Animation Mentor - Class 2, Week 3

Alrighty then.
So this week we're still on our first shot for class 2. Drew gave us some notes addressing our blocking and we were tasked with preparing a blocking plus pass. Blocking Plus is basically, further breaking down your shot. Whereas blocking is typically little more than your storytelling poses (the key poses used to tell the story in your shot) and basic timing, blocking plus is significantly more broken down and the timing should be totally nailed down. Basically solidifying the timing of your actions, and putting in as many poses as necessary to describe your arcs and the actions in your shot. The idea with this phase is to make it as easy as possible for the computer to figure out proper inbetweens going into spline. I'd already gone pretty overboard in blocking last week and essentially already done a blocking plus pass, so Drew's notes were fairly minimal but very informative. I continued breaking this shot down until i was for the most part on 2s except for moving holds, where 2s weren't necessary to describe the action. It's a pretty fast paced shot with a lot of physicality, so breaking it down this much was pretty essential. In fact, my guess is i'll still have to hand key quite a bit in the polishing phase to get the computer to do what i want. Anyhoo, here's what i turned in:



I'm off to rock some resident evil 5. catch y'all later.
rock.
ryan

Animation Mentor - Class 2, Weeks 1-2

Alright, so i got a little lazy last week and didn't throw up a blog post so i'll try to cover both the first weeks of class 2 right here.

Week 1, our assignment was to pick from a list of about 6 or so different options and choose the assignment we' be focusing in on for the next 4 weeks. That first week, we had to choose and shoot video reference for the option we chose. I had a hard time deciding what to do, but ultimately i chose to go with 'Jumping over a gap.' These first 4 weeks are focusing in on the hips and as such most of the other options offered very subtle movement in the animation and i really wanted to go for something physical and cartoony my first week back. We were also required to upload 2 pages of thumbnails from our reference. Here's the video reference i chose:



I'd actually shot a ton of reference on a bunch of different options and had my peers help narrow it down for me. We also Got to meet our new mentor. Mine is Drew Adams, currently at Dreamworks working on Kung Fu Panda 2. Drew is super awesome. He actually originally started as a 2D animator, so his approach and workflow is pretty similar to the one i've been experimenting with. His Q&A's are really a blast! He usually starts with some kind of mini lecture for the first half. Either a quick walkthrough of blocking a shot (the way he approaches it) or maybe bringing up some cool animated footage and frame by framing it with us in realtime to show us how he studies how other animators accomplished their shots. SUPER helpful! He then spends the second half of the QA opening the floor up to any questions, about the assignment, the lecture, or whatever. Super super great way of using the QAs i love it! Also throughout the week he sends us 'links of the week' so far these have been anything from cool animated shorts he likes to additional lectures (not AM ones) with good info. Drew is just awesome!

The second week our assignment was to block out our shot based on our reference and thumbnails. I started by first doing a pencil test in flipbook to nail down my basic timing and keyframes. Here's what that looked like:



I was going to Disneyland this week and didn't have a whole lot of time to finish the assignment so i started early on sunday. I finished this pencil test sunday, before i'd even got an e-critique on my reference. After that i immediately jumped into Maya and started blocking. I wanted to be able to get some feedback even though i was leaving thursday. I uploaded 2-3 Maya versions and solicited feedback before coming up with this for my final blocking assignment:




This is actually probably broken down more than it should be for this week, but i was super stoked on the assignment and just kept doing more. Most of this is animated on 2s or 3s and in some cases 4s (2= a new pose every 2 frames, 3= a pose every 3 frames, etc.)

I'm pretty happy with where it's at at the moment and eagerly awaiting notes from Drew.
And now off to week 3!!

A Lil more blocking..

Animation mentor just started up again! yay! Got a Dreamworks Mentor this term named Drew Adams. I'll re-cap the week later.. for now, here's a little more blocking on my Attack Squirrel shot.

Don't Feed Em - Blocking pass #2

Hey hey y'all!
So i worked this shot a little further this week. Started breaking it down a bit mostly on the STU character. The impact when the squirrel attacks happens so quick, it'll probably need to be keyed by hand in the end. Right now it's on 2's, and still needs some work on the post impact. maybe a little body bounce or something to sell the weight. I'm also thinking i've got a better ending in my head then what' represented here... Right now i have the squirrels bouncing off scene, but i'm thinking it'd be more funny if after they knock the dude over, they come in from all directions (maybe 3 or 4 of them) and get the nuts at his feet (nuts aren't in there yet, but that's the idea)
Also, it's mostly gonna be a moving hld on dude for most of the shot to build up the tension and get a nice contrast in timing from trying to feed the squirrel to attack. Here it is so far:



So i think I've got one more blocking pass to go here, then I'll move to a linear pass and on to polishing. Still a ways to go, but it's getting there!

My Week Off from Animation Mentor

So i just hit mid-week in my 10 days off from AM, and I'm feeling the withdrawls. Like some kind of junkie. I had a great animation-free weekend river rafting and drinking far too much with my friends, but come Sunday I was feeling the urge. I mentioned I had a little animation shot to keep me busy and in practice during the off week, and I thought I'd share my progress.

I found this clip on the interwebs when I was researching squirrels for my original tailor assignment, and even then I knew I'd adapt it into a short shot. I still need a little practice with overlapping action and wanted to do another Tailor test, so this was too perfect.




I adapted it slightly by adding in a character instead of a stuffed squirrel and using the Tailor and STU rigs from Class 1. Here's my rough pencil test for timing and blocking.




And here's my first stepped blocking pass in Maya based on my pencil test. I just finished this portion last night. Still a looooong way to go, but the basic idea is in there. I'm really trying to make Tailor feel like a squirrel.






So there you have it. I hope to have this all finished before the next term starts, so stay tuned for progress updates.

Class one is done! - Animation Mentor Week 12

Wow! 12 weeks already flew past! Crazy. I still have 5 classes to go, but i just can't believe how quick 3 months blew by. I learned a whole lot this term. I made an effort to not skip ahead and really focus in and absorb as much info as i could on each given assignment. Even for things i would consider review, i learned a ton. This week we were tasked with putting all our final shots together from most recent to oldest in a progress reel. When looking at all my assignments back to back like this, even in such a short amount of time and covering basics, i can see an improvement in my work.

I had such a blast in this class! I mean your homework is bringing things to life! How cool is that? Even something as simple as a bouncing ball is so much fun. I think my favorite assignments were the obstacle course and the character walk. I felt like those were the assignments that were the least mechanical and allowed me a margin of creativity in my execution. In looking at my reel i feel like those are the ones where i can see a bit of my personality and sense of timing influencing the shot. I think there was opportunity for that in the Tailor bouncing shot, but i'm not sure i did that as well as i could have.

At the end of each class, your mentor writes an assessment of you laying out your strengths and weaknesses. Raquel felt i had a good sense of timing and intuition for movement. She felt that i needed to improve in my study of overlapping action and posing. She said my Pendulum and Tailor assignments were 'ok' but there was plenty of room for improvement and that in my poses, while i explored lots of great options in my sketches, i often played it safe with the ones i chose to pose.

As usual, Raquel called out the same things i was thinking. I've learned a lot from Raquel and other mentors here over the last few months, but i think the thing i'll take away with me to Class 2 is that i need to trust my instincts more. 9 times out of 10, Raquel or another Mentor or student called me out on the things i felt were a little off but let slide. Mostly minor stuff, but still... So in the future i plan to trust my gut and if i think it's off, i'm fixing it!

Here's my progress reel for class 1. We're taking a week long break before class 2 starts and i've got a little test i'm working on to stay fresh. I'll post updates as it hashes out.