Friday, 30 April 2010

Day 3: Animating Game - Middle

The introduction to the second scene is from exactly the same camera angle as the first one left (Thus, the only change in the 'fade' is the characters and the pieces - Using the old trick of using the fade as a sign of passed time).
So the scene opens with Carl now leaning forward, resting his head on his hand, and the other nervously resting on the table. Kris on the other hand is a lot more laid back. I tried to get him to adopt the 'pinkie' pose, but in moving him around, found it looked better to have him scratching the top of his head (Which is only a few inches above his mouth anyway), looking into space whimsically waiting for Carl. To be honest, the longest stage of this was to re-arrange the board for a mid-game scenario. Luckily, I found a good setup from browing random images of mid-game boards, so just had to move the pieces around accordingly. Luckily, none of the pieces had been captured in the previous shot, so continuity wasn't a major factor here. The only thing I tweaked was to place a rook in direct line of Kris' attacking bishop, to allow him to make a decisive capture a few moves in.

Carl's action alone took up around half of the scene. He lazily waves his hand over the board, mulling to himself and pondering which piece to move. His hand 'drags' behind his wrist too, to emphasise the laziness of the move. The 'drag' effect can be made by offsetting the key-frames. Assuming that the arm is moved to the left and then the right in 10 frame increments - You keyframe the hand to make the same movements... and then push it all 5 frames ahead. This means that as the arm moves, the hand lags behind it and starts to move after a delay (i.e. the force finally drags it into motion). As the arm reaches the end and moves the other way, the hand still moves in the initial direction, until it is 'snapped' back the other way 5 frames later. This little offset gives a brilliant impression of 'drag'.

At last! The 'flick' saw light! The angle and Kris' initial pose created a perfect setup. Leaning sideways slightly as he pondered, Kris confidently moves one of his rooks forward, and then throws in the sly 'flick' as the end. I'm glad to say it came out perfectly. I don't know why the move signifies confidence, but in the renders he looks exceptionally smug - Which is exactly the impression I wanted to put across.

Face-Palm! Now an internet fad, the well-known motion of pressing the palm of your hand against your face in exasperation. Though Carl was meant to cup his nose... turning the motion into a full blown face-palm worked so much better. Now stuck on what to do, Carl drags his entire hand over his face, and then makes a quick "this'll do" move. Essentially making a move for the point of making a move. He looks away afterwards, to signify his complete disinterest in his move - Hopefully, it's clear that he isn't very confident about his latest move.

The stroking-chin motion was then checked off the list, as Kris stroked his whilst analysing the board. Spotting the capture, he knocks Carl's rook over with the Bishop. Ideally, Kris was to physically take it (With the sort of finger-play motion created for the 'Castle') - But distance again proved a problem. As a result - I could only get Kris to flick the bishop in order to knock over the rook. To have him capture the piece would pretty much require him to stand up and climb onto the table.

The scene ends with carl angrily hitting the table, and Kris pulling another quick victory motion (This time it's what my dad used to call the 'Flushing the Chain' motion, poking fun at how the motion resembles flushing the toilet when it was activated by a chain.) Basically Kris raises his forearm, clenches his fist and makes a quick downwards motion - Man, why do the simple gestures require such detailed explanations...

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