The video above showcases my initial progress through the blocking plus stage of this animation. My main focuses in this video was on refining the main poses of my animation by adding aspects such as squash and stretch and exaggeration. I also fixed a some minor issues with wrist rotations and arm placements to ensure for more accurate poses that more effectively reflect my reference video. Additionally, i also worked on the timing of some of the poses so they more accurately lined up with audio, this will allow me to create high quality lip sync by using the main poses in my animation as landmarks as to when certain expression and lip movements should occur in my animation.

Here i am refining the finger gun gesture as it was rotating and moving inaccurately. This was happening as there was a lot of unnecessary keyframes that was influencing the interpolation of my poses. To fix this i removed some of the un needed keyframes for this pose and reduced them down to one or two vital ones as this improved the interpolation between the poses leading to a more organic gesture with no unnatural movements. While this pose does still need more refinement, this is huge improvement over it original look and will allow me to create a high quality final pose. 

Here i am adding squash and stretch to the shrug pose. I did this by lifting the upper chest control up to add more emphasis to the shrug, this helps to enhance the shrug pose by making it more defined and prominent in the animation. Squash and stretch is a crucial aspect for animation esciallpally for a stylised animation as it helps to push certain poses (such as this shrug)  beyond what is possible in real life.

Here i am refining the point behind gesture as it was rotating and moving inaccurately. This was happening as there was a lot of unnecessary keyframes that was influencing the interpolation of my poses. To fix this i removed some of the un needed keyframes for this pose and reduced them down to one or two vital ones as this improved the interpolation between the poses leading to a more organic gesture with no unnatural movements. While this pose does still need more refinement, this is huge improvement over it original look and will allow me to create a high quality final pose. 

Here i am fixing the exaggerated shrug gesture. The interpolation of the between keyframes was causing unnatural wrist and arm movements. As the hand would flip randomly as he was going into the shrug. To overcome this i went through my keyframes and altered the rotations of the wrist to mirror the other hand, i also made minor adjustments to the arm movements to more effectively reflect a shrugging gesture. This allowed for him to smoothly transition into the shrug poses and avoiding movements that are un organic.

Here i am refining the 'OH' gesture in my animation. The main areas i tweaked for this pose was the arm and elbow placement as these aspects were causing the rig to have some awkward poses affecting the quality of the pose by not portraying the gesture accurately. I also worked on the transition of this gesture into the point behind gesture, to make sure it was a fluid and organic motion. To achieve this i copied keyframes of a neutral pose in between this pose and the next. This made him return to neutral before he starts the next gesture, this more accurately reflects my reference video and how this gesture would be preformed in real life.

Here i am refining the final shrug gesture in my animation. The main improvement i made to this pose was in the wrist, originally it was rotating in incorrectly as he transitioned into this pose. To fix this i zeroed out the wrist and re-posed the right arm. This issue was caused by the neutral pose that is in between his gestures (as a transitional pose), as this pose had very different attributes in wrist rotation. This influenced the interpolation between the poses causing the wrist to spin unnecessarily. This issue was fixed along with some issue in the arm placement. Which i fixed by moving the arms placement to more accurately reflect a shrugging pose.  

Here i am refining the point behind gesture in my animation. The primary change i made to refine this gesture was to re-make this pose. I did this by deleting the keyframes, re adjusting the timing of when this pose takes place and moved the arms into the correct place (reflecting my reference video) to effectively portray this pose. Additionally, some more improvements i made to this gesture include zeroing out the wrist attributes to fix the interpolation that was causing the wrist to flip and twist in accurately. I also adjusted the rotations of the waist and placements of his left arm to more accurately portray this gesture. 

Here i am zeroing out the the wrist attributes. I did this as it allowed me to efficiently repose the arm from its original position. I reset this pose as the interpolation between this gesture and the others, was causing the wrist to rotate and move un-organically this had a negative impact on the overall fluidity of the animation and the accuracy of the gesture i was trying to portray.

Here i altered the place of the finger gun gesture. I changed this because i noticed that this gesture didn't line up with the audio, i moved the keyframes forward so this pose happened at the correct time in the audio. Additionally, this gesture was quite slow (almost like the he was moving in slow motion). To solve this i adjusted the timing of the neutral pose that is in-between this gesture and the gesture before. This made the finger gun gesture happen quicker and have an effective duration, this improved the impact of and timing of this gesture. As it more effectively lined up with the audio and in perspective of my animation is a unique gesture that contrast the other gestures, this makes my animation interesting as it is not just the same repeated gesture throughout.

Here i copied the neutral pose just before the shrug of the shoulders as this gesture felt slow and not accurate to how it would be done in real life. Moving the neutral pose close to this gesture allowed for the shoulder shrug to happen quickly, reflecting how this would be performed in real-life. Furthermore, i deleted a selection of keyframes that were unnecessary to the whole animation and causing confusion within the graph editor. This allowed me to clearly see where my main keyframes and the role / pose each of them had.

Here i deleted the keyframes for the point behind gesture as i wasn't pleased with this pose and the wrist rotations that where occurring as he transitioned into this pose.  To fix this i selected the keyframes that held this pose and zeroed out the right arm to all me to re pose it from its original position. This turned out to be effective as redoing this pose fixed the unnatural rotations in the wrist, this improved the transitional fluidity of this gesture.

Here is an example of me switching between the IK and FK controls for the arms. I generally used IK controls during animating, but i changed throughout the process depending on the pose i need. Yet this did cause me a few issues when switching between IK and FK this as it made some of the rig clip through itself, this can be fixed by keyframing every pose to ensure it switches between IK and FK quickly so it won't affect the interpolation between the gestures.

Before starting my jaw block out i made sure to delete any previous keyframes that where connected to the facial controls. This gave me a clean slate so start my block out, avoiding any interference from old unneeded keyframes. This allowed for an efficient and effective block out which helped me to develop a new skill that i don't have much past experience or knowledge in.

Here i created a new animation layer that i will contain all of my facial animation. This helps to separate my animation into more manageable chunks and avoids confusion in the graph editor, as i will not be able to see all the other keyframes for this animation that contain the gesture poses. This is all a common practice within the industry allowing me to grow confidence with a technique that is used in the animation industry. 

Here i am working on the basic jaw motion for my animation. I solely focused on the jaw movement during this block out to give the effective groundwork for me to build on as i move onto the next stage of my workflow. Primarily, i achieved this by slowly moving through my animation and listening to the word being said and moving the mouth to the general sound each word made E.g. 'SH'oul'D' (SH and D are the most prominent sounds that effect the mouth shape in that word.) To ensure i got the accurate jaw movement (how wide or closed the jaw is) i often went back to my research to use some of the resources i found to help me produce my lip sync. Additionally, is often mimicked the audio with my own mouth to get a feel for how the word would be said in real life which allowed me to reflect them in my animation

Here i adjusted some of the keyframes of jaw. As i noticed that the jaw looked floaty with no weight. Adjusting the keyframes allowed me to more accurately mimic how quickly the mouth moves during actual speech. This helped to improve the overall movement of the jaw as it provided an accurate sense of weight and fluidity.

The video above showcases some changes i made during the blocking plus stage of the lip sync. The main areas focused on in this video are tongue and lip movement, minor tweaks of the mouth. While these areas a subtle they enhance the animation by adding more personality and uniqueness to it, as the lip shapes and tongue movement reflect how people talk in real life. During this stage i faced a major crashing issue, this didn't have have a major influence as i didnt lose any progress, this still slightly impact my efficiency during the blocking plus stage.  

