My FMP continues an idea I had before. The story follows Xi (Red) and Xu (Blue), sisters from a martial arts family. After a long day of training, they were both completely exhausted. The last bit of food became the target of their fierce competition, and neither of them was willing to give up. Who will end up with the food in the end?
I’ve already completed the storyboard and have started designing the characters.
Xu（Red one）: She’s the bold and passionate one, always full of energy and doing things her own way. To reflect her personality, I’m using red as her primary color. It’s such a vibrant and fiery shade
Xi: On the other hand, Xi is calm and composed, the complete opposite of Xu. She has this serene and grounded energy, so I’ve chosen blue as her main color. It feels cool and steady, just like her personality.
I want to add Chinese traditional elements in my animation. So I refer to the ancient Chinese martial arts costumes
When a person wants to convey information, speaking is not the only method. Body language, eye contact, and facial expressions can all serve as effective means of communication. As an animator, using body language to “describe” a character is an essential skill. Characters with different personalities will have distinct ways of walking. For example, an arrogant person might exaggerate their arm movements while walking, while a timid person might try to make themselves smaller. The same principles apply to animal characters. Therefore, animators need to study the complexity of human or animal movements and observe body language in various scenarios.
Adding exaggerated elements like “squash and stretch” based on reality can enrich characters and animations. Additionally, clear action silhouettes and action lines (such as S-curves or C-curves) can enhance the readability of the animation, making it easier for the audience to understand the characters’ actions and emotions. In my project, the tail is a crucial character element. In animation, S-curves and C-curves are essential for the tail’s flexibility, making the character more dynamic. When transitioning from one action to another, extending the duration of the previous action and adding slight oscillations can increase the character’s realism. Due to rigging limitations, my character currently lacks “squash and stretch” effects, so I plan to learn how to better rig characters in the future to make my animations more engaging.
About Acting:
I believe that as an animator, acting is an essential skill. While we don’t need to perform like professional actors, we do need to deeply understand and empathize with the characters. This understanding allows us to create animations that align with the characters’ personalities, making them “come to life” with greater realism and vitality.
A good expression and eye contact can convey a lot of information. When people converse, they often look into each other’s eyes and observe facial expressions. Therefore, animated characters need to have rich facial expressions and eye interactions to better express emotions and intentions. This nuanced performance can enhance the audience’s immersion, making it easier for them to understand and resonate with the characters’ emotions and stories.
Through these summaries and reflections, I hope to continuously improve my animation production skills and make my works more vivid and expressive.
In my life, I often procrastinate on various tasks, such as doing my homework, doing laundry, and washing dishes. Whenever I procrastinate, I console myself by thinking that I’m passing these tasks to “tomorrow’s me,” knowing that the future me will be very annoyed. As it turns out, the next day I was indeed very angry but still ended up passing these unfinished tasks to me the day after. This cycle continues until the final deadline approaches, forcing me to face the mountain of tasks I’ve put off. This vicious cycle of procrastination makes me feel extremely stressed every time, yet I find it hard to break free from it.
The post-production work for my project is primarily done in After Effects (AE). By using AE, I can finely tune and optimize the animation, including adding special effects, color correction, and compositing.
Tracking
In the production process, I utilized the “motion tracking” technique. Videos shot with a mobile phone often have slight shakes, and if you place a static animation into such footage, these shakes become very noticeable and disruptive. To address this, I used motion tracking to capture the shakes in the video. I then applied the analyzed position data to the animation layer and manually adjusted the overall position. This approach ensures that the animation syncs with the shakes in the video, making the entire scene appear more natural and cohesive, thereby enhancing the viewer’s sense of immersion and visual experience.
Adjusting the color
After completing the animation rendering, I noticed that the brightness of the animation did not match the original video. To better integrate the animation into the video, I added a color mask to the animation layer. Based on the environment, I chose a gray-green color for the mask and then adjusted the blend mode and opacity of the color layer. This approach made the entire scene look more harmonious. This method not only corrected the brightness discrepancy but also enhanced the cohesion between the animation and the actual scene, resulting in a more natural and unified final effect.
shine a light (on)
In my project, I used a lighting plugin called “CC Light Sweep.” This plugin can analyze the contours of my animation and generate an outline light effect. By using CC Light Sweep, I can precisely adjust the direction and intensity of the light source, making the lighting in the animation appear more natural and realistic. This plugin not only enhances the visual impact of the animation but also improves the overall texture of the scene, making the characters and environments look more three-dimensional and vivid under the lighting.
