DS2 - ANM 694: WEEK 1

Assignment 1.1: Choose subject & complete Facial Anatomy Handout

Since I'm just getting started with my thesis and it doesn't exactly have a particular head model component, I thought I would take the opportunity to do more of a portfolio piece. I have chosen Sir Patrick Stewart as my subject, honing in on the first few seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation as the target age bracket for him. He's got a phenomenal range of emotion and there is ample reference via the series to study how dialogue and expressions manifest through his facial landmarks.

This should be both challenging and fun! Consider me.... Engaged.

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK

Thanks Phelan, Interesting choice - Sir Patrick Stewart is an accomplished actor and an icon of the Star Trek series. Classic 'Jean-Luc Picard' role that Patrick Stewart did from '87-'94. Understand it was elevated this actor from being an 'unknown Shakespearean British actor' to being a cultural icon of television and movies. Of course he would go on to X-Men and voice actor.

Nice images and good work with the muscle layout and landmarks. One concern is to stick with images that are consistent - i.e. from at least the same season of Star Trek TNG. Think the series went on for 7 years or 7 seasons. Also there were Star Trek feature films made later.

You don't want to rely on image reference that is from wide variances in this actors age and time period. The same could have been said of any iconic actor with a long career i.e. Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, etc.

Interested to see how this head model comes along.

Assignment 1.2: CHAPTER 1 & 3, STOP STARING BOOK

The approach to lip sync animation in this book is really phenomenal. I remember so many years ago dabbling with various 3D Studio Max plugins that would supposedly "automate" lip sync animation. Needless to say, it looked terrible! Assigning a distinct mouth shape to every letter or syllable in a phrase seemed like a good idea until you hit play on your animation. Yuck! Worse, with so many keys set, trying to clean up or tweak the animation was a hopeless mess. The viseme approach cuts to the meat of it -- it gives the animator a very manageable yet flexible tool box of core shapes with which to approach hitting the essential forms that convey the sounds made. It also forces another vital step: observation! The same sentence on paper might be performed any number of different ways with some shapes more pronounced for various effects. It's not about the English words, it's about what makes the sounds, and less / simpler is always better and cleaner.

I think "Opposites" is a technique where you deliberately key a shape that's the opposite of the one you're about to hit to effect an exaggeration or anticipation effect. Kind of like when a pitcher winds up dramatically backward to uncoil and throw a fast ball forward. "Stepping" sounds like a way to vary up repetitive shapes when the mouth forms are calling for the same combinations in succession. Variation is always more appealing in than repetitive uniformity. As long as the general gist of the shape is in the ballpark, (it's an open or wide shape,) the sync will carry and the result will look better than if done with the exact same key values.