Feb 17

Wunderkinds

Category: 3D,Animation

Edit: I’ve updated this animation. Pushing the lip shapes and dialog accents.

Here’s a dialog animation I did to test out the facial setup of my character:

New Version

Old Version

I know a medium close shot of a character just delivering a line of dialog isn’t the most interesting thing you can do in animation; however, I had a lot of fun being able to focus on it’s subtlety. I didn’t actually use any reference for this animation (not always a good thing to do), but  I recently read a book on facial psychology written by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen called “Unmasking the Face” and tried to put a lot of what I learned from that book to use. I find it very interesting what triggers a facial expression, and tried hard to show it as my character is thinking through his dialog.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear any and all feedback!

8 comments

8 Comments so far

  1. Michael Mahy February 18th, 2010 1:34 am

    This looks really really good.

    To good to ask if this rig will be free. :)

    Very nice animation and character design.

  2. Randy February 18th, 2010 11:20 am

    Wow pretty! That looks great! Let me know when you are going to start the animated version of “The Office”?

  3. James February 22nd, 2010 1:58 am

    Ha ha, Thanks Michael. No better sign of flattery than “looks good, can i have it!” :) Particularly coming from a talented animator as yourself. (people, click on his name and go check out his site!)

  4. Dave February 23rd, 2010 12:03 pm

    Looks great, James! Nice work!

  5. James February 23rd, 2010 1:42 pm

    Thanks Dave! It was nice to see how well the rig worked with actually doing lip-sync :)

  6. Samsonian February 23rd, 2010 2:40 pm

    Well, the guys here keep saying “He’ll be back…” But, I’m not so sure… Inspiring as always! It’s looking pretty amazing, I’m waiting for Mr. Incredible to throw this guy through a few walls. Seriously, I’ll send you a monster… :)

  7. Amanda October 3rd, 2011 1:52 pm

    Wow this is pretty incredible, and I thought you did really good with expression through the eyes. Not that I know any thing at all about any of it. Except that I’ve been working on drawing a claw for a month and its really hard. I can only imagine facial features. Even with computers. I think you are really talented. :)

  8. James October 3rd, 2011 1:59 pm

    Hey thanks Amanda! I like doing face stuff. It’s fun to think through the psychology of why we make expressions. One of those things that everyone knows how to perceive, only a few take the time to intellectualize :)

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