For this project, I decided to do a lipsync from Disney’s Emperor’s New Groove. I chose the scene where Yzma is checking that Kronk has the poison to kill Emperor Kuzco. The short section I modeled my sculpture on is when Kronk does a little “monologue” about which poison he has. The script follows as:

“Oh right, the poison. The poison for Kuzco. The poison chosen specially to kill Kuzco. Kuzco’s poison. That poison? … Gotcha covered.”

For the sculpt layers, I made fourteen different layers:

1. His confused starting look
2. His gasp when he realizes what Yzma is asking
3. Oh
4. R
5. I (sounds like eye)
6. T | S | N | E (sounds like ee) *
7. Th | L *
8. Uh | ih *
9. P
10. Oi
11. F *
12. OO
13. Ch | Sh *
14. Ah (sounds like apple)

The layers with an asterisk (*) are layers where one mouth position works for several different sounds, as shown with the different letters or sounds in the “title” of the layer. With the F layer, it also works for the V in “covered”. It is not named “F | V” because I was originally unsure if I was going to use that part of the clip.

After sculpting all the layers, I realized I had sculpted all the eyebrows to very beginning expressions that don’t stay throughout the piece. In order to complete my project on time, I had to make the choice to keep them the way they were.

I exported my Mudbox file to Maya. Here, I started using the shape editor to start keying my frames. At first, this was very difficult. I was looking at the reference video to try to key the mouth movements. I also had to key in where the layer would start, be at its max, and where it would end. This way, the layers would blend nicely with each other and look natural. When I first started keying, I forgot to key the first 0 position, so when I played the animation, three layers were laying on top of each other at different strengths making my project look very wrong. I soon found the reason and fixed it.

After meeting with Professor Chen, I was able to import my audio into Maya which made everything so much easier! I didn’t have to keep estimating from the reference video (which I had put into After Effects to see the frames).

In order for me to wrap my head around where things needed to be keyed, I wrote out all 341 frames in my sketchbook and put the layers start, max, and end positions above the corresponding frame.

After finishing all the keying, I noticed that when I tried to do some head movements and rigging (and just reopening my project from day to day) my program was running incredibly slowly. It was found that my file size was way too large. After talking to Professor Chen, I deleted some unnecessary layers that were in my file, optimize the file, and cut its size down by almost half. It made working much easier.

Professor helped me do some exports in After Effects because my rendering (done in two segments) was causing some sort of exporting glitch. I was able to edit the one we exported in class to make it into my final. I added a title slide for about four seconds, then my animation plays. My model also has a background picture of the room where this conversation is taking place.

PRESENTATION: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l9dFiUiwL-J7LF0GhUSyAEXz1ZnUSJsqjmjiyqXA3bo/edit?usp=sharing

For this assignment, we took our models and manipulated them to fit our identity.

Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZPyBx5pMI4qBnKHokSM9tYAWTMf4FmeuYhrDpjpPJnY/edit?usp=sharing

There were a few times when I wanted to get a certain texture, but the stamp tool didn’t flip orientation the way I wanted to. If I was to get the texture I wanted, I would’ve needed to spend hours getting it done. For a larger project with an extended deadline, that’s fine, but for the scope of this class, I used what I could so I could finish everything by the deadline. I didn’t have much trouble with importing from Maya. I do think I could’ve sculpted things a bit better or added extra polygons to sculpt with.

Extended Readings and Case Studies

The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own: https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/skin-speaks-language-not/

This is a great representation of how to incorporate something from your own culture into your artwork. This work of art is special because it merges two representations seamlessly into one. The piece has a strong message. Bharti Kher was able to use one symbol to affect the other. It makes me think of the crochet piece I did. If I had used a smaller brush size and actually traced over all the stitches in the piece, what would that have looked like? What kind of effect would it give?

 

Hindu Hand-Drawn Type In a Root Rectangle Space: http://www.heamedia.com/Documents/Geometry/A_Closer_Look_at_Root_Rectangles.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehndi

I couldn’t find any article that had this actual drawing, so I looked into root rectangles and Hindu hand drawn artwork. The Root Rectangles article showed all the math involved with finding and making shapes that are either congruent, scaled version, and/or proportionally designed. The Mehndi article gave a brief overview of it; it’s the pictures that I want to comment on. The Mehndi designs are very symmetrical and geometric. This connects to the root rectangles. It seems to be easy enough to use geometric calculations to determine the pattern and boundaries of a Mehndi. Math is something I often forget to bring into some of my work.

 

The Carousal Family: https://www.behance.net/gallery/12745487/the-Carousel-Family

This short animation really illustrates 3D modeling and sculpting. I can understand how some of the things in this short were made. The spinning floor connects to the mandala assignment we did. The texturing on the horses connects to the texturing we just did for Assignment 2. All the modeling of the people and their horse heads connects to our modeling of our faces. This just took it a few steps further with animation, sound, and cinematography.

 

The Inside Man: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454848/?ref_=nm_flmg_cin_33

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCv3989nvog

Matthew Libatique was the DP for this movie. In this specific scene I’ve linked, it looks like the detective is moving forward without the usual slight height difference seen when someone walks. It’s a very different aesthetic from the rest of the movie and it creates a little dissonance. From this, I gather that we need to be diligent in how we model and texture things so there is no dissonance in our work (unless is it is intended). I wonder why Libatique made this scene.

 

Yuichi Ikehata: http://yuichiikehata.tumblr.com/

Ikehata’s work is physical 3D sculptures. Some may be photographs, but photographs of the actual sculpture. This is interesting to see made when our class is working in a digital format. All our tools are based on physical tools other artists use to make their physical work. This artist also makes me consider negative space and how it might improve my own work.

 

Neuro Memento Mori: http://www.neuro-memento-mori.com/

This is a piece of work 3D modeled based off data a program received. This pushes me to wonder what kind of data visualization can be done in Maya and Mudbox (if it can at all). This project delves into consciousness, meditation, and neuroscience. These aren’t typically thought of when thinking about digital facial sculpting. It great to see others’ passions really incorporated in their modeling work.

 

Antony Gormley: http://www.antonygormley.com/

Antony Gormley creates several sculptures = many (loosely or not) resemble human(oid) figures. He’s take the figure of the human body and molded it to his own imagination. Each sculpture connotes different ideas, feelings, and situations. That’s a great skill to have. For Assignment 2, we had to take a base object (our face) and manipulate it to fit what we wanted to convey. Gormley’s work is a great physical rendition of that.

 

High Fidelity Skin Texturing: https://docs.highfidelity.com/create-and-explore/extras/subsurface-scattering

This and the next reading go hand in hand with facial texturing. This specific article focuses on lighting and its effect on digital faces. Subsurface Scattering allows for lights to be projected onto models and scatter more realistically (softly and diffused) rather than with harsh lines.

 

Skin Rendering | SIGGRAPH:

https://www.fxguide.com/featured/pixar-deep-dive-on-sss-siggraph-preview/

This article gives an overview on how light reflects off of different surfaces, what sub surface scattering is, how it is applied to faces, and its evolution. In regards to digital art, I’ve never really thought about lighting this deeply. I knew that for less photo realistic projects light was a great way to make your work pop as an artist. I always wondered how the photo realistic pieces were done. I didn’t know it went this deep as to recreating the effect of light hitting skin, going through it for a small time, then reflecting back off. I hope to incorporate more lighting into my future projects.

 

Jack Leyreloup: https://www.artstation.com/rudrik

Jack Leyreloup is a CG artist. He made a “Self Portrait” that has very detailed lighting and texturing. His skin has all the tiny bumps and ridges and dips its supposed to. The light is diffused nicely over his face. His “Prometheus” is more abstract, but the texture is beautiful. His site shows a turntable of his basic 3D model. It looks like he chose to create it with a material that would already have some great texture to it – he just had to emphasize and hone it. This is amazing attention to detail.

 

“Long Live New York” | Organ Donation campaign: https://www.saydaily.com/2014/11/long-live-ny

This is a great piece of digital animation used for a great purpose. People and objects and the city were 3D modeled, then animated (like what we’ll do with our faces). The campaign also made a poster from the modelings to put up everywhere. It was great to see 3D modeling used in the commercial world. And with how good 3D modeling is getting, I wonder just how much of the graphics we see now are actually CG (like the commercial we saw in class of the woman with the tear running down her cheek).

 

Snappers Facial Rig: https://snapperstech.com/

This site actually connects this class with the Creating Immersive Worlds class I took that just ended. We used Unreal Engine to make our games. One of the specific videos I watched (https://snapperstech.com/portfolio/snappers-advanced-facial-rig-unreal-engine/) was so impressive. The attention to detail was incredible. I think this video also illustrated how connected all the muscles in the face and neck are. Slight twitches involved many fine movements; nothing is isolated. I think this rig could really help us visualize how to make our faces move naturally for this next assignment.