Back from Break and Back at the Grind!

Well, the title is a hair misleading, I never really stopped working. But I thought the title sounded cool so here we are!

In my last post, I said that I wanted to complete the blocking on Sequence 2. I mostly did that. I would have had it done, but I had to wait a while for feedback every time I posted an update so the process took longer than I estimated. However, I did end up completing Sequence 2 before the first class. Technically, with a big set of quotations, I did get it done in time because class would have been the end of break for that class in specific.

My way of blocking is a little bit more than blocking. Rather than just getting the poses and timing in, I make sure that the characters' actions work and that it still makes sense. There tends to be a lot more movement from other controls that the other people don't really touch when blocking. I try to do it more rough but I see it as I am setting myself up better for when I get to go back over it again before polishing. I will say, I don't mess with the super fun stuff like their faces and their fingers except for very basic beginning setup parts. I am very excited to do facial animation and get really down into the little details.

The way I animate helps to keep the scenes making sense and with no weird continuity errors. I won't break the shots into individual scenes for each shot if they have overlapping actions or there isn't too much of a time skip. It helps keep the characters together and the actions moving continuously. So in part of my Sequence 2 file, I have the beginning half of Sequence 3.

As of right now, I am mostly done with blocking Sequence 3. There is a part of the story that changed so I need to go back and edit that into a previous action of my animation, and I need to finish the Ring Master's failed Finale animation.

Over the next weeks, I'm hoping that my team and I will finish blocking out all of the sequences. Then once those are blocked, I will start moving them forward and working on polishing them. I have a lot more confidence this semester than I did last semester, I really hope I don't lose the good feelings.