Justin Owens » zeroG

Late Night Animation

jay — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:46:47 +0000

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).

In The Lab

jay — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:48:39 +0000

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.

ZeroG [WIP] blocking

jay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:23:18 +0000

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).

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