A lift i did quickly last week for the fun of it.
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Keeping poses and thumbnails on target
Posted this on my facebook but felt it apropriate to post it here too!
"One thing I learned from one of my
mentors (Mark Behm) while at Animation Mentor was that you should always
write the emotions (or thoughts) out in words near your thumbnails
while you are deciding on poses and planning your scene. It is a
constant reminder of the goal of your posing."
Josh Riley
Quote from
www.animationtipsandtricks.com/2010/11/when-deciding-on-acting-choices-what.html
There is a rely good example of this on the Documentary 'a pixar story' where one of the animators shows the blocking/thumbnails for his shot on finding nemo, he goes off on an unexpectedly deep explanation of what the symbolism of some of the actions are and the emotions behind them.here it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beta2my2x_M&feature=related
"One thing I learned from one of my
mentors (Mark Behm) while at Animation Mentor was that you should always
write the emotions (or thoughts) out in words near your thumbnails
while you are deciding on poses and planning your scene. It is a
constant reminder of the goal of your posing."
Josh Riley
Quote from
www.animationtipsandtricks.com/2010/11/when-deciding-on-acting-choices-what.html
There is a rely good example of this on the Documentary 'a pixar story' where one of the animators shows the blocking/thumbnails for his shot on finding nemo, he goes off on an unexpectedly deep explanation of what the symbolism of some of the actions are and the emotions behind them.here it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beta2my2x_M&feature=related
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Gimbal Defeated!
Win! Gimbal has been put down thanks to maya and its epic controlls!
Here is the relatively finished rabbit sleep walk cycle. I hope your reading the relaxed swinging of the arms and light tilt of the head as a sleepwalk rather than a hunger/zombie walk, if i was to go for zombie the arms and head would be much more rigid and snappy and perhaps lunnging forwards now and then but maybe this isnt enough.
Gimbal Lock
Thought i might write a bit about how to get over it. for a handy video that explains what gimbal lock is check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8b2Jo7mno
Basically gimbal is when your rotational controls overlap eachother preventing movement in a direction that would normally have a rotational controll. this happens because of the way that rotations are calculated, the problem is the order in which they are calculated Z, moves Y, moves X, so when you move Z axis, Y and X both move the same time, if you move Y axis, Z does not move but X does, and if you move X it moves independently. gimbal usually happens when you rotate the middle axis 90 degrees causing the other two to overlap. if you try to do movement in the direction lacking an axis the motion gets calculated across two directions and comes out weird. this causes a lot of problems in animation.
The first tip id give to avoid gimbal is when rotating always rotate in gimbal view over world or local, this way you are rotating in individual axis that shows up in your curve editor making editing easy opposed to animating in local or world where two axis counteract eachother making a mess. this also enables you to spot gimbal early on.
The brute force way to fix it would be to key every frame, while it can work it reduces your ability to edit curves easily can sometimes look sketchy and takes a while. id try to aviod this unless necessary
Another 'fix' (sort of) is to have two rotation controls, so if you do get gimbal you can animate using the other rotation controll although this requires the rig your using to actually have it built in or to build it in yourself.
The best solution ive found so far is to adjust the order in which the axis are calculated in, for example rather than XYZ you could go YZX. this changes the order meaning you gain more controll in which way your controlls face, the brilliant thing is that this is a keyable attribute. so if youre having problems in one part but not another you can just key the rotational change for that section. Genious!
this cam be found in
Window > General Editor > Channel Controll
then add 'Rotation order'
this will then appear in your attribute editor!
Here is the relatively finished rabbit sleep walk cycle. I hope your reading the relaxed swinging of the arms and light tilt of the head as a sleepwalk rather than a hunger/zombie walk, if i was to go for zombie the arms and head would be much more rigid and snappy and perhaps lunnging forwards now and then but maybe this isnt enough.
Gimbal Lock
Thought i might write a bit about how to get over it. for a handy video that explains what gimbal lock is check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8b2Jo7mno
Basically gimbal is when your rotational controls overlap eachother preventing movement in a direction that would normally have a rotational controll. this happens because of the way that rotations are calculated, the problem is the order in which they are calculated Z, moves Y, moves X, so when you move Z axis, Y and X both move the same time, if you move Y axis, Z does not move but X does, and if you move X it moves independently. gimbal usually happens when you rotate the middle axis 90 degrees causing the other two to overlap. if you try to do movement in the direction lacking an axis the motion gets calculated across two directions and comes out weird. this causes a lot of problems in animation.
The first tip id give to avoid gimbal is when rotating always rotate in gimbal view over world or local, this way you are rotating in individual axis that shows up in your curve editor making editing easy opposed to animating in local or world where two axis counteract eachother making a mess. this also enables you to spot gimbal early on.
The brute force way to fix it would be to key every frame, while it can work it reduces your ability to edit curves easily can sometimes look sketchy and takes a while. id try to aviod this unless necessary
Another 'fix' (sort of) is to have two rotation controls, so if you do get gimbal you can animate using the other rotation controll although this requires the rig your using to actually have it built in or to build it in yourself.
The best solution ive found so far is to adjust the order in which the axis are calculated in, for example rather than XYZ you could go YZX. this changes the order meaning you gain more controll in which way your controlls face, the brilliant thing is that this is a keyable attribute. so if youre having problems in one part but not another you can just key the rotational change for that section. Genious!
this cam be found in
Window > General Editor > Channel Controll
then add 'Rotation order'
this will then appear in your attribute editor!
