Thursday 14th March 2013

This week was about setting up for animating. I set up a camera directly infront of my character, using the film gate to get the best position. I also added in 3 panels to which I then assigned a Lambert and changed the colour to white. This is to symbolise a screen test, like actors do for an audition. However, now that I have created the 3 panels and the way that I've arranged them, I don't think I need all 3; perhaps just enlarge the back one so no back scene is seen, and so the background is level and it is a continuous white.

The addition of the light was a good choice. I went with a Spotlight so it was shining directly, and highlighting, my character's face. At first the position I had it in was not suitable; it showed up how rough the surface is of my model's face, particularly around the mouth. I then decided the light was too intense and this called for some adjustment.

I turned up the drop-off tab but this was too much at first so more readjustment happened. I got it just right and then adjusted the intensity. These two elements help slightly reduce the roughness of the surface.

I then decided to change the position of the arms, but whenever I adjusted the blendshapes, the arms went back to the original pose. The teaching assistant helped me overcome this by changing the position of the Skin Cluster and Blendshapes tabs in the inputs menu for the body.

I will revisit the backwall situation next time and re-check the light, still not sure about it. Also will start animating hopefully.

Friday 8th March 2013

 I brought up my storyboard so I would have reference for my mouth shapes, so I knew which ones I needed to create. I now have all the mouth shapes I need and can alter them with the sliders you can see on the left..







All the finished heads, each with a different mouth shape.







I moved one of the heads so they were all in an area together. It also leaves space around the main head so I can animate without other heads getting in the way. I was thinking of adding a white background panel behind my character just so there isn't any negative space when I'm animating, and also give my animation the sense of it being similar to a screen test.

Thursday 7th March 2013

I needed a lot of help again today. To start off with, I was told I needed to add weights to my model by 'painting' on it. Essentially, it's to highlight areas that will be most animated and so this makes it easier. The brightest white areas are ones that will be affected most, and where it is black it won't be affected at all.

This is a blendshape that was created for me in the last taught session. The sliders will help me easily animate and switch between mouth shapes.









I tried to have a go at making one for myself, but for a long while I was stuck on this as I wasn't sure how to change the mouth shape. I then found out that it's just a simple matter of using the move tool on vertices and adjusting the mouth that way. The soft brush tool (which is shown here) allows me to select more than one vertex at a time.

 This is the end result of my own blendshape experiment. It's an "Ah" shape. I have several duplicate heads that I have attached a blendshape to, then selected the main head last so it is the parent. I will use the different heads to give me the different mouth shapes that I need.






It was also pointed out to me today that my topology for my face wasn't correct. The areas around the mouth and eyes should have been circular topology. Apparently, this will makes things easier to animate and create mouth shapes. However, I have decided to carry on with my model as it is, as I feel I've come too far with my model to go back and I need to use my time for animating.