Week 2

Keypose analyze:

Brows:

Frame 114 Outer Brows carrying Inner Brows up

Frame 138 Brows back to neutral, L_Brow slightly faster than R_Brow

Frame 180 L_Brow raised up, Outer Brow Leading Inner Brow

Frame 189 L_Inner Brow back to neutral

Frame 215 L_Outer Brow moving downwards back to neutral

Frame 304 L_Inner Brow squeezing slightly inwards and downwards

Frame 314 L_Mid Brow and R_Outer Brow raised slightly upwards

Frame 328 Brows raised slightly upwards

Frame 352 Brows raised further upwards 

Frame 375 Brows raised upwards 

Frame 400 Inner Brows moved downwards

Frame 410 L_Outer Brow raised upwards

Frame 416 L_Outer Brow moved slightly downwards

Frame 423 Inner Brows raised upwards

Frame 446 Brows moved downwards back to neutral

Frame 466 Brows raised upwards 

Frame 490 Brows raised further upwards reaching maximum height

Frame 503 Inner Brows moved slightly downwards while remaining maximum height

frame 557 Outer Brows moved slightly downwards  

Eyes:

Frame 1 Eyeballs Right

Frame 40 Eyeballs Mid

Frame 50 Eyeballs off Center to the Right

Frame 73 Eyes look slightly downwards

Frame 83 Eyes Looking down, half open

Frame 170 Eyes close

Frame 173 Eyes opening

Frame 185 Eyes open, Eyeballs Left slightly upwards

Frame 202 Eyeballs moved slightly towards the Center

Frame 211 Eyeballs Left slightly downwards

Frame 240 Eyelids slightly down

Frame 268 Eyelids up

Frame 277 Eyes wide open, Eyeballs slightly off Center to the Right

Frame 302 Eyeballs Center slightly to the Right

Frame 372 Eyelids slightly up, Eyeballs looking up slightly to the Right

Frame 435 Eyes close

Frame 444 Eyes half squint

Frame 498 Eyes moved further up, Eyeball Center looking up slightly to the Right

Frame 534 Eyes close

Frame 541 Eyes 60% open

Frame 557 Eyes fully open, Eyeballs Center

Brows Tracking:

I was hoping to try completing the training and tracking task using my home PC but no matter what I couldn’t log in with the account I created using school email. 

As for using Faceware,  I first created a text file documenting every key pose of the Brows and Eyes before placing any trackers. This eliminates the time for constantly scrolling through the timeline and looking for the desired frame. 

The Brows tracking went surprisingly smoothly for the first pass. Mostly the Outer corner of the Brows is problematic because it’s rather difficult to find consistent pixels to track. I found that tracking the corner of the Brow gives a more stable result than trying to track the dot.

Dr. Kennedy was fine with the Brow tracking, just a few places of sliding around the outer corner brows might need more keyframes to maintain stable tracking. 

Eyes Tracking:

Tracking the eyes was much more challenging/time-consuming than the brows. I continued to mark down the key poses before placing any trackers. Which did use significantly more keyframes than the brows. 

The first pass was horrible, mostly problematic around the Upper Eyelid was popping and sliding around like crazy, and the timing when closing the eyes was completely off. 

Second pass was better but I have to admit there were way too many keyframes I've added. I found that the eye closing needs many more keyframes to define the motion, especially when there’s not a consistent pixel around the Upper Eyelid for a good tracking point. Mostly because of the light source hitting the eyelids and the video motion blur.

Dr. Kennedy was actually fine with the majority of the posing, though he suggested moving the Upper and Lower Eyelid tracking markers from the tracking dot to the literal Eyelids to better resemble the movements.  Also minimizing keyframes would be best for the program to produce a good tracking result for retargeting later on.

Process reflection:

Doing the tracking in the Faceware analyzer required me to switch out my animation mindset, I often spent way too much time putting way too many keyframes for the program to produce a good result. I just simply have to ignore most of the minor imperfections and move on to the next step.