Let me start by gushing a bit over this book before I get into what I thought of this individual issue. Since Mark Waid's run on it began, it became my favorite comic that Marvel puts out. Excellent art by Paolo Rivera and now Chris Samnee and a great old school comic feel to the writing had made it one of my favorites by any publisher.
*Spoilers ahead:
This specific issue concludes Matt Murdock's run in with Coyote, a creepy looking, teleporting mind game mastermind (awesome character design by Rivera!). This guy was a scary villain that I was really frickin excited about. Daredevil had seemingly been going insane, and was losing friends left and right, including his bestie Foggy Nelson. As they revealed in previous issues however, this was all a brilliant plot by Coyote (and Mark Waid of course) who used his teleportation abilities to make Matt think he was going crazy thanks to creative use of Daredevil's dad's skull and his ex who currently resides in the psychiatric hospital. So there you go, Coyote = awesome damn villain.
That changes in this issue. Now, the art by Chris Samnee is excellent, and the colors by Javier Rodriguez amazingly bring it to life. The plot is well put together and the continuing development of the riff between Matt and Foggy is well written, and the surprise visitor at the end is great. But Coyote, well, he turns out to be... how should I put this... simply just a punk-ass bitch. He doesn't go down in a blaze of glory or anything, he wasn't some mastermind, and tho he looks menacing, once he can't teleport anything he's got no fight in him. We knew from a previous issue that he was working for someone, but in this issue we find that it wasn't even him who figured out how to freak out The Man Without Fear. Coyote was just a mutated low-life small-time criminal on puppet strings.
So, my potentially favorite new bad-guy basically sucks. I still loved this issue overall, and it is still one of my favorite ongoing series, but I'm not going to be doing any Coyote tribute art anytime soon.
Now the monster that Spot has become, holy crap I hope they bring him back!
12/22/12
Revisiting This Old Thing...
This was my first attempt at a blog, and as you can see I didn't stick with it. My second attempt is http://johnbungerssketchbook.blogspot.com/ and I have been consistently adding content, so I would deem that a success. I prefer to use that blog purely to display artwork, so I've decided to re-purpose this one a bit and use it for writing about concepts in art, animation, and the things that entertain me, mainly comics and movies. Hopefully you, the reader, find something here worth reading! Enjoy!
3/17/10
Video Presented at Bemis Slide Jam Remix
Here's the video I displayed in the background while I spoke at the Bemis:
Bemis Slide Jam Remix Presentation
After not using this blog for a long time, I am going to start posting stuff here more often. First off, here is a video of me speaking at the Bemis:
8/12/08
Smooth Lips
I previously posted on my keyframing process while lip syncing and a little on how it evolved. I would now like to explain this in more detail. First I will describe the controls for the character that I am currently animating, and then I will describe the process.
I use sliders that are set-driven keyed to blendshapes and joint movements. Here are the ones I use for lip syncing:
Step 1: Mark the "r" and "w" sounds
Here I'll go through and and place a keyframe at every point that these sounds show up. On these frames I will key the sliders for "lips sealed", "ooo," "mouth open/close," and "smile." Next I will go through the animation and keyframe the beginning and ends of these sounds. At these points I will only key the "lips sealed" and "ooo" sliders, leaving "mouth open/close" and "smile" open for the different shapes that will come before or after.
Step 2: Mark the "eee" sounds
This step is similar to the step above but I am only using the slider for "eee." Since I am only using one slider it is easier to create all of the keys in one pass instead of going through and doing the "on's" first and the "off's" second.
Step 3: "bpm"
Same as 1, keying "bpm," "mouth open/close," and "smile" on the first pass, and keying the beginning and end frames of the sounds on a second pass using only the "bpm" slider. It is important that the "lips sealed" slider be keyed to zero at every point the "bpm" is on.
Step 4: "fv"
Just like 3.
Step 5: "Mouth Open/Close"
At this point there will be a lot of keys for this slider in place already. Most of the keys to place now are opening the mouth for vowel sounds and closing it for most of the remaining consonants. I will place these keys going straight through from the beginning to the end of the clip.
