THE ANIMATION.
The first step was to lay down some initial keys.
The "What" animation was a combination of 1,2
and 3 . "Are"
was just an extension of that, but slightly less open. The word "you"
was made from a slightly less extreme version of 'Wha'. The word
"looking"
was a combination of an extreme 'Wha' and 'EEE'. The word "at"
was simply a less extreme 'wha'. "Me" was a combination of 'shut
mouth' and 'eee'. Finally "for?"
was made up from a less closed 'shut mouth'
and 'wha'. The initial test proved
that the three phonemes would be enough to convey all of the dialogue.
What was immediately apparent, apart from the timing being all wrong, was
the significant lack of any neck movement. The key's were very roughed
out but the early ones were timed to co-incide with the audio. The
"What" should, in theory, have matched up perfectly. The next
step was to attempt the animation again, but this time with some neck movement
and retiming of keys.
Already, I had achieved a vast improvement. I wanted to accentuate
the 'What!' with the neck, to give it extra emphasis. The dialogue
keys had all been shifted 2 to 3 frames before the audio. The animation
was now beginning to take shape. Through studying myself in a mirror
I began to mentally note what the neck did when I acted out the sentence.
The next animation built on this.
Here I had added a slight twist to the neck as it tilted back. The
eyelids also blinked at appropriate moments, particularly when the head
tilted forward sharply.
The final set of tweaks involved the neck tilt on "me",
and just general tweaks to the timings of the dialogue
poses.
TO VIEW THE FINAL ANIMATION CLICK HERE.