AuthorTopic: Face animation [WIP]  (Read 2832 times)

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Face animation [WIP]

on: June 04, 2014, 03:15:09 pm
Hi guys,

couple days ago I started to rework my old animation just to compare my skill now and then.

   

New work is slightly different, but it started as redraw of same first frame. It's still not finished, it's not cleaned, some smooth in/out frames are missing, but I just wanted to share this. Probably I'll add more face expressions to it, and eventually maybe I'll use this for my avatar. :)

All comments are appreciated. :)

Offline cels

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Re: Face animation [WIP]

Reply #1 on: June 04, 2014, 05:11:52 pm
Looks good. Are the eyes completely dark because you don't have enough pixels to show the white of the eyes? Because I think you've just passed the threshold of when this is a viable solution. Right now, this brings back memories from 'Event horizon' and people with empty eye sockets. Like, I don't know if it's because of the eyes, but the laughter just looks maniacal and evil to me :)

Also, perhaps his expressions should have a slight effect (1px) on the scalp, so that the position of the hair changes a bit between expressions.

These would make great animated smileys. :)

Offline astraldata

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Re: Face animation [WIP]

Reply #2 on: June 04, 2014, 06:57:28 pm
@cels:
I second the smileys comment -- especially the tourette's looking animation -- that could be iconic if the timing wasn't so inhumanly fast on some frames. ;P


But yeah, the biggest issues with this is that there's almost no subtle movement on the hair or chin fuzz, causing them to appear stiff, and the weird eyes don't really do anything but nullify the expression of emotion to me, no matter what the face muscles are doing, so the movements are almost pointless unfortunately.

Strangely enough, when he laughs, he kinda reminds me of Beavis from that old SNES game, just without the yellow hair. ;P
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Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Re: Face animation [WIP]

Reply #3 on: June 04, 2014, 08:42:02 pm
@cels, it started as lack of pixels, but I kept it because somehow I like it, I don't like how it loos with white part. People react almost the same every time. When I've created character with clean white eyes, few years ago, everyone attacked me because he lacks pupils.

You are definitely right about the scalp, I'll fix that. Thanks.

@astraldata "tourette"  is the old animation, and timing is just as I wanted it at that time (maybe it's not perfect but that was then). Hair pixels are not even clean to be animated. I plan to clean all frames and add small animation details when I'm satisfied with overall animation, and that part is still not complete. I'm just curious what kind of hair animation would you add here?

Small edit:
Laugh is problem from the start, and I'm still not satisfied. I'll experiment further. :)

Offline astraldata

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Re: Face animation [WIP]

Reply #4 on: June 08, 2014, 06:49:37 am


Fixed up your laugh a little bit. He looked like he was playing with his jaw or yodeling or something. The biggest problem here was the face distending on the bottom jawline and not the overall head/face. You laugh with your whole face, not just your mouth, which means your whole head gets involved, scalp, jaw, and all -- I probably even should have put some movement in his shoulders too, but you get the point. Laughter is a pretty intense emotional expression, so your body gets into it a whole lot more than simply a smile and an open mouth.

The hair 'animation' was added in, particularly where the face stretches far outward (i.e. during the laugh), on both the scalp and chin-fuzz, which is just some slight movement in the pixels in the hair/chin in order to keep the head/face/skin from seeming so stiff (because that stiffness really adds to the 'creepy' factor unfortunately -- and, if you're going to keep the eyes, you might really consider fixing as much of that 'stiffness' as you can.)

Speaking of the eyes, if you don't mind compromising a bit with people who think the eyes are too creepy, I would suggest perhaps using a dark grey like in the shadows of the teeth to represent the whites of the eyes if you like the dark color on the eyes -- unless you just really really don't want pupils for some reason. If that's the case, I managed to modify the eye & eyebrow shape in the laugh so that it at least works a little better with these dark eyes to convey genuine laughter of some sort.

And as for your "tourette" animation, I was giving you a complement -- my computer just can't seem to display the frame changes that quick, so I made mention of the timing being just a tad too fast. Didn't intend to sound like I was criticizing you.
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Offline Fizzick

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Re: Face animation [WIP]

Reply #5 on: June 09, 2014, 01:44:11 am
eyes should be squinted a lil more and chest rises when laughing