As promised previously, I finished shots 02,03,04 and 08.
Shot 02 and 04 are animated as one piece and edited to the two shots seen in the video below. Shot02 was the first longer shot where I had to do facial animation to portray Ara’s emotions. It turned out that I used almost the same emotional expression as in shot07. That was not planned and may hint either at my limited ability to portray emotions or limitations in Ara’s facial rig. Or it could be both.
Shot08 was a demanding shot in terms of camera movement. I had a very specific type in my head and tried hard to get it translated to my camera rig. For the first time in this short I used a path with a ‘clamp to’ contraint to bind the camera’s movement to a predifined curve. It works, but is a lot of fiddling work. Its not quite clear for me how a x/y/z translation on the position bone translates to the movement on the path. Furthermore as soon as I edit the path I have to setup the key positions for the camera position again. But its by far better than a ‘ Follow Path’ constraint, which I didn’t get working at all.
And for now I have come to a decision regarding the quality level of my animation. I hope I have managed to have about the same level in all shots done so far. The animation isn’t stellar and looks a little stiff at some places. I decided to leave it this way for the time being and concentrate on finishing the animation for all shots trying to match the current level of animation. This should define the overall timing and let me lock down the animation for Mikkel, my sound effects artist and furthermore for Leeran, who will do the music score.
If I have time I can come back to enhance some parts of the animation. My opinion right now is that the current animation level is good enough to carry the story and is able to give Ara a little personality. Any opinions from you about the state of the animation would be a real help, as I fear I am starting to develop a kind of tunnel view.
Anyway see here for the first 8 shots of scene 02.
And its just another 8 shots before the dragon appears, which unfortunately I won’t document in full here to keep the tension :). But some non revealing shots will certainly find their way to this blog.
BTW, total hours spent so far are 455 with about 83 accounting for the animation.
