Jan/091
Ready set go
Week one of the new semester is behind me and it already looks to be better than all the previous. I ended up dropping down to three classes. Four, along with working, was just too much. I didn’t have enough time to put into my projects and it showed.
Every so often I start to rethink whether or not I’m on the right track at school. When I’m at home, I’m much more likely to draw than anything. Looking back at my 3d origins, I was always into modelling and texturing. So where does animation come in? My thinking was that I had the least experience with animation and based on my research, it was not something I’d easily learn on my own. I also have a desire to bring my characters to life and animation seemed like the way to go.
After my Thursday animation class, Character Development, it was reaffirmed I’m where I want to be. I am so incredibly excited by the projects I’m starting and what I’ll be learning. I am so inspired by my instructors and the experience and knowledge they’re passing along.
I have a decent amount of homework for the first week. I’ll be doing two lipsync animations, one in my 3d class and one in my traditional 2d animation class. I’m very interested to what the similarities and differences will be in both mediums. I have to choose my dialogue for both classes, I’ll be gathering a handful of possible options to bring. I also have to start designing characters for my dialogue and film projects for 2d animation. I already have some of those done for the film, as I’m continuing my Stitched Together project from last semester, but I’d like to flesh out the character some more (and I still need to design the dog).
I have to do four “flour sack” drawings for my clothed figure drawing class. I have to show realistic compression and stretch of the sack. The samples our teacher showed us looked really cool. This project is going to be very helpful for my film, as the main character Elwyn is a sack himself.
Nov/080
Wushu animation update
I opened up my wushu animation for the first time since midterms. I had gotten it about 85% finished by the time it was due. As usual, once I had it turned it, I felt burnt out on the project and didn’t much have the energy to finish it. Our teacher has really been encouraging us to keep bringing him updates each week so he can help us refine and finish the animations.
Today I felt the excitement again and jumped on in. I have some sections I need to refine and polish, but overall I felt something needed to be done about the timing. Where I had left off, both jumps felt the same as far as the beats are concerned. There was variation in height and action, but I felt they didn’t have enough contrast. I started playing with the timing of the first jump to see how it would feel. I really slowed things down going into the jump and then went back to “real time” as he comes out of the apex of the jump.
I really think it’s an improvement. Now when I watch it, I think both jumps stand out. Slowing down the timing of the first jump is going to give me a nice opportunity to play up his expressions in that section (now that you can see them!).
To do:
- Work on the first pose and anticipation. Possibly a transition A to B pose of him getting ready to move (cracking knuckles, stretching sorta thing).
- Fix the intro/outro of the second jump. The timing feels off a bit.
- Work on the last “hop”. Doesn’t feel right yet.
- Refine expressions and hand poses.
- Offset keyframes after everything else is done!
Here’s where I left off:
wushu midterm
Adjusting the timing of the first jump:
wushu refinement 01
Hmm, a bit of funkyness with PodPress. I’ll have to get that sorted out.
Oct/080
Final touches
I’m in the computer lab at school putting the final touches on my wushu animation. I need to work on my timing a bit, touch up some of my key poses and add in the facial expressions. After that I think I’ll be ready to start offsetting my keyframes. I have a bit of a back log of animations (2d and 3d) that I haven’t posted, I’m going to try and get those online in the next few days.
Sep/081
Homework at Home
This weekend has been the first in some time where I’ve had two days off in a row, I feel like I’ve finally had some time to rest. During the week I always have two days off from work, but then of course I’m at school those days.
It’s tough, I really wish I wasn’t working at all so I could put all my energy into school, but I’m enjoying work so much, I’m getting to do lots of things I’m really interested in (baking, food prep and soon I’ll be getting training on the line). Bill keeps joking that Kimi and I will probably take over the Bread Workshop, that really caught me off guard. I’ve always had a dream of having a bakery/cafe/small restaurant. I’ve no idea what the future holds for me, and there’s no way I want to stop pursuing animation and art in general, but all of a sudden it seems like that dream has much more of a chance than I’d have thought. Interesting.
I have a lot of homework to get done today. YCON starts this weekend and lots of friends will be visiting. I’m starting with my 3d animation homework as I find it a lot easier to focus and get started on computer work.
I just ordered a new 24″ iMac, I’m looking forward to getting that setup. I had thought of getting a new tower instead, but the iMac includes a gorgeous monitor and has such a small footprint (I should be able to get rid of both my g5 tower and pc box), that I couldn’t resist. My work area at home isn’t ideal at the moment, I have the aforementioned two towers next to my desk, two keyboards and mice on my desk and it’s just too much. I can’t wait til it’s simplified, I think it’ll work much better for me.