Here i am subtly tweaking the edges of the mouth, this helps to pose the mouth in way that will more accurately reflect the words he is saying as the corners of the mouth a pulled back when saying certain ways . Additionally, this ensures my lip sync is effective by imitating how a real mouth would move when speaking.

Here i worked on the lip and tongue movement. To achieve my desired motion, i went through my animation again and made sure to move the tongue up and down for words that needed the tongue to say such as 'Dead' and 'Played'. This helps to reinforce the feeling of them actually saying the words, which additionally helped to improve my overall lip sync. I also focused on the lip movement especially for words such as 'You' and 'leave' as the lips have heavy influence on how these word are pronounced in real life. It is crucial i reflect accurate lip movement  in my animation as it helps to further reinforce the jaw position. Which aids in my overall lip sync as the the mouth movement will more effectively reflect how we speak in real life giving the audience the illusion that he is actually speaking. 

During the lip sync blocking plus phase i faced a lot of crashes in maya. While they didn't have massive influence on what i was able to produce in this stage as i didnt lose any progress, it had a slight impact on my efficiency as it took time to recover files and set up the perspectives again. There is not a way to get around crashing but it is important i understand how to deal with to make sure it doesn't have a big effect my overall efficiency during production stage of this project.

The video above is the continuation of the lip sync blocking plus stage. My main focus during this was eyelid and head movement along with pupil size and direction. These are all subtle aspects that help to enhance the personality of my animation by more accurately reflecting real life movements.  Moving the eyelids added blinking to my animation, moving the head at certain points made my animation more fluid, by making the head follow the movements of the rest of the body. Tweaking the pupil size and direction is subtle but it helps to enhance my animation by making it more organic and natural. 

(Hersh, 2020) 

Here I am focusing on subtle rotating the head to follow through with the rest of the body movement. Initially I wasn't planning to adjust the head rotation but as I continued animating I started to tweak it and thought it added personality and fit into the stylized style more effectively. While most of the movements are subtle, the one main change I made was when he says 'we're gonna kill you!'. During this I rotated the head left and right quickly to reflect how people try yo make themselves look bigger and quicker when they try to frighten people. Additionally, further reinforcing what exclamation when he is saying this and helps to adds personality and reinforcement to his emotions when he I saying this line.

Here I am adjusting the pupil size. This is only a subtle adjustment that helps make my animation more organic and natural. I adjusted the pupil sizes when he says 'OH' as a bigger pupil help to reinforce the expression of shock, this also allowed for this expression to be pushed beyond what is possible in real life, helping my animation fit into the stylised theme as expressions in this style tend to have extreme poses during expressions. I also made tweaks to the pupil size every time he blinks to reflect how the eyes have to re-adjust to the light after he closes them. This helps to more accurately reflect how the pupils work in real life, allowing my animation feel more alive and natural.

Here I was minorly tweaking the pupil direction to follow the rest of the body. I did this because I noticed in my reference video and when people generally talk to each other their eyes aren't locked forward the whole time. To achieve my desired look of the pupils slightly moving as  he talks, I went through my animation to points such as when there was a second break in the audio and when he looked down to ensure the eyes followed his movements 

Above is the continuation of the blocking plus phase for the lip sync. This video showcases me finalising the blocking plus stage and preparing to move onto the polishing stage of this animation. My main focus in this video was on the eye brows, making sure they move and react with the rest of the face to help with the expressions and emotions i want to portray. E.g. eyebrows up when he says 'OH' or pointed down when trying to be frightening. The eyebrows are crucial for the stylised style as they are one of the primary avenues of showing emotions when not using a fully realistic rig due to all the muscles in the face not being accounted for in this style.

Here i am posing the eyebrows to follow and react to the rest of the body during. Posing the eyebrows helps to reinforce some of the emotions of my animation by helping to further express them to the audience by showing and not telling them what the character is feeling and trying to portray. Some of the major areas that were improved by this was the 'OH' expression and 'we're gunna kill you!' as the movment of the eyebrows helps him to look more shoched and menacing when he does these poses. Addationaly, this reflect how these expressions are done in real life helping my animation to fell more organic and natural.

Here i ran into an issue where the interpolation between the eyebrow poses was causing them to bounce around un-naturally. This issue was caused by the amount of unneeded keyframes, causing the eye brows to return to a neutral pose on every frame. To solve this issue i deleted the keyframes in-between and after each eyebrow pose to allow for more fluid movement that allowed the eyebrows to effectively follow the rest of the body and react to what is being said in the audio.

Here i minorly tweaked the eye lids on the 'OH' pose. To further reinforce this poses i made the eyelids further apart, this made the eyes bigger and more prominent more, this enhance the shock expression by more accurately reflecting how this expression is done in real life. When this expression is done in real life it elongates the head and makes the eyes really wide, which is what i wanted to include in my animation to make sure i portrayed this expression effectively, by implemtning these tweaks i achieved this.

Throughout this section i constantly reflected back to my storyboard. This made sure i knew what emotions to pose at certain points throughout my animation, which allowed me to adjust the eyebrows accordingly.

The video above showcases what i did during the polishing stage of my stylised animation. My focus within this stage was to finalise my animation ready for it to be rendered. To prepare my animation i tweaked the timing of the expressions, refined the jaw and tongue movement, fully closing the mouth to make sure words are expressed and posed correctly and adjusting the keyframes to help with the fluisity and timing of my animation. These are crucial aspects when polishing of an animation, by tweaking aspects such as the keyframes  helps to ensure the timing of the animation is correct and  the movements are fluid and organic.

Here i am moving the lip sync keyframes to ensure the jaw movements line up with the audio effectively. To accurately do this i moved slowly through the animation listening to when the words in the audio started, as this enabled me to line up the jaw movements to each world, providing me with a lip sync that is in time with the audio Yet this area does still some tweaks to make sure it is of the highest quality. To achieve this i will keep refining this aspect of my animation until it is fully accurate and in sync with the audio.

Here i am adding further jaw and tongue movements to capture every word in the lip sync. As the mouth was not moving fast enough to capture every word. To fix this issue i tweaked the placement of the jaw keyframes escipally near the start as this was primarily were this issue was happening the most.  Addationaly, i made sure to tweak the tongue on certain words as it was sometimes up when it shouldn't of been, this allowed me to create mouth shapes that more effectively reflected how the word would be said in real life.

Here i am tweaking the jaw placement on words such as 'me' and 'played' to ensure my lip sync reflected how these words are said in real life. This allows my animation to feel more organic and fluid as the jaw movements accurately replicate how the words are pronounced.

Here i am adjusting the timing for the 'OH' expression and pose for my animation as i noticed it was not in sync with the audio . To solve this i moved through the animation, then moved keyframes to a more accurate spot that more closely reflected where the oh was said. Additionally, this aids my lip sync by making it more in time with the audio and closer to how this expression would be done in real life..

Here is another example of me adjusting the keyframes to help with the timing of my animation. I primarily made these adjustments at the start of my animation regarding when he says 'shoulda' as i noticed this was not in time due to the mouth not moving fast enough to capture the pronunciation of the word. To solve this issue i moved some keyframes backwards to ensure the mouth started to move as soon as he started speaking.

To finalise my initial advancements in the polish stage i play blasted my animation this allowed me get a better view and make sure all the lip sync and gestures where in time in with the audio. Additionally, this helps to give a very basic idea of what my final render will look like as it will be from the same perspective. Playblasting allows me to adjust the cameras and timing in my animation before doing an official final render.

The video that showcase the continuation of the stylized polish phase. The adjustments i made in this video include working on the speed of the 'oh' gesture, smoothing out the graph editor and further polishing the lip sync by adjusting the lips and timing of the jaw movements. These are further advancements that will aid my animation to be of higher quality by making it more fluid and organic by reflecting how specific poses and expressions are done in real life. 

