sh0265_CPD_meek - Animation

[Michael Cawood - Director]

If this is your first shot please check the Animator's Handbook for tips.

 

sh0265 (10 + 42 + 10 frames including handles)

In shot 260 Death looks over at Cupid (over the top of her glasses). He sits in his chair already firing a beam, lifts to pause before firing another. He's a little frustrated, and crunches up his mouth, looking at Death out of the corner of his eyes. But he also starts out a little afraid of Death so he's trying his best to hide his true feelings from her and making sure to appear meek and under her control. He may even flash a fake smile, and over the course of the shot he starts to become flippant and bored.

The layout file is here:
C:\Devils_Angels_Dating\My Dropbox\027_Animation_CPD_plus\sh0265_CPD_meek

Then when you start to animate save the file in the same folder with your own initials and a higher version number.

Please ask any questions you have in this thread, and post updates here. Make sure videos and images go in the appropriate sections first then post links or code for them in this thread so that we can discuss it. Note that it can be useful to post videos on YouTube, then just copy the code to this forum, as it allows us to use the video in other YouTube playlists. If you do this wait a little while between uploading to YouTube and pasting the code here, if you do it too quickly YouTube won't have made a thumbnail image yet and we get nothing on this site, making it hard to find in our gallery. Try to label entries by the full shot name as well, with decent tags and key words.

We also need one maintained playblast in the Dropbox folder that's always the latest and it's named after the shot (nothing more, and only one video). Again, study the Animator's Handbook for guidelines to avoid repeated nagging in your feedback and keep all the notes focused on the animation.

Good luck.

Click here to jump to the shot in the edit.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

By the way, if you use the "Reply to Discussion" link below the "Reply" link it doesn't repost everything I just said.

[Kevin Brennan]

Michael Cawood - Director said:

I don't think Cupid ever got that other centre of mass control, as most people haven't reported using it, and his hands are much larger anyway. Devils hands were just so small it helped. You can constrain the IK hand to the wand if that's what you want.

ya ill probably do that... just didnt want to mess around with your rig too much.. got to be careful not to break it :) its very cool

[Kevin Brennan]

will do

[Kevin Brennan]

hay mike

im working on the block in here today... going alright... just wondering... is there any way i might be able to speed up the sceen in maya... ive hidden everything apart from what im animating and using the proxy mesh... just wondering if there is anything i havent thought off that could be making it run slow.. its workable... but faster would be easier

[Michael Cawood - Director]

The top thing you can do is go to the reference editor and untick the assets you don't need to see. Don't remove them, just untick them. Tick them again when you want to work on them. The Maya scene remembers all the animation on it still. Just don't try to untick something something else is dependent on, e.g. don't remove the chair a character is sitting on.

[Kevin Brennan]

Hay mike

i droped a block in avi and file update into the folder... i cant seem to compact the size of the avi... codex or ffds dont seem to be doing the job. its a fairly rough block and ive just realised i didnt allow for the 10 frame handles so i'll regig it. anyway have a look at let me know if im going in the right direction...

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Thanks Kevin. I've renamed your Maya file to fit our file convention. You had two version numbers in there and yet neither of them was higher than the last one :P

I'd highly recommend you get Quicktime Pro to compress your videos, it's better than anything else you're likely to have. Here's some compression tips:
http://devilsangelsanddating.ning.com/xn/detail/2892810:Comment:20370

I'll compress it for now, but can you upload to YouTube and post it here and in the video gallery? We depend on everyone doing that to keep this ship moving forward. I'm also going to replace the existing video file in Dropbox, as that's how you get your video automatically into the edit. Can you also do your playblasts at 720 x 405, so that they fit the edit perfectly and have the correct aspect ratio?

[Michael Cawood - Director]

The YouTube Thumbnails are currently being annoying and not coming through but I think they might work if you use the old embed code style rather than the newer iframe style.

[Kevin Brennan]

ok will do mike, and i thought i labelled those right :)
ill get quicktime pro... had been putting that off for a bit, and ill post it again when i get it up and running.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

There are other ways to compress the video, but having tried most of them, I can honestly say that Quicktime Pro is the best by a long stretch, that you can buy for under a few hundred bucks. I make H264 files out of Premiere and I still re-compress them in Quicktime! They come out one tenth the size.

Anyway I'm looking at your shot in the edit now.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Notes...

1) I'd actually imagined him casting his wand in a much more relaxed way. It's great you went big, and that's normally the best starting point, but in this case I'd keep it smaller and focus on his facial expressions.

2) Avoid the wand getting in teh way of his face. We'll draw attention to his face here so that we see how he's reacting to being made to go back to work after being rejected by Death.

3) Death's left hand stays at her glasses. Check the shots either side of yours in the edit.
C:\Devils_Angels_Dating\My Dropbox\Edit

4) Death is holding her wand in her left hand. It doesn't have to be prominent, but she can't have her hand planted flat on teh chair.

5) Push both characters down into the chair cushion and use the chair controls to squash the cushion appropriately (they're at the bottom of the chair under the cloud layer). Think of the chair as a bean bag.

Good start, just a few continuity issues, but that's expected as you get used to the project. Can you still post the YouTube clip though? It really helps.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

6) It also looks like you've got Death's tail curled up a bit too far. It's not that noticeable but it doesn't seem the same pose as the shots either side.