moving characters while talking

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nextdreamanimation
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:27 am

moving characters while talking

Post by nextdreamanimation »

I wanted to learn how to move hands and head while character talks. When it is angry, happy, sad, and emotional. Like the character moves the shoulder up and down while laughing. I am working on a project so this will be of great help to me. Please help me somebody!!!
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Víctor Paredes
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Re: moving characters while talking

Post by Víctor Paredes »

It's a deep topic and will be hard to get a satisfactory answer.
Many books cover acting and performance. The best I have read is "Animated performance", by Nancy Beyman. But you really should read "The animator's survival kit" first. Both are fantastic books, very interesting and entertaining.
Now, if you want a short answer, I'm far from being an expert, but I think the best thing you can do is to listen the dialogue and check where are the accents. Try to act your self the dialogue, exaggerate your movements, use you as model.
Each accent could have a dramatic pose. But don't saturate your dialogue with a lot of extreme poses. In a few frames, move your character to get that pose. Then hold the body until the next short change. You can add some intermediate movements, but try this be precise and communicative. It looks very bad when you have very slow movements (which is a typical problem when using a computer). Your character is alive and all its movements are there for a reason, you must make us believe he/she is thinking and deciding (consciously or not) how to move.
Use the eyes and eyebrows. You can anticipate a movement by looking at an object, close the eyes, look up to think, etc. Don't just add some random blinks. Make the blinks be part of the dialogue. Eyebrows also are great for accents.

Finally, more important than a "realistic" lipsync, is to have the entire body talking. The body is more important than the mouth.
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nextdreamanimation
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:27 am

Re: moving characters while talking

Post by nextdreamanimation »

Thank you so much for the valuable input. I will read the book. Hope I will get back to you when I am good enough at it. Thanking you once again.
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