During the pre-production, preparations for motion capture
were made. Every cut and motion was rehearsed according to the
plans made previously. Motion capture data needed to be clean
up before converting into Maya skeleton's animation format.
This entire procedure took about a week and a half to finish.
After converting motion capture data into animation clips,
they were placed into Maya to do the Character sets on skeletons.
Using Trax Edit to sort out skeleton animation data (Rotation
and Translation) and name by the file naming system. Before
we stored these animation clips, we double checked every motion
data to be smooth. If anything needed to be fixed, we could
use Animation Graph Edit or set keyframe or Trax Edit to do
so. At the time of final integration, these animation clips
will be imported to each character or object's character set.
Therefore, by using animatic elements and creating standardized
skeleton data, we could immediately see the results of motion
capture data.
We also designed a form to record the world axis of each character
and object; every character and object's root node can easily
be established by key in this number of world axis.
The facial animation group mainly defined the cluster of facial
muscle. To do the job correctly, one must refer to the distribution
and direction of a real human facial muscle, then establishes
cluster and weight of the facial muscle. Every muscle's interactive
intensity is different, therefore, paint cv weight is very important.
There are 2 types of motion capture data for facial animation,
one is Rotation, the other is Translation. All the setup and
data are stored as animation clips and exported to be used during
the final integration. Ultimately, the Animation team will integrate
all the data from each animation group, coordinate with modeling
and rendering teams, and supply animatic elements or final character's
animation elements at different stages of the project.
The preparation for "Procedure & Nonlinear Integration"
is rather complex. However, its advantages are the power to
integrate, the convenience to communicate among teams, and the
savings of production time. Furthermore, the quality control
on modeling, rendering, and animation can be established from
the very beginning of the project. Nevertheless, if the whole
team does not have strong execution and cooperation, then the
result could still be quite disappointing.
