More on the Computer

Ok there's some After Effects stuff on this blog and a piece of Flash animation.

After Effects first. The task was to do a ten to twelve second piece which started and ended with a specific image. I think I've got a better understanding of how the program works (though every so often I find myself trying to use Maya key bored short cuts on it.) I don't feel quite as embarrassed to show this as I did with my last After Effects piece. As this little short had to begin and end with the same image I decided to sequence it in such a way that it could run in a loop.

Ooogle




My Flash work is a talking butch bulldog with the manly name Lola. The task was to make her (it is meant to be a her) mouth move in sync with speech. The range of mouth positions was limited. Important consonants such as n were missing.

I found I could compensate by using other positions such as using the "r" position for a "d" as the teeth were bared and the "e" position for an "a". Lola also had quite a distinct accent and uses elongated "aaaayys" ans "esssssss". I had to consider such things when animating. There's no point selecting an "o" position if the character says such a vowel as "au".
I feel that over all the timing is more or less ok (but not fantastic) though I do feel that I ended up creating too much movement.

Apparently next time we get to draw our own characters and lip sync them. Yay!


Lola Lip Sync




So that's Lola. Any thoughts and feed back would be much appreciated as always.