Human Take [Character Performance - Unit 04]
Human Take : The Jump Scare
11/06/24
Introduction
This animation exercise followed on from the previous one, ‘The Cartoon Take’, however, focussed on using a more humanoid rig. In this animation I’d hope to continue working on the transition between key poses to make the animation more snappy.
Project Management
Everything was on track at this point in time, which was good. Trello was particularly useful at tracking progress over time. I was roughly working to complete 1 unit each week to explore all the exercises sufficiently.
I’d adopted a simple checklist for each unit that funnelled my workflow through the core development cycle.
Concept Development
To start this human take I wanted to add a small story to contextualise the reaction. This was the idea that I settled on :
- Character sat at a chair looking at a computer.
- Eyes darting left and right as if watching stuff on the screen.
- Something jump scares our character
- Anticipation going down into the shock
- Slow rock backwards on the chair
- Falls off backwards legs in the air
- Legs fall down offset from one another.
Research
I started looking for reference of people falling off chairs or reacting to jump scares as this was the core of my idea. I also didn’t want to act this one out myself as I didn’t have a crash mat to fall onto. The below videos are the ones that I found most useful to my concept.
The reaction from the above video and captured in the still below was particularly useful due to the exaggerated nature of the face and was definitely useful to my concept.
The below video had some great reference of someone falling off a chair particularly at time stamps 0:16 and 1:10.
This video at time stamp 1:00 showed a great side view angle of someone falling off a chair in an exaggerated fashion. This was particularly good reference with lots of asymmetrical poses that would be useful to inspire the posing of my animation.
I screen grabbed still from the video to focus on the poses a little closer.
This last video at 20 secs in has some really good posing with overlapped legs.
Reference and Thumbnails
This would be the point where I act out the scene to understand the animation, however, due to this not being an option for this animation, the thumbnails would be more important. I grabbed the core theory poses from the lecture (Animation Blog: Animate a "Take" Reaction with "Monty" (animationapprentice.blogspot.com)) to act as a base. This is particularly looking at the anticipation, accent, squash, overshoot and settle. I could then apply this core idea to my idea.
The below image shows my thumbnails complete with annotations. This process of thumbnailing is really helping breakdown and plan my animations, particularly where I wouldn’t have explored this as in depth in the past. These thumbnails have come out well as they include all the key poses and help me visualise how the animation is going to pan out.
Resources
Next I needed a set for this concept to take place in. I felt an office setting would work well and I came across this office pack which had most things in that I needed.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/60s-office-props-dc00ea320cfa4aad90811080270672db
The only thing it didn’t have was a screen-based computer, however, I found this asset below that fit aesthetically well with the props above.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/retro-computer-f844c0357d284fd8baa1435e9ff31bb2
For my character I used the Sam Rig again, I wanted to build my confidence with this rig as I’d planned to use this for the assignment. The more experience I have with it the easier it will be to produce the final animation for this module. - Sam Rig (gumroad.com)
Animation
12/06/24
The series of images and videos below show my progress throughout the animation’s development. This first image below shows the setup of the scene to construct the office set.
This next image below shows the character posed in the environment with the camera set up :
23/06/24
Animation Blocking. This includes some tweaks to timing initially set out in my thumbnails.
- Eye darts end at 49
- Anticipation ends at 69
- Accent at 75
- Hold Accent and scramble to 99
- Squash down and hit the floor at 103
- Bounce up recoil at 207
- Return to ground at 211
- Leg fast down at 215
Blocking Plus :
The below videos are some research into eye darts that I explored to help understand how best to animate these. Eyes are seen as the window into the soul so it was important that these were animated in such a way that really helped to make the camera feel alive.
In addition to how to animate eye darts well I looked for a little more reference of somebody reading from a computer screen.
Next I referred to my copy of INSERT BOOK NAME to help understand how a surprised facial expression could be posed.
Spline Pass :
Spline Refine Pass :
Smear Frames :
Polish Pass :
Conclusion
This was a really good exercise and I feel like all the key theory is starting to ‘click into place’! The timing of this animation is working well, I particularly like the hang time into a fast snap down. The overlapping action is working well, particularly on the legs and the lingering leg at the end that bounces down. The start of the animation could use more overlapping action with the subtle body motions seeming to all happen at the same time in this ‘idle’ pose, however, the eye dart are helping make the character feel alive. The concept is working well but I have over-exaggerated the amount of reaction poses for this take. There is an initial reaction before the character goes down and falls backward, which essentially makes this a double take but doesn’t read as well. None-the-less I’m happy with the progress I’m making to understand this core theory and execute it. This animation in particular did explore posing well.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of how to animate human "takes
- Apply animation principles to create a believable human "take"
- Gain proficiency in manipulating the "Willy" rig within Maya
- Exhibit the skill to animate human characters in a way that captures the depth of their emotional responses to stimuli
- Critically analyse animated human "takes" for their realism, emotional authenticity, and technical execution
I’ve achieved the learning outcomes because I have :
- I’ve explored the exercise and implements the key poses and theory of animating a human take by creating thumbnails to plan my concept.
- I include key animation principles such as accents, squash and stretch, anticipation, overlapping action and exaggeration in my planning and animation stages of this project.
- I’ve built proficiency in using the Sam animation rig that I plan to use for the assignment in this module.
- Using research and practical work I’ve animated the character to bring the concept to life and show an emotional response in the character. I particularly like the transition from bored to shocked and the gritting of teeth to brace for impact.
- I’ve analysed an array of research to inspire my outcome that has lead to the development of good planning thumbnails that has further lead to the good execution of my concept. This analysis has studied the posing and emotional authenticity which has lead to good technical execution. Despite this I did add slightly too many anticipation poses and would have benefitted from being a little more snappy and succinct in my posing.
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