Critique - Character Ball (Joey)

I fixed some small things mentioned in the class.

At the end, the box is bending and it will open it's mouth which is on the top & suck up the ball with a tongue which is very sticky like frog's. How about it?

I twisted the box when it looks up and gets angry.

Hahaha, nice!!

The ball:

- at frame 160, when he gets scared, I think you could shave off a few frames in order to make it snappier. I cut out 4 frames on the anticipation and two out of the scared-in-the-air part and it makes it a bit more frantic.



- the eyeball: it still moves a bit slow for me. With the slowing out at 156 as it looks up it takes about 7 frames for the whole move, cut that in half. An eyeball will take one or two frames, little eyedarts, most of the time. One frame movements happen in a more realistic approach for subtle detail stuff, but usually 2 frames are good, with one or two frames at the end to slow it down.
On frame 193 the eye slowly moves with the ball, I would make that move faster with two frames, make it sharper. I think the "monster" is a bit upset that the ball is on him/her, so the eye movements would be faster, more alert. At the end of 212 it looks like it takes 5 frames for the eye to move. So in general, speed things up like you have it at the very end. But the end needs some tiny spacing changes. On 227 the eye is up, then goes down on til 229. The spacing is pretty even though, I would make it snappier. So have it up on 227, the go down a tiny bit on 228 then end up where you are on 229.
I like how the head goes back on 241! I can't wait to see the ending, sounds great.

Awesome work!!

Direct Link to movies:

- Joey's Character Ball

- suggestion for "scared" part

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Veerapatra Jinanavin - Animator

Check out Veerapatra's animation site! The reels on the site are very good and I was given permission to repost some of the clips. - quicktime required - double click on movie to play







And here an excellent "weight" assignment:

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Heavy Object (Erik)

"Here comes my idea about moving heavy object. (no texture, yet.) Idea comes from some people believe aliens help human to build pyramid...what do you think about this?"

____________________________

Hey Erik,

I wouldn't worry about textures, it will be easier to judge without them. The idea is good, but just looking at that picture I would have never guessed that it was about aliens helping out with the pyramids.

That's because all you can see is the shiny tip of the pyramid. The lower part of it is hidden under the wooden planks. I would add pyramids in the background with the silver tip, that way it's a bit more obvious.
It's also not clear that the character is an alien (just coloring him green is not enough, you need to find typical characteristics of an alien).

Keep going!

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Switching Webhosts

EDIT: Everything should be working again, please let me know if there are any errors. Thanks!

Since I'm switching between hosts I need to rebuild my website folders and upload everything. So the clips for critique, as well as the scripts and the syllabus are offline right now, but they will be ready by tonight.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I will also update the critique posts with new stuff.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Pavlor Navarro's Demo Reel

Check out this reel, in the middle, there are some good walk cycle examples.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Spacing

This is a gif I found by Ron over at this very constructive animation thread on cgsociety.



















This little animation perfectly illustrates the results of how spacing affects your animation.

I highly recommend using the dry erase marker on your screen. Track the trajectory and spacing of your bouncing ball, or your swinging arm in a walkcycle, or the tip of a sword in a physical exercise.

Whatever you track needs to have an even and or gradual spacing from frame to frame, depending on what your intentions is in your shot. If your dots are one thumb size apart and then suddenly 3 times bigger, then back to normal, than back to big, then something is wrong and your animation will look choppy, with lots of hiccups.

I talked about arcs before and will elaborate on it later on as you get into your flower sack animation or performance animation.
Basically everything moves in arcs, no matter what, except robots. So when you track your parts of the character, then as you connect the dots with a line, it should show a line that's smooth in terms of curves. Either it's going to be flat (ball rolling from left to right on an even floor), or in a figure 8 arc, or just an arched arc. But you won't have a line that has a sudden linear change, like an L, where it goes down and then suddenly to the right, unless your object hits a solid wall. Or a ball bounces of somewhere (floor or wall or object).









Image from "The Principles of Animation"
@ www.evl.uic.edu

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Class Update

Hey boys and girls,

I wanted to apologize to those students who had to wait so long for the critique. I need to be more consistent with the time I allocate to each student. We are a big class, so unfortunately time is precious and gets used up very quickly. I will try to keep it to 5min each in order to make sure that everybody can go home at 10pm. Once I'm done with everybody I can go back to those students who need more help.

For that to work I need you guys to have quicktimes ready for critique, but more importantly you need actual work to show. When it's your turn and I hear that you had problems with your shot, then I'm wondering why you didn't email me once you had those problems during the week. Unless you have those problems Sunday night, you shouldn't be waiting til next class. The moment you are stuck, email me.

For those students who didn't make it today, please email me your work so you don't fall behind schedule.

Speaking of schedule. Please have character balls with tails ready for next week if you didn't today. If you are using your own schedule or are ahead of schedule, show me your latest character assignment of blocking of the flower sack (choose one clear emotion).
Please bring your latest and greatest of each assignment, because next week I need to grade all of you in terms of your progress.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate and email me.