I’ll still be using two monitors, so I won’t lose that functionality. I forgot to order the mini dvi to dvi adapter though, so I’ll drop by the apple store before school sometime this week.
Sep/081
Everything Must Fall
Hmm, I had a lot to blog about … yesterday, but now it all seems so in the past. And forgotten. Mostly forgotten.
Between work and school, and the rare attempt to sleep inbetween, I’ve been keeping quite busy. I’m so incredibly excited by my classes this semester and feel that I’ll be leveling up by the end of the year.
In my advanced animation class we’re starting out with a martial arts routine. Last night we went over how to do the first pass blocking, I was surprised by how simple it ends up being. I feel like any complicated character animation is doable at this point, I just have to break it down into the most basic poses.
I turned in the falling leaf project in my intro to 2d animation class yesterday. I felt it ran a bit fast, but my teacher really liked it. The main focus of the animation was ease-in and ease-out, having the keyframes get closer and closer as the leaf comes into a curve and then the opposite as it leaves the curve. I had such a hard time finishing the animation. I kept wanting to wrap it up, but I’d have the leaf moving too fast and so I’d have to add another curve to try and slow it down.
[display_podcast]
Sep/081
The Bake Shift
I’m working the bake shift this evening/morning, Tues from 4am to 8am. It’s going to add up to a long day, but I’m excited to be baking pastries!
I’m working at getting some homework done at the moment. I’ve been pretty busy this weekend and hadn’t really gotten a chance to get much done in that department. On Saturday I helped cater for a wedding, that was a lot of fun, I hope to post about that specifically in the next few days. On Sunday maiki and I took a nice walk around Berkeley, sampling many treats along the way. Much conversation was had.
I had a simple exercise to do for my Advanced Animation 2 class, a basic ball (of the heavy variety) bouncing in place and coming to a stop, using the techniques learned in the last class. I did it pretty much as he wanted, but in the end I opened the graph editor and adjusted the curves so the ball had more apparent weight. Specifically, I broke the tangets of the curves to make the adjustments I wanted, though that wasn’t something he showed us. He had mentioned that technique can lead to problems when scaling an animation, but I didn’t really know of another way to get the same effect, without overloading on keyframes.
[display_podcast]
May/080
Animation Final, A Work In Progress
I’m just about done with finals week, I’m finishing up my perspective piece tonight (a three page comic) and then I’ll be done!
I turned in my animation project on Monday and got some nice feedback. It’s still far from finished, I unfortunately got way distracted by Lord of the Rings Online. I like where it’s going though and I’ll be finishing it up over the next week. In fact I’ll be working to have all the animations I did over this semester polished by June 30th, the deadline to submit demo reels for the Fall ’08 Pixar Class.
[display_podcast]
The premise for this animation is a businessman sits down at a park bench to eat his lunch, when he notices a group of pigeons watching him. He gets nervous and transfers to another bench, for a moment feeling safe, until he realizes there are even more birds in that area.
I have the first section blocked out, I need to add in the second bench section and then refine all the keys (as well as adding the pigeons and lunch box).
Apr/080
Rooftop Jump [wip] update
I’m just about done with the blocking stage for this animation. I still need to block in the character kicking open the door and also running off screen. Then I need to add a few sections, him scanning around, making the decision to jump the gap etc. I also need to tweak the run cycle so he has a bit more weight.
[display_podcast]
Apr/080
Rooftop Jump [wip]
Our current animation assignment is to have a character jump over something. We have complete freedom to choose what they jump over, I went with the rooftop idea. This piece is a short exercise in a more action oriented direction. I wanted to emphasize that idea, so I’m doing a sort of rooftop chase sequence.
So far I’ve just been blocking out the run cycle, this is my first time to attempt one. I spent a good 5 or so hours on the first 7 frames of animation. It took a long time for me to work out the pacing and to get a good idea how far each cycle would go (distance). I needed that information to block out the rest of the steps leading up to the ledge. I feel happy with where it’s at right now and I’ve since moved on to blocking out the rest of the animation. I took a break and did a little scene building as well.
