Issues with Animating

During the animation process of my penguin, I have had no end of trouble getting it to move correctly. After trying the CAT systems for my penguin, I tried using bones and a biped. However for some reason, the skin would not work correctly.I asked various other people for help and advice, including my tutor who was just as confused as to why it wasn't working as I was.

In order to combat this major problem and save the project, I have had to create a monologue for my penguin and show his emotion and villainicity using facial expressions. The CAT has been left within the penguin so that his flippers remain down instead of sideways.

I am absolutely gutted, however I hope to still produce an effective project. Because I have produced adequate paperwork, if a solution was found at some point in the future the project could be picked up from where it was left off.

Sounds and Music

This is an object table containing the music and sound effects that are going to be used in the final animation:

Objects Created For Animation

Here are the additional objects required in order to create the final animation. These will not be marked upon, therefore only images will be included:

Background scene

Igloo where the penguins are asleep

"Good" penguin which goes to approach the villain after being woken up

Potential animation scene

Muscles and How They Control Facial Expressions

When a person moves their face, whether it's to blink, to smile, to laugh, to frown, to cry etc. a variety of different muscles are used and work together in order to show these expressions visually.  Figure 1 shows various facial expressions by the same person:

Figure 1 shows many facial emotions that a person can make using various muscles

Without these muscles, every emotion would look exactly the same. Baring this in mind, you wouldn't be able to tell when someone was happy, or sad. Wouldn't life be boring? Figure 2 shows a human face with every major facial muscle labelled.

Figure 2 shows human face with all muscles labelled

In order for a mouth to open and shut - the Buccinator, the Temporalis, the Masseter and the Platysma muscles are used, along with the lower jaw bone (Kidport, 2012).

The Orbicularis Oris muscle is responsible for lip movement, especially when talking, smiling, eating and when you are sad (Kidport, 2012).

The Orbicularis Oculi is responsible for eye movements such as opening and closing the eye, widening the eye and squinting. This muscle also contracts when you smile and your eyes turn up in the corners. Working in conjunction with the Occipitofrontalis, these muscles move the eyebrows too (Kidport, 2012).

In order to smile, 12 muscles in the face move, and in order to frown 11 muscles move (Wisegeek, 2012).

Cultural Differences

According to a study by University of Glasgow published and documented on Cell Press (2009), people from different cultures read facial expressions differently. Typically, westeners tend to look at the eyes and the mouth equally, however easterners tend to focus more on the eyes and disregard the lips somewhat. This meant that during the investigation, easterners made more mistakes when expressions in the eyes looked similar compared to westerners.

This is interesting because previously, I discovered how different cultures mistook hand signals and misread body language as it varies from place to place. Now I have learnt that expressions play a very important role in how a character comes across.

In Terms Of The Project

Although penguins will have a different facial and muscle structure to a human, this research will still be applicable in my project because my penguin will be personified and will have human behaviours so that the target audience can relate easier. 

The penguin will be opening and closing its beak in order to speak, he will blink, his eyes will widen and glow red and his eyebrows will wiggle and move up and down in an angry manner.  

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References

Kidport, 2012. Image of Head and Face Muscles. [online] Available at: <http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/HumanBody/MuscularSystem/images/FaceMuscles.jpg>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Kidport, 2012. Head and Face Muscles. [online] Available at: 
http://www.kidport.com/reflib/science/HumanBody/MuscularSystem/HeadFaceMuscles.htm
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Cell Press. "Facial Expressions Show Language Barriers, Too." ScienceDaily, 13 Aug. 2009. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.
ScienceDaily, 2012. Image showing different facial expressions. [online] Available at:
<http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/08/090813142131-large.jpg>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Wisegeek, 2012. How Many Muscles Are Used To Smile. [online] Available at: <http://www.wisegeek.com/how-many-muscles-are-used-to-smile.htm>
Last Accessed: 28/04/2012

Skinning and Boning My Villain

Now that the penguin model has been finished, I can concentrate on the next step which is to skin and bone my model. In one of my previous posts, I stated that I will be creating my own CAT Parent because none of the existing CAT Parents are suitable for my mesh. 

The first step was to make the penguin model see through to make it easier to position the bones. Then, I created a CAT rig and placed it underneath the penguin model. The position is important because when the structure of the CAT is built, it will be built around the cente of the triangle.

After creating a hip bone, similarly to the tutorial, the bones were constructed and positioned inside the mesh. It did not matter if the bones slightly overlapped the mesh as they will be hidden in the final render. The image below shows the finished bone structure:

Extra care and attention was paid to the feet of the penguin because they are quite thin with a fair amount of detail:

Now that the boning was complete, it was time to use the Skin modifier. However, this proved useless because as I tried to move the bones, the mesh would nit move at all, even though the envelopes were displaying correctly. When I asked my tutor what to do, she suggested using the Physique modifer instead as it is more effective and reliable. Once the Physique was applied to the hub bone, the mesh started to move. However, there were issues where parts of the penguin that were supposed to move did not move naturally so I began editing the envelopes. After doing this, it was possible to move the bones and the mesh moved correctly with it. 

The image below shows my penguin with both of his flippers down by his side:

My penguin rendered with his flippers moved downwards:

PowerPoint Presentation and Feedback

It is the halfway point in the project and that meant that it was time to create a presentation to introduce my character to the rest of the class. After the presentation, I received both positive and negative feedback which I am going to reflect upon and modify my design.

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 4

Feedback

• Good idea. 
• Gone into sufficient depth of detail with the character analysis.
• Penguin model is coming along well, just needs to be boned before the animation can go ahead.
• Note that any extra parts to the animation will not obtain any extra marks (for example, the igloo and the surrounding areas).
• Make sure that my idea will fit within the 30 second - 1 minute time length.
  

Reflection Upon Feedback
I am really looking forward to beginning the animation stages of my penguin. All I need to do now is create the remaining components for the scene I have chosen to develop and animate. The next blog post (which will be brief) will show my environment and the extra models created within it.