Continuation for 3D eyes only

Finished an 8 page paper/take home exam for Animal Behavior so now I have a bit of free time. Portfolio is done except for burning DVDs and printing stuff--so that's going well. Should be hearing about Producer's Show tomorrow. Until then, more 3D stuff because you know you love it:

I'm continuing from my previous post which was focusing on the little wanna-be clown guy animation. I finished the animation over the weekend and playblasted along the way(everyone will probably get a little sick of seeing the same beginning actions)



Getting the weight/movement down for his next movement. Not worrying about his eyes at all and in this stage the ball never comes back down. Since his hands rely on the ball's speed I haven't blocked them in until I get the ball down, so they just fall to his sides. Also started working on his reaction to the off-screen surprise. :) I tried a different story path and in this experiment--the ball didn't come back down until the secondary character comes in. Then the ball whacks the "human" on the head. Ultimately didn't go with that. Didn't feel right and I kept hitting story walls.

Now I'm back onto my original story idea. Got the ball falling now, along with the catching action. Haven't blocked in his hands/ball when he reacts, but still continuing to move on with his frantic jump reaction to what's coming his way. Lots of bugs, what I do is create a list of "things to fix" and get back to them later--for now I'm just getting all the actions going and figuring out the timing for sure.

This one is a bit of a jump from the previous step. I got a little caught up in animating and didn't playblast as I went---opps. Anyways, now the ball is going, the hands are following, couple new actions added, and he has reached his final pose before the big surprise comes boundin' in.

Polishing the "human" guy--starting in on the facial animation, working on the any problems with the animation etc. This also introduces our secondary character. I started off slow, his final speed is MUCH faster and I did about 9-10 attempts on that movement, it was kind of tricky to keep all of his parts in check and ended up doing a mix between straight ahead and pose-to-pose to get the final result. Still not the prettiest run ever, but it works and contrasts the guy. Once the dog appears I focus on him, I have plans for the "human" but for now the main attention is on the dog so the "human" just dies after a bit.


Getting the dog up to speed. Problems with weight though. Some parts he really gets too floaty and it's a matter of how long his feet are on the ground and his main body timing--I was following the "delayed parts" rule where nobody moves all together. Right now too many parts moving at once(maybe 2 frame delay between main body and feet which isn't enough at this point). Feet and main body need a little more delay to get that weight back. Also starting to get his head movement going.

Still tweaking the dog, getting that weight under control, but wanted a break from the canine and moved onto the impact/fall of the "human". I did several passes on his fall, this one is the first fall, but it change quite a bit from this first pass. Still interesting to look back on though.


Another try at the fall, getting a little closer to the final result. First nailing down the body before I even touch his limbs. Dog is coming along, I don't think I was very focused on him at this point.

Now I have the dog's more subtle actions going, like his paws squashing a bit etc. The "humans" fall is now too slow at dog's impact, but his limbs are heading in the right direction. His hand developed the habit of "sliding" when he's shaking so had to go back and fix that at some point. Didn't have a proper stepped key in place.

Going to have to wait until the finished product to see how the dog and the "human's" animation came along. :) For now, I started to get the ball going again after the final return. Can't end on a down note! It's really supposed to be funny! Just blocking the ball in. Getting the arcs right using the graph editor, etc. Certainly not perfect though.

Now it's looking a bit better. Continued to tweak the ball's actions, the following reaction to said ball and remember that "things to fix" list? This is pretty much when I go back and start fixing every last issue with the animation. Things like hands going through knees, any 'pops' to his movements, keeping all elbow and knee controls in check, etc. Just thoroughly polishing the overall animation before winding up with this little 3D piece:


Now time to play with the lighting(though blogger butchers Maya lighting...), get the camera just right, and add some Marx brothers so I now have "Fetch":

Fight or Flight

Sorry for the wait, but here's my first year film! Starring the entertaining antics of Ollie and Pilot!



Again, a huge special thanks to everybody who contributed to the making of my first film! I know I listed everybody in the credits, but again thank you to all of my friends and teachers at CalArts! And of course a thank you to my friends and family back home(21 days Mom!) for all of their input and nonstop support. I'll be posting the animatic and some development work later in the week once papers are done and my portfolio is sent off...for now-Back to the gallery! Time for round 2!

Open Show

Just finished the first half of the big Character Animation Open Show. The second half starts at 10 and goes until at least 2 am. 8 tapes full of really fantastic stuff! The first 4 hours have left me feeling really pumped for next year. So far there have been some great films--my fellow freshmen have created some brilliant little films and it's really exhilarating seeing the storys/characters spring to life after months of seeing just tiny little glimpses. This goes for upperclassmen too, really gives me a good sense of how I want to approach my next film. My film went over just fine, it was odd seeing it on such a large scale and in front of so many people(at least 200 people). It was cool hearing the various reactions while it played. Hearing people gasp and then laugh on such a large scale was not something I was really expecting(especially the gasps). Then, before I knew it, my film had ended and moved onto another film. Anyways, off to go grab dinner and hang out with friends before heading back into the gallery for another round of animation! Pictures and a richer update to follow....

Unexpected story

Walking back to my dorm this morning and I hear the peeps of baby ducklings. Eager to see something cute and because I had my camera on me--I followed the peeps. Found the mom and saw one lonely little duckling despite the chorus of peeps. The mom was acting odd and was sitting down by this drain and I immediately put two-and-two together. Her ducklings were stuck, either they fell down between the openings or someone actually chased them down and stuck them in there(you could lift up the cement barrier thing)--which I'd hate to think someone would actually DO that. Anyways, I went over and reunited the ducklings with their mom.

It was after I took this picture that I realized something was wrong. See the drain? The ducklings were under that cement opening.

Freedom!

Running over to mommy.

And with that little happy ending I return to the world of Maya-roughly 95% done.:)

Crunch-Time Round 2

Remember the walk I was working on earlier? Well, here he is. Worked out a lot of issues concerning the little guy's head/tail movement. Yeah, look at him go! Probably hunting for his non-existent facial controls----


Here's a scary screenshot of the inner-workings of Mr. Dane:

I moved the floor out of the way so you can see his wire-frame. He's actually easier to work with than the other rig(the guy with the red ball that I posted previously). Lots of subtle control despite the lack of face stuff. His tail needs better handling---I seriously spent 3 hours ironing out that thing! Crazy! Before I knew it I looked at the clock and it was past midnight. haha.

The second wave of crunch-time is coming down, just when you think it's safe to relax after the film deadline. Mainly portfolio madness and final class papers. The next couple of weeks involve: Open Show on the 26th, Animal Behavior final paper/exam due the 30th(4 pages), Animation and the Body paper due May 1st(4-6pages), Pixar's internship deadline is May 2nd(yep, I've giving it a shot), Job Fair on May 6th, Producer's Show on May 8th, Disney's internship deadline is May 10th(also just giving it a shot), and whatever surprises will undoubtedly fall in my lap. Time is going to shoot by, it's still hard to believe that it's practically May! April shot by-basically a blurry series of events, and I know May is certainly aiming to break the sound barrier.

P.S. I noticed that I got 109 visits the other day so, Hello to you all! Judging by the dot size, I'm making a wild guess that Southern Oregonians are the culprits, though Southern California is coming up close. haha. :)

For 3D eyes only

Today around 4:30 I dropped my film off! Saturday(April 26th) is the Open Show and Fight or Flight will have its' debut within the first 2 hours of the show! My only thoughts are: "I hope the resolution was right." "I hope the sound is right." "I hope the frame rate is right." etc. The butterflies are slowly gathering and will be wrecking havoc on my nerves come Saturday.
Yesterday I finally saw, "Frank and Ollie" and I encourage every animator out there to watch it. Very inspiring film and helped give me a much needed kick for my Maya work. One quote in particular really hit me and sums up my feelings perfectly whenever I watch my first year film,
"Once you see the film of your drawings, then you're hooked on animation, nothing can give you the same feelings--sculpture, painting, drawing, etching, anything. None of it can give that same feeling of life that you get out of seeing this dog-gone little character working around on the projector--projected up on the screen and you feel like a parent who has just sent his kid away to school you know? You don't really own this guy up on the screen anymore, you did for a while and you were very close to him for awhile, but now, all of a sudden here he is apparently making decisions on his own, doing quite well without you."---Frank Thomas