Apr/080
Late Night Animation
Finishing up for the evening. I don’t feel like I have a lot to show for the day, but I think I’m on track. I was able to spend a lot of time thinking about the workflow I need to use to finish this piece and how best to tackle the rest of the animation. I have so many small parts that need to come together, that I was feeling overwhelmed.
My current plan:
Add keys to the last two sequences (going after the apple and then falling).
Adjust walk cycle (adding in some character to his walk).
Convert the rig from stepped curves to smooth.
-Adjust curves, refine timing.
Key all the food items, using as few keys as I can (I’ll do most of their animation through editing their curves).
Finish the facial expressions, hand gestures and interractions with the food.
(Add eye blink)
(Offset keys to help the character look natural)
(Camera cut or subtle animation)
If I have time, scene building and animating the door. Plus rendering.
I’m guessing the last item won’t get done before Monday, but hopefully before the 20th (deadline for submissions to the spring show).
Apr/080
In The Lab
I’m in the computer lab at school right now, once again working on my ZeroG animation. I’ve never put so much time into an animation before; I’m excited to see how it turns out, but it has been a daunting project. I’m hoping to have it finished enough to submit it to the spring show.
I have all the main animation blocked out on the character, now I’m working on blocking out the food. I’m creating reference curves for each piece of food to help get a natural looking arc as they fall and then bounce around. Once I’ve got that finished, I’ll finish blocking in the facial and hand motions. After that I’ll have some minor adjustments to make, then I should be able to convert all my curves from stepped to smooth. At that point I get to dive into the graph editor and tweak all the curves like a mad man.
I’m not sure how much I’ll get done today, but hopefully I’ll get to the point where I can convert the curves so I can adjust all those tomorrow.
I feel pretty good at the moment, I’m fairly focused though a bit tired. I’d rather be working on some personal projects today, but homework it is. By the by, it’s another wonderful day in San Francisco. The weather has been amazing the last two days. I’ll probably take a lunch break in an hour or so and sit in the park.
Mar/080
ZeroG [WIP] blocking
I’m working in the animation lab right now. I’ve started to block out the basic parts of the animation. Sometimes this stage is a bit overwhelming, I’m not always sure how much time to put into each section. It’s the whole idea of creating something from scratch, versus editing something that’s already roughed out that slows me down.
I have the basic walk cycle finished and most of the trip roughed out, though that still needs work. I’m just starting to block in the gravity change/gravity “swimming”. The anti-grav section is a little tough. At this point I’m just worrying about the key poses and I’ll add the inbetweens later (I really need to get the objects he’ll be interracting with in there, as they’ll be affecting how and where he’s moving towards).
[display_podcast]
Mar/080
ZeroG Snack [WIP]
I’m working on a new project for my animation class. The basic idea we were handed was to create a story around eating food, using the Norman rig. My idea was to have him carrying a tray of food, trip and fall, accidentally hitting a button that controls the gravity of his ship/spacestation. Initially I was going to have him struggling to try and get his food when in zero-g, but after some critique from my teacher, I’ve revamped it so he’s having fun with it.
I’ve blocked out the walk cycle, next I’ll be working on the trip and then I’ll move on to the weightless section. I’d like to make the trip happen in slow motion, so I can really exaggerate his expression. I’m not sure how much working time that would add to the project though, so at this point I’m just considering it as an option.
Mar/080
Flour Sack WIP
This was a two week project done for my animation class. I found the flour sack rig rather difficult to work with. It didn’t have as many controls as I’d have liked and some of the ones it did have deformed in unexpected ways.
This idea was to show an emotional change in the character. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out, but I definitely have more work to do on it. I’d like to work on the walk cycle, make it more of a slumped shuffle. After getting feedback I also see that I can work on his reaction (exaggerate it more) and add some more movement to his body during the clap.
[display_podcast]
Aug/071
Project Paper – Cedric
Here’s the first character, Cedric.
Jun/071
The Freak (WIP)
Did the basic low res modelling in LightWave, then did the detail work in Zbrush, then I was going to bring it into Maya for surfacing/lighting/rendering. However, there’s a bug with Zbrush 3, so I wasn’t able to bring it into Maya. I did what I could though, and I’m fairly happy with the results. I’m considering this still in progress and I’ll revisit it once I can get around the technical issues.
May/070
Creature Modelled
Pretty much finished the modelling on the creature I’ve been working on (theme for this guy was “the freak”). Modelled the low res version in LightWave. Brought it into Zbrush, subdevided it and painted on the details.
Low Res: 222 Polygons
High Res: 3.6 Million Polygons
.