AM Class 5, Shot 2, latest iteration

Most of the changes this week were made to the second shot in the sequence.
Assuming I don't make any major changes, I've now resolved the most difficult issues, and the rest of  the polish process is a more relaxed matter of working out irregularities and adding details.
I would like Nono to interact a bit more meaingfully with Lillian, though, in terms of her own reactions and focus.
Just starting speech animation here, jaw rotations only so far.

AM Class 5 Shot 2, coming along

This last week's submission. The first and last shots are now becoming well developed and body mechanics has been generally resolved; Charles, my mentor, has indicated that I must now focus on performance. I've already re-filmed video reference for various details.
We've only got two weeks left for this assignment! Time flies. I must also get the facial animation rolling this week. 
I'm really happy with how Nono's run-away bit has turned out. That quality level needs to be brought across the board now.
A challenge with this shot is that the motion is naturally somewhat soft to begin with. I need to tighten it up, especially in the middle. A "soft section" is a section that's wide open for subtler performance and polish work, so this region is one big blank canvas with lots of room for exploration.
Hopefully I'll even get a bit of that "jiggle settle" and "residual energy" cited by Andrew Gordan in a recent lecture on polishing our shots. These descriptions get at the more complex nature of a good settle, something more sophisticated than simply overshooting the action.
And of course, there's still a lot of the emotive and expressive content to be put in.

Working in XSI

Just thought I'd put up some screengrabs of my Softimage | XSI workspace as I animate.
I've got years' worth of customizations in here (mostly written in JScript), a very familiar working environment. One thing I struggle with in Maya is dealing with what seems to be a more limited degree of freedom in terms of workspace customization. It's alright in general, but I struggle in particular with the tiny space allocated for custom commands. As you can see, I occupy an entire computer monitor with custom toolbars within XSI (these are collapsible as well, so I can use the monitor for reference etc. as needed). I also do very much enjoy working in 3D, something I've done for a long time via a custom 3D camera setup that I usually use with all of my cameras. This setup uses the Interest null/locator of the camera to define the focal point for the 3D, and maintains a constant (adjustable) angular displacement based on a custom trigonometric expression. The 3D is simply accomplished via crossing my eyes and focusing. Low tech, and one of the the oldest methods of achieving the effect; but of course it being a volumic environment it is effectively as "true 3D" as any hologram, perceptually. No expensive goggles or screens needed; with just a bit of tinkering anyone can do it with their existing setup.