"Acting for Animation" Icebreakers

Introductions: Students interview each other for 10 minutes, and introduce each other.
"The Greatest Thing": Students get into groups. One person comes in and pitches the greatest thing he has ever seen. The others in the group act accordingly once they find out what that thing is.

"Poker Face" : Students are dealt Texas Hold Em hands. Once they see their cards, they have to make a face that is opposite of what they normally would express if they were to see this hand in a real game. The intensity must also be expressed.

I Love You Honey: Everyone sits in a circle, one person is in the middle. The person in the middle approaches a person and says "I Love You Honey", and the person must respond (without laughing), "I love you too, but I just can't smile". If the person laughs, they are IT.

Murder

King and Slave

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Adjective Marathon

Moods Game

Waiting For The Bus.

Pokerface

Palm Tree, Elephant, Giraffe

Freeze with Props or Without

2 Line Vocabulary

Baby I love you honey

Questions Only

Assignment 17 : Santa Final Render

Here is the final render of "Santa, I Know Him".

Santa, I Know Him from randolfd on Vimeo.

Assignment 16 : "Guitarbite" Final Animation

AC/DC Monologue Extended from randolfd on Vimeo.
I'm not sure yet about the background color, but it works for now. Enjoy!

Assignment 15 : Test Render

For this piece, I wanted an ominous feel to add to the story, but in the end, after the monologue, we switch to our brightly lit future nursing home...a little touch of contrast to brighten the piece.

Assignment 16 : Test Render

This is my first pass at a simple environment and render for this scene. I wanted to suggest a department store in a simple way so the the characters stand out. I like how this looks so far.

Assignment 16 : Dialogue - Rough Blockin

Assignment 15: Push Pull Final Render II

Assignment 15: Push Pull Final Render II from randolfd on Vimeo.

Assignment 14 : Gear Change II , 4 Emotion Final Render

Assignment 14 : 4 Emotion, "Ghost Coin" from randolfd on Vimeo.

Assignment 16 : Character Monologue 1

Below is a blocked in test of my monologue. I'm thinking about possible environments for background and came up with a few: a future nursing home, a hangar of star pilots, a park.

Assignment 15: Push Pull Final Render I

This is almost done. In looking at this now, there are many things that still need fixing. These are listed below:

Place spotlights outside the door to simulate a delivery vehicle.
Flicker to the candle lights.
Remove some of the movements to simplify the action.
Sliding feet when he pulls.
Parent hand controls moving object.
Add a pizza logo texture to pizza box.

Assignment 15 UPDATE: Pushing & Pulling

This animation is due this week and attached is my latest progress. The animation is turning out much longer than anticipated and I see many ares that can be smoothed out a great deal, using the graph editor, and I still have to refine the hand positioning.

I was able to block in the pizza, and a back turn. Its one of those things that you have to put away for a while so you can look at it objectively with fresh eyes in the morning.

Assignment 15: Lighting Test

Before I conduct a final render on this animation, I thought I'd add lights to add to the mood. Of my various tests, I like these the most.

Assignment 15 : Animation & Music are the Same

Regarding the Igor animation below, Dori, one of my advisors recommended I see animation and music as being the same. The sound clip offers a good example of this and its something to keep in mind when I work. Igor's travelling movements should be fast and his pulls should be slow, the concept is similar to what is demonstrated in the soundclip below. Both animation and music benefit a great deal with the addition of color (variety and contrast) to the overall composition.

Assignment 15 : Pushing and Pulling Animation Update

Here is the latest. The animation is longer than I had originally expected, but I'm liking the way its looking, so I'm devoting one more week. I've adjusted the timing throughout. I need to animate the end and yes, I'm stil going with the pizza idea. Up to this point, I've gotten really familiar with the dope sheet. I hope to post the completed piece here once it is complete.

Things to Fix:

• Slow the pulls and pushes to contrast his movement from one place to another.
• Consider pushing with his back during the first push.
• Too floaty in the beginning.
• Open hands before grabs.
• Adjust hands to hold the ring.
• Too much head movement.
• More frames during first jump.

Assignment 15 : Body Mechanics / Pushing Pulling Animatic

Here's my first pass at this animation. Learning from the previous project, I need to stagger my timing more, by adding more slow movement to contrast with the quick movements. I'm also thinking about getting rid of the pizza idea and just having Igor run out of the door, but in looking at it again, I really like the payoff.

Assignment 15 : Body Mechanics / Pushing Pulling

Assignment 15:
Animate a character engaged in a sport, or have him push or pull something.

