This week focused on continuing two main projects: the Dialogue Shot and the Creature Locomotion assignment. The week felt like a transition from research and blocking into more finished animation work, especially because the dialogue shot moved into the polish stage.
On Thursday, we looked again at Lip Sync Demo material. This was useful because the dialogue shot now needed more detailed facial animation and mouth movement. The demo reminded me that lip sync is not just about matching every word exactly, but about making the performance readable. I had to think about the jaw opening, the main phoneme shapes, and how the mouth connects smoothly between sounds. This connected back to the previous lip sync lesson, where we learned to animate the sounds rather than the written words.
We also worked on the Dialogue Shot – Polish assignment. At this stage, the goal was to finish the shot and refine the animation. Since I had already worked on the body movement, facial expression and blocking, the polish stage was about making everything feel more connected. I had to check the timing, smooth out the movements and make sure the facial performance supported the character’s intention. This stage made me realise how much small details matter in a dialogue shot, especially around the eyes, brows, mouth and head movement.
On Friday, we started the Creature Locomotion Blocking assignment. The task was to use one of the provided rigs and create a locomotion animation for the creature. We were also expected to attach reference videos and show different views of the locomotion. Even though it is called “blocking,” the brief explained that for creature animation this stage should already feel more like blocking plus, around 70% finished and splined.
I also researched several lion locomotion videos to get a better understanding of how the movement should work. This helped me observe the timing, weight, body mechanics and rhythm of the walk cycle more clearly. By looking at real lion references, I could better understand how the shoulders, hips, legs and head move together, which helped me when planning and improving my own animation.
We also had a demo on Cycle at the Spot & Walk Out, which showed how a locomotion cycle can be built first in place and then translated forward. This was useful because it showed the importance of making a clean cycle before trying to move the character through space. Even though the demo example was not a fish, the idea still applies: the movement needs to loop clearly first, and then the travel or direction change can be added.
This week, we also had to present our Fish Locomotion work. For this task, we showed the progress we had made and explained how we approached the movement of the fish. The focus was on understanding how a fish moves through water and how the body should not move as one stiff object, but more like a flowing wave.