We start the second half of the animation Strategies assignment by focusing on some of the most important types of animations outside of walks and runs, along with a few other exercises to ease us into the final outcomes. Once again, I can create these in 2D or 3D or both, so lets begin.
Weight Lift
Before discussing weight, we started by having a Snow Rig throw a ball up and down in 1 hand.
We had 2 choices this morning for this exercise: Lift a Barbell in 2D or lift a boulder in 3D. Our 2D had to be started from scratch while the 3D was already prepared with keyframes in place. Obviously I could do a barbell in 3D or lift a boulder in 2D if I want to. But first we gather reference.
The weight lifting reference I’m drawn to most would the the strongman with the boulder.
My main attempt at lifting a heavy weight in 3D with the Snow rig. I was quite happy to be able to actually finish this, however, even with the bezier adjustments, I still feel confused on how to smooth it out. I may have too many keyframes, and they are all happening too quickly, leading to a glitchy appearance.
AODHAN’S SUGGESTIONS: Lift, too jittery, and weight changes as he’s lifting the rock, have another look at your reference
340kg / 750lbs Deadlift @100kg (youtube.com)
That afternoon, I practiced doing the weight lift from reference in Toon Boom. I mostly focused on the form, and tried to make it look like he’s lifting a heavier weight by adding a shake in his form in 1s. It has potential.
Later on I ended up taking an unorthodox approach, by starting this 1 all over again…
I found this video of Erin Humison, an animator for Bob’s Burgers, and I decided to adopt his approach, in which he would record himself for reference.
I decided to record myself lifting a Bass Amp, hoping it will get the right effect.
Angle One: 3/4 view.
Angle two: side view. I think this 1 has better shapes, so I choose it.
The footage was shot at 24 fps. I then, for convenience-sake, imported the footage into Clip Studio Paint. Not because I can’t do this in Toon Boom, but because Clip Studio Paint responded more quickly in what I planned to do: I blocked out an animation from the footage. I kept the flow of it in 4s – leading to 74 cels rather than nearly 300, then exported the block-out into Toon Boom, which put all of the images in a row on 1s – making a 12 second reference 3 seconds long – and it flowed well. By being in 1s, I then had control over whether to make them into 2s and 3s, and therefore use fewer frames yet again.
Rather than just blocking as a form of tracing, I wanted to put this back arch from the Animator’s Survival Kit into practice. It is clear from the reference that this shows an emphasis of lifting with one’s back, with all of the weight on the knees.
This is the blocking phase. The Amp, for some reason, reminds me more of an old analogue television…and probably the same size.
After the block out of the character I chose to stick to basic line art on top. By giving him a winter coat with the hood up, I am able to keep the design simple to duplicate frame after frame.
Long Jump
This 1 is quite open – we received a Snow Rig with keyframes for the 3D, and to simply start from scratch in 2D.
We were given a snow rig file that contained several keyframes inside, which, when put together they make up a jump. I proceeded to rearrange the timing of the keyframes, as well as create a few new in-betweens to smooth it out. The jump is too long in the air and too abrupt coming down.
AODHAN’S SUGGESTIONS: Jump start is looking good, feet slides when he lands, there’s as jump mid air, hold him at top of jump arc for a frame more
my 1st attempt at the jump in 2D. It is based on the reference above, and very primitive.
I decided to adjust this jump by fixing the slide back and turning it into a slide forward. I then added a cube to give him something to jump over.
Lip Sync
Before practicing lip-syncing, we practiced animating a turning head, knowing that moving the head will add a lot more depth to the lip sync and body language.
I started off by practicing with a short Lip Sync exercise were, persumibly a Zombie says “I smell human”.
I also tried out the lip syncing exercises provided for the Rain Rig, along with a little Pirate Dialogue. The preset mouths look awesome, but I think I may try to do this project in 2D this time.
After this, I had to search for a piece of dialogue that lasts 8 to 10 seconds. I narrowed down my initial options to an answer from Evel Knievel in a 1967 interview, and the famous line about punctuality from Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.