Here i am further enhancing the timing of the 'OH' gesture. While the lip sync is improved i noticed the gesture was to slow not effectively reflecting how it would be performed in real life. To fix this i adjusted the placement of some keyframes pulling them closer together to ensuring it was a quick shrug of the shoulders.

Here i am continuing to polish the lip sync. I am primarily focusing on on the mouth shape and ensuring it is reflective of the words being said in the audio. To enhance the facial shapes i played my animation a couple times and pronounced the words to myself to give me an idea on what the lips should look like when saying certain words. This helped me to go back through my animation and minorly tweak the the lips and jaw to ensure they depict the pronunciation effectively.  

Here i am cleaning and smoothing out the graph editor to make sure the transitions between keyframes in my animations is smooth and the interpolation is not causing any issues to the animation. To smooth the graph editor i initially selected all the keyframes in my animation and used spline tangents this made all the transitions between my keyframes smooth, i then went through and made some minor tweaks in graph editor using each keyframes tangent lines, ensuring all the curves where as smooth as possible. Furthermore, deleting some keyframes and ensuring the graph editor is smooth makes sure the interpolation between the poses is clean and doesn't conflict with the poses in my animation.

Above is a video that showcases the continuation of the polish stage of my animation. The primary aspects i worked on in this video are the tongue movement, making sure the mouth is close at the start of words and reducing how fluid the jaw movements are to reflect how people talk in real life. These are subtle changes that add a lot of key-frames to my animation but help to polish the lip sync by making it more organic and reflective of how people speak. These tweaks and changes where all done in efforts to overcome the lackluster lip rig that this rig includes.

Here i am ensuring the mouth is closed as each words starts, as i noticed his mouth start to move before the the words started to play in the audio. To achieves this i slowly went through the graph editor listening to the audio, stopping before every word to ensure his mouth was closed to more effectively reflect how people speak in real life. This proved to be quite challenging as it was both time consuming and hard to depict when each word started. I overcame this challenge and pleased with the result so far , as  it is not 100% accurate and will be an area i will revisit when i continue the polishing stage.

Here i am making the mouth less fluid ( which goes against everything i understand about animation ) i did this because i noticed my lip sync was one fluid jaw motion. Making it less fluid will make my lip sync more accurately reflect how people speak in real life. As speaking isn't one fluid motion, you jaw is constantly going up and down which in terms of the graph editor would be a zig-zag and not a smooth flowing curve. To achieve this i went through my animation to each word and made sure the mouth was fully closed or accurately open to reflect the word being said. I am pleased with the final result as my lip sync now more effectively reflect how people speak in real life.

Here i am slightly adjusting the tongue movements to make sure it moved up and down at the correct time. This helps my lip sync more accurately reflect how words are said such as 'kill' where the tongue doesn't move up straight away but starts to move after the 'ki' and on the 'll'. Furthermore i went through the rest of my animation for other words that utilize the tongue and adjusted the motion to ensure it was accurate to how the word is pronounced in real life.

Here i am refining the oh pose and point behind pose. As they appeared un-organic and unnatural . To solve this issue i placed a neutral pose in between these gestures which helped with the transitional interpolation between these poses helping the gestures to be more reflective of how these gestures are preformed in real life.

In another effort to make the jaw movements less fluid i added an extra key-frame every time his mouth is closed. This creates a subtle pause between each word which reflects how people speak in real life. To achieve this i went through my animation and stopped every time his mouth was closed and copied the key frame one frame after to create this subtle pause. I am pleased with how adding this subtle pause helped to enhance my animation and contribute to making the overall lip sync less fluid , making sure he actually looks like he is talking to the audio.

After transferring my animation to the new rig i noticed it had placed a key-frame on all of the 333 frames in my animation, this lead to me having to do clean up on a few controls to ensure there as no in accurate movements. To achieve an effective clean up i went through the graph editor and deleted key frames where necessary to allow form smooth and fluid interpolation. To ensure i kept the original poses i used my old save files graph editor by looking at where the key-frames are placed and matched it up to the new one. While this i a inconvenience, as it prevented me from carrying on with animating, it is still a valuable to know how to deal with this issue if i ever encounter again. 

Here i changed the background to black in the new file. I made this change so when i line up my animations to compare them they all have a uniform background color so they all seamlessly fit in with each other when i put them together. Additionally, i made this change to make it easier to differentiate between the old version of my animation and the new. 

Here i am adjusting the lips and wideness / narrowness of the mouth, to create a block out that i can further refine when i continue the polishing stage for this animation. To create the initial blocking for the narrow wide controller i went through my animation and repeated the audio out loud, i then moved the narrow / wide controller when my whenever my lips in real life where squashed or stretched. Using the narrow wide controller allows my lip sync to more effectively reflect how people speak in real life. I will continue to enhance this aspect of my animation when i continue with the polishing stage of this animation. 

On one of my attempts to transfer my animation i ran into this issue where my rig completely broke. This didn't slow me down during the set up as i easily fixed this by removing the key frames and made sure to only select the controls i had data for. Yet it is still important to highlight this as i know how to provail over this issue if where to ever face it again.

After, transferring my animation to a new file it didn't capture the data for the left arm. This lead to me having to redo the left arm movement in my animation. Fortunately, this didn't significantly slow me down as the left arm didn't have much movement in my animation. To ensure i posed the left arm accurately i used the right arm for reference by looking at the pose that arm was in and reflecting it appropriately. E.g. when he was shrugging with his right arm i reflected that in his left. The major issue i ran into during this process was the timing of the left arm as it wasn't in sync with the right. To solve this issues i kept switching between the left and right arm controllers to see what frames the key-frames where on. This made sure the left and right arm where in sync ensuring the gestures in my animation are accurate.

While using the studio library i crashed multiple times. Which was admittedly was very irritating and played influence on my efficiency while i was setting up the poses library. Yet crashes cant be avoided and lucky i didn't lose any progress as i found the temporary files Maya saves when crashing to avoid me losing any progress. It is still important to know how to deal with crashes to limit the impact it has on my efficiency during production.  

The video above showcases the part 1 of stylized polishing after regaining the missing controller. The main areas i worked on in this video are  adding slight shoulder movement to certain gestures, adding slight hip movement and refining the neutral pose. These are a collection of aspects that will help to push my animation to a higher quality, as my animation will more accurately reflect how people speak and gesture in real life.

Here i am adding subtle shoulder movement to the gestures, this enhanced the gestures by making them reflect how the body actually moves in real life. Additionally, i made sure the rotation of the shoulders went back to its original position at the appropriate this avoids any unintentional shoulder movements that could detract from the poses in my animation. While they do need more refinement. I am pleased with how subtly moving the shoulders enhanced the poses reflecting how they would move in real life. 

Here i am adding subtle hip movement to my animation. This was one of the main areas i was recommended to work from the most recent feedback i gained from my tutor. Adding hip movement allows the animation to feel more fluid and more accurately depict how someone in real life would talk and gesture.  The main areas i tweaked the hip where the poses such as when he plays dead, moving the hips on each main gesture helped make my animation less stiff and reflect real human movement. While this hips still need some further refinement as sometimes they don't rotate back to their original position negatively impacting the interpolation between poses, i am satisfied with the progress i have made on the hips so far and pleased with instant impact they have already had on improving my animation.

