this rig. I plugged into 2D to establish the main storytelling poses, using what I learned from video game designer Masahiro Sakurai in this 3-minute video breaking down Attack Animations.

thumbnail from video

By hand drawing the most important frames, I was able to break down the movements between the sword and the character during the follow-through, ie, when the head lulls forwards from the impact of the landing, the sword would consequentially lull up due to the shifting of weight. 2D drawing helped me understand the physics behind the action. 

Breathing: What animators call the 'Keep Alive' workflow

I wanted to animate something smaller but significant to the essence of character, breathing. Using the Leo_TMNT rig made by Kiel Figgins, I first did my own straight ahead and then another which followed instructions via several tutorials, one notably by SirWade on Youtube. 

Intentions: 

I aim to choreograph a fight sequence and what I noticed was the importance of breath as an anticipatory and even concluding action within a performance. Part of the several fight choreographies I play though in my mind, it's often in the breath where a decision is made. I liked the importance of breath in the narrative so I decided to play with this. 

(Leo Rig by Kiel Figgins)

Timing & Spacing: Using the pendulum exercise

Ease-In: 

Ease-out with anticipation: my favourite

My mental run-through of the Animation workflow :

Idea ->Storyboard->Reference/Character rig -> Test Rig -> Rework Choreography-> Block out-> Key poses -> refine 

I learned the hard way that using the straight-ahead method of animating may be fun but it quickly becomes messy. 

The Importance of a 'Pause' in a fight sequence: "Acting is Reacting"

I only understood the importance of a pause once I realised that acting is reacting. 

A pause is essential as a cue for one action to be responded to. In this playblast, the action is too fast, and even I the animator can barely understand what happened. I am so glad I chose to do a fight sequence because I needed to come face to face with two animated components/actors who are responding to one another's actions and timing. 

Starting my Fight Sequence: 

Storyboard First, Live reference Second

It's very challenging as It can get very messy but a lot of fun is to be had when getting stuck in. I couldn't have asked for a better way to get acquainted with the principles of animation. 

For the fight sequence, I chose to use my favourite anime as an inspiration and enlisted my brother who has experience in boxing to help choreograph for reference. 

snapshot from my pure ref file with images of my brother taking me through stances and weight distribution

I blocked out the key poses but somewhere in between I lost confidence and became puzzled at what point I rely on the interpolation in Maya and when I should place an in-between. The blocking I believe read well but in the process of refining the key poses, I struggled.

Blue Fighter

Red Fighter

Rig Credit: AnimMatt on Gumroad

Playing with the camera: Using a Dutch angle 

Lip Sync performance: 

I did not have a clear idea of what and whom I wanted to lip sync but I do know that I wanted it to be something that emotionally resonated with me so I could use that feeling to know what would work and wouldn't.

Dialogue and tone are important to me so when choosing which direction I wanted to take the lip sync, whether it was slapstick, comedy or drama, I decided it would be something that would include microexpressions, and the dialogue itself would be personal, vulnerable and emotionally grounding. 

I compiled a few audios and chose the ones which would allow me to practice microexpressions while keeping the amount of people in the scene minimal.: 

"You cry." - Excerpt from The Midnight Gospel, a heartbreaking conversation between Duncan Trussel and his Mum (now passed) discussing her Cancer Diagnosis and the inevitability of death and life. 

"Becker" (warning: profanity ) - BoJack Horseman, BoJact the titular character is giving a eulogy speech for his mother with whom he had a rocky relationship. 

"The Puzzle" - BoJack Horseman S06 EP 14, Diane's conversation with her Ex-Husband about never quite feeling whole but gradually coming into oneself. 

Acting is HARD. Acting is hard when you are trying to portray the truth belonging to someone else whilst still in your body and wearing your face. 

I took several takes, some standing, some sitting, and looking back, I wish I utilised my body more, but I chose the take which had the right amount of acting and not too much where it felt like an exaggeration. 

I used the intonation/stresses of certain words and moments in the dialogue and drew a chart of the peak of emotion and its follow-through. I went into sync sketch and established key poses. 

Initial face testing with a different rig

Scene Setup: 

As the dialogue is through a phone, I chose a simple scene where the setting is a living room what a singular character. 

Living Room Asset: Ralph Cancellier

Claire Rig: Jonamar Palejo

Scene Set up in Maya

Initially, I intended to add lighting to the scene in the playblast but soon realised that the eyes are only visible in Arnold renderer and due to prioritising the lipsync itself I chose to forego the lighting altogether. 

In the beginning, the lip sync can often resemble animatronics and wander into the uncanny valley. I realised that the eyes had to be directed with intentionality or they would look glazed over and devoid of life. 

Some feedback I received was to stretch and exaggerate certain visemes.. For example with "lee" or "ff", I was told to make the mouth shapes more prominent or to push the tongue out more. This helped me to see the movement of the mouth from a distance and not frame to frame. 

With lipsync, I understood the importance of posing/animating the body first and then the mouth. I used a combination of straight-ahead animation. I used the head movements to emphasise certain words as the voice actor of Diane has very crisp pronunciations and lands pointedly on "Ls", and "Dd"s with lightness in some parts. There were quite a few things to look out for which helped build the shot. 

Rose, Thorn, & Bud: Lip Sync

The Rose: 

I believe I managed to make a convincing lip sync, which was mostly believable. For a first attempt, I like how the mouth shapes are. I painstakingly made almost every mouth shape as I discovered the mouth control far too late. I also enjoyed animating even if it was difficult. 

Thorn: 

To prioritise the face, I failed to animate the rest of the body with strong posing and timing. The overall animation is bland, due to the stale animation of the body where it is not doing much I believe this affected the overall performance. I am excited however to take this further and have more fun with posing the body to help the lipsync.

Bud: 

Performance is fun and invigorating. I love it all. I am not an actor and do not like being in front of the camera but I love performance and acting itself. Lipsync is such a force for storytelling and I think a seed has been planted as I am quite taken by this side of the pipeline and am considering lipsync for the upcoming project. 

Rose, Thorn, & Bud: Fight Sequence

The Rose:

I animated a 5 second fight sequence for the first time. I am happy that I was able to animate two interacting components. I understand more about animating moving/running characters and how weight shifts from one side to the other.

Thorn: 

Timing, and in-between-ing. I struggled immensely to apply my understanding of timing and how to space the poses apart. I realised how to use the ease in/out anim bot button far too late and this cost me. I was racing against time, and I have a unsmooth, and poorly timed animation. I need to revisit the fundamentals and practice timing and spacing thoroughly alongside animbot. 

Bud:

I am aware of where I have gone wrong, and where I failed to apply the principles but this for me is a starting point as I will attempt another fight sequence but with the experience of having animated this one. I am going to be more intentional with where I place keyframes and how many in-betweens I have between them. Refining with the graph editor is going to be a key focus going forward. 

Conclusion:

Animation is fantastic, It is a lot of fun even when it's painfully difficult. I am glad I chose two different types of animation, ie. lip sync and a fight sequence because I was able to clumsily interact with the tools and principles in different contexts, and stumble through the workflow. The final animations are admittedly awkward and unrefined but I am glad to have at least established some groundwork and have plans to dedicate my upcoming project to 3D animation.