Cheers
Jean-Denis

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Ball and Tail (Marie)

Alright, nice work! Very cool!

Let's start with...

Big Small Ball:

- Very good, nice touch with the stripe on the ball, the left little ball bounces with the big one hitting the floor, cool! The heavy ball is good, the right one is good too. One little thing is how far screen right the ball is bouncing after it hits the big one. Basically from frame 49 to 61, because after 62 is slows down again. So just look at your curve, there might be a sharper dip suddenly during those frames. But you got it otherwise. You can fix it if you want to, or if you want to concentrate on the tail ball that's fine too.

Heavy Bouncing Ball:

- If you label it Heavy, then you'd have to adjust the bounces at bit. Heavy is more what you had in the "Big Small Ball" clip. Apart from that, there is some spacing issue on frame 13 and on. The spacing from 12 to 13 is a bit big. It looks like the ball is being sucked down, not falling down due to gravity. So, the ball is a bit too light for "heavy", and the bounces get very quick after frame 12.

Light Balloon:

- FINAL! Nice job!

Medium Bouncing Ball:

- FINAL!

Tail:

- Good start. Two things: One, my first impression was that the little guy is happily joining his big friend, but the big guy is sad. The little guy then gets closer to comfort him. Is that it? The story didn't jump out immediatly, so I think it could be a bit clearer. Like making the big ball sigh.
The other thing is the tail. Right now it looks like a fish tail flapping. If this is your choice, then okay. I can show you tomorrow a different approach to tails. You can check out Simon's ball bounce at www.simonchristen.com for example.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

No updates today, but Sunday

Hey guys, lots to do at work today so there won't be any updates today, unless someone sends in a critique.

Cheers
JD

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Fantastic "simple" animation

Purple and Brown

Go watch all those episodes, they are really funny and brilliantly simple. The sound design is great and makes the two guys really charming.

There is no fancy rendering, no crazy effects. Just two great characters.

Enjoy!

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Walk Cycle (Erik)

Front View - Side View

Your walk looks a lot better, nice job. Right now what sticks out is how long it takes for him to put his foot down. You extend his leg, but then it takes about 3 frames to plant his foot on the ground. It makes his walk very soft. His arms are also swinging pretty big. But you know, that could all be part of his character. In terms of animation, I have two things for you to correct:

First, in the front view. his head wobbles from left to right too much, it feels too stiff (from frame 17 to frame 19 going screen right).

The other thing, and really visible in the front view, are his hips. Take for instance his screen right hip, from frame 6 on. You are rotating the hip up at frame 8 already (the right side goes up). But the hip should be down until frame 16 or 17, because as you put your foot down and take a step, that's when you put your weight on that leg, and that causes the hip to go up.

Once you make the feet hit the ground harder it will help you with the leg/knee popping. Right now, looking at the side view, look at his screen left knee at frame 8 to 9, it goes forward, but then it goes immediately backwards, till frame 12, and stops again. That at speed will make it look like a pop, not super fast pop, but just too fast, especially the movement back.

Cheers
JD

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Balls w/character (Joey)

Bounce it to big one:

- 99% done :-) One thing that sticks out is the balls x curve after frame 52. The moment he stops bouncing he slows down too much. It's only the transition from 51 to 53. Your curve must suddenly flatten out. The amount of space it travels until around frame 87 is good.

Heavy Ball:

- FINAL!

Character Ball:

- Cool! You got great timing and squash & stretch, nice! Now all you have to find is a good ending to this clip. Right now, the ball has character, which is great, but once the ball gets on top, it just ends. Try to push it! Push it beyond a ball that's trying it's hardest to get up there. Maybe once it's up there, the big block opens his eye and looks up surprised, or angrily.

Btw. My wife just came in and thought it was really good, that it had a lot of character to it. Nice!

And yes, drawing on LCD monitors is fine. I've been doing it for 3 years now at home and at work, and so far I haven't had any problems.

Nice, you're done with your bouncing balls, concentrate on your character assignment. Add a tail, that could be fun!

Cheers
JD

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Animation Question

I was wondering, how much hard work did you put in at school? What was an average day for you in school? 8-12 hours a day working on animation? What is your process of animating?

I worked long hours mostly because I wanted it to look good, but also because the majority of animation classes I took were during the last two semesters.

Towards the end I spent evenings (or afternoons depending on what time I'd come home) up until 3 or 4 in the morning and I would get up at 6 or 7 on week-ends or if I had school in the afternoon. I did a lot of days like that during my last semester.

I usually start animating once I "see" the animation in my head. I'm really bad at thumbnailing, so either I plan out the shot using super rough blocking (rarely, also depending on how light the models are), or (most of the time) I try to visualize the shot until it feels like I've just seen it on TV.

I then block out the animation with main poses and/or beats keying all the controllers on the character. Then I adjust the keys depending on timing issues.

