This week, I shifted my focus to refining the lips and facial expressions now that the body movements were in a better place. During our feedback session, George mentioned that the movement had definitely improved from before, but there was still room for refinement. I took his notes and made adjustments accordingly.
One specific issue he pointed out was with the eye roll—my character’s iris was getting cut off by the eyelid, which shouldn’t happen. I went back and fixed that, making sure the eye movement looked smooth and natural.
Once I had made those fixes, I started working my way up from the lips to the eyes. After I was happy with the expressions, I converted the animation to spline. As expected, it felt a little too mushy at first. So I opened the graph editor and began cleaning up the curves, adding movement holds where necessary to keep the performance sharp and clear.
I also revisited the lip sync, as it wasn’t quite hitting right. I fine-tuned the timing and pushed the expressions further to add more personality and energy to the performance. Overall, this week was all about polishing the facial animation and making everything feel more expressive and believable.
I still need to fix this and I will make the necessary changes before submission.