Unit 7: Narrative - Maya Exercises, Wk 1 & 2 - Modelling & Lip Sync

Hello Everyone,

I have been putting this post off but I found myself with a few spare hours here and there to actually get it finished (although I will say the trousers took ages). Anyway I have caught up fully with the Maya exercises now so hopefully by the time we have the next lot I can get cracking ASAP.

The Lip Syncing was fun even though after a while the same words does start to get a little tedious, its pretty cool when it starts coming to life. Learning to sculpt from image planes was an exercise in frustration but I can appreciate the method of practice.

Lets get to the stuff we are here to see shall we?

 

Anyway for this weeks (and last weeks) Maya we were handed a pre-rigged mesh and was told to produce some Lip Sync from a sound file. This required some basic imports and some rather complex script configurations to be linked respectively. Next week we will be excentuating more of the words from this clip.

 

Once it was all set up we were off to work, my stab at it can be seen above (video). It went through a few renditions earlier on I was taking movements of the tongue as additional movements of the jaw. Alan told me to consider the basic principle of Lip Sync animation (the sock puppet) obviously the roll of the tongue goes beyond that principle....but now I know :)

• 1. Sock puppet (how your hand moves when you speak for it - we do this naturally)
• 2. Consider Tonge and inbetweens (i.e. your mouth doesnt always fully close for certain words)

It dawned on me that words drag to other words any rapid closing or opening of the jaw is therefore incorrect if everything closes after each word.
 

Next came our 3D modelling oppertunity of this Unit we are building a base character mesh from scratch in Maya. The process is rigorous and indepth but you have to appreciate the tricks that one can pick up from following along (shown in images above).

We began by setting up some template image planes and then got cracking on the first article of the model which was the shirt. We then moved down to the pants and belt buckle. This is where alot of the details were ever so slightly altered to keep the general feel and pose of the character. We are currently doing this weekly and I'm pretty sure next week is the shoes.

Well that concludes this little update, this is certainly an interesting time in the world of Maya!!
I will be back with more updates hopefully this week.

Take it easy all!

xXStItChXx