After that I go in and key individual controllers for the more detailed stuff until final polish.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Dry Erase

This post has moved to Spungella.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Quicktime and Codec

Please make sure that the filesize of your movies is small. A clip that lasts a few seconds should not be 170MB big.

Do a playblast from Maya, this will give you an .avi file. Open this file in Quicktime, then export that movie using a Sorenson 3 Codec (change the codec within the "options" menu). This should keep it fairly small.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Balls (Jenna)

Two Heavy Balls:

- Looks great. One last thing is the last bounce of the first ball. It's a
bit much. Either reduce the Y or add one more little bounce to it. Second ball is sweet.

Light ball:

- I would add one tiny bounce at the very end.

Heavy ball:

- That one looks great, but leans more towards medium than heavy, and that's
mostly because of the amount of bounces. Spacing wise it's great, but
imagine how many times a bowling ball would bounce.

But your spacing is really good. I would start on the ball with tails and
block that out, then at the end go back to physics balls.

Nice job Jenna, you got it down!

Cheers
Jean-Denis

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Balls (Joey)

Lightball: FINAL!

Heavy Ball:

Spacing and bounce wise FINAL, but the ball bounces too far
screen right. I would split the difference at least, have it move screen
right just a tiny bit.

bouncing it to big one:

99% Final, but I will have to check it tonight.
The only thing that I see (or think I see) is once it stops bouncing, it
moves screen left too fast and too far.

But as a whole, those clips are FINAL and very well done. I'm just being
picky. Unless you want those balls on your reel, I would move on and do
the ball+tail version if you want to, or whatever you want to start now
that's on your syllabus.

Good job!
Cheers
JD

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Balls (Jenna)

Heavy Ball:

- The physics are pretty good, but the ball doesn't look heavy. Imagine a bowling ball falling down, it wouldn't bounce that many times.
As for the animation (if we pretend another weight class), be carefull with your spacing. It's pretty even at the beginning, but from frame 39 to frame 40 the ball suddenly drops very far down. I would add another tiny bounce after frame 87.

Medium Ball:

- This one looks great, I like the added squash and stretch! Final!
Except one TINY detail. It looks like you added geometry to the floor. Right now it looks like separate pieces, so if a ball rolls over that, it wouldn't roll smoothly. Hope that makes sense.

Light Ball:

- Looks good too! The only thing I would tweak the last bounces after frame 125, they seem a bit fast.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

AAU - Upcoming Class on Monday

Hey guys!

Here's a rundown of what's going to happen tomorrow in class and what you are going to do.

Bring the latest version of whatever you are working on, which can be:
- bouncing balls (light, medium, heavy)
- bouncing ball with character (with or without tail)
- walk cycle
- acting piece

If you haven't started on any of these and were figuring out your individual syllabus, bring your detailed outline (see student example on our class site for help) and we'll talk about it. Be prepared to start working on your assignment(s) in class.

Students who are following the AAU syllabus should bring the bouncing balls assignments. The next step for you is to add a tail to the ball.
REMINDER: even if you follow the AAU syllabus doesn't mean that you can't hand in assignments early. You can stick to the outlined time schedule of course, but if you are done early, I encourage you to email me your work for critique.

- for those of you who are starting with the flower sack, start thinking about what kind of emotion you want to show. Since the flower sack has no eyes and no mouth, every emotion has to be shown through body language. Some emotions could be: happy, sad, angry, tired, shy, nervous, etc.

I will critique each student's work at my desk displaying the animation via the projector for those of you who want to follow the critique. If you prefer to work on your assignments instead that's okay too.

Either way EVERYBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO WORK ON THEIR ASSIGNMENT IN CLASS.


REMINDER:
- set your animation scene to 24fps
- the scene must include a frame counter
- movies should be in quicktime format 640 x 480

Don't forget to visit www.academyanimation.blogspot.com for daily updates!

Alright! See you tomorrow!

Cheers
Jean-Denis

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.

Critique - Bouncing Balls (Marie)

Light Ball:

- Looks great! One detail thing, either have the movie be only 64 frames long, or smooth out the end of the roll of the ball. Right now the ball suddenly stops at frame 64.

Medium Ball:

- Looks good too. And same detail here, either stop the movie at frame 95 or smooth out the roll after frame 95.

Looking at both the Light and Medium Ball, they do feel similar in weight. I would make the Medium Ball a bit heavier. But the mechanics are good!

Heavy Ball:

- This one needs a bit more work. Check the spacing. From frame 1 to 2 it moves a certain distance, but then from 2 to 3 it moves a lot less screen right but too far down, and after that the spacing is very even until the ball hits the ground. Everything that falls will have a gradual increase of distance it covers. After the first hit the balls moves to far screen right, especially from 8 to 9 and from 9 to 10. The end should get smooth out as well.

Looking good, just a few things to fix on the heavy ball.

>>Click here to read the rest of the post...

>>Minimize the post by clicking here.