Category: 2.1 Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques

Workshop: Breathing Animation

Assignment: Dialogue Shot – Blocking

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1. Dialogue Shot Workflow

• Dialogue animation follows three stages:
  • Blocking – key poses and main facial expressions.
  • Blocking Plus – breakdown poses, facial transitions, and major mouth shapes.
  • Polishing – in-betweens, lip sync refinement, and performance details.
• Build the performance gradually instead of focusing on details too early.

2. Lip Sync Workflow

• Lip sync is created in three steps:
  1. Jaw Opening – establish speech rhythm.
  2. Phonemes – add mouth shapes for different sounds.
  3. Polish – refine transitions and facial details.
• Focus on accents and key syllables in the dialogue.

3. Animate the Sounds, Not the Words

• Create mouth shapes based on sounds (phonemes) rather than spelling.
• Lip sync should reflect how words are pronounced, not how they are written.
• Mouth shapes should work together with the existing facial expression.

4. Common Phoneme Shapes

• M / B / P → lips fully closed.
• F / V → lower lip touches upper teeth.
• Oo / U → mouth corners move inward.
• Ee / Eh → mouth corners move outward.
• Hold important mouth shapes long enough to be readable.

5. Polish & Performance Details

• Add subtle details to improve realism:
  • Breathing
  • Tongue movement
  • Squash and stretch in the lower face
  • Frame-by-frame lip sync checks
• Facial performance should support the character’s emotions and acting choices.

Workshop: Overlap

Week 10 – Acting & Subtext

In Week 10, the focus shifted from physical movement to acting and subtext, exploring how to communicate a character’s true thoughts and intentions beyond the spoken dialogue. Key learning points include:

• Understanding the difference between text and subtext: what a character says is not always what they truly mean. Subtext adds depth, tension, and realism to a performance.
• Learning the principle of “Show, Don’t Tell”, using body language, facial expressions, and timing to communicate emotions rather than relying solely on dialogue.
• Exploring how strong acting comes from understanding a character’s objective, motivation, and obstacle, rather than simply performing the words in a script.
• Studying the animation workflow: script → reference → animation, emphasizing the importance of planning acting choices before opening Maya.
• Using reference footage to analyze emotions, body mechanics, and tempo, helping create more believable performances.
• Learning to build performances through three key elements: Character, Situation, and Motivation, ensuring every action is driven by intention.
• Applying all previous learning—storytelling, camera work, facial animation, and lip sync—into a dialogue shot focused on performance and character acting.

Assessment 1 : The Professional Artist Interview

Assignment 2 : Dialogue Shot – Reference & Rough Blocking

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This week, I continued searching for stronger visual and atmospheric references for my Project 1, Pollution Carnival.
This project is an experimental 3D animation based on the theme of nuclear wastewater pollution. I want to use a surreal and symbolic carnival world to turn the invisible consequences of pollution into an unsettling experience that the audience can directly feel.

During this week’s reference research, I focused on several directions.
The first direction was dark, abandoned, and eerie amusement park spaces. This is important because the core setting of my project is a carnival world that is slowly being damaged by pollution. An amusement park normally represents joy, childhood, and beautiful memories, but when it is combined with decay, pollution, and abandonment, it creates a very strong contrast. This contrast is also one of the key ideas in my project.

The second direction was experimental and surreal animation references. I do not want my work to rely only on a direct story. Instead, I want to build emotion through space, rhythm, symbols, and visual atmosphere. Because of that, I paid close attention to works that use strange worlds, dark mood, and strong visual language to create emotional impact.

The third direction was Unreal Engine environment references. Since my workflow is Maya for animation and Unreal Engine for environment building and rendering, I also looked at videos related to abandoned amusement parks, ruined spaces, and cinematic lighting. These references can help me develop the visual direction of my environments, colours, and camera mood.