Here i am adjusting the arm positions to ensure they are accurate and not in un organic poses. My aim when moving the arm was to place in a natural place that reflect how the arm would follow other body in each movement. For example of the shoulder and upper body move the arm would follow along. This movement can sometimes happen a second or two after the main action which would be considered follow through. This is an aspect i additionally plan to add into my animation towards the end of the polishining stage to implement this into my animation.

Here i am tweaking the upper body to follow the hips whenever they rotate. This helps to remove the staticness from my animation as the upper body felt lifeless and stiff. Subtly rotating the upper body helps to enhance the gestures, by making them more accurate to how the body would move in real life. The main areas i moved the upper body where on the point and play dead gestures, this is when the hips have the most movement and it is important that the upper body reflect this movement. Furthermore, much like the arm movement,  upper body movement is occasionally offset to the rest of the animation to aid with the follow through. This is an aspect i plan to introduce into my animation near the end of the polishing stage.

Here i am further refining the mouth and jaw movement, my aim when doing this is to capture the accurate mouth movements when pronouncing specific words by squashing and stretching the mouth appropriate. This was fairly challenging, as a high quality lip sync is difficult and to achieve my desired look i had to slowly play my animation and stop on every word, examine the mouth and move onto the next word. This can be tedious at times and lead to me getting lost in my animation a few times. Yet i am pleased with the final out come, while it still does need some minor adjustments, i believe it portrays accurate lip sync that is in time with the audio with mouth shapes that reflect the words being said.

Here i am offsetting both the body and facial key-frames. I did this to the body and face for separate reasons. Offsetting the body key-frames enhanced the anticipation and follow through in my animation by making the body move first and the head following (almost like the head is reacting to what the body is doing) this reflects how people move in real life as gestures and expressions don't happen all happen at once. I learnt this from the feedback i gained on my previous version of my animation. As for the mouth i offset the key-frames to ensure they are in line with the audio. Additionally i offset the facial key-frames 1-2 frames to reflect how your mouth has a subtle delay before you start making noise and speaking. This proved to be highly effective as it enhanced the follow through and anticipation of my animation, helping my animation feel more organic and natural and reflect the stylized style effectively.

Here i am refining the eyebrow movement in my animation to make it more smooth and natural. To achieve this looked i refined the posing of the eyebrows and added a neutral eyebrow pose that the transitions to between his expression reflecting how people move there eyebrows in real life. This also reduced the erratic nature of the eyebrows by making them fluid and reflect the gestures and expression the character is making more accurately.

Here i am refining the poses in my animation. The main adjustments i made where to the play dead, point behind and final shrug pose to ensure they portrayed the gesture effectively. The main changes i made include rotations and movements of the wrists and arms to a position that more accurately reflects the gesture i am aiming for ,adjusting the timing on key-frames to help with the transitions between poses helping the overall fluidity and timing of my animation. 

Here i am cleaning up excess key-frames left over from when i transitioned the animation to a new file. While cleaning up key frames does take up extra time, it is important i do this as it allow the interpolation between poses smoother avoiding any un-natural movements occurring in my animation. Cleaning up key frames is also a valuable skill to develop as too many key-frames in an animation can impact rendering process making it take longer than it needs too due to the excess the key frames that are not holding any data.  

Note : I recorded around 1 hour of progress and the video file corrupted leading to me losing the that video. That's why you might notice there is a progress jump between this video and the last. In the corrupted video i generally worked on the same aspects as the video above so the analysis of the steps i did during this stage will be reflective of the ones i did in the corrupted video.

The video above showcases the continuation of the polishing stage for my stylized animation. My main focuses during this stage where focused mainly on refinement making sure every aspect is of the highest quality by implementing the animation principles and reflecting the poses more accurately. The main areas of refinement where the eyes, head, right arm, jaw and tongue. Additionally, i added a blink towards the end of the animation to make my animation feel more organic. These are a collection aspects that help improve my animation by using principles such as anticipation, follow through and secondary action to a better degree.

Here i am refining the jaw and tongue movement in two key ares being when he says 'like' and 'I'll'. When he was saying 'I'll' his mouth was opening too early, making his mouth out of sync with the audio hindering the quality of my lip sync. To fix this i made sure the mouth was fully closed until he started saying 'i'll'. As for when he says 'like' his tongue wasn't moving appropriately to produce the L sound to fix this i pulled the tongue up when he starts saying this word.

Here i am adding some eye movement as originally he was staring down the camera the whole time, which lead to an uncanny and stiff feel. The main areas i added this eye movement when he looked away to make sure the eyes where following the head and generally when he was speaking in words like 'they' where he looked up to the side to show he was thinking about someone else and what he was going to say. I added this to my animation based on my feedback as my tutor mentioned how when people are speaking they dont always look forward as there eyes often move and dart around when thinking what they will say or do next. Adding eye movement helped to imitate this aspect of speech allowing my animation to feel and look more organic.

Here i am refining the left arm movement as it was unnatural and causing issues with the interpolation. To fix this i moved and deleted some keyframes so the left arm would move smoothly avoiding any unnatural poses. This was mainly an issue at the start of my animation as the left arm looked stiff almost as if he injured that arm. Additionally, i added some movement to the left arm throughout the animation to more effectively follow the body, enhancing the gestures and expressions present in my animation.

Here i am adding further head movement at the start of my animation, based on the feedback i received that discussed how the head felt to static in comparison to the rest of the body. The main areas i added head movement in where on the word 'man' and 'always' where i rotated the head slightly to reinforce the pronunciation of those words. I additionally, added some subtle head movement in the rest of the animation to follow the body movement to enhance the overall organic feel of my animation.

Here i added an extra blink towards the end of the animation where there was a couple second pause, the lead to this part of my animation feel lifeless and unnatural. To solve this i added a quick blink to fill this pause to avoid the un-organic feel of him staring at the camera not doing anything for a couple of seconds. Addationaly, i did try to add a breathing motion to fill this pause but this turned out to be un effective as it didn't look natural and felt out of place in my animation so i decided to remove this. This couple second gap is something i plan to revisit and develop further as i continue with the polishing stage.

The video above showcases the continuation of  the polish stage for my stylized animation, along with how i responded and implemented the feedback i received to improve my animation. The main areas i worked on in this video where the lip sync specifically from frame 50 to 100, Lip sync when he says 'play dead', Adjusting the play dead and point behind gesture, adding additional head movement and finally changing the background to green. Below there will be a deeper analysis of the why and how enhancing each of these aspects helped to improve the quality of my animation.

Here i changed the background to green after some discussion with my tutor, where we discussed how it would be more effective to use a green background for the final render as i can change the background to anything, such as a stylized cartoon background to fit with the style of this animation. I will know the effectiveness of this once i have a final render and put into software's such as adobe premier pro and light room.

Here i am refining the lip sync from frame 50 to 100, based on my feedback that mentioned how this section seemed out of sync with the incorrect mouth shapes not accurately portraying the pronunciation of the words being said. To achieve this i slowly progressed through this chunk of my animation listening closely for the words being said and adjusted the mouth accordingly, to ensure the mouth was in a effective pose for each word. Additionally, i adjusted the timing of the key frames in the graph editor to ensure the mouth moved in sync with the audio. These improvements help to enhance my animation by making the lips feel more organic by accurately reflecting how these words would be said in real life.

Here i am altering the the timing of the play dead gesture, this was a change i made after discussion with my tutor where they mentioned how this gesture should be quick and happen when the audio says 'DEAD'. To achieve this look i adjusted the placement of key frames to make sure this pose happened when he says 'DEAD'. In addition, i also rotated and moved the head slightly to ensure this pose was accurate after moving the key frames as this had some negative impact on the poses, causing some unnatural movements due to the moved key frames effecting the interpolation. Finally, this proved to be effective as the impact of this pose has been improved and allowed my animation to more effectively fit the stylized style by using exaggerated gestures at the correct time. 

