Spring 07 Class Summary
This post has moved to Spungella.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Team Fortress 2 Animation
Here's the latest clip from Valve's "Team Fortress 2". Below is another one, which has absolutely fantastic animation in it. The last one is my favorite though. There is awesome subtle stuff in it. I love the style and really hope that they will do either small episodes or a longer story either online or on tv.
Critique - Website & Animation
I was asked to take a look at the website and the animation clips.
The site pages are easily accessible and you can access the movies individually, all good there.
About the anim clips. Here are my thoughts:
Meditatingthefox.mov - ideas seem clear, rough stage, not much to critique animation wise obviously
meat.mov - same here, although more refined, I like the timing of it
bully.mov - the color choices are not my thing, but I guess that' subjective. The entrance of the first ball is hugging the bottom frame a lot, the staging could be clearer. The weight on both balls is okay but a bit off. Especially the smaller ball as it tries to run away after the first "attack". Same with the squash of the big guy as it jumps onto the little one. The following super fast string movements by the little guy are a bit weird. I get the point, but the execution could be different. It's too frenetic. It's cool ninja type wise, but doesn't quite work as it is now. And look at the last frame of the clip. The staging could be better as well here, the little guy is too cut off in the lower right part of the frame.
boredomConsequence: it's tricky to comment on the animation without knowing more about it. Looking at it right now, it needs a lot of polish. The ideas are there, but the stage is currently in layout/blocking phase. The movements are very linear, with arm extensions and facial shape pops and distortions throughout the clip.
It would be interesting to know where that box came from, why it's there, who put it there, is it to tempt the guy, to help him, torture him, etc. The box doesn't look like it's been put there casually or left/forgotten. The way it is positioned on the bench looks very calculated, leaving you with the impression that someone put it there on purpose. So you set your audience up for something, which doesn't get resolved at the end of the short.
Some of the camera moves and angle feel a bit staged and confusing or too computery. For instance once he grabs the box and the camera dollies to the left, it starts and ends in a very linear way, too typical of a CG camera. Be careful about fade ins and outs and transitions. After he grabs the box it transitions to another angle using fades, which usually tell the audience that a lot of time has passed, yet the movements of the character are seamless across the cut, which means no time passed. Make sure to not confuse the audience with cuts like that.
After the first bite, you get a shot which has the night lamp as the main focus point, taking up the whole right half of the screen, yet nothing happens to it, with it or in relationship with it, so you're again setting your audience up with no pay off.
I like the editing after that, how he goes into an eating frenzy. His end reaction could be a bit more complex though. The idea is there, but the animation is a bit rough. It would have been funny as well to have the top of the box worn out, after all the grabbing and poking and maybe some crumbs around the bench and on his mouth, etc.
humStraya.mov - unfortunately I can't loop clips here at work (stupid Linux machines...). But it looks good, maybe a bit bouncy and "spliney" (the curves must be all smooth and round in the graph editor).
FoxWalk.mov - that one feels a bit too squash and stretchy. Be careful how you manipulate the overall geometry, it needs to retain its form.
Pound.mov - I like the look of the character and the walk has character. The overall animation is too spliney and linear though. The reaction after he opens the box is good, make sure that you cut a few frames before the character stops moving. Right now the character freezes and the clip stays on that for too long.
whushu.mov - I've gotten a few clips now with the title whushu, is that a common exercise I guess? I'm not a big fan of those because most of the times it ends up being a character swinging and twirling around, without any story or purpose. Your timing arnd arcs seem ok (except the last jump/2nd jump), but the legs and arms are very chaotic. But even if that was all done and polished, you still got at the end: "Ok, and why did he do that?". I discourage people to have that on their reel, because even though it shows mechanics, it's nothing more than that. Unless you pack it in with a neat story. It's more fitting for a video game reel, less for a character reel.
The light, medium and heavy balls:
- it might be the player that we use here (I'll confirm at home tonight just to be sure), but all these clips have the ball hugging the bottom frame. The first two seem to be the same, with the medium just sped up. The heavy one feels heavier (camera shake always helps), but the last few bounces are too character infused.
What I would need is a clear staging (just take a "side" or "front" camera in maya) and a pure physics approach. Look at the examples on the class site for a light, medium and heavy ball. No squash and stretch (maybe a tiny bit on the light one, if you go for a balloon), no camera tricks.
If anyboyd has questions, just let me know!
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Monday, September 10, 2007
Your ID and email is needed
A few people have sent me a scan or a photo of their ID and it'd be cool if everybody else could do the same. That way I have everything on the computer. Same goes for your email, just email me quickly so that I have your email on file as well.
Tata
Jean-Denis
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Critique: Bouncing Ball
Ball bounce
Looking good, with a few kinks that need to get ironed out. :)
1st light ball:
- fix the arc as he first falls down. Once the ball gets passed the edge it drops immediatly (x17). Keep the forward momentum and curve the arc. Take a dry erase marker and plot the path, you'll see that it has a sharp down movement right now. The spacing also feels a bit even until the first impact. After that it looks ok, although I feel like he could bounce further screen right. It's mainly the first fall.
2nd medium ball:
- the speed at which the "balloon" rolls in is pretty slow, yet once off the edge it accelerates. Pull the ball a bit more screen right or make its entrance faster (which is probably easier to do). Overall it feels like a mix between a balloon and a ball. The hits feel too hard for a balloon, but it travels too slow for a ball. Once the ball hits the ground, take x119, then x120 should have the ball much higher (as high as the light ball at this frame, at least). This goes for all the bounces. Check out the "balloon" at this post, that feels right.
3rd heavy ball:
- there's something poppy about the ball being off screen at x181 and then fully in at x182. Nothing major, but still. The main is if you take a dry erase and mark out the spacing of the ball, you'll see that it's very even, there is no acceleration of the ball.
It also falls straight down, but then rolls pretty far screen right, which doesn't look very heavy. The bounces are too high, if you are going for a bowling ball. Especially the first bounce is too high and too slow, the spacing is also uneven on the way up. The fall feels too fast, is if the ball is being sucked down.
Almost there!
Cheers
JD
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Animation Mentor Newsletter
Reminder: sign up for the Animation Mentor Newsletter @ AM.
Here are the past "Tips & Tricks" by Shawn Kelly:
- Tip #21: Reversals
- Rise above the snobbery
- Blink for a reason
- Style first!
Student Example
Hey class,
go check out the "Fried Chicken Cutlet" blog and play the Pixar 1 reel. All his clips on the site are good, but the guy getting out of his chair in the Pixar 1 reel stood out for me. The complexity of it is nice, it's not too cartoony and not too simple.
And his balls look nice too. :)
Since most of you are graduating very soon, I'm sure you got some ball assignments somewhere. If not, it shouldn't take you longer than 20mins. Let's see them so you can move on!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Class recap
Hey guys (and girls!),
I hope you had a good time yesterday, I know I did. Everybody seems to be motivated to animate the crap out of this semester, good times! :)
There were still a few students that didn't show up, so if you have friends that are among them, please let them know about the new classroom and this site, so they can get up to speed and know what needs to be done homework wise.
Speaking of which:
- read through all the posts on this site (the ones that look helpful at least, like tutorials, lectures, Splinedoctor synopsis - I'd recommend critiques as well)
- check out www.11secondclub.com and go through all the entries. Grab a drink, put on some music and make yourself comfortable, it will take you a while. But like I said, it's good to see what's out there and you'll get to see all the overused and cliched acting choices as well as the more polished and subtle ones.
- look for a web hosting service and get your site up and running. Since you are graduating you NEED an online portfolio.
- use rigs that you can modify so that they look unique. Stay away from Generi, PackageMan and those guys. I recommend Lowman, but especially Norman. Check out Simon Christen's site and go through his links site. Check out all the animators and go through each animator's link page as well and so on. Again, take a few hours on the week-end check out all the amazing stuff. It's great to see how you can create unique characters and make your clip stand out.
- please show me a light, medium and heavy bouncing ball. If you have clips like that from another class, show me those. I just need to see that you mastered the basics and that you are able to show weight. Don't wait til next week if you have them already, shoot me an email and move on.
- please use a frame counter in your clip, keep the codec simple (sorenson 3 or something like that), quicktime (not windows media), movie size big enough so I can see what's going on but don't exaggerate, try to keep the file size small when you send me the movies per email (a direct link to the movie would be great, because on day I'll run out of space)
- if you don't want to follow the school syllabus and do your own thing, go ahead. If you have an idea of what type of clips you want to do and how many, you can always send me an email with that outline and I'll take a look at it.
- everybody please send me an email anyway, so that I have all of them on file (for mass emails in case of class updates). If you have a picture of yourself, attach that too, so that I can start remembering who you are (take a picture of your ID or some head shot). :)
I think that's it. If I remember something I'll add it here, if you have questions don't hesitate and send me an email.
Tata
Jean-Denis
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Advice for Students - by Mark Kennedy
If you haven't done so already, you should check out the "Temple of the seven golden camels" by Mark Kennedy. It's a great blog full of great posts. The newest one is about short films. Go read it!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
"Stick Figure Fundamentals" by Keith Lango
There is an interesting post over at Keith Lango's site, about posing your character and how drawing fundamentals can help you with it.
I don't know if I agree completely. Yes, drawing will help you with your poses, but if you don't know posing, composition, all these principles, then your drawing will still suck. But if you've studied these principles, then you can recognize what's wrong with bad poses. There is no need to draw them out. You can go ahead and fix it on your 3D model.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
3 Bouncing Balls
Alright, the semester hasn't begun yet and we are already starting critiques!! Way to go!
Overall it looks great. Nitpicky as I am, there are few things that stood out.
Trap Door Ball:
- once it hits the floor it keeps rolling til around 238 or so (I'm at work, I can't step frame through it...). I would stop the roll a lot sooner, because the ball feels really heavy, there is almost no bouncing after the impact, so unless the floor is uneven (which it doesn't look like it) it should stop rolling pretty soon, just like a bowling ball.
Bouncy Ball:
- all good til frame 57 or so, it seems to slow down a lot, as if it starts rolling onto sand. Check your curves and adjust the translation so that the speed change isn't as abrupt.
Balloon Ball:
- that's a personal preference and what you have is not wrong, but I expected the ball to hit the little one at frame 231 instead of going past it. Again, nothing wrong with it, would add a nice touch and complexity to the piece. But your mechanics are good, it's not a required change, totally up to you.
- what I WOULD change is the ball's rotation from frame 261 on, it suddenly stops going clockwise and then continues at frame 293, keep it consistent
- when the ball hits the wall at frame 363 it keeps rotating clockwise for a while til the next bounce, I would go into the counterclockwise rotation a bit sooner
All in all, good stuff, you're ready to move on to whatever you want to do. You mentioned an audio clip for a one person dialogue. Sounds good. Bring in at least 5 different audio clips. Check out this post for the guidelines.
Make sure that you don't neglect the human mechanics. I know everybody wants to jump into acting, but ball physics is not the only basic element you should master before delving into dialogue shots.
Tata
Jean-Denis
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Part 1-Interview with Bobby Beck, Shawn Kelly and Carlos Baena of AnimationMentor.com
Watch it here.
Important part during the interview: Just because a company doesn't get back to you after you sent your reel to them doesn't mean that you are not good enough, but that the company is looking for a specific resume. If a company is not looking for what you're offering (no matter how good you are), then you won't get hired.
I found it on the "squash & stretch" blog by Randolf Dimalanta.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Room Change!!
I mentioned that our room with two people per computer could prove to be a bit frustrating and what do you know, 30mins after my email to Chris Armstrong I got a response saying that the new class room will be in 806. Thanks so much Mr. Armstrong, that was quick action taken there.
I think the room I had last semester was 805 (which was great) and the rooms on the 8th floor seemed pretty big. I haven't seen 806, but I think it's going to be like 805 (if anybody can confirm that, I'd appreciate it, I can't go downtown this week to check).
Monday, August 27, 2007
Full House
So I got my new faculty ID and checked in at the 180 just to see if there are any class updates. You'll see the day, time and room number at the top of the page.
To my surprise the school added one more student to the class.
Now, it's nothing personal and I am really excited that so many people want to be in my class. I'm just afraid that time will be very tight. We are now 20 students in a room with 10 PCs. I will have to figure things out so that I can really spend enough time with each of you guys (and girls of course).
If you want a head start, you can already start working on the bouncing ball assignment (which EVERY student will have to do). Here the description from a previous post (or rant):What is required is an understanding of the basic mechanics. Your first assignment will be a bouncing ball. EVERYBODY will have do this. The only exception are students who can show me their balls (zing!) during the first class. I need to see a heavy, medium and light ball. No character, just pure physics. If you can't sell the weight of a simple ball, I most certainly won't let you do a two character dialogue shot. If you want to really convince me, then have the balls fall from left to right (or right to left, or bouncing of walls, objects, etc. anything that's beyond the simple up and down the Y axis) and add a tail to them. So if you have a squishy rubber ball with a tail, you'll be able to show me believable weight, squash & stretch and overlapping actions with the tail. If that is the case, you can move on, if not, keep practicing until you get it (I'll obviously help you with it).
If you know other students who will be in this class, please tell them about this site and this assignment, spread the word. :)
Thanks guys and girls and see you next week!!
Tata
Jean-Denis
Friday, August 24, 2007
Melvin The Robot Rig
Interesting. While browsing "Retro Thing"'s "Who says robots can't be cute" post, I noticed the uncanny resemblance between these guys and the Melvin the Robot rig.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Team Fortress 2 GC 2007 Soldier Trailer - Direct Feed
Great style, that's how feature movies should be now, away from the hyperreal.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Crowd Animation
This is really sweet! - found @ Cartoon Brew
Samsung Dance - video powered by Metacafe
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Surf's Up Siggraph Paper
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Coke Happiness Factory
Remember that coke commercial which showed what happens inside the vending machine? I liked that one a lot, but this new one is awesome.
Check it out here!
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