Project 3: Dialogue

My final project was a test of all the knowledge gained from previous assignments, from the pendulum swing to the lip-sync. The goal was to bring a character to life as (s)he lip-syncs to recorded audio and moves with expressive emotions and body language.

Due to its immense success and high entertainment value amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I chose to animate a character from Animal Crossing: New Horzions. I also thought doing so would be a creative opportunity to breathe new life to these characters since, in the games, they don't speak any English and they have very limited body language due to their chibi designs. Before I started animating, I found audio provided by Anna Brisbin ("Brizzy Voices") in her YouTube video where she vocally impersonated many different Animal Crossing villagers, including the fan-favorite Raymond. After her recording for Raymond was spliced from YouTube, converted to an MP3, and edited in Audition to make her pauses feel more naturally paced, I drew many thumbnail sketches of Raymond and then a storyboard. I also recorded myself acting as the character, exaggerating a few movements his character would make (such as an eye roll and a push of the glasses) to use as references.

Using both the storyboard and the reference videos, the head was animated first frame by frame, followed by the eyes and two cat ears. Once the head was complete, the body was animated next, with the torso, arms and neck on separate layers. Glasses were animated next using few still frames that moved via puppet animation, with the key frame changing based on the angle Raymond was facing. Finally, the mouth was animated with the same time-framing technique from the previous lip sync assignment.

The most difficult part of this project was easing Raymond's head, body and arms as they slowed down or came to a resting point. I had to go back and either re-draw many frames or add new ones to ensure it looked like he was moving at a slightly exaggerated but more often realistic manner. The segments where Raymond sways to the viewer's left saying "I just want to be rich" was easily the most frustrating part since his whole body moves at a very quick speed in large curved angles. This required re-drawing or removing many chunks of animation to ensure his model was consistent and his movement still feeling somewhat natural. There were also phases where the head moved either out of sync with the body or appeared to be flying off the head, so both the head and neck needed to either have their individual frames altered or slide and rotate with puppet tools.