eret

07 May 2014, 11:52

Zer0x

07 May 2014, 08:16

No it wasn't. MoCap is only used in the Layout Department to show the rough movements in a video instead of drawing every single frame.

I hope I am right with that?

Yes, sort of. Layout is for deciding exactly where the camera is placed for a shot and how the characters (and consequently the camera) will move throughout the shot before handing it off to the animator to be hand-keyed. I.e. its just for camera placement. MoCap makes that process speedier and less costly. You are correct that none of the final animation is mocap though.

valkasboy

07 May 2014, 15:31

When they were setting up for Obama's visit to the studio (which was crazy btw, we couldn't even park on campus that day!) they asked a couple of us animators to join in on a mocap demo for the president. Needless to say we were all a little skeptical because it seemed like a great way to give the wrong impression about how we work. So the two lovely people that you see in the mocap suits in the clip are actually animators, two of the best ones in the studio. They studio wanted them to kind of "karaoke" some movements to a scene which was already largely animated to show off the technology. It is true that the layout department uses mocap as a quick way to place cameras and characters in a shot, but that's as far as it goes at DW(at least for now). If any of you have ever seen a work in progress screening with some of the pre-viz layout work in there you can tell that the characters are just stand-ins and move in a kind of clunky way. The layout/pre-viz artists take the mocap characters and quickly make adjustments and shift pieces around to suit their plans for the camera moves. That's all cool, because the character's performance is not their primary concern, they just want to get the basic choreography down and mocap is a quick way to do that.

When it gets to the animation we start with the characters from scratch. There is no real way as yet for our animation software to read the mocap data, it's not designed to. I'm sure the programmers could make it do that down the road if it was required. We do use video reference when we animate. We often shoot video of ourselves or each other performing the scene and then study that footage for any cool things that one might not think of while sitting in front of the monitor. But there's no mocap in the animation.

I talked to Dean about what he was supposed to say to the president and he tried to come up with something that would explain the reality of the workflow. You guys didn't get to hear that of course.

Motion capture is an amazing technique, and it can produce amazing results if you're wanting to produce highly realistic movements. That's why it's so effective in a live action setting. All motion capture data, so far, needs some tender loving care by an animator to get it ready for the screen. The world of Httyd is a caricature of reality, so it works best when we make up the movements, not record them. Mocap is only limited because you can only record what a real person can do. If you want to move beyond that you have to animate it.

Asvald Veleif

07 May 2014, 07:04

impartofthefandom

07 May 2014, 06:17

I can absolutely NOT contain my emotions anymore! The way they act around each other is so goofy and fun that I wonder if there was even a time they disagreed. They act so calmly and carefree with one another. It just brings my eyes to tears.

NOW THIS, PEOPLE, IS WHAT YOU CALL A RELATIONSHIP! NOT THE ONES FILLED WITH KISSING OR STIFF AFFECTIONS. THIS, MY FELLOW PEOPLE, IS WHAT YOU CALL LOVE!

Too bad life isn't like this.

Jendora

10 May 2014, 06:09

I was re-watching the clip today and I realized that Hiccup no longer says "Afternoon, Milady." Instead, Astrid greets him with "And where have you been?" I kinda liked the other way better, but it almost makes more sense for Astrid to stealthily show up and have to get Hiccup's attention instead of him just immediately noticing her presence.

I just hope Hiccup calls Astrid "Milady" at least one time in the movie. Hearing him say it in Gift of the Night Fury was one of my favorite parts of the short and I would be thrilled to hear him say it again (even more so now that they are older).