Step 6: Tongue movement
Besides cleanup and tweaking the last thing to do is create the tongue movements. Here I will animate the tongue to move down and in the correct shape whenever the mouth is open and to create "l," "th," and other sounds.
I use sliders that are set-driven keyed to blendshapes and joint movements. Here are the ones I use for lip syncing:
- mouth open/close - left/right
- lips sealed
- smile types 1,2,3 and pout
- eee, oh, ooo, bpm, fv
- tongue controls
Step 1: Mark the "r" and "w" sounds
Here I'll go through and and place a keyframe at every point that these sounds show up. On these frames I will key the sliders for "lips sealed", "ooo," "mouth open/close," and "smile." Next I will go through the animation and keyframe the beginning and ends of these sounds. At these points I will only key the "lips sealed" and "ooo" sliders, leaving "mouth open/close" and "smile" open for the different shapes that will come before or after.
Step 2: Mark the "eee" sounds
This step is similar to the step above but I am only using the slider for "eee." Since I am only using one slider it is easier to create all of the keys in one pass instead of going through and doing the "on's" first and the "off's" second.
Step 3: "bpm"
Same as 1, keying "bpm," "mouth open/close," and "smile" on the first pass, and keying the beginning and end frames of the sounds on a second pass using only the "bpm" slider. It is important that the "lips sealed" slider be keyed to zero at every point the "bpm" is on.
Step 4: "fv"
Just like 3.
Step 5: "Mouth Open/Close"
At this point there will be a lot of keys for this slider in place already. Most of the keys to place now are opening the mouth for vowel sounds and closing it for most of the remaining consonants. I will place these keys going straight through from the beginning to the end of the clip.
Step 6: Tongue movement
Besides cleanup and tweaking the last thing to do is create the tongue movements. Here I will animate the tongue to move down and in the correct shape whenever the mouth is open and to create "l," "th," and other sounds.
8/5/08
Going to Siggraph!
Ok not really. But I will be following it here: http://area.autodesk.com/siggraph
Thanks for the link Matt.
*EDIT* I've been to Siggraph twice since this post, with my now former co-worker Matt. We brought our boards and had a great time!
Thanks for the link Matt.
*EDIT* I've been to Siggraph twice since this post, with my now former co-worker Matt. We brought our boards and had a great time!
8/4/08
8/3/08
Lip Syncing, or This "N" is Not Like the Other.
One thing I have realized about lip syncing is that the mouth shape for one specific consonant is not the same for another. This happens when the vowel sound leading into the consonant is different. For example, if you are adding a keyframe for an "nn" sound after an "ee" the lips will still hold the "ee" shape as the teeth start to touch, where as if the "nn" follows an "oo" the lips will still hold that instead.
Originally the process I would go through would be to to keyframe the consonants of a sentence or two first and then go back to add the vowel sounds, all by reusing the same mouth shapes over and over. I have since switched to going through and keyframing the sliders of my rig that control the vowel sounds and other lip movements(bpm, fv, r, w) first, and then going back through to key the sliders for the "n,t,s,th,sh" sounds and the tongue movements. This keeps the mouth movements smooth and less jumpy while allowing me to work more quickly than going from the first to last sounds in succession.
Originally the process I would go through would be to to keyframe the consonants of a sentence or two first and then go back to add the vowel sounds, all by reusing the same mouth shapes over and over. I have since switched to going through and keyframing the sliders of my rig that control the vowel sounds and other lip movements(bpm, fv, r, w) first, and then going back through to key the sliders for the "n,t,s,th,sh" sounds and the tongue movements. This keeps the mouth movements smooth and less jumpy while allowing me to work more quickly than going from the first to last sounds in succession.
New Blog.
Well here is my first blog. I intend to post my thoughts about what I am working on and on subjects relating to my work. The purpose for blogging these thoughts is both for sharing them with others and recording them for myself. Maybe someone other than myself will get something out of this endeavor.
Blogs away!
Blogs away!
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