 Here i am adjusting the timing when says 'play dead', based on my feedback which mentioned how the lip movements where slightly out of time with the audio. To fix this i moved slowly through my animation to locate the more accurate timing for the mouth movements. It turned out to only be a handful of frames back to make it more effective and in sync with the audio. This was effective tweak as it helped to ensure the mouth movements accurately reflect the words being said in the audio.

Here i am adjusting the hip rotation of the turn around pose to make this pose feel more organic and natural. This was an improvement i made based on a discussion i has with my tutor where we discussed how this pose was unnatural and didn't accurately reflect how you would turn and point in real life. To make the pose more natural i rotated the hip to turn the body more. Additionally, i slightly adjusted the key-frames to improve the timing and transitions of this pose. 

Here i am adding additional head movement throughout the animation, but more specifically during the couple seconds pause towards the end of my animation. My aim when moving the head was to reflect how people tend to look around when they are speaking in real life. To achieve this i rotated the head slightly to the left and right in the animation to show how he is constantly glancing around (possibly looking at his (imaginary) surroundings or thinking).

The video above showcases the continuation of the polishing phase of my animation. The main areas i worked on in this video reflect a discussion i had with my tutor about the final tweaks my animation needs. These tweaks included eyelid movement, play dead gesture, hip movement and more anticipation. Some additional aspects i worked on during this video include the shoulder position and  further eye movement which i will discuss in the general refinement sub-heading. Along with some issues i encountered during the process of refining these aspects. 

Here i am adjusting the eyelids movement, to make sure the eyelids follow the head and eye movement. Primarily, i  moved the eyelids whenever he looks up or down. This reflects how the eyelids move when people speak in real life. During speak or gesturing they often to look around and scan their surroundings and as they do this there eyelids move to protect and react to the eyes movement. This is an aspect i wanted to reflect in my animation by moving the eyelids to achieve this.

After more discussion with my tutor they recommend me to add more anticipation to the poses in my animation. Essentially, anticipation is making sure whenever something moves right it moves left first or if it is moving up it moves down first. The main area where i added anticipation was the final shrug where i added an extreme high pose. This helps to add more anticipation to my animation by placing it an a high extreme pose before he goes down, additionally it adds squash and stretch which is one of the key principles for effective stylized style of animation. 

Here i am refining the play dead gesture, after some discussion with my tutor they noticed how this pose looked un-natural and not reflective of how this pose would be performed in real life. To fix this issue applied some slight movements and rotations to the head to move the head more centrally and make sure the head started to rotate backup to its normal position in time. Adjusting these aspects of the head allowed this gesture to feel more organic and natural. Additionally, i moved the left shoulder forward to further reinforce this pose.  

Here i am slightly adjusting the hip throughout the animation, to further enhance the anticipation and follow through within my animation. I primally adjusted the hip during by moving it left and right or up and down during the play dead gesture and during the pointing to self gesture towards the start of the animation.  Making these adjustments helped my animation to fit into the stylised theme more effectively by utilizing the animation principles to a higher degree.

Here i am made some general refinements which included adding additional eye movement and adjusting the shoulder position. The main areas where i made these adjustments was during final shrug pose as his shoulders where to far forward causing an unnatural pose, to fix this issue i pulled the right shoulder forward to allow the pose to feel more organic and natural. I added the additional eye movement during the transition from the playing dead pose to the point behind gesture to aid with the follow through in my animation.

Here i encountered a hip issue, this lead to me having to go back a version of my file and re-do some progress on the mouth and hip. This did have slight impact on my overall efficiency during the polishing stage as it set me back about 1hr of progress. Yet this provided me with a better final result as i had already experienced and learn how to fix the issue  with the lip sync and return the hip back to its original movement 

This video above showcases the final stages of the polish stage for my stylised animation. The main focuses within this video was refining  the left arm and shoulder, ensuring the poses accurately portray the gestures such as the point behind. Additionally, tweaking these areas helps implement animation principles such as follow through and anticipation, escipally in the left arm which looked to static during the animation. Below will be an analysis of the areas i worked on during this video  along with a reflection on the polish stage for this animation.

Here i am tweaking the left arm due to a discussion i had with my tutor where they mention how the left arm still looked static and lifeless. To solve this i moved the arm to some more extreme positions during the transitions, this enhanced the follow through of the arm allowing it to naturally move and reflect the body motion. Additionally, adjusting these aspects helps with the overlapping action of my animation as the left arm is moving separately to the body but still responding the motion of the body. 

Here i am adjusting the left shoulder based on feedback from my tutor where they mentoid how this poses looked un-natural. Yet they couldn't figure out what was inherent issue with this pose so i decided to tweak a few aspects of this pose to find how to improve it. The first area i tweaked was the hip. Where i adjusted the hip by rotating it along the x-axis to turn him more yet this proved to be un-effective as it didn't solve the un-natural look to this pose. Next i tried adjusting the left shoulder by pulling it back this adjustment proved to be effective, this helped to make the pose more organic and reflective of how this pose would be performed in real life.

Here i am refining the main poses of my animation, to ensure each pose reflect the gestures effectively. The adjustments i made include moving and rotating the arms ensuring they are in the correct place to reflect the gesture effectively. I also made some tweaks to the hips and chest to help make each pose feel more organic by reflecting how each part of the body is effected during movment.

Here i am adding some exaggeration to my animation, based on my research this is an important aspect of the anthropomorphic style as it allows the animal to feel natural and fluid. The main areas where i added exaggeration are the initial point here i lifted the arm and fingers to and extreme position for a couple of frames to add emphasis and the shrug gesture where i positioned the shoulder at a extreme height too add more personality to the character . Implementing this aspect helps enhance the emphasis each gestures in my animation. I am pleased with how i have implemented exaggeration, it has helped to enhance the personality and poses in my animation.

Here i am making some adjustments to the graph editor to aid with the timing of the poses to ensure they are in line with the audio. To achieve this i slowly progressed through the audio to match the gesture up to what is said in the audio. Additionally, i altered the placement of some key frames to ensure the interpolation is smooth allowing my animation to feel fluid and organic. The graph editor is an aspect i will continue to revisit as it is a crucial that the timing in my animation is effective to ensure my animation feels organic and fluid.

Here i adding anticipation and follow through to my animation, i added this principle during most of the movements such as whenever he turns left he slightly turns right before. This helps make each of the movements more believable as the body is almost winding up and preparing for each of the movements it does. Furthermore, it helps each of the poses become more engaging for the audience as they express more personality and guide the audience with the motion of my animation. 

The video above showcases the continuation of the blocking plus stage. My focus on this video was on the head movement, graph editor and poses of my animation. These are 3 areas that i noticed that needed improvement to help with the fluidity of my animation. Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Here i decided to delete a pose from my animation as it was causing issues with the interpolation and didn't feel necessary. Before the deletion of this pose i tried positioning the arm a few different ways to try and find a pose that would be effective for what i'm trying to achieve, ultimately this wasn't effective leading to me deleting this pose. This had a positive impact on my animation by making it feel more organic and natural. 

Here i am adding more head movement to the animation. This implemented principles such as anticipation and follow through to a greater degree, i added head movement before the body so the head would lead the movements to reflect how these gesture would be performed in real life. Yet it is vital i continue to enhance the head movement to ensure i don't 'over animate' the head leading it to feeling floaty and unnatural.