Sunday 7 November 2010
Zombeh bunny is dissapointed in your brainlessness!
Another few afternoons another cycle, i think its nice i can just go with things at the moment rather than ahdering to a specific vision. take this for instance, it started out as a vanilla fat walk to show some weight, i moved the arms up and forward so they didnt distract me while i was animating the core and abdomen... then a crazy thought hit me! 'hey that kinda looks like a zombie with his arms like that!' as its the season! a bit cliche but hey some times we like cliche!
The problem at the moment is im battling with two visions, is he walking like a zombie just cause hes a cliche zombie bunny, or is he walking like that because hes hungry and thinking about the food on the table hes walking towards (yes there is a difference!). while i feel its the intricacies in the arms and face that will ultimatly tell between these two stories god bless CG with its technicall difficulties the arms are awfully difficult to controll and thus difficult to portray the correct motion, yes, gimbal is back! (meaning there is no rotational controll for the directions i need the arms to rotate) sugar hunny ice tea...
total time on this cycle is aproximately 4 hours, of which at least an hour and a half has been battling and experimenting with the gimbal problem in the arms. I will find a solution cause theres no way in hell im letting the arms move like they are at the minte...
The problem at the moment is im battling with two visions, is he walking like a zombie just cause hes a cliche zombie bunny, or is he walking like that because hes hungry and thinking about the food on the table hes walking towards (yes there is a difference!). while i feel its the intricacies in the arms and face that will ultimatly tell between these two stories god bless CG with its technicall difficulties the arms are awfully difficult to controll and thus difficult to portray the correct motion, yes, gimbal is back! (meaning there is no rotational controll for the directions i need the arms to rotate) sugar hunny ice tea...
total time on this cycle is aproximately 4 hours, of which at least an hour and a half has been battling and experimenting with the gimbal problem in the arms. I will find a solution cause theres no way in hell im letting the arms move like they are at the minte...
Thursday 28 October 2010
Flour Sack
Been out and about a lot recently living a little so to speak, as a result ive not been working as hard as i could be. Had some spare time to animate and did this though, took bout an hour n a half.
Friday 1 October 2010
11sec sept 2010
So here it is! my animation for the 11 second club competition september, glad to have it done! Feedback please!
Something I’m curious about is what you 'the audience' is getting from it, this has rely just been my own expression of how I think the piece should look, I’ve not rely tailored it with the viewer in mind and have probably over indulged myself. I think the missing ingredient is what the big John L said in an interview years ago about what the secret formula to success after he wins several short student film awards. He says he thinks the secret ingredient is entertainment which I think this piece is missing, I think the cause is my drive, where some animators are inspired by the animation they saw as kids I get inspired by how the mind works, I rely find it fascinating how people think and how people like Darren brown or interrogators can read your mind via body language and behaviour, I like to explore these things in my animation to the point where I think here I’ve overlooked the pure entertainment value. What do you think?
Something for me to keep in mind in the future...
As for technique I think I still need to work on it, I struggled more than I should have to gain control over some of the limbs, so my technique does need refining.
Confronting the Don from Mark Nicholas on Vimeo.
Something I’m curious about is what you 'the audience' is getting from it, this has rely just been my own expression of how I think the piece should look, I’ve not rely tailored it with the viewer in mind and have probably over indulged myself. I think the missing ingredient is what the big John L said in an interview years ago about what the secret formula to success after he wins several short student film awards. He says he thinks the secret ingredient is entertainment which I think this piece is missing, I think the cause is my drive, where some animators are inspired by the animation they saw as kids I get inspired by how the mind works, I rely find it fascinating how people think and how people like Darren brown or interrogators can read your mind via body language and behaviour, I like to explore these things in my animation to the point where I think here I’ve overlooked the pure entertainment value. What do you think?
Something for me to keep in mind in the future...
As for technique I think I still need to work on it, I struggled more than I should have to gain control over some of the limbs, so my technique does need refining.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
UDK Awesomeness!
Got word that there may be an animator job going but UDK experience was needed.
Once again i dropped everything for a couple of days and went on a UDK TRAINING SPREE! must have watched about 15+ hours worth of tutorials at a comical X2 speed to save time, defo learned a lot but the most valuble thing i think is how much my mind exploded with posibilities. i used the metaphore that "all this time ive been learning how to make bullets but not having anything to do with them, now with UDK i have something to shoot with!"
Everything i know will finally come together! :D
Will return to completing Animation now but expect some crazy UDK stuff to apear in the future!
Unreal Development Kit is a free download! Get it here!
http://www.udk.com/
Once again i dropped everything for a couple of days and went on a UDK TRAINING SPREE! must have watched about 15+ hours worth of tutorials at a comical X2 speed to save time, defo learned a lot but the most valuble thing i think is how much my mind exploded with posibilities. i used the metaphore that "all this time ive been learning how to make bullets but not having anything to do with them, now with UDK i have something to shoot with!"
Everything i know will finally come together! :D
Will return to completing Animation now but expect some crazy UDK stuff to apear in the future!
Unreal Development Kit is a free download! Get it here!
http://www.udk.com/
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