Advanced Character Animation Module Session 3 Body language/ Character Animation / Peer Assessment Feedback Exercise

The aim of this week's session was to understand the importance of body language with regards to character animation. Body language focus's on an individual's characteristics in order to get a fair idea about their personality. There are many twenty five varieties of body language to choose for your character's personality. The difficult part is trying to get your character to relate to the members of the target audience.

.http://listverse.com/2007/11/08/25-examples-of-body-language/.

A scene was provided by the lecturer as practise for the final project. As the aim of the animation was to enable the rocket to show it's emotions through it's body language and eyes language. The story is about a rocket who wants to blast through the hatch but unfortunately it fails to open at the right moment. This results in the rocket being damaged by the concrete which covered the rocket. This was a great exercise as it transferred the knowledge from the current task to use for the final project.

After reviewing the storyboard more than once , it was difficult to figure out how to make the teddy bear seem confident as it went to the gym. Then it occurred that one of the many reasons why people goes to the gym is to unleash stress in a productive way. This is the angle that the story was based on for the advanced character animation module. To increase the amount of research material a Pinterest board had been constructed to gather visual references of people confident and angry. This was a real advantage as it gave the teddy bear character that edge that it needed to be believable for the target audience. Just below is the hyperlink for the emotions reference.

https://uk.pinterest.com/aahmed0739/emotions/

The best way to understand the relation between emotions and characters animation is to act the sequence out as if you are the protagonist in the environment. For an example in Polar Express there are the 3D characters in the story along with the actors in real life who are the driving force. They are the ones who are using motion capture to give the animated characters realistic movements and voice overs to make the characters facial expressions flow with the words.


To gather as much references for the angry character task many references were found with the assistance of YouTube videos and Pinterest page. But the most effective page was the you tube videos as they show the instant transformation from a person being clam to a person who has lost control of their anger. As you will see there are a number of compliations of people who have lose their nerves for many reasons. All of this research helped to develop the emotions displayed by the rocket character.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkogiJVG9TvG5jfgsVNUKb-YWqDm45RvK

The first video displays the emotion that the rocket has as it goes through the ceiling.The anger is not instant it builds up to moment when the hatch fails to open as the rocket began it's ascension.If this emotion come across in a successful way then it is a huge success if not then it will be a easy to fix.

The second video is another example where there are many moments in the film where people have expressed their anger through their body language and apparent in their facial expressions.There is one moment in this clip when the tall officer orders everyone to sit down , everyone sat down out of fear .The officer was very tall , strong and had a powerful atmosphere which make him dominate everyone.

                                    

Here are two playlists for the rocket shipaniumatipn please check them out and feel free to comment on this blog with any enquires or constructive comments.