Here i am making further adjustment to the graph editor, to help with the timing and fluidity of my animation. The main adjustments i made where moving the keyframes  so the poses would sync to the audio effectively. Additionally allowing the interpolation of my animation to be smooth avoiding any unnecessary movements or not accurately timed poses. 

Both the video and play blasts above showcase the continuation of the blocking plus stage for my animation. The focus of the video and play blasts was on frames 125 to the end (the rest of my animation). The key aspects i was focusing on was the main poses, anticipation and follow through, adjusting key frames. Additionally i further developed the point behind pose and overcame a rotational issue i faced with in the wrist. Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Here i am refining the main poses from frame 125 to the end. To achieve this  focused on the hips and shoulder placement in these poses so they would accurately reflect the gesture and how they would be performed in real life. Making adjustment to the shoulders and hips helped the emphasize the gestures of my animation be moving the body to reinforce and reflect what the gestures are trying to portray.

Much like, when i was focusing on the frames 1-125 i am now adding anticipation and follow through to the rest of the animation to help for the same reasons. Being enhancing the fluidity and the motion of my animation. Additionally it helped to put emphasis on each of the poses helping to deepen the personality of my animation  

Here i am adjusting the placement of keyframes to help with the interpolation of my animation. As i was facing some issues with the transitional poses because it was causing unnatural poses, such as him turning around to fast and his body not accurately reacting to his arm movements. Addationaly, adjustments i made to the keyframes helped i with the timing of my animation ensuring that the poses are in sync with what is being said in the audio. 

Here i faced a wrist issue where it was rotating unnaturally, this was caused by some of the interpolation as the pose that followed this one wrist was doing a full 360 degree rotation. To fix this i zeroed out the arm to reset it to its ordinal position this overcame this fixed the wrist issue. Furthermore, tweaking the placement of the keyframes also aided in solving the wrist issue, by tweaking the keyframes improved the interpolation. 

Here i was focusing on improving the point behind pose, as his body was effectively reacting to the turn and his head wasn't leading the movement. To achieve my desired result i initially rotated the head so it would lead the movement by placing some keyframes a few frames before the main movement. Next i adjusted the upper body, hip and left shoulder by moving and rotating these aspects it helped this pose to more accurately reflect how this would be performed in real life.

The video above is the continuation of the blocking plus stage for this animation. My focuses in this video where on blocking out the lip sync (Primarily focusing on the up and down jaw movement to get an idea on what the motion and timing should look and feel like) and reducing the overall body movement based on feedback i received from my tutor. Additionally, during this video i created a new animation layer and fixed and issue with the mouth where it wouldn't fully close. Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Here i added a new animation layer, to provide me with a clean graph editor the only holds the facial movements for my animation. This allows for an efficient workflow by avoiding confusion with other important key frames in my animation. Additionally, a new animation layer avoids any mistakes being permanent and becoming difficult to solve as it will be on a clean graph editor meaning it will be easy to identify where the issue is occurring.

Here i am blocking out the lip sync, my main focus with the initial block out was solely on the jaw. Making sure it moves up and down during the correct times in the animation to accurately reflect the audio. To achieve this i used a couple of techniques. Initially, i slowly progressed through my audio and moved the jaw up and down so the mouth would move on each word. Next i went through the key frames and added an extra key frame to whenever his mouth was open to further reflect how the motion of speaking isn't fluid and smooth. This process was generally effective as it helped me to make the basic lip sync that i can refine further and reflect of helping me reduce the body movement in my animation avoiding the floatiness that was present in previous versions of my animation. Furthermore, after completing the lip sync block out i copied all the closed mouth key-frames to ensure the mouth was fully closed after each word. This helped to avoid jaw movement that is floaty leading to my lip sync not feeling organic and natural. 

Here i am reducing the overall movement of the body in my animation. Based of a feeling that my animation was to floaty, reinforced by i discussion i had with my tutor where they noticed the floatiness as well. The main way i reduced the body movement was by using the lip sync block out. As this allowed for movement to still be happening when the character i still for a couple of frames in my animation, this helps divert the audiences attention so they don't realize the rest of the body isn't moving. Additionally, eliminating the floatiness that was evident in previous versions of my animation.

Here i am removing the play dead gesture from my animation based of a discussion i had with my tutor, where they mentioned how 'less is more' as the audio already puts and enough emphasis on this word meaning it doesn't need a gesture to enhance its impact. Removing the pose was highly effective, which i achieved by simply rotating the neck up bringing the head up along with it, making my animation feel more organic and natural by removing a gesture that was adding to much emphasis where there didn't need to be. 

Here i encountered an issue that was caused by me merging 2 animation layers together which caused by placing  key frames on every frame of my animation making it difficult to make adjustments to the general movement of my animation. This issue had a slight impact on my progress through this stage, causing me to go back to a previous version of my animation forcing me to redo the eye movement. Yet this didn't take long as i had already had experience on where the eyes should be moving throughout my animation (from working on my previous animation). overall, this issue didn't have a massive impact on my overall efficiency during this stage of the project. Furthermore, i have now learnt how to overcome this issue and to avoid merging animation layers before completing an animation as it can cause issue with the interpolation.

Here i am implementing eye movement into my animation, to help reinforce the character and personality of my animation. Initially, i used the wrong controller to move the eyes which caused me to spend more time on the eye movement than was necessary yet due to a issue with merging animation layers i had to redo the eye movement, where i used the controller that moved both eyes at the same time, allowing for a more efficient workflow and more accurate eye movement. The main areas where i implemented eye motion was whenever he looked in a direction or on words such as 'me' and 'they' where  i would move the eyes to the side on 'they' and down on 'me'. Furthermore, implementing eye movement to my animation helped enhance the personality and character in my animation by making the eyes follow the head and more accurately reflecting the body motion. Additionally, eye movement helps make my animation feel more organic and fluid by reflecting how peoples eyes move during speech.

Here i am adding tongue movement to my animation, this was done to put further emphasis on words said in the audio such as 'like' and 'play' where tongue movement is necessary for accurate pronunciation of these words. To achieve this i slowly went through the audio and moved the tongue whenever a word needed it, additionally i made sure to move the tongue back to a neutral spot after saying each word to avoid the tongue moving for words that don't need it.

Here i am adding a blink into my animation to further reinforce the character and personality.  To achieve this i started by counting how many times i blinked during this audio which was between 4-5. With this information i closed both eyelids on the rig and made sure they were open +3 and -3 on each side of the closed key-frame. Allowing the blink to feel natural and last an appropriate amount of frames. After setting up the blink key frames i then coped them along my animation to areas where i blinked and felt natural. During this process i was constantly adjusting the placement of these key frames to ensure the blinks were timed accurately.

Here i am adding eyebrow movements to further reinforce the expressions of my animation. The main adjustments i made to the eyebrows was moving them up and down during certain expressions such as the 'oh' to apply further emphasis to the expression. Furthermore, i added eyebrow movement when ever he looks up and down to reflect the overall head motion.

Here i am making some minor adjustments to areas such as the mouth, key-frames and body movement. I adjusted the mouth at the end as it was closing fast enough to reflect 'leave'. I tweaked the placement of key-frames to ensure everything lined up to the audio. Finally, i made minor adjustments to the body by reducing the overall movement of the upper chest and hips to avoid my animation feeling floaty and un-natural. While, these aspects are subtle they all help to further refine my animation by improving aspects such as the timing and general poses.

After struggling to repose the arm due to the amount of keyframes that were causing issues with the interpolation in key areas such as the shoulder and elbow. I then deleted the arm keyframes, which allowed me to repose the arm and position in it in a more natural pose, additionally avoiding any issues with the interpolation caused by too many keyframes.

Here i am re-posing the arm to a more natural position based on the feedback i received from my tutor as they mentioned how this pose didn't feel organic. To achieve a more organic pose i utilized my mood board and storyboard to get on idea on how the pose should look. Overall i am pleased with the change i made to the point behind as it reflects how someone would perform this gesture in real life.

Here i am adjusting the key-frames on the graph editor to ensure this pose occurs at the accurate time in the audio. Additionally, tweaking the graph editor helps to implement animation principles such as anticipation and follow through by having certain body parts move before and after each action.

The video above showcased my initial steps within the polishing stage for my anthropomorphic animation. The key area of focus within this video was on adding additional facial movement using all the controllers available to me. As began to encounter some limitations with this rigs facial controls and the mouth shape which restricted the opportunity for narrow and wide as he speaks. Additionally, the adjustment of tongue movement, position of keyframes and overcoming a pasted rig issue will be included in the video above. Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Due to the limitations of this rig in key areas around the mouth, i started to adjust other aspects of the face to make up for the lack of narrow and wide possibility with the mouth. I added movement to aspects such as the forehead, nostrils, eyebrows, lips and cheeks to ensure the whole face would move as he speaks and making up for the lack of control i have when using this rig. To achieve a fluid look and ensure the whole face moves in time, i selected the jaw key-frames along with each of the aspects (listed above in blue) at one time and placed the respective movement that reflected if the mouth was open or closed. This turned out to be effective as it helped add more personality and  character to my animation along with partly making up for the lack of narrow and wide controls on this rig. Additionally, when adjusting the nostril movement i offset them by one frame to add another layer of anticipation to the facial animation helping to guide the audience through his facial expressions.

Here i am adjusting the lips ensuring they are fully closed and follow the rest of the face as the head moves. To achieve this i started by moving the lips to a fully closed position throughout my animation then going through to push the top lips up. While i did this to add more fluidity to my animation making it feel more natural and organic, i also made this adjustment in effort to make up for the lack of narrow and wide possibility on this rig. The adjustments i made to the lips while subtle help enhance this animation by further implementing principles such as anticipation and follow through.

Here i encountered an issue, where i accidentally pasted the rig which duplicated all the controls of the rig. This caused some minor confusion around the mouth and lips as the correct control to move them wasn't fully clear. This issue only has a slight impact on my efficiency during this stage as i quickly located the correct control to use and carried on with animating. I am pleased with the limited impact this issue had on my progress and how promptly i spotted this issue and overcame it. Furthermore i now know how to face and overcome this issue i where to face it again in the future.

Here i am adjusting the tongue movement due to some of the tongue motion towards the end accidentally being deleted as i was tweaking the graph editor. To solve this issue i progressed through my animation and listened for words such as 'like' and 'kill' which need tongue movement to portray there pronunciation accurately. Overall, having to re-do some of the tongue movement didn't have a massive impact on my efficiency as it was a simple fix as i already had experience on how the tongue should move during certain words to portray the accurate pronunciation. 

Here i am reducing facial movement, after noticing there was to much movement in key areas of my animation causing the face movement to look jumpy and not fluid, such as when ever he speaks quickly. To reduce the movement effectively i deleted a selection of the key-frames that contained  cheeks and brow movement, these where the main areas that where making the facial expressions feel inorganic and natural. This proved to be an effective change as it helped make the facial expressions be fluid and reflective of how someone would speak in real life.

Here i am offsetting key-frames on the graph editor to ensure the facial expressions occur at the accurate time in the audio. Additionally, tweaking the graph editor helps to implement animation principles such as anticipation and follow through by having certain body parts move before and after each action.

The video above showcases the continuation of the polishing stage. During this video my focus was on areas recommended to me from my tutor after receiving feedback from them. These areas include refining the jaw movement, implementing additional anticipation and subtle adjustments to the head, nostrils and blinks. These are all areas that when further refined will help improve the quality of my animation by more effectively reflecting how these pose and speech would be performed in real life. Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Here i am adjusting how open and closed the jaw is, due to feedback i received from my tutor where they mention how his jaw looked snappy and not reflective of how someone would speak in real life. To achieve a more natural feel i initially adjusted the placement of the mouth open frames to different  heights, specifically focusing on vowles ensuring the mouth is positioned wider when he says AEIOU. To further enhance this organic feel to my lip sync i adjusted the keyframes when his mouth was close to reflect how you don't fully close your mouth after every word. These adjustments proved to be effective helping me avoid my lip sync feeling snappy and unnatural.

Here i am making subtle adjustments to the head due to some unnatural interpolation that was occurring between poses. To solve this issue i positioned the head in natural pose and implemented a couple of keyframes to aid with the arcs of the transitions. While these tweaks where subtle, they helped improve the arcs and interpolation in my animation, helping my animation feel more natural and organic. 

Here i offset both the nostril keyframes forward one frame and the mouth keyframes backwards one frame. Moving the nostril keyframes help implement animation principles such as follow through and secondary action as the nostril reacted to what the rest of the body was doing after the initial action. Initially i offset the jaw keyframes backwards 2 frames but this made the mouth movements out of sync, so i decided to only move them back by 1 as this more effectively reflected how peoples mouths start to move before they start to speak and make sounds.

Here i am adding additional anticipation to the animation based on feedback i received from tutor, where they mentioned how he needs to move slightly left before he goes right specifically near the end of the animation. Adding additional anticipation helps to guide audience through the animation without directly telling them what going to happen. The main area i implemented more anticipation was during the transition just before the point behind pose starts. This provides further impact to the the point behind gesture and more effectively guides the audience to this pose / gesture.

Here i am making some general refinements to do with the blink and nostril movement. I adjusted the blink by ensuring the eyelid where fully close and coving the eye, additionally i tweaked the timing of the blink making the initial blink last longer and open quicker. As for the nostrils i reduced the overall movement of them by selecting all the keyframes where they moved up and pulling the down reducing there movement throughout the entire animation.

Pose refining was the main chunk of the progress i made during these videos, as i started to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of having a good A and B  pose and the heavy influence it has on my overall animation. The main areas i made adjustments include the hip, shoulders, eyes and the point behind gesture. I adjusted the hip height towards the end of the animation to add a better sense of weight and balance to my animation, i tweaked the shoulder rotation throughout my animation to make sure the shoulder was moving naturally and reacting to the arm movement, finally the last major tweak i made was to the eye position where i lowered where i lowered where his eyes where looking as it looked as though he was distracted or gazing into the distance which was not the intended result. Additionally, throughout pose refinement i used a modular workflow where i broke my animation up into manageable chunks, this not only allowed me ti ensure each section of my animation was to a good standard bu also allowed me to experiment with  different techniques such as adding moving holds and only moving the facial features on vowels. Overall, refining poses has made my animation better but also taught me just how important good and believable posing is for an animation, as good posing ensures your animation feels natural and organic.

Here i am implementing and adjusting tongue movement to aid with the pronunciation of certain words, due to the mouth rig not having the ability to go narrow and wide i utilized the tongue to make up for this along with making sure the tongue moves for certain words that require it. The main adjustments i made to the tongue where moving up and down when appropriate e.g when he says 'like' the tongue is needed to make the 'L' sound. To ensure i was efficient during the implementation of tongue movement i used the wire frame of the rig which provided me with easy access to the tongue allowing me to move it up and down when necessary. Additionally, i utilized the graph editor to make adjustments to the timing of the tongue to ensure the tongue was moving up and down at the correct time. This proved to be effective as my animation now includes tongue movements that are accurate and reflective of how the tongue would move when this audio is preformed in real life.