Through this week’s research, I became more certain about the key words of my project:
surreal, decayed, symbolic, polluted, unsettling.
I want the visual development of this project to go beyond simply looking “strange” or “beautiful.” Instead, every element should support the theme more clearly. For example, the carousel represents a cycle of consequences, the clown represents surface happiness and self-deception, the mutated animals represent ecological damage, and the dark sea represents silent but spreading nuclear pollution.

Next, I want to continue organising these references and turn them into more specific scene designs and visual tests, especially for the carnival space, the carousel, and the atmosphere of the dark sea.

Experimental animation / Mood reference

UE Environment / Lighting Reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh8QgGhjxyg

Unit 2.1 Formative Assessment: Project 1

Project Concept

Pollution Carnival is an experimental 3D animation project based on the theme of nuclear wastewater pollution.
This project aims to transform the invisible and hard-to-feel consequences of pollution into an unsettling experience that the audience can directly feel, through a surreal and symbolic carnival world.
An amusement park usually represents joy, innocence, and happy memories. However, in this project, it is slowly invaded by pollution and turns into a strange space that is beautiful on the surface but rotten inside.
Through this strong visual contrast, I want to show the lasting and hidden nature of environmental damage, as well as the cycle in which humans will eventually face the consequences of their own actions.

Symbolic Elements

In this project, I chose several important symbolic elements. Together, they build the visual language of this “polluted carnival.”

1. Carousel

The carousel represents a repeating cycle of cause and effect.
It keeps turning, just as the consequences of pollution do not end immediately, but build up over time and finally return to humanity.
Visually, the carousel still keeps some of the joy of a normal amusement park, but when it slowly becomes distorted, damaged, and swallowed by pollution, this contrast creates a stronger feeling of unease.

2. Clown

The clown represents the happiness on the surface of the carnival, but it also symbolizes human escape, numbness, and self-deception.
A clown is always smiling, performing, and creating joy, yet this joy is exaggerated and false.
In this project, the clown reflects how people still pretend that everything is normal, even when facing environmental crisis, and continue to hide inside short-term entertainment and false calm.

3. Amusement Park

The amusement park itself is the central spatial symbol of the whole project.
It is normally a place connected with childhood memories, happiness, and idealized experiences, but here it becomes a world that is slowly decaying.
I chose the amusement park because it creates a strong contrast with nuclear pollution:
one stands for innocence and joy, while the other stands for damage and loss of control.
This contrast helps to express the hidden crisis beneath a beautiful surface more directly.

4. Mutated Animals

The mutated animals represent the most direct consequence of pollution.
They symbolize the pain and distortion of natural life after the ecological system has been damaged.
Compared with the abstract idea of pollution, mutated animals can create a more immediate emotional response, because they turn an invisible crisis into visible scars.
At the same time, they also suggest that the original pure environment can no longer return to what it once was.

5. Dark Sea

The dark sea represents nuclear pollution itself.
The surface of the sea may still look calm, but underneath, pollution is spreading, settling, and slowly invading everything.
It symbolizes a silent but constant threat.
Compared with the lights and excitement of the carnival, the dark sea feels like the true core of the project, reminding the audience that surface joy can never hide the fact that the environment has already been damaged.

Workflow

This project mainly uses Maya for animation, with Unreal Engine for environment building, lighting, atmosphere, and rendering.
In addition, I will use Rizom UV for UV work, Substance 3D Painter for texturing, and AE for post-production editing.

Assignment 1: Advanced Animation Shot (Polish)

Assignment 2 : Heavy Object & Change of Mind (Polish)

1. Start pose and end pose for the design
2. Pay attention to your finger movements

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Week 6 – Facial Animation: Eyes & Expression

In Week 6, the focus moved into facial animation, especially how eyes and subtle facial movements bring a character to life. Key takeaways include:

• Understanding that facial animation must feel organic, with strong attention to curves, flow, and asymmetry rather than stiff or symmetrical shapes.
• Learning that facial features are connected, where each muscle movement creates a chain reaction across the face.
• Paying attention to cheek compression against the lower eyelids, which helps create believable volume and adds realism to expressions.
• Studying eye animation as a key storytelling tool, including blinks, eye darts, and eyebrow movement. Blinks should reflect thoughts or attitude changes, not happen randomly.
• Practicing eye darts to show thinking and attention, ensuring the eyes lock onto targets and move with clear direction and timing.
• Understanding how eyebrows support expression, and how they interact with eyelids and eye direction to enhance emotion.
• Learning that animation follows a sequence of thought → eyes → body, meaning eye movement often leads performance.
• Applying these ideas by connecting multiple facial poses, focusing on which parts move first, which follow, and how timing (slow in/out) affects the transition.