Roto Brush
In some scenes, to place the animation behind certain props, I used the “Roto Brush” tool. First, I used the Roto Brush to outline the required parts and then analyzed the entire video to determine the position of the props. This process extracts the selected parts, generating a transparent background. Next, I placed the processed video above the animation layer to establish the correct occlusion relationship. To make the occluded areas look more natural, I adjusted the “Feather” and “Contrast” settings of the Roto Brush. This method ensures that the animation integrates more seamlessly with the video, and the occlusion effect appears more realistic.
Tracking
Regarding motion tracking, there are some additional details to consider. The tool includes two frames: an outer frame and an inner frame. The outer frame analyzes the selected area, which can be set to the estimated maximum required range. The inner frame specifically analyzes the information around the focal point. If the outer frame’s area is too large, the analysis time will significantly increase, but the analysis will be more accurate. However, if the tracked object’s movement speed is fast and the outer frame’s range is too small, tracking errors may occur. Although manual adjustments can be made in such cases, they may lack precision. Therefore, when using the motion tracking tool, it is crucial to choose an appropriate outer frame size, balancing the analysis time and tracking accuracy.
This week’s feedback primarily focuses on the details of mouth shapes. Firstly, when making the “u” sound, the corners of the mouth should not be fully open; the corners of the upper and lower lips should touch slightly. Secondly, when saying “get,” a small amount of teeth should be visible to make the pronunciation more natural. Even when laughing heartily, the jaw should remain relatively still, while the chest movement becomes more pronounced. These subtle adjustments can make the character’s mouth shapes more accurate, enhancing the overall realism and expressiveness of the animation.
When creating lip-sync animations, several aspects need to be considered:
Opening and closing of the mouth (jaw): This is the basic element of lip-sync animation, determining the mouth shape changes of the character.
Opening and closing of the mouth corners: Different emotions and phonetics require varying degrees of mouth corner movements to reflect the character’s expressions.
Vertical movement of the lips: Adjust the positions of the upper and lower lips to match the speech.
Forward and backward movement and rotation of the lips: Use these movements to depict more complex mouth shape changes. For example, “u.”
Adjusting the visibility of the teeth based on dialogue and emotions: Certain sounds and emotions require more teeth to be shown.
Overall vertical movement of the mouth: Adjust the position of the entire mouth to suit the needs of speech and expression.
Adjusting the dynamics and shape of the nose based on mouth movements: Changes in the mouth affect the shape and dynamics of the nose.
Changes in the cheeks: Compression and expansion of the cheeks can enhance the effectiveness of lip-sync.
Movement of the lower eyelids: Small adjustments in the lower eyelids can enhance the character’s expressions.
It is important to note that the mouth does not always fully open and close with each sound; there needs to be some buffering and transition to ensure the animation is natural and smooth.
Regarding eye animation: The corners of the eyes and the ends of the eyebrows generally remain stationary, only showing slight movements in specific emotions and expressions.
To ensure the accuracy of the animation’s positioning, I first used my phone to film the necessary scenes and blocking of the storyline. Then, I used Premiere Pro (PR) to export the image sequence and imported these frames into Maya as a reference for the animation. By doing so, I can precisely match the actual scenes and adjust the positions of characters and objects, making the animation more realistic and cohesive. This process not only improves the accuracy of the animation but also makes the entire creation process more efficient and organized.
In my project, A stands for animation, and S stands for shots. Whole numbers represent the scenes from the first day, while those with additional digits represent the scenes from the second day. This naming convention helps me clearly organize and distinguish between animations and shots from different timelines, making the entire creation process more orderly and manageable. For example, A_S1 denotes the animations and shots from the first day, whereas A_S1.2 denotes those from the second day. This approach allows me to efficiently arrange and adjust the content from different days, ensuring the coherence and logic of the story.