Dialogue begins 22 seconds into video.
…There are a lot of mouth shapes in these 10 seconds. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew here.
Compared to Evel Knievel, this is a lot easier.
First attempt at Gandalf. The animation starts 4 seconds in.
AODHAN’S SUGGESTIONS: focus on vowels, too many mouths shapes atm. You don’t need to hit every syllable. Have a look Richard Williams lip sync.
Upon this, I decided to try and tidy up the current Gandalf while also trying to create a new one.
It started with me trying to build Gandalf up with basic shapes, and also tidying up the other one.
The harsh reality of both projects is that the in-betweens were doomed to be very untidy. Especially when it came to the turning of the head and position of eyes and nose. So, I decided to use Erin Humiston’s approach for this animation as well by using myself as reference (again). Starting by photographing myself as if with a Sports setting, and then deciding to just film myself and putting it on youtube unlisted before downloading it. After this I outlined key shapes with dotted lines (to decipher between rough and linework) and built the character over the top of it.
In terms of the lip sync choices, I’m following Aodhan’s advice to use less mouth shapes. I decided to study a little bit of anime (in my case, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and noticed that most mouth movements were in 3s and 4s (and even 5s), and usually only consisted of 2 open mouths and a closed 1. The 2 open mouths were usually just open and more open versions of a wide or narrow mouth. The reason for this would be based on the structure of the Japanese language, in which every sound ends with a vowel (Ah, Ee, Oo, Eh, Oh) – and the lip sync reference we were given shows that a simple, open mouth can be used for Ah, Ee, Eh and Oh – and to make ‘Oo’ you make an O shape with the mouth. Meaning that you can make an anime lip sync with just 4 mouths altogether. So I’ve decided that this is what I’ll do.
At first I wanted to try and create a reference that didn’t have me on camera again. The goal was to keep the face’s proportions in the right place, at the right scale and at the right angle. The wooden doll could work. But I feel like I need to do more. The lack of organic movement is not good reference this time.
I used a sports photography approach to this reference rather than record it (in an effort to transfer it) – but I need a better reference than this for the frame rate.
This is the basic foundation of what will be the new Gandalf Lip Sync.
and here is the result. It’s a bit fast, but that’s because the frames are all on 1s. Personally I like the dotted line approach because it lets you know this is a rough layer.
The lip sync foundation, now refined to match the audio with fewer frames and now ranging between 1s and 4s, rather than all 1s.
The end result of the lip sync exercise, consisting of few mouth movements and aiming to be 2 frames ahead of the audio, I think, has worked well.
REFLECTION
Am I better at these exercises now, compared to in November? Yes, I would say so. But there is still a lot of room for improvement. I continue to tackle the software a little bit, but I’m happy that I’m getting better at Toon Boom and finding ways in which to get the Job done. I’m also happy at discovering the compatibility of file transfers between Toon Boom and Clip Studio Paint, as I think it saves me some time when it comes to blocking out a scene. Especially when it comes to animation cels and their reference. I say this, in particular, with the weight lifting exercise, in which I struggled to present the physics consistently, while also, perhaps, presenting a small story. In the end, I am happy with its result, even though it didn’t exaggerate the heaviness of the weight or the struggle of the lifter. The Jump would have been the area I had the most difficult time with. Partly due to the fact I’m still refining my walk and run cycles for my portfolio. The skid up to the cube would be more of a cartoon quality than a real one, but I think it does the job. It took a while to figure out the best way to create the Lip Sync, but I found it to be quite fun when exploring the options. I find myself enjoying the creation of reference material, so I plan to do more of that in future as it makes my life easier. The feedback I received in order to develop the animations further proved to be helpful – especially for the lip syncing. After having it in my head that I needed to draw every sound, it is good to know it is much simpler than that. In future, I think I will put more time into tidying up the aesthetic of my 2D characters.