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Cinematic Animation in Daz Studio and DaVinci Resolve - WEEK 5

Week 5 - Drawing Emotion

Actors in Motion is what we want, and is what we've been doing. It really helps to bring characters to life on the screen as they move around doing realistic, and not-so-realistic actions.

Now it's time to take that a step further by applying emotion and facial dynamics to the character. Some may even agree that this is the part that helps everything else make sense to the audience - which way are they looking, and for how long - do they gasp somewhere in the sequence - are they happy, sad, or surprised? - what else are the eyes doing, blinking, looking from side to side?

All of these things help to remove the 'look' that our 3D characters are just static 3D characters. It helps to breathe Life into them.

2025 is my year for really focusing on this - so I'm still growing as I type this now. 

As I demonstrate during our session, I'm making my own custom facial dials to help make this job easier for myself on my main character - which in turn also helps me to animate facial actions on everyone else that I work with, simply from the experience I gain while working with Rosie's many expressions and facial movements.

As you've seen in the session, it's not only about adding the changes. The timing of it all is every bit as important as the rest of it. This is where we have to be prepared to 'get it wrong', only to notice such as we examine our finished renders - then we go back in and make changes according to our observations.

As we correct the things that we don't like, we'll be getting MUCH faster at getting these things right the first time as we move forward with other animations.

Like I've been saying all along in this course: Practice, and practice again... and again!!!

It's these Experiences that make us better animators. Trying to become a Master in a single animation doesn't work. It is good to try and make each animation perfect, if that's you goal, but don't forget to stop along the way and render what you've got so you can actually SEE what's going on at the time that it actually plays on screen.

Much better, in my opinion, is to start small, keeping things fairly simple, and rendering it. Either work on this one some more or just make a whole new animation and render that one. Keep going. Practice, practice, PRACTICE!!!

To each their own, but I even enjoy posting my animation progress on YouTube for all to see. Some comments that I get might be painful at first - but eventually those words help in mysterious ways as I hone my craft and discover my own ways to grant the criticism of a viewer - and that feels like magic - so I am eager to post my new skill!

It's a Deep Dive

It's meant to get us all paying attention to the all important details of what the character's face is doing during the whole animated sequence.

"The Eyes are the Window to the Soul"

That famous saying is not referring the the look of the eyes' details and magnificence - it's about the emotion and clarity of the situation being conveyed through the pose of the eyes.

Characters that are meant to be Evil by design should carry their usual eye poses differently that that of the really good person who just always wants everyone to be happy and to get along.

Much beyond that, however, we all have facial muscles that never stop moving (called "Firing) as long as we're alive. Twitches? Sometimes, on some people. But even just movement of the lips, nostrils, eyes, and all of the other facial changes that occur along with all of that.

Using Daz 3D figures, we have an added benefit that automatically applies the other facial shapes for us as we manipulate these things. This is why I've discovered that Viseme dials can be very effective for changing the relationship between the mouth, the lips, and tongue. After finding certain combinations that I like using over and over again, I create my own dial that applies all of those changes at once, and at varying degrees - making it faster for me to apply but, even more importantly, having those dials helps to inspire me to add the facial actions as I work!

Practice, practice, PRACTICE!!!

The best way to get into animating (with any software choice) is to Animate, and Animate Often!

We've reached a point in all of this where we can start thinking about making animations for a story. 

The more we start thinking along these lines, the more inspired we'll become towards which aniBlock(s) to select for the Main Animation before we start 'sculpting it into our own'.

The more we play around with this, the more practice we're giving ourselves.

The more practice, the more experience. The more experience, the easier and faster, and BETTER everything gets!

When Trevor first joined the course, he left a message - a wish - a goal.

I loved the idea from the first reading of it and knew right away that I wanted to use this concept within the course. It's a valuable outline of an idea - and idea that someone wants to put into motion. And that's what we're all here for!

Not wanting to lose the message, I used the little three-dot menu on the upper right of the message and chose > Share > Copy Link. To give this link a home, I've started a new message - a place where we can all jot down ideas and/or refer to others by sharing links to them in the same way. 

Link to an Idea

I've also had an idea to use one of Kathleen's image posts as a means of a Storyboard from which we can launch an animation. So to that end, I've added that in a comment to the main message. :)

I have a small start on Trevor's idea which I share by clicking the button below:

"WalkFemIP" is my special nomenclature for animations that utilize Havanlibere's Walk Feminine walking motion, for which I have made a special rig for. "IP" means that the character is using the In-Place version of the animation - hence the need for a camera rig that moves the scene past the cameras as if Rosie was walking through 3D space along the Z axis.

In-Place walk animations means that there is no forward (Z axis) motion, but that there is a walking animation.

The WalkFemIP camera rig contains many cameras.

These cameras are intended to be used on Rosie when she is using the Havanalibere Walk Feminine "In-Place" animation. They are to help facilitate camera moves (or not moving at all) that work well when filming a walking actor for a movie or show. 

TrnTbl - a Turn Table camera that looks up at Rosie from the ground. A null that is centered on Rosie's position rotates the camera around her evenly.

REV - REVEAL - Name was changes specifically for this course to assist with clarity.

...Under Construction