rough of the opening scene

The opening scene has been roughed out. I'm trying to figure out what needs to change. I know I haven't moved the fingers of the Mic zombie. I plan on doing that later. Also, the audio is 4 frames off, as I added a pause in between prerecorded lines. I felt this gave it a much needed extra beat. I may do that elsewhere in the scene as well. Suggestions are more than welcomed.

recent progress

Samples of some of the rough animations. I've been doing main actions for the scene. When I get them all done, I'll go in, smooth them out and add secondary actions.

setting up rough camera locations

I like to have a rough camera layout, that allows me to "cheat bad angles". They can be very different from my original storyboard. The reason behind this is, I only have one model for every character (for time reasons this was my best option). Unfortunately, this means they can have flaws when they move in certain positions.  For instance, the kid can't sit with his legs folded, because his glutes cave in.  A simple pillow or chair would hide this problem, but there's the scene where he's seen getting up to run. so I need to think of the best angle that will make sure no collapse can be seen.

Bad angle

Correct angle

I also, did some angle that I just thought would be cool looking:

Lighting and camera set up

I created a rough layout of the scene. Which may stay that way since I'm mainly concerned with the animation. Anyways, the rough is good enough to allow me to set up a light scheme.

I'm using a lot of light linking, as the zombie characters have "negative lights" on them. This is because, I want their sunken in stomachs, to stay defined.  I also have lights in their mouths to tone down their all white teeth. 

While I'm doing this I'm still listening to my audio track, that I'll be animating to. Recently, I learned a neat way of figuring out the jaw's openness on each word. Placing your elbow on a table, with you closed fist pointed towards the ceiling(palm facing your face). Rest your jaw on your fist, kind of like Rodin's "the thinker" Then say the line at full speed. You'll feel your head bounce back on each wide jaw shape. You must say the lines at full speed, to get an accurate representation though.

Recording the dialogue

With all of my characters weight painted, I had time to finally record the dialogue. I just used a video camera, so the sound is a little rough. I'm not too worried about that, as I'm going to mix it down when I'm piecing it together. That will have to wait a couple of days though. I don't have the proper software, so I have to use the school's computers. Until then, I'll just listen to the dialogue constantly, to memorize the exact phrasing. Luckily, this can be done as I model the scenery.

Rigging, Blendshapes, and Weight Painting

Over the next 2 weeks I would create a rig for the boy, with control objects. Create the radio. Blendshape the two and my old zombie character.: Then, Finally Weight paint all the human characters

By Extracting the original head, then duplicating it. I was able to make each head hold a different facial pose, I.E. left eyebrow up,  Right Eye lid shut etc. Making sure the "In between" box is NOT selected in the Blendshape tool menu. You can select all of the heads, then the original and create blenshape. If the "In between" box is checked, selecting all of the heads will create a slider; that plays them out in sequence. It also stops them from being used simultaneously (if you tried adding them one at a time).

Modeling the characters

All of my human characters, started out as a Proto-head that I made several weeks ago.

My proto-head didn't have many defining features, because he became a nose-less zombie. Also, it allowed e to fix things that I didn't like with the later head. In one night, I changed it to this:

Which would be my new jumping off point. I did this (rather than making 2 completely different heads), because the child and grandma are related. So, they should have some similar features. The other features would be pulled from my various references materials and character sheets. The next night I would change the head to be rough of the child character:

the following day, I roughed him out some more and finalized him:

With him mostly complete(modeling wise), I began on the grandma. which, only required a day and a half of work:

(From the thumbnails to this point, it's only been about a week) I wasn't to worried about creating her body, as she sits with her back towards the audience the whole time. So, I began to smooth and UV map the kid:

I would finish the grandmother over the next 2 days:

Creating a Scene:

I had many ideas for possible scenes. Mostly inspired by random, trivial life experience. From bedtime stories to inside jokes. The scene I settled on, came out of the latter. It's a complex scene to animate in the time that I have, but I think I can pull it off. The idea is simple though: Zombies want to eat people that are tucked safely away in their house. Like Wile E. Coyote, the zombies hatch an elaborate plan using a special mic. Faking a news cast, on the radio, they tell the people inside the house "Zombies are only attacking people indoors". Unfortunately, one of the zombies blows the operation by speaking to loudly.

Here's the thumbnails, that would later be used as a rough storyboard: 

Before I made the Thumbanails. I broke down the scene, to figure out what type of characters I would need. Except for the Zombies, as I had already modeled him for another animation.

Here: are some Character Sheets:

There was also the radio. Which I decided to animate as if it could talk. I felt this would show my range of animation capabilities. This is also the primary reason why the Child and grandma never talk. I wanted to show of more than just lip sync skills.