Shot 6 Test 1

Shot six is a view ourside the shop with the Oxfam logo in clear view. I purposefully am making the shot very busy to contrast the rest of the animation. This is the sequence with the most characters and animation. A lot of time was spent making the shop look as far from the dingy stereotype of a charity shop as possible and so I also wanted it to be well shopped in.

I animated the characters from previous sequences individually over 150 frames (6 seconds) to make the scene as genuin as possible. These two characters which I play-blasted interact with eachother as one holds a dress up against herself and the other 'comments' with gestures.

The final shot is meant to just be brief but with enough animation and stuff happening to make you feel content with a fade to the oxfam logo. the green splodge above the door is the Oxfam logo as a shop sign. Overall I am very pleased with all parts of this animation and am ready to render. I didn't have to worry about this walk as it is the same walk as in the first shot just copied and pasted with the shopping bags removed.

Shot 5 Camera Sweep Test

For shot five, I really wanted to have the camera sweep out of the window to reveal the shop front, turning and showing the inside of the shop before flying through the window. It was indeed a nice idea, but unfortunately this practice shot takes an extreme 24 seconds!!! My animation is supposed to be between 30 and 40, and I already have near enough 20, so 24 seconds is completely impracticable! #

Instead I am going to make what I have animated character wise a nice round 6 seconds, and have an extra shot of outside the shop separate.

Shot 5 Render Test 2

Ah much better. the shop keeper continues to smile as the main character has walked past her and all is well in the render. The next task I face importing this whole acting piece into the shop, which is already jam packed with geometry so the whole process might be very slow from here onwards!!

I can't animate this scene any further until I know the layout of the shop so that I can decide where the camera is going to move.

Shot 5 Render Test 1

So this is my first render on this clip with face projections, and in this clip I have only actually animated the face of the shopkeeper, as this is the character who's face you see the most as the main character has her back to the camera for the most part.

The shopkeeper's eyes move down to look at the bag and her face makes an 'oooh' shape of curiosity and interest. As our main character moves away the shop keeper raises her head and smiles in such a warm, surprised and happy way, with a little blink to follow.

One thing I don't like about this render is how, when the main character walks past the shop keeper, once passed the shop keeper's face is back to a non-smiling status. I feel it would be better if the main character passed fully before the shop keepers face returned to a less smiley state. This is because it makes the smile seem disingenuous if the shop keeper isn't smiling once the main character has passed. at the moment it looks like the type of fake smile someone gives you where they are smiling when they look at you but forget that you can see them stop smiling when they aren't looking at you.

for the main character the only animation I really want to add is a very subtle closed mouth smile. I could do with adding better blinks to both animations.

Shot 5 Test 3

The movement of the girl for this test play-blast is much smoother than it has been previously, I am excited to see a rendered version if it with the face animation projected onto the model.

For this test I added movement to the secondary character, the shop keeper. She moves her hands onto the bags as the main character moves her hands away. She then takes a look (tilts her head down) at both bags (her eyes will move down to look in the final render). As the main character turns away out shopkeeper lifts her head and turns it towards the main character where she will smile as she waves. I am actually very happy with all parts of this animation as they are!

Test Render Ahoy!!

Shot 5 Test 2

Having amended the body turn and slightly adjusted the timing of the arms moving to her sides I am pleased with the improvements.

The walk is much slower than the turn, but I plan on speeding this part up in the editing process. not because its difficult to do in Maya, but because all of the walk is done on strips of 50 frames and if I condense it I wont be able to edit any adjustments I need very easily. I like to know that the moving parts are back to the same frame every 50 seconds, and I have a reasonable idea of where stuff lands, key-frame-wise, in between.

The turn I added to her back as she turns too walk is a nice touch though is a little sharp in this play-blast. Perhaps a turn in the head too would add to the overall walk. She does now transfer her weight in a much more believable way that she did in the initial play-blast. At some points when she is walking her arms 'twang' to a very stiff position. this looks awful and I have to make the movement as realistic and authentic as possible.

Shot 5 Test 1

Shot 5 is about the girl giving the bags of shopping to a shop assistant. Its supposed to look like she has returned what she bought earlier because she demonstrated earlier that she had too many clothes. What has actually happened is she has donated clothes to a charity shop, which becomes apparent when the camera sweeps out through the window to show her standing outside of Oxfam. The camera will zoom in on the shop sign to close the animation.

This test play-blast only really shows the tiniest part of the whole section but I want to keep checking it in stages as it progresses. To start off with I am focusing on the animation of just the main character. The girl very smoothly pushes the bags towards the shop keeper before waving briefly and then turning and walking away. The turn is far too fast but the walk is nice and fluid, though I might speed that up a bit. Where I could improve the animation is to make the character more convincingly transfer weight. Her torso should turn as she moves and then straighten up again as she has reached the destination direction. Her arms need better animating when she gets to the walking part of the sequence and the pull back movement of putting them by her side is far too quick and rigid looking.