We met with Galen on Saturday and he seemed to like all the research I did (though Hosenfeld suggested I minimize the talk about research in the future). Galen's main comments were to figure out the style of the piece ASAP because that will determine how detailed the facial animation needs to be--as well as how humanistic it must be. If the face is divided in the normal human ratio--eyes halfway between chin and top of head and nose halfway between eyes and chin (see below image)--no matter how cartoony the texturing or other parts of the body, we read it as human and expect a high level of detail in the facial movement. I don't really think there is anyway around having Justin look human, so it means a lot of detailed blend shape work...perhaps all the time I've saved on rigging will go towards blend shapes and facial controls.
He did say that the long camera moves will allow me to complete the thesis as long as I focus on the detailed animation for close-ups and simpler, broad movements during the camera moves. I should consider the camera moves storytelling and the close-ups as the showcase of my character animation talent.
So this week I've begun to explore shading in Maya. I think I want to use toon outlines but with a more complex texture on the body, similar to the texturing I used for
"The Temptation of the Elephant" (fourth one down on the page). I'm reworking laying out UVs, though I'm learning that I won't really learn how I want them exactly until I start building my texture.
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