A common question nowadays is, "How do you feel about finishing your film?" The above quote by Frank Thomas really does sum up my thoughts in regard to that particular question. Both of my film characters were once very personal and on some days I couldn't get either of them out of my head whenever I wanted to draw something other than a zanny old man and a wicked cat. Since finishing my film, I really have moved away from everything involving my first year film. I've watched "Fight or Flight" hundreds of times---easily 500 odd times. Now, I can get a bit overly critical about the film, but I still remember how I felt the first time I watched Pilot or Ollie running around---it's weird watching the film and thinking, "I really drew all of that? I made these guys move!" 95 seconds of moving lines solely drawn by my right hand, while hunched over my animation disc flipping paper for weeks on end. And it is a completely different feeling than animating in Flash or even Maya. Now Pilot and Ollie are fending for themselves whenever I play the film, they do just move around on their own and don't feel like thousands of pencil lines wiggling around on the screen. And on Saturday I get the pleasure(though the second my film appears I'm going to want to sink into the floor.) of seeing it projected onto a HUGE screen, no longer on a tiny computer monitor, and not just my film, but the films of the entire character animation department. Going to be an exciting weekend!

Other than that, I've been working away in Maya and thought I'd do another in progress kind of post--there's Maya lingo ahead, so ye be warned:
I'm working with a new rig that I found online(this is all just for my own personal practice. This isn't an assigned piece). He has some interesting quirks and I don't plan on working with him on any future projects---too many restraints. His feet won't key properly and all of the controls are not very precise, especially in his hands and feet---where I WANT my precision too! Won't let me bend his toes and his finger controls are exceedingly messy to animate. Anyhow, still having fun with him and will finish this animation out. While working on this I realized something: When I animate with paper/pencil I tend to lean towards pose-to-pose. Draw my main poses, figure out the timing by holding a drawing for 20 frames, etc. and then in-between the drawings while considering my ease-ins and outs, anticipations, etc. The fastest most efficient way for me to work when it comes to 2D animation. With Maya, for the longest time I kept trying to animate this way: block the poses out using stepped keys. Then spline and break tangents to try and get the moves I want. This way was not yielding the best results(lots of redos once I would playblast and really see it move) and at least for me, takes a really long time. So on this animation I tried straight ahead animation(with a plan in mind. I knew what I wanted him to do, but didn't pose him out like I usually do) while alternating between spline/linear tangents with the occasional use of stepped keys.

On this first pass I was only focused on his legs/upper body so his hands die after awhile. I just started making him walk, moving his legs then followed by his body and tweaking the keys as I saw fit.


Starting in on his front arm. "OMG! My arm! It stretches! But I can't see because my eyes are in the back of my head!"



And look at how his arms should look! Also worked out other issues with his other sections. Tweaked head movements, etc. I know I was fiddling around in the graph editor by this pass. Definitely getting my "moving holds" in there.


Onto the next action of his while still refining the first bit. One huge tip I really learned in my 3D animation class last year and still use it every minute in Maya--do one thing at a time. I really apply this to the various actions a character does in a scene. First nail down Action A, then move onto Action B, and so on until he's done. So for example here I: Get him walking, then get him to stop and spin around, and now it's bend over and pick up the object of interest up.



Now with facial stuff and a very first pass on the object of interest. So this is where I am right now. What could possibly take place with that red sphere? Well I won't spoil what happens next---maybe since he doesn't have a nose:

Actually not, and gotta love the 2 minutes it took me to make the pose/light him! Scarier then Pennywise himself!

Alright, well time to make some dinner and get back to clowning around in Maya! Less than a month of school to go!

You know it's hot when...

On Sunday I was outside talking to my Grandma on my phone and I hear some ruckus in the trees above me---I see a squirrel run off in one direction before I notice this little guy:



The top drawing is what I saw. A squirrel completely sprawled out on its belly along a branch in the shade. The second drawing pretty much depicts the expression the squirrel would have made. It completely ignored the blue-jays that were bouncing around it and just kept a beady eye down on me before it fell asleep--the only way to spend a hot Sunday summer day.

In other news, I put some animation stuff on YouTube. Nothing that hasn't been seen before. Though I finally got some of my past Flash stuff online and working. My film will be up at the end of the month.