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]

Hehe. Yeah it's really easy to mis-interpret things in the written word. No worries.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Please post your progress in the correct thread and as a new entry in the gallery.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

I'm reposting this for Kevin:

Please ensure that your updates are posted in this thread, the video gallery and your Dropbox folder. I've posted it here so that we can keep things progressing.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Sorry if there's any confusion here, I was busy sorting out the storyreel update and checking your stuff was in the right place was just making matters more complicated. On to the animation notes...

1) The scene serves it's physical function but not it's emotional function at the moment. I'll repost the brief - "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."

2) So his head is turned way too far toward Death... he needs to be trying to conceal his emotions from her so he would be looking out of the side of his eyes at her.

3) All the Physical actions are too big and they're distracting from his eyes. Since his eyes are going to tell the story in this shot, tone everything down so that the audience gets a chance to see them without too much distraction. This includes reducing the distance the chair travels forward.

4) Since the detail is in his face and he's not large on screen try playblasting at 1280x720 for future updates so that we can see the extra detail.

Previous passes have been about getting the physical action to fit the sequence of events but you need to focus on quality poses, facial expressions, timing and arcs next. Essentially the quality.

[Kevin Brennan]

righto... will do.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Hey Kevin, Raj is going to have a go at this shot to try and get it ready for the festival. I hope your animation test is working out well.

[Kevin Brennan]

oh that fine Micheal, hope it all goes really well. test is going not too bad.. havent had a nervous breakdown yet so thats good for me :)

cheers
kev

[Alok Joshi]

Michael can you please check both of the files...Layout file and Kevin's file both are crashing after loading all references.... :(

[Michael Cawood - Director]

I checked both files. They're fine. Sounds like your Anzovin plugin isn't autoloaded. Got to your plugin menu and make sure it's ticked on before loading a scene.

On another note, I see that Kevin's scene was created with a student license version of Maya. I had to deal with that once before and there were complications that meant I had to rebuild the scene from scratch in another version of Maya with some complex importing and exporting. I don't know for sure that it was caused by the student version and it was all recovered, but if you're at all included to want to start from the layout file that would be something we'd avoid (I spent over a day rebuilding that scene, but it was more complex than this one).

[Alok Joshi]

Yeah...It was Anzovin! File's are opening now...... i'll use the Layout file.

[Michael Cawood - Director]

Actually if you want to use the animation and transfer it to the layout file you can use something like Zoo tools or Maya's own animation export tool to bring it over. Since it's just two characters it should be much easier than what I had to do for the other scene. Trouble is I still use 2009 mostly and I can't seem to get Zoo tools working in 2011 (which is what the newer files appears to be saved in).

[Alok Joshi]

Yes i'll try that :)