walk cycles

Been practising my walk cycle which is alot more diffcult than it looks. For some reason the hands look massive and I cant get the feet to sycnronised I have had a few attempts but I think this will be a long process. I am also wanting to get the right rhymthn for this character what types of walk would he have?. I am keeping this walk cycle simple once again. Theres no alot of movement in the ankes so I cant bend them to make the ankles kick out only slightly. Rather than just having the knees that bend the whole of the leg and the ankle with have seperate movement. And I cant seem to get it out of the side angle when im rendering.

I have recently watched an animation called 'My Neighbour Totoro'. This animation is very expressive which I have found very useful.
Watch these two videos:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7rxKLn40j4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emc3IrWykCI&feature=related

Rigging my character/development/reflection

So far Ihave rigged my character after finding the bones really hard to place. I have found bones the hardest part only because on the detail that has been involved whistle placing them. Now I can have the fun part which is to do the animating.
I have created three different emotions anger,happy and sad to show the versatility that my character has. Within each of the emotions for example:-
Happy- he will be either jumping or waving his hands,
Anger- making a snarl look on his face or having a closed fist and maybe stomping his feet, Sad- eyes dropped down and a sad look on his face with his mouth dropped down ( showing no teeth).
I have developed on each of the characters that I have designed, which have I found a learning process, even though keeping the design simple it wasnt simple enough. I went into alot of detail when it isnt needed so my final sketch was easier to build and animate, Espically when it comes to the walk pattern or making him either do facial expression or just a simple movement to convey any emotion.
Having been using Auto 3d Max for about 2 months I have learnt alot within the ten weeks that we had to produce a character expressing Anger,excitement,Desperation or Satisfaction, lasting 30 seconds. Create a storyboard in your journal a written character study.

working on bones

I have placed bones in his hands and arms. This has been bery complicated. Getting the right contraints and making sure the bones fits in the right place. But the symmetry still isnot working not to sure whats happening with that. I have place bones in all of the arms and now i have to place them in the legs.

working on facial features

I have cloned/copied my character adn then went into modify and then selected vertex.Then a box will appear when selected and then use the move tool and then you can move the mouth. And I named them indivdualy so they had there own independant name. So when it comes to animating I know which one im animating. And aswell trying to add symmetry on my character isn't working. So im just keeping it how it is and see what happens at the end. Hopefully it will work in th long run.

developing on character

Working on my character once again developing on this character each time I created the eyes and place teeth in( by extruding caping and bevel).Placed the materials on him and add skin to give texture to my character. Set the eyes on default on gave him a shine and gloss on his eyes and teeth, to add effect.

I'm also going to morph him and create three different emotions rather than just having one, to give versality and attract the audience. And hopefully after doing that it will come together and become a 30 second animation.

(Also I went adding the morhping tool you write something in the box and it will appear)

Geek in working in process

This has symmetry so it saves you rather than creating another arm it gives you another arm. I just have to work on the hands and place the bones and do the actual animation.

Working on auto 3d max its very complicated not knowing my way around the programme. I have bevel / brigde to create a mouth but it hasnt worked just done a mouth on an angle which I dont understand. Then I created a mouth and eyes with extrude and applied a few extrudes to them. Im going to attach the eyes when the bones are done. I have placed turbo smooth on the character, with eye sockets and mouth. Not sure how to put bones on the character either.

lip-synchronisation

lip-synch is s a short term for lip it making your characters lip movements match up with an actors vocal track. It is only part of what you will have to do with your characters face as expression comes from mouth and brow movement too ( actually body movement is very much to express emotion too but we are concentrating on the face.)

The brow ridge is the other area of the face that is really expressive, raising and lowering it as well the pinch that a frown will give added to mouth shapes will massively enchance the range of how much the face can communicate.

We have been working on a character we have to practise lip sync and we have a piece of audio and for the first 2 seconds i have created this mouth movement. Which fits well with the audio piece that we have been given. Lip sync is time consuming but, only choosing the vowels which was easier.