In my project, I use Maya for rendering and export the output in PNG format. This approach makes it easier to integrate the characters and scenes in After Effects (AE).
Based on last week’s feedback, I have modified the character’s movements to make them smoother and more natural. I paid special attention to the follow-through motion, ensuring that each part moves in harmony. Specifically, I adjusted the arm movements to better follow the shoulders, the hands to closely follow the arms, the upper shoulders to follow the waist, and the head to follow the shoulders. With these detailed adjustments, the character’s overall movements have become more cohesive and realistic.
“Eyes are the windows to the soul.” When people converse, they typically don’t look at each other’s mouths but rather at each other’s eyes. The eyes can express a wide range of emotions, making them a crucial element in communication. In this performance, we need to use the eyes to convey the character’s inner world. By altering the shape of the eyebrows and the degree to which the eyelids cover the eyes, we can create various expressions, such as “sly” and “amused.” These subtle facial adjustments should not only match the dialogue but also align with the character’s personality traits. The use of eye expressions and the detailed handling of facial expressions are essential methods for conveying the character’s emotions and enhancing the impact of the performance.
For the “Acting” assignment, we need to find a 3-5 second audio clip and then enrich the story and character design ourselves before performing it. The performance relies mainly on facial expressions and simple body language to interpret the audio. When it comes to expressions, the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are crucial components that form an expression and are essential elements in conveying a character’s personality. Through subtle changes in facial expressions, we can communicate the character’s emotions and inner world, making it easier for the audience to understand and resonate with the character. Therefore, during the performance, special attention should be paid to these details to ensure that the expressions are vivid and in line with the character’s design.
After my last attempt to scan my room, I suddenly came up with a new theme. I decided to try showcasing both the scene and character animation together. As a result, I have revised and adjusted the story to fit the new theme and presentation style.
This is a short story about procrastination. Procrastination is a widespread and impactful issue, affecting many people in various aspects of their lives, including work, study, and daily tasks. Procrastination not only affects personal efficiency and productivity but also leads to stress and anxiety. Research shows that approximately 15% to 20% of adults frequently procrastinate. In the student population, this percentage is even higher, with nearly 80% to 90% of college students admitting that they sometimes procrastinate. These statistics indicate that procrastination is not a problem faced by a few but a common phenomenon that deserves our attention and discussion.
In my life, I often procrastinate on various tasks, such as doing my homework, doing laundry, and washing dishes. Whenever I procrastinate, I console myself by thinking that I’m passing these tasks to “tomorrow’s me,” knowing that the future me will be very annoyed. As it turns out, the next day I was indeed very angry but still ended up passing these unfinished tasks to me the day after. This cycle continues until the final deadline approaches, forcing me to face the mountain of tasks I’ve put off. This vicious cycle of procrastination makes me feel extremely stressed every time, yet I find it hard to break free from it.
Since this story is based on my life, I created the character model directly using myself as a reference. When I am at home, I usually use hair clips to pin up my long hair, which often creates different hairstyles, making it look like the hair is blossoming. To make the character more authentic and relatable, I designed the pajamas as a loose T-shirt and shorts, which is exactly what I usually wear at home. This design not only makes the character look more natural and realistic but also allows the audience to relate more easily.
Character ModelRigging by Mixamo and Advanced Skeleton (Adv)
First, I uploaded the model to Mixamo for quick rigging. This step quickly generates the basic skeleton structure and weight distribution. Then, I imported the rigged model into Maya and used the Advanced Skeleton (Adv) tool to match the corresponding bones and generate controllers. Next, I used Adv for facial rigging, which allows me to create expressive facial animations. Through these steps, I can ensure that the model’s movements and expressions are naturally and smoothly rendered, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent animation production.
Materials by Substance Painter （SP）
I used Substance Painter (SP) to create the materials, giving the clothes and pants different textures. In my story, although it is the same character, the events happen on different days. Therefore, I used different colors for the clothes, pants, and slippers to indicate the different dates. Specifically, yellow represents the first day, blue represents the second day, and red represents the third day, which appears for only 10 seconds. This approach allows me to clearly show the passage of time, making the storyline more coherent and easier to understand.