Here i am further implementing the animation principles such as anticipation and follow through to refine the timing and fluidity of my animation. The main areas where i further implemented these principles where the just before the final shrug where i lowered him down to add more anticipation to the final shrug. Additionally, i altering the position of the head and upper body during the the head tilt pose as it was rotating too much causing an unnatural pose effecting the fluidity of my animation. The adjustments proved to be effective as my animation now has more personality and feels more fluid and organic.

Here i am adjusting the position of the jaw in efforts to remedy the snappiness effecting the fluidity of my animation. To solve this issue i began to reduce the overall movement in jaw by adjusting the key frames in the graph editor, which at first was providing me with some issue as moving the jaws key frames had a negative impact on the interpolation. To overcome this i moved the jaw frames individually allowing me to overcome this issue.  I progressed through the animation reducing the jaw movement and altering the position of words such as 'me' in efforts to more accurately reflect how the mouth moves when people speak in real life. These adjustments proved to be effective as the snappiness of the jaw has now been reduced providing me with a more natural and organic  lip sync.

Here i am re-adding the cheek movement to enhance the lip sync by ensuring the face react to the jaw movement, providing a more natural lip sync that includes effective facial movement to enhance the facial expressions in my animation. To begin with the cheek movement was to fast causing to it to feel unnatural so i decided to delete these frames and redo them. For more of an effective movement i tested only moving the cheeks on vowels,  (on a small section of my animation to begin with) after this proved to be an effective change i applied it to the rest of my animation to enhance the fluidity and facial expression. The main reason i only adjusted the cheeks on vowels was due to feedback from my tutor where they mentioned how in toy story characters heads squash and stretch on vowels. This was a technique i found intriguing and wanted to implement into my animation, which proved to be effective as the cheek movement not only feels natural but also adds personality to my animation which is an important aspect when working with the anthropomorphic style. 

Here i am initially deleting the old facial movement then re-adding facial movement to my animation after the original movement was un-natural. Based on my findings when adding the cheek movement i added subtle movement to the forehead and nostrils and more prominent movement to the the eyebrow to reinforce the facial expressions. Much like how i only applied movement to the cheeks on vowels i did the same for these aspects to produce a fluid facial expressions. Additionally, i adjusted the eyebrow movement in other areas such as when he moves down or during a gesture to further reinforce the poses and expressions i was wanting him to portray. Adjusting these aspects proved to be a massive improvement over the original facial movement as the snappiness has now been removed and my facial animation now feels organic and reflective of how the face would move in real life.

Here i am adding holding poses into my animation, based in feedback i received from my tutor where they mentioned how my animation felt floaty and needed to be fully stationary at certain points in my animation to prevent over-animation. A holding pose is when the character become fully stationary and has subtle movement, this avoids transitions between poses having no weight or impact. I mainly  implemented moving holds during transitions after the main gestures to remove the floatiness. Additionally, i added a couple of moving holds to extend certain poses such as the point at the beginning and  when he says 'man' for more natural pacing. Overall adding moving holds to my animation has helped me to greatly improve my animation by eliminating the floatiness and adding more weight to my animation.

  Throughout this section i ran into a few issues, these include interpolation issues caused by misuse of animation layers, problematic key-frames making my animation unnatural and new poses that that didn't work and negatively  impacted my animation. To overcome the interpolation issue caused by accidental duplication of animation layers, i went back to an old  version of my animation before i duplicated the layers. While this was inconvenient it only lead to around 30 mins of progress being lost which didn't have a huge impact on my overall efficiency during the polishing stage. Additionally, i now know how to identify this issue if it happens again, hopefully avoiding any progress being lost in future. To solve the problematic keyframes i utilized the graph editor to locate the keyframes causing issues and either deleted them or made sure they were on the correct frame. Finally i started to experiment with some new poses specifically when he says 'they', where i lifted his arms up to imitate a shrug. This proved not to be effective as it didn't feel natural or organic. Overall, i am pleased with how i dealt with these problems as it reduced the impact they and on my project on the whole. Furthermore, i now have the experience when dealing with these issues i can overcome them efficiently if i were to face the again in the future.

Here i am playblasting my animation to gain feedback and get an idea on what my final render could look like. Before playblasting i adjusted the camera angle to ensure it was at the right angle and only captured the upper body. Playblasting allowed me to notice some jumpy and snappy movements that were impacting the fluidity of my animation. After noticing these issues i went back to my graph editor located the issue and solved it by removing or moving unneeded and placed on the in correct frames. Ultimately, playbalsting turned out to be highly effective as it allowed me to spot interpolation issues that i might not of located before helping me to make my animation of higher quality.

(Animation Mentor, 2020) 

(Business of animation , n.d.) (Bloop, 2023) (Mentor, 2014) 

The video above showcases the splining process of my anthropomorphic animation. The areas i focused on during this stage include cleaning up the graph editor, adjusting the poses, tweaking the keyframes and fixing some rotation issues. These are all aspects that are apart of the splining stage of animation (based on the research i conducted on the splining stage recommended to me by my tutor) and work together to make my animation feel more fluid and natural by removing unneeded keyframes and fixing incorrect poses.  Below will be an in depth analysis of each step and how and why they impacted my animation.

Here i am cleaning up the graph editor which is the primary purpose of the splining stage. During this process my main focus was on removing any unnecessary keyframes in the graph editor that where making my animation feel unnatural. To achieve a more fluid look i started with the hip keyframes and worked my way up to the head. On each controller i examined there keyframes and either deleted or moved them using the tangent line to help with the timing and smoothness. Additionally, i used a function called breaking keyframe which helped with the timing and slow in and slow out of my animation. Overall this process has helped the smoothness of my animation, the interpolation has now been improved between poses by reducing the amount of keyframes that only held slight movement that was unnecessary to my animation. 

Here i am tweaking some of the poses, as some of them where accidently changed when  i was adjusting and deleting keyframes. This didn't have much effect on my efficiency during this stage as the fixes i had to make to the poses where simple position and rotation changes. The main pose i adjusted during this stage was the final shrug as the as the left arm was out of sync with the right leading to issues with timing. To fix this issues i moved the left arm into a pose that reflected the right arm, to ensure the arms moved up together at the same time. Addationaly, i rotated the shoulders down as they positioned up when they weren't meant to be. While, the changes i made in this section are subtle they helped to refine the poses and ensure the timing is accurate in my animation.

Here i faced a rotation issue in the right wrist, as the wrist was unnaturally spinning causing an unnatural movement. To solve this issue i zeroed out the arm to reposition the arm, after this i then repositioned the arm and the elbow in the keyframes before and after to ensure the interpolation was accurate and avoiding any unnatural movements. Overall, this issue didn't have a massive impact on my efficiency during this project as i solved this issue quickly avoiding a possible delay this could of caused to the production of this animation. Furthermore, i now know how to overcome this issue if i were to face this issue in the future.

The video above showcases the final adjustments and polish i did to my stylized animation to fully prepare it for rendering.  Primarily, i achieved this by cleaning up the graph editor and making slight adjustments to the poses to ensure they were accurate. These are aspects that will help my animation feel more fluid and ensure each pose is accurate avoiding any un-organic movements or poses.

Here i am splining my stylised animation. My main focus during this section was removing any unnecessary keyframes making sure all the curves in the graph editor are smooth, by using tangent lines or deleting kry frames that where causing un-organic or jittery movements within my animation. This process enhanced my animation by solving some of the issues i was encountering with the elbow and making my overall animation feel more fluid and natural. Additionally, during this process i made minor adjustments to some of the poses, with specific focus on the arms to ensure they where in time and in the accurate position to reflect each of the poses.