Assessment 1: Facial Pose (Connecting Poses)

Pay attention to the order of movements between the eyebrows, eyes, and mouth. These elements should not change at the same time, but follow a natural sequence. Improve the timing and overlap, allowing different parts of the face to lead and follow, rather than moving simultaneously. Focus on facial curves and flow to avoid stiff or mechanical shapes. Avoid excessive symmetry, as it can make the expression feel rigid and lifeless. Aim for more organic and natural expressions, where each part of the face reacts slightly differently.

Assessment 2 : Assignment: Heavy Object & Change of Mind (Spline+Polish)

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Assessment 1: Heavy Object & Change of Mind (Blocking Plus)

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Assessment 2: Facial Pose (Photo Ref)

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Maya Workflow & Technical Foundations

In Week 4, the focus shifted to strengthening fundamental Maya workflow skills that support clean and efficient animation production. Key learning points include:

• Learning how to adjust an object’s pivot correctly to ensure accurate rotations, transformations, and interactions.
• Understanding Camera Clip Distance, allowing the camera to display scenes correctly without objects popping in or disappearing.
• Using DAG Only to better manage scene hierarchy and reduce unnecessary clutter in the Outliner.
• Gaining a basic understanding of Color Space, ensuring textures and renders display with correct color and gamma.
• Reviewing parenting and constraints with objects, reinforcing proper methods for attaching, detaching, and managing props safely.
• Recognizing that strong animation relies not only on posing and acting, but also on a clean technical setup and efficient workflow.

Assessment 1: Facial Pose

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Key feedback for improving facial poses includes:

• Pay attention to facial curves and flow, avoiding stiff or overly straight shapes to keep the expression organic.
• Consider how the cheeks push into the lower eyelids, especially in stronger expressions, to create a sense of compression and volume.
• Remember that facial muscles are connected, and no part of the face should move in isolation.
• Each movement should create a chain reaction, where surrounding areas (eyes, brows, cheeks, mouth) respond naturally.
• Focus on maintaining organic deformation and volume, rather than simply adjusting individual controls.

Assessment 2: Heavy Object & Change of Mind (Blocking)

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Assessment 3: Stitch’s Tea Party

Story Structure, Acting & Technical Foundations

In Week 3, the focus expanded from basic storytelling into how story structure, acting decisions, and technical setup work together in animation. Key learning points include:

• Understanding story structure at different scales, from beats and shots to scenes, sequences, and full stories.
• Learning multiple narrative frameworks, including Three-Act Structure, Hero’s Journey, Five-Act Structure, Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, and Kishōtenketsu, and recognizing that different structures serve different storytelling goals.
• Realizing that story is driven by change, whether through conflict, consequence, or a shift in perspective.
• Applying story theory to animation through a 12-second acting and body mechanics shot, centered on a clear change of mind.
• Learning to express internal decisions through physical action, weight, timing, and body language, not dialogue or facial performance.
• Emphasizing clarity of intent, ensuring the audience can clearly read both the weight of an object and the exact moment the character’s intention changes.
• Developing technical skills through self-study, including parenting, constraints, locators, and parent switching, to manage object interactions cleanly and safely.
• Understanding that strong acting animation depends on both solid storytelling logic and reliable technical setups, supported by planning such as video reference and previs.

Heavy Object & Change of Mind (Planning)

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Feedback：

• A reason for her to give up resisting the stone is needed, such as her losing strength or a certain expression.
• References need to be taken to make the situation more realistic.

Previs – Hunter To Prey (Final)