Here is a storyboard breakdown of what I had planned.

Assignment 14 Update : 4 Emotion / Gear Change

I learned a lot in this assignment. Technically, I got used to animating using the "bookend" technique, which places two of the same keyframes spaced about 12 frames apart. The action is placed in between in order to control the animation process.

I also learned the value of planning and simplicity. The ability to be able to break down the animation to its key components, enough to be able to count what you are wanting to animate on your hand, greatly simplifies the process and makes things clearer. Why do I need to write this? Because ambition gets the best of us. We want to do well, and therefore, doing more than what's expected, even though the intention is good, we lose sight of what we are trying to do.

Here's the latest. I think it plays a little fast, and I'd like to slow down the peak-through at the end.

Assignment 14 or 12 : Gear Change 2 or Animating 4 Emotions

Animating 4 Emotions from randolfd on Vimeo.


This original assignment was to animate a second gearchange different from the first. In all of these assignments, its extremely easy to get too carried away, and to animate more than is needed. Its by far the most difficult thing to overcome that I think will get better through experience. The most simple way to prevent this is through planning.

For this assignment, instead of two emotions, the character is now experiencing 5 emotions: sadness, surprised, fear, inquisitiveness and happiness, followed by pain. I was too deep into the animation before I realized I had done too much. I think its a good example of the 4 emotion assignment that I am supposed to undertake in the next few weeks.

Some tips for this successful completion of this assignement:

Research:
Think of a funny incident that has happened to you, and act it out in front of a video camera. You will use this as reference, and you will watch it step by step so you can get a realistic idea of the timing involved, as well as little nuances in the acting that will give the performance variety and realism.

Planning:
Be sure you are clear which emotions are being portrayed, write these down and stick to them.

Stepping:
Pose your rig in the timeline, making sure that you hold each pose by placing two identical keyframes to hold the pose. 48 frames is a good duration for a pause. Shorter pauses should be 24 frames. These pauses act as periods in the performance which gives the viewer a split second to understand what is going on. In Maya, step these performance so you have a rough idea of timing.

To step your keyframes:
Shift + LC drag you mouse over the frames you want (they should be highlighted red) > RC > Tangents > Stepped.

Animating:
After posing, begin to animate the spine and center of gravity from one emotion to the next. In traditional stage drama, it is part of an actor's training to express oneself from the inside out. In animation, we'll do something similar, let's animate the spine and center of gravity first before doing the limbs and head. This technique adds a natural moving pause to your movement (moving pause link here).

After you have animated the spine, torso and center of gravity, begin to animate the limbs and head. In animating the arm, animate the upper arm first, followed by the elbow, then wrist rotation. At this point, you are animating follow through and overlapping animation, which will make your piece look more realistic.

At this point, its essential to remove the stepping from your playback so you have a better idea of how things are turning out.

Finishing Touches:
Be sure to check your work and seek feedback to improve our work. After more finishing touches, use the graph editor to smooth your animation and to refine your arcs.

Tip:
One thing to keep in mind while animating, is to add a variety of speeds in your animation. Mix fast movement with slow movement. This adds contrast and visual interest to your piece. A good example of this is explained in Victor Navone's blog on Animating 3 speeds.

Click the link below to explore more:
http://www.navone.org/blogger/2007/09/3-speeds.html

Assignment 8 : Gear Change II

Assignment 8 : Gear Change Assignment from randolfd on Vimeo.
Critique:

• Watch for the rotation of the hip. Adjust this to create a better line of action within the character's spine.
• Get more of sway in the spine by animating the root, and having the rest of the body overlap, followed by head sway and arms.
• Get more of the "jacked up" in the main keyposes and do not don distort the figure too much.

Observations / Things to watch out for from the rest of the class:

• When animating overlap, animate the spine, head then arms. Hide these layers so can focus on each individually.
• When animating emotion, make sure we see the character realize the event..pause...then have the charater react.
• Watch for twinning in poses.
• Add moving holds. In poses where there could be a definite pause, other parts of the body should move as well.
• Add more anticipation.
• Make sure silhouettes are readable.
• Animate the scene for emotion, not just movement.
• The hardest task is to simplify the action to its essential elements. Animating a 22 second animation in a week will make for a weak animated piece.
• The character is always looking for or thinking of something.

MIDTERM : Run Cycle

Igor Run Cycle from randolfd and Vimeo.

This assignment was given week 5, almost like an animation test. Students had two hours to complete the assignment.