Polishing - Take 1

I've taken plenty of the ideas from fellow students and my mentor, and put most of them into this take.

Time to Spline

Here's my first pass at splining. It went a lot easier that before. The thing that really helped, I think, was that I animated on two's and one's. I did the animating and did not let the computer do too much. When I did my walk cycle in the first semester, when I splined I had the right foot drop way below the floor plane. It took me forever to fix the problem. This time, not so much.

Minor changes

I received a pretty thorough e-critique from my mentor this week. She liked the look of the scene, but I just needed to touch it up here and there. The one thing that kept coming up was overlapping in the arms and torso. I think I fixed it up a bit but we'll see when I spline it later this week.






The whole scene is blocked out on two's, one "drawing" for every two frames. I found this the easiest way for me to have the most control over what the character is doing. This way I control the animation, not the computer. It also reminds me of when I used to do traditional 2D animation.

I also have been experimenting with lighting and fully rendering the scene. I also found a way to create a Quicktime video using After Effects. This is a LOT easier than the way I was doing it before.

Rendered

Here's my scene fully rendered and with shadows.

Blocking Plus

Here is my pass for this week. This week was "blocking plus." That is where we take last week's scene and fill it out a bit more.

Lately, I have been listening to The Animation Podcast a lot. I have been hearing from James Baxter and Ken Duncan over and over again. Every time I hear something new and try to use it to inspire my work.

This week I focused on overlapping action and timing. There are a few kinks I still need to iron out but it's coming about.

I also built a little set for my scene. I sculpted a ball return machine, a keyboard, the alley and gutters, and used a chair from the Animation Mentor Library. I LIKE IT!!

Next week: We SPLINE!!!!

Coming Soon... (part II)

BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!

Working at a bookstore certainly has its advantages at time. Especially when awesome movie books are published. I recently picked up "The Art of Wall•E". This is the art book with all the conceptual drawings and illustrations that inspired the movie Wall•E.

I also recently picked up "Tales of Colosus" by PIXAR artist Mark Andrews. It's his graphic novel and is a re-do of his earlier work "Colosus". It has a forward by Brad Bird himself! I'm in the middle of it and so far so good.

The book I am waiting for is the one from Eric Goldberg. It's called "Character Animation Crash Course" Apparently this book is filled with his notes from lectures he has given. It also includes and CD or DVD with examples that go with the text. He was signing copies at SIGGRAPH but it won't be available to the public, well...ME, until early August. Grrrrr!!!!

More books and reviews to follow soon.

Coming Soon...

MOVIES! MOVIES! MOVIES!

I've been to the movies a lot lately and I'll talk about them soon. Here is what I've seen so far:

• Horton Hears A Who!
• Iron Man
• Kung-Fu Panda
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
• The Incredible Hulk
• WALL•E
• Get Smart

I've also seen a few on DVD:

• No Country for Old Men
• Enchanted
• Tekkonkinkreet
• I Am Legend
• The Golden Compass
• Cloverfield
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Dan in Real Life
• The Brave One
• Beowulf
• Death at a Funeral
• Driving Lessons

I've been meaning to post my reviews of many of these films.

It's been a while...

OK, it's been a while since I have posted anything. There's so much that has been going on. I made it to class 3. It is week three already and it is going pretty good.

My scene is a bowling theme. It is a change between two different emotions. I'm going for timid/nervous to confident/cocky. I also constructed a little set for background ambiance. I'll be showing that later. I'm also thinking of adding a few more Stewies in the background to fill in the crowd. Let me get the main one down first, THEN I'll work on the background characters.

So here's what I got so far. This is BLOCKING PLUS: