Reminder - Make Up Class
Happening NOW!
:-)
3rd Floor, Room 351
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Animation Critique - Walkcycle (Curran)
Direct Link: Curran's Walk
Hey,
some more notes on the walk.
Right now he looks off balance leaning screen right (from the front view). He could just always walk in a circle since he's leaning sideways. So to be honest, I don't know if you can get away with that. It's hard to know because the camera is always in front of him.
When I act this out I start falling over when trying to walk forward in a straight line. That's why I tend towards you either fixing his root and move it so that the center of gravity is correct, or incorporate that direction change into your walk. So that after a few steps he's traveled screen left and then comes back screen right to start over.
Other than that I would accentuate his left him during the step. It looks like they are swinging pretty much the same during both steps, but the steps are different. One is a real one, the other is a harder hit.
With that hard hit I would show the effect in the head a bit more. You have a harder swing on his head in the front view, but I feel that you could push the up and down (side view) a bit more.
And as we said, you could push the arms a bit more.
Looking sweet though, nice model! You guys did a great job with him.
Animator - Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez
3Dtotal links to Animator Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez and his "Batman: Chapter 1" short.
It's really cute and well done. Love it when he jumps in front of the safe with his cape fully stretched out!
Monday, March 26, 2007
Workflow
Today in class I will talk about workflow again and show you different approaches to it.
In the meantime you can check out Amrit Derhgawen's workflow tutorial. Like he says, everyone has a different way, so check it out, it might be yours.
Something I absolutely agree with is the use of dry erase markers to plot out your arcs and checking your spacing. I hope you guys use some sort of tool that's similar, like ghosting, or onion skinning, whatever you prefer.
See you tonight!
Cheers
JD
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Story and Animation Tips
Head over to the Blackwing Diaries, for a great post on Story and Tips on Animation, part 1 and 2.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Spring Break & Midterm Update
Hello boys and girls,
time for another update.
It's that time of the semester, the midterm showdown.
Unless you have received a separate email about your grade, you got a "C". What? Just a "C"? What's going on?
Well, here's how I grade:
"A" students would mean absolutely ready to start at a company right now, "B" showing creativity and doing more than asked, "C" understanding and applying the mechanics and animation principles but work being average, "D" for NOT being able to apply the animation principles and "F" for simply failing in all aspects.
For midterm and finals I will grade in full grades, no B+s or -s or whatever. So even if you got a "C" now, you might be really close to a "B". At the same time, you might be really close to a "D".
Take a look at the "Virgin Voyage", or the latest Animation Mentor Showreel. That is your competition, that is the standard that other students are setting. Anything below that and your chances of getting a job are small. The chances are still there (it's also about luck and timing, but the reel is still your ticket in), but it's really tough.
Again, look at the competition and be aware of the kind of work is needed in order to make it nowadays.
But it's all doable. Do the research, work hard and have fun with it! You can be the next Doug Sweetland or Maia Kayser, it's all in your hands.
I haven't see everybodies work for a while, due to the super-late-notice-retarded-teacher-failing-to-show-up-for-class incident and this weeks spring break. So please, EVERYBODY send me your latest and greatest this week.
Also, take a hard look at your schedule, be it the class schedule or your own. Are you on track? Are you falling behind? Are you keeping the deadlines? Be mindful of the goals that you set for yourself. If you are having problems with it, let me know and we will work something out.
Any questions? Complaints? Recommendations? Ideas? Don't be shy, let me know. It's your class, your money, make sure you get the most out of it.
Ok, that's it. Have fun during spring break, remember to drink a glass of water for every 2 or 3 cocktails so you don't have a hangover the next day, eat before you drink so you don't puke, girls, don't tease boys too hard, guys, "No" means "No".
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Monday, March 19, 2007
Spline Tutorial Part 2 by Victor Navone
Victor Navone has posted his 2nd part of the "Splinophilia" tutorial.
Make sure to mouse over the images as a lot of them have rollover images. Part 2 is excellent and a must-read for all of you.
His tutorial explains:
- Smoothness
- Curve containment
- Economy of keys
- Variation
- Easy Eases
- Easy Overlap
- Blocking
- Converting to Splines
- etc.
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Animation Critique - Bouncing Balls (Alison)
Direct Link: Alison's Balls, light & medium & heavy & character
Light Ball:
Over the 9 to 13 frames or so the ball slows down. The first rolling down is faster, so slow that down so that part falling down is at the same speed. From 10 15 the ball is moving screen left on a very straight path, as if there was still a ground beneath it. Then it starts going down. That arc needs to be smoother (see image below).
The bounce afterwards is good til 37. From 37 to 38 the ball moves only a tiny bit down, then from 38 to 39 a lot more. That end bounce/fall needs to get worked on. The spacing needs to get gradually bigger, don't have it stay even, and at the end there shouldn't be a pop.
Same with the next bounce. It's all good til the end, during which the spacing is very even and seems to get smaller til 54 (again, should be the opposite). Then from 54 to 55 there is a bigger move down, resulting in the same pop as before.
The bounce from 55 on goes too far screen left. You can cut that distance in half and make the bounce a bit faster. That means you'll have to add one more tiny bounce at the end.
Medium Ball:
In this one you are having more problems with spacing unfortunately. You need to take the dry erase marker and at every frame mark a dot in the center of the ball. Do this for the beginning and you'll see that the spacing is very uneven.
First the ball maintains the same speed, then on frame 4 speeds away, same on 5, then it's small again, moving in a straight line to the left, then suddenly down.
The dry erase marker is not a gimmick. You NEED to use it. If not that, then use the ghosting method in Maya, or whatever is convenient, but you need to use something to track your arcs and make sure that the spacing makes sense.
The second bounce shows you that you have two big gaps and that throughout the rest of the bounce the spacing is very even.
The third bounce shows a gradually smaller spacing and then a pop at the end.
Here you can see that the arc is not smooth enough and that the spacing at the beginning is too even.
This one is hard to judge because I can't zoom into your file. But I think I made my point pretty clear. You can still see that the arc needs some work and that the last bounce is too wide.
This is a ball falling onto ice, so don't pay attention to the bounce, but look at the spacing of the initial fall. The spacing gets gradually bigger, there are no pops in it. Same thing with a bouncing ball assignment.
Heavy Ball:
Same problem here:
The ball is all over the place. It starts off slow, then super fast, then ends up suddenly slow again.
Character Ball:
The spacing and timing in this one is a lot better. What I would take out is the pause (double bounce) that you have at frame 115. You can cut out 116 and 117.
I would work on the other ones first before you finish this one (it's pretty much done anyway).
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
The Virgin Voyage
Head over to the splinedoctors blog if you want to see their student's short film "The Virgin Voyage".
Think outside the box
[This is a continuation from YK's jump critique.]
So.
Why is he jumping?
What is he jumping over?
Who is he and where is he that motivates that jump.
Basically, you need to sell the jump, you need to make it more exciting.
(lunch time, hold on, will be back!)
... ok, I'm back.
So, more exciting, right.
Think about movies or situations where you saw someone jump, think how you could incorporate your jump into a situation like that. When you start your assignment, don't think of it as an "assignment", an "exercise". You need to have fun. And since it's YOUR animation, and not a scene with notes from a director, you are not confined to that director's vision. You are the director. So you can do whatever you want to. You are allowed to have fun with it :-)
A jump. The character has to jump OVER something, or AWAY from something, maybe he jumps to get out of the way of falling rocks, or off a cliff into water, or jumping into bushes in order to hide, onto the sidewalk away from a car, that car could be a cop car, so the guy jumping could be a criminal, or the other way around, the criminals are chasing the cop and the cop has to escape, or a guy escapes from prison and jumps over the wall, or an explorer is in a cave and the cave is breaking and rocks are falling all over and he needs to get out, or it's an athlete, so think of any sports activities during which someone jumps, or soldiers, or kids on a playground, or you have movers lifting up a piano on a rig into the 5th floor, then the cord snaps and the piano falls, so the movers have to jump out of the way,
or, or, or...
Have fun, think outside the box, don't treat your animation as an "assignment", make it entertaining, don't have it look like an exercise but like a shot out of a movie (or a TV show, etc.).
I understand that some of you guys are just starting out in animation, but the principles of animation, body mechanics, all that good stuff is present everywhere. If you do a 2 year old toddler walk or a standard human walk, the walk mechanics are in both, you'll learn the same things, you'll run into pretty much the same problems. But one is generic, the other one will be more creative, more entertaining and more rewarding.
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Critique - Jump (YK)
Direct Link: YK's Jump, front and side
Looking good, good start!
The major thing you need to fix is the twinning (see Shawn's post earlier). Basically, when I say twinning, it's the mirroring of gestures, when certain things happen at the same time.
Your jump looks like you animated on side (left leg, left arm), then copied the keys over to the other set. You need to offset the limps more, to give it a less robotic feel to it.
It's good that you have full extension both at the jump and land, nice. You could extend the body more by stretching his chest and head. Not in a stretchy way, but as he anticipates the jump, curve him down and then really reverse the arc as he jumps up.
But before you do all that. Think about your jump. Right now, it's just a grey guy, jumping over nothing.
[Edit: I cut the rest of the critique and posted it as a separate post "Think outside the box".]
Critique - Walkcycle (Chien)
Direct Link: Chien's Walk, side and front
Good, there is attitude in the walk.
The major things to fix are his legs and arms. The both feel poppy. The arms need to be on a nice curve, also his hands (mainly his left one) seems to rotate forward as it swings forward.
The chest could use some (tiny) more Y rotation, showing that the chest is influenced by the arm swings.
With an angry walk like that, when his feet stomp down, the hips would get affected a bit more, the would move up a bit faster, taking in the weight. In the front view, his screen right foot seems to slide towards the left. From the side view, the feet seem to accelerate backwards before he lifts them, make sure that your curve is all linear, there can't be any speed change.
Yeah, main thing are his arms and legs.
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Critique - Walkcycle (YK)
Direct Link: YK's Walk, front and side
Hey,
good stuff!
Animation wise it's already very far along, nice work. Side view: you got some knee pops here and there, like from 13 to 14 on the backleg. The same leg has a short movement forward from 19 to 20 (the spacing before and after seems bigger, make sure that's smooth out).
When the foot gets off the ground, it stops very abruptly from 4 to 5 (same from 15 to 16). Look at how his heel goes up and then suddenly stops going up, that spacing needs more love.
In the front view the tip of his stick could be on a nice arc. From 7 to 14 is very linear, a nicer curve would be a nice touch. You can tweak that arc using his wrist rotation as well (right now it looks like that hand doesn't rotate at all).
Next up you need to be a bit more specific about your character. The walk has a nice attitude, he looks mean and has a stick in his hand. But why? Is this going to be a sword? Is it a soldier? Is it a teacher with a stick for his students (SLACKERS!)? Or a parent getting ready to spank his kids? Or a kid beating up his parents? :-)
Have fun with the character!
Looking good, keep going!
Jean-Denis
Critique - Weight (Chien)
Direct Link: Chien's Weight
Hey,
looking better! Mechanics are all pretty much there, now the fine tuning
part is next.
Your push:
once he pushes and moves his body forward, it stops at frame 18. That
stop is too sudden, you can smooth it out, slow down that stop.
You got a weird neck pop from 45 to 46.
The step from 122 to 127 is too fast, you can add 2 more frames to that.
The getting up til 161 is good, but his left arm swings back and the
suddenly forward. That forward move is too fast, plus it ends too
quickly, you could have the arm swing more.
Wiping the sweat of his head is good, it reads, but how he moves his arm
down is too fast. Also think about how that big arm movement will affect
the rest of his body. Nothing moves independently. So if his arm goes up
to his head, then the shoulder goes up, his chest will rotate, his
overall body might move. Same when the arm goes down again.
Look at the post on our class site about Animation Mentor. Look at the
student showcase, you'll see a box push assignment. It's more cartoony
than yours, but still, you'll see that the character has a lot of
personality and the animation is very polished. That needs to be your
motivation, you'll be competing with clips like that.
Keep going!
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Critique - Weight (Erik)
Direct Link: Erik's Weight
Hey Erik,
the overall animation right now looks a bit swimmy, too spliney, you will have to work on the timing a bit more. Same with the mechanics of the throw. That's the tricky part once you get out of blocking into polish.
After frame 106 or so, when he lowers the pyramid tip, it looks like his arms stretch out, from 120 on til 125 his chest is moving too independent from the rest of the body. The overlapping of the bod and the tip gets better after that, but you have to be careful about the arc. Once he swings the tip til 157 the arc is good, but with that momentum and swing the tip would swing almost out of frame to the left. Looking at the image below, the red line is what you have now, the green one is what it should be doing considering your throw strength. You'll have to rework that throw a bit so that the arc looks more plausible.
You also have the alien jump or get pulled by the tip after the throw. It's a good idea, but the physics of it need more work. Let's say he starts getting pulled at around 158, til 163 it seems ok, but then his arc is flattening. The alien just hovers over screen left til 166 and his legs bend, even though he didn't hit the ground. Then he goes down in a straight line til 169. That whole swing needs a consistent arc, it's too linear and breaking right now.
His upper body moves up really fast from 164 to 168, then suddenly stops and starts moving/rotating screen right.
The adjustment has a big pop in his body from 237 to 238, that needs some love as well.
Getting better, but it's getting down to frame by frame tweaking and fixing or some heavy duty graph editor tweakage :-)
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Critique - Ball & Walkcycle (Marie)
Direct Link: Marie's Walk and Ball
Hey Marie,
the ball looks great, call this one done! Nice work!
The Walk:
Alright, looking good. I would say the mechanics are there, only a few minor things. The hands rotate a bit too much back and forth. The rotation back as the arm swings back seems to early (side view btw.). If you look at frame 3, his left hand should be like at frame 25. As the arm swings forward the hand drags and has a backwards rotation.
His arms rotate a bit too much forward, like at frame 19. If he'd be mad, or walking fast, then ok, but the arms don't swing back as much and slow down midway during the swing back, which makes the forward swing stand out even more.
His legs need some love. It looks like the feet slow down as they move backwards just before the foot gets off the ground. Make sure that your curve is all linear from the moment the foot is hitting the ground and gets off of it.
Look at the thigh at frame 4 til 8. It moves forward, but then stops from 8 to 9 til 12, but the lower leg moves forward pretty quickly. Then from 12 til 20 the foot plant is really slow. That timing and spacing needs more work, you'll need to adjust the steps and the amount of swinging the legs are doing. Playing at normal speed the leg takes a fast step forward, then slows down, puts the foot down. That pause is too long.
The other thing: I'm glad you are adding color, but I'm a bit confused as to what he is supposed to be. It's not just color, but character that I'm looking for. Could be a training outfit? Is he a runner, sprinter, athlete? His character needs to be more defined.
Good start though, keep going!
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Animation Critique - Walkcycle (Jenna)
Direct Link: Jenna's Walk
Looking great! My first impression is that he is a bit swingy. Mainly his arms. Right now he really swings his arms, as opposed to the arms going along while you walk. To me the forward position is a bit too far, unless you'll give him a reason to swing his arms like that.
The hip movement is broad, but I like it, nice and smooth, yet a distinct subtle hit during the weight shift.
It looks like you are extending his fingers on the swing back? That might add to the swinginess of his arms. I'd tone that done.
The thing that needs more polish are his knees. The front view is not that bad, but the sideview reveals a lot of popping. Look at the knee "balls" and track your spacing, you'll see the pops. For instance from frame 3 to 4, his right leg (screen right at this point), doesn't move that much (looking at his knee ball/thigh), then from 4 to 5 a lot, the less and less til 10, from 10 to 11 suddenly more, then same til almost nothing up until 15, then to 16 another pop. Same thing for the other leg.
Good stuff!
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