QI's MA 3D Computer Animation' Blog

This week, I completed the final version of my animation piece. I focused on polishing and resolving the issues identified in last week’s feedback, including refinements in lip sync, body motion, and arc-based movement.

Key Improvements:

Adjusted head arcs and body dynamics during forward motion to feel more natural and grounded

Enhanced lip sync with subtle full-body support, ensuring the character didn’t appear stiff during dialogue

Smoothed animation curves for better rhythm and weight distribution

These final tweaks helped bring more clarity, emotional depth, and realism to the performance. I’m happy with the progress and how the animation has come together.

Final Video:

This project has taught me a lot about the relationship between technical animation principles and character-driven performance. From blocking to spline to final polish, each stage required careful observation and iteration.

I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned to my next project!

This week, I focused on refining the spline phase of my animation, pushing the movement to feel smoother, more natural, and emotionally consistent with the character’s performance.

In one shot where the character rushes toward the camera, the movement felt too linear and abrupt. To improve this, I added a buffer or anticipation at the start, and ensured the head followed a natural arc path rather than moving in a straight line. This helped convey more weight and intention behind the action.

In some shots featuring dialogue, I realized that the facial animation was active, but the body remained too static, which broke the illusion of a living character. I adjusted the torso, shoulders, and head to have subtle supportive movements, making the lip sync feel more grounded and connected to the whole body.

Spline Adjustments

After moving from blocking to spline, I concentrated on:

Cleaning up curves in the graph editor to remove mechanical timing and make the transitions feel fluid

Adding ease-in and ease-out to give weight and intention to each action

Polishing overshoots and follow-through so that the motion flows more convincingly

These changes helped bring more believability and rhythm into the animation, particularly in moments of anticipation, impact, and subtle reaction.

Pose Refinement

In parallel, I continued refining the character’s body poses, building on the feedback I received last week. I focused on:

Ensuring the entire body participates in each action—not just isolated limbs

Adding more twist, weight shift, and asymmetry to enhance visual interest

Fine-tuning the silhouette clarity for readability and appeal

After submitting the blocking animation this week, I received detailed feedback from George, which helped me reflect more deeply on how to improve the overall character performance.

One of the key points he emphasized was the importance of full-body movement in posing. I had initially focused on adjusting only specific parts of the body—such as just the arm or head—when creating key poses. However, George pointed out that this approach can make the character appear stiff or disconnected, as if only one part is active while the rest of the body remains frozen.

These shots mainly require adjustments to the character’s body poses and the trajectory of the head movement. Additionally, when the character performs a sigh-like gesture, there should be movement in the neck and chest to convey the action more naturally.

In these shots, it’s important to avoid moving only one part of the body — for example, moving just the head without adjusting the arms. The movement should be more integrated and cohesive to maintain natural body mechanics.

The main animation issues in these shots focus on lip-sync. George pointed out that when the character is expressing anger, the mouth corners should be pulled downward to effectively convey the emotion.

What I Plan to Improve:

Revisit my key poses to ensure the full body is engaged, even if the action appears minor

Use contrapposto and body twisting to create more natural, dynamic silhouettes

Think in terms of cause and effect—if the hand reaches forward, the shoulder, spine, and hips should respond accordingly

This week, I moved forward from blocking the body movement to working on lip sync animation for my character. The goal was to make the dialogue feel natural, expressive, and emotionally connected to the body performance already in place.

Challenges & Observations:

I found that less is often more—overshooting the mouth shapes can make the performance feel exaggerated or artificial

Emotions play a big role even in neutral dialogue—so I focused not just on mechanics, but on tone and intention

Combining lip sync with micro-expressions (such as blinking, slight eye darts, and facial asymmetry) added a lot of subtlety

Next Steps:

In the upcoming stage, I plan to refine the facial performance further by adding secondary animation, such as:

Small head shifts that match the character’s thought process

Natural blinking patterns

More nuanced emotion syncing, especially in silent pauses between words

Facial animation is a crucial part of character performance. It gives life, emotion, and personality to animated characters, allowing the audience to connect with them on a deeper level. While body movement tells us what a character is doing, the face often tells us why they’re doing it.

Start with reference: Film your own face or observe real actors.

Keep it simple: Focus on clarity—don’t overcomplicate expressions.

Animate the eyes first: They guide attention and reveal intent.

Use asymmetry: Perfectly mirrored expressions look artificial.

Follow the emotion arc: Align facial changes with the character’s emotional journey.

My prepare for facial expression animation:

As per George’s instructions, I focused only on my character’s dialogue and expression sheet. I explained why the character says this particular line, including their backstory, the context of the line, and the intended tone and delivery. Finally, I also recorded a reference video based on the scene to support the animation.

After five weeks of production, the body movement animation is basically complete. I made further adjustments to the character’s pacing and poses, and added subtle details such as eye direction, small finger movements, and cushioning in the palm gestures.

Next week, I will begin working on the character’s lip-sync animation. I plan to start by collecting suitable references and preparing the dialogue script.

This week, I officially entered the animation phase. After submitting my animation, George provided feedback, mainly focusing on pose adjustments, as well as the anticipation and delay in pauses.

For these specific shots, the main issue is that when the character throws a punch, her body should exhibit a sense of follow-through and delay. It shouldn’t feel stiff; instead, it should move like an elastic rubber band, conveying flexibility and flow.

The main issues in these shots are that after the character performs a striking action, she shouldn’t freeze immediately. Instead, there should be appropriate follow-through or cushioning — for example, after delivering a palm strike, the character should continue moving slightly forward rather than coming to a complete stop.

This week, I received feedback from George, and I got a lot of suggestions regarding adjustments to the character poses and pacing.

I selected a few representative shots, where George helped me refine the poses using curved motion paths. This approach gave the animation a stronger sense of rhythm and impact.

Understanding Moving Holds in Animation

Moving Holds are a subtle but powerful animation technique used to create realism and emotional tension. Rather than letting a character freeze completely, a moving hold keeps the character “alive” by introducing small, controlled motions while they appear to be holding still.

A moving hold is when a character appears to pause or hold a pose, but still shows tiny movements—such as breathing, slight swaying, blinking, or muscle tremors.

Instead of freezing on a still frame, the animator keeps the pose visually stable while letting the body continue to move minimally.

1. Start with a strong pose you want the character to hold.
2. Add small secondary motions:
   • Chest rising and falling (breathing)
   • Tiny eye and head movements
   • Fingers curling or twitching
   • Subtle weight shifts or spine adjustments
3. In the Graph Editor, avoid flat lines:
   • Use soft curves to create subtle motion
   • Allow easing in and out to keep the movement smooth

This week, my focus was on the blocking stage of animation, where I laid out the key poses that define the character’s movement and rhythm. The main objectives were to establish body mechanics, anticipation, and transitional techniques such as fades in and out.

This term, the animation work has mainly focused on the character’s body movements and some facial lip-sync animation.

What Is Body Mechanics?

Body mechanics involves understanding how a character moves through space and how different parts of the body interact during motion. Key principles include:

• Center of Gravity: Determines whether a character looks grounded or unstable
• Force Transmission: Identifies where a movement begins and how it travels through the body
• Opposing Forces: Every action has a reaction—jumping requires a squat, lifting requires tension
• Coordination: Body parts don’t move simultaneously—there’s overlap, delay, and follow-through
• Arcs of Motion: Natural movements tend to follow curved paths rather than straight lines

These elements bring a sense of weight, inertia, rhythm, and realism to animated motion.

Body Mechanics Plan:

Reference video: