"If you can turn down the sound and tell what's going on, it's animation. If you can turn down the picture and tell what's going on, that's radio." ~Chuck Jones
Not sure if the quote is exact, Eric Goldberg quoted it in the Animation Podcast. Regardless, I think it's worth thinking about!
Monday, January 12, 2009
"Santa Rocks," Part 2
I've added keyframes to try to define the scene more clearly and work on anticipation etc. Unfortunately this rig is very rudimentary so it doesn't have any fancy controls like squash and stretch (dammit Jim, I'm an animator not a rigger :P). I'll just have to make due with what I've got! Hey, Toy Story didn't have squash & stretch, did it?
I tried to capture some of the frantic excitement as he tears open his gift. What do you think? Does he look excited yet? Haven't focused on fingers much yet except at the very end, so the hand gestures are non-existent for the most part.
I know I know, I keep messing with the face. Eric Goldberg says it's ok. ;) As an experiment, however, I did try muting all the head controls to see how it looked without any facial expressions. Other than the creepy dead eyes, it actually still reads pretty well IMO. I promise when I start polishing I'll leave the face alone.
As usual feedback and critique appreciated!
I tried to capture some of the frantic excitement as he tears open his gift. What do you think? Does he look excited yet? Haven't focused on fingers much yet except at the very end, so the hand gestures are non-existent for the most part.
I know I know, I keep messing with the face. Eric Goldberg says it's ok. ;) As an experiment, however, I did try muting all the head controls to see how it looked without any facial expressions. Other than the creepy dead eyes, it actually still reads pretty well IMO. I promise when I start polishing I'll leave the face alone.
As usual feedback and critique appreciated!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Eric Goldberg on the Animation Podcast
Some interesting quotes I found relating to my question on blocking/posing:
"My approach tends to be feeling first, anatomy second. In other words, I like to draw everything that has a sense of give to it, and a sense of life and everything that will support the idea of a pose, and then build the anatomy on top. I think part of the difficulty with CG these days is that you're already starting with anatomy, and so you're already somewhat limited in how you can engineer everything to support a point or to support a thrust, so on and so forth, because you're already dealing with kind of boned and hinged characters."
"There's very little that I draw without at least some loose framework underneath. And I tend to start, you know, with what I think are the most compelling aspects first. I will almost always start with the face... The first thing I draw is the bridge of his nose, and his eyes sitting on top of it, and then the mouth underneath. That eyes-nose-mouth combination is the central focus, and I can put the eyes in any shape and expression that I want... THEN I draw the cranium behind it."
"Typically in CG, you layer things: you do the gross body movement, then you put the facial on top, and the legs on top... it's one reason a lot of CG walks don't work very well. It's because they do the torso first, and add the legs, which is crazy! It means that no walk actually has a push-off, and so all the walks look floaty. As opposed to the way you would do it in hand-drawn is actually conceiving the push-off thrusting that torso forward. And so, it's the kind of thing where it's kind of bass-ackwards, if you will, in the way that CG is done a lot of times, although strides are being made in making it more organic, definitely. But it's not a natural thing for CG to do unless you conceive it that way from the outset."
"My approach tends to be feeling first, anatomy second. In other words, I like to draw everything that has a sense of give to it, and a sense of life and everything that will support the idea of a pose, and then build the anatomy on top. I think part of the difficulty with CG these days is that you're already starting with anatomy, and so you're already somewhat limited in how you can engineer everything to support a point or to support a thrust, so on and so forth, because you're already dealing with kind of boned and hinged characters."
"There's very little that I draw without at least some loose framework underneath. And I tend to start, you know, with what I think are the most compelling aspects first. I will almost always start with the face... The first thing I draw is the bridge of his nose, and his eyes sitting on top of it, and then the mouth underneath. That eyes-nose-mouth combination is the central focus, and I can put the eyes in any shape and expression that I want... THEN I draw the cranium behind it."
"Typically in CG, you layer things: you do the gross body movement, then you put the facial on top, and the legs on top... it's one reason a lot of CG walks don't work very well. It's because they do the torso first, and add the legs, which is crazy! It means that no walk actually has a push-off, and so all the walks look floaty. As opposed to the way you would do it in hand-drawn is actually conceiving the push-off thrusting that torso forward. And so, it's the kind of thing where it's kind of bass-ackwards, if you will, in the way that CG is done a lot of times, although strides are being made in making it more organic, definitely. But it's not a natural thing for CG to do unless you conceive it that way from the outset."
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Holiday drawings
This was a birthday card for my mom (her bday's on December 22nd):
Had a little fun creating a confetti brush for Photoshop. :) And some fanart for Dragonfable:
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Animation styles
So I've started up a short piece of animation (about 13 seconds, just shy of a 181A film) to practice acting and dialogue, something I don't often get to do at my job. I suppose if it turns out well I could put it on my demo reel, but I'd like feedback from other animators along the way to get it up to a good quality. I'm in the layout/blocking stage on the primary character:
The camera operator is an unseen third character (hence why the main character sometimes looks at the camera). I'll add some hand-held camera shake and a blinking "REC" overlay when I'm done with the animation to emphasize that.
I know at A.M. they start full body acting without any facial expressions - they have a rig with arms and legs and a head, but no face. I've heard that it's a good habit to get into when roughing out animation: make sure the body movement tells the story first, then add the facial expressions afterwards. I can see the merit to that, you don't want to get lazy with the body motion and rely on the face to sell the shot. At the same time, a viewer's attention is drawn to the face and eyes in particular, so shouldn't the facial emotion at least be considered when blocking?
I tend to switch work styles depending on the shot, although for acting I prefer to begin by setting keyframes on the entire body (as above) rather than working on parts at a time. Perhaps it's the traditional animator in me. :)
Hand-drawn animation was getting a swift kick in the pants when I started college, so I only really got a year's worth of training in the craft... and probably not the best training either. But I seem to recall wanting to draw the entire character, face and all, when roughing out the keys. Is that bad? Glenn Vilppu always told us "there are no rules, just tools."
ANYway. Guess I better get back to animating!
The camera operator is an unseen third character (hence why the main character sometimes looks at the camera). I'll add some hand-held camera shake and a blinking "REC" overlay when I'm done with the animation to emphasize that.
I know at A.M. they start full body acting without any facial expressions - they have a rig with arms and legs and a head, but no face. I've heard that it's a good habit to get into when roughing out animation: make sure the body movement tells the story first, then add the facial expressions afterwards. I can see the merit to that, you don't want to get lazy with the body motion and rely on the face to sell the shot. At the same time, a viewer's attention is drawn to the face and eyes in particular, so shouldn't the facial emotion at least be considered when blocking?
I tend to switch work styles depending on the shot, although for acting I prefer to begin by setting keyframes on the entire body (as above) rather than working on parts at a time. Perhaps it's the traditional animator in me. :)
Hand-drawn animation was getting a swift kick in the pants when I started college, so I only really got a year's worth of training in the craft... and probably not the best training either. But I seem to recall wanting to draw the entire character, face and all, when roughing out the keys. Is that bad? Glenn Vilppu always told us "there are no rules, just tools."
ANYway. Guess I better get back to animating!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Getty Sketches!
Whew, finally some more stuff to post! Alina and I went to the Getty on Sunday to check out some Bernini sculptures. I was completely blown away by how much detail he was able to carve into the marble; I mean, he had 5-o'clock shadows on faces, lace and buttons and embroidery on clothes... it was amazing. There were a LOT of people there; we had to kind of push our way around to find good spots to sketch from. But it was so nice being able to get out and draw on location! I can't even remember the last time I did that... Anyway here's the result:
I love this guy's hair, hehe! It took a long time to draw because of the complex shapes and the sheer amount of hair, but I think it was worth it. :)
King Louie XIV... Yeah. Stately and regal, you'd expect a perfectly timed breeze to come along any second and tousle that flowing hair.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
You should have seen it
I was driving back to work after picking up my wedding dress from David's Bridal, and saw the most amazing sunset taking place... I knew I had to go watch it. I wanted my camera so badly right then, it was spectacular - misty pinks and purples in the mountains, a bright orange glow where the sun was sinking behind them, brilliant yellows and whites in the clouds, and the clouds, my God, no words to describe how awesome they were. Why did I leave my camera at home?!
As soon as I got to the parking lot I scrambled out of the car, grabbed my DS and ran out of the garage - luckily EA is positioned right near the coast, so when I stood overlooking Lincoln Blvd I had a great view!
It's times like this when I realize just how very mortal and inadequate we are; as I stood there trying to capture the sunset on that tiny touchscreen I knew I had no hope of really portraying what I saw. Honestly I don't know how some people manage to paint sunsets so well, the light is constantly changing, the colors blend together and the clouds metamorphose into different shapes. How can you freeze one moment in time when the moments are so fleeting?
After a few frustrating minutes I decided that while I couldn't immortalize the sunset through my limited means, at least I could experience it. If I couldn't share it with others, at least I could share a moment between me, the sky and the creator. There was something neat about "painting" on my DS while the sky was painting itself with its own palette of brilliant hues. I felt as though I was watching a true master at work, and I was but a lowly apprentice just starting my journey.
Oh the wonders of the internet! I managed to find a couple people who took some snaps of last night's sunset on Flickr. This guys was in Venice Beach, however, so his view was marred by all the palm trees. Too bad for him :P Still, you can kind of see the range of colors and the cloud formations:
http://flickr.com/photos/77392960@N00/2761568607/
http://flickr.com/photos/77392960@N00/2762326802/
This guy got more of the pinks and purples:
http://flickr.com/photos/jt3_11/2762046178/
Thursday, August 07, 2008
More Colors! stuff
Still doodling around on my DS, I like that I can pick it up whenever I want to; it's helped me get back into sketching, even if it's not my best work.
This one was done from imagination... yeah. I guess I need to work on being more imaginative. :)
The smog in LA makes for some interesting colors at sunset. Drew this while Tommy was driving us to a friend's house up in the hills to the north. Didn't really have time to get any detail on the hills though.
Crappy sketch of palm trees on the bus ride home.
Some fanart from the French series "Wakfu," which a classmate of mine is working on. Figured I'd see how the DS handles more cartoony work. This was one of the times I really really wanted an undo button; inking the black lines on that tiny screen is hard!
This one was done from imagination... yeah. I guess I need to work on being more imaginative. :)
The smog in LA makes for some interesting colors at sunset. Drew this while Tommy was driving us to a friend's house up in the hills to the north. Didn't really have time to get any detail on the hills though.
Crappy sketch of palm trees on the bus ride home.
Some fanart from the French series "Wakfu," which a classmate of mine is working on. Figured I'd see how the DS handles more cartoony work. This was one of the times I really really wanted an undo button; inking the black lines on that tiny screen is hard!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Colors! sketches
As promised, here's a few of the sketches I've managed to crank out on my Nintendo DS using "Colors!" It's been tricky getting used to the controls and drawing on a tiny screen, but I guess they came out alright.
This first one I drew on the bus; the fires were still burning over the hills which is why the sun was all red.
The second one I started sketching out while we were waiting in line for the Dark Knight. This was the theatre across the street from ours. :)
While it's definitely not as natural for me to draw with a tiny stylus on a tiny screen, I do enjoy being able to use color without dragging around a box of pencils or a paint set. It's clean and organized! But if the battery runs out, I guess I should bring my trusty sketchbook for backup. And it definitely won't replace my home computer and WACOM for my more polished pieces, for sure. But it's a fun little toy to mess around with.
This first one I drew on the bus; the fires were still burning over the hills which is why the sun was all red.
The second one I started sketching out while we were waiting in line for the Dark Knight. This was the theatre across the street from ours. :)
While it's definitely not as natural for me to draw with a tiny stylus on a tiny screen, I do enjoy being able to use color without dragging around a box of pencils or a paint set. It's clean and organized! But if the battery runs out, I guess I should bring my trusty sketchbook for backup. And it definitely won't replace my home computer and WACOM for my more polished pieces, for sure. But it's a fun little toy to mess around with.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Colors!
So I just got my hands on a homebrew program for my Nintendo DS called "Colors!" (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name). It's a pretty basic paint program, but it's nice that it's pressure sensitive with the DS touchscreen. Pretty cool having sort of a miniature Cintique in my pocket that I can bring on trips! It'll take some getting used to, though. Not quite ready to show any Colors sketches just yet. I still have to figure out how the wi-fi thing works anyhow...
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Painty Sketchy thing
I was inspired by some other artist blogs to try a style without concrete outlines. I think I only managed a half-success on that front, and the color turned out kinda messy... but there was something freeing about working mainly on one layer in Photoshop. Normally I end up with 10-20 layers all with different colors or shadows or whatever. But this time I think I ended up with 2, and mainly because I was afraid of screwing up the animals when I drew the reins on top.
I think it's good practice for being more confident in setting down "paint" as well. I wasn't relying on the undo button nearly as much, instead if I made a mistake I'd just draw over it. This would be essential should I ever get Colors for my DS, as that software doesn't have an undo button. And obviously should I ever decide to paint with a real canvas and brush, this would come in handy as well. :)
But yeah, overall I was happy with how different the style turned out, as compared to something like this, where I was deliberately going for hard lines and outlines:
Friday, February 08, 2008
Ok, so I cheated.
This isn't really a drawing per se, but I did have some Photoshop fun. This is what's going to turn into the splash page for our wedding website! Too bad TheKnot.com doesn't let us upload our own templates, so we're stuck with a silly default one for all our info. But we wanted to have something theme-related for our guests to see first since we got engaged on the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. So we're making this and uploading it to Googlepages, with a link to the Knot site.
I scrounged around for a good photo of Big Ben and found this on Flickr:
It's a neat angle and I liked the clouds, but I wanted the shot to more closely resemble the night scene from the movie where the kids and Peter all land on one of the arms. So I threw a bluish-purple layer over it set to Overlay (which happens to be one of the colors for our wedding):
Now the hue is correct, but that sky is way too bright to be a night shot. I went in and adjusted the curves to darken everything up (but kept the clock face relatively light since Big Ben lights up in the evenings):
Next came a little bit of lighting on the face.
I wanted the focus of the picture to be on the tower itself, so I found a photo I'd shot a while back of some clouds, chopped out a piece and covered up the part of the building I didn't want in there.
Lastly... a little fairy dust to add to the magic. :) I've got a Photoshop brush that I'd made a while back that does some nice sparkly effects!
It's nothing too fancy, but I think it'll look nice with a good font and a catchy phrase. Maybe "Think of a Wonderful Thought?"
I scrounged around for a good photo of Big Ben and found this on Flickr:
It's a neat angle and I liked the clouds, but I wanted the shot to more closely resemble the night scene from the movie where the kids and Peter all land on one of the arms. So I threw a bluish-purple layer over it set to Overlay (which happens to be one of the colors for our wedding):
Now the hue is correct, but that sky is way too bright to be a night shot. I went in and adjusted the curves to darken everything up (but kept the clock face relatively light since Big Ben lights up in the evenings):
Next came a little bit of lighting on the face.
I wanted the focus of the picture to be on the tower itself, so I found a photo I'd shot a while back of some clouds, chopped out a piece and covered up the part of the building I didn't want in there.
Lastly... a little fairy dust to add to the magic. :) I've got a Photoshop brush that I'd made a while back that does some nice sparkly effects!
It's nothing too fancy, but I think it'll look nice with a good font and a catchy phrase. Maybe "Think of a Wonderful Thought?"
Refocus
I was mulling over my life (as I often do when Lent rolls around), and decided I needed to try to find some joy in my artwork again. I want to regain the inspiration and excitement I've felt before whenever putting pencil to paper. I feel as though my creativity is such a big part of my life, that to reflect on myself and find it lacking means I need to do some serious overhauling. What good is an animator who has trouble finding the energy or willpower to create?
So on Ash Wednesday I resolved to try to draw something every day for the duration of the season. I started small... I had been perusing James Baxter's website and watched his reel for Enchanted over and over again, marveling at his work. At one point I paused the frame and tried to sketch out the poses of the prince and princess as they sang their duet. I didn't get to the details of the faces and clothes; mainly focused on the gesture. There was something about the contrast of the proud, masculine Edward crooning to his "true love" with the slender femininity of Giselle that caught my eye.
Unfortunately my scanner is packed somewhere amongst all my boxes as I'm moving out of my apartment, so I can't upload the sketch here. I'm pretty rusty anyway so I don't know that I'd want to share it regardless. Here's the frame I was trying to draw:
If you're interested, James Baxter's site is here!
So on Ash Wednesday I resolved to try to draw something every day for the duration of the season. I started small... I had been perusing James Baxter's website and watched his reel for Enchanted over and over again, marveling at his work. At one point I paused the frame and tried to sketch out the poses of the prince and princess as they sang their duet. I didn't get to the details of the faces and clothes; mainly focused on the gesture. There was something about the contrast of the proud, masculine Edward crooning to his "true love" with the slender femininity of Giselle that caught my eye.
Unfortunately my scanner is packed somewhere amongst all my boxes as I'm moving out of my apartment, so I can't upload the sketch here. I'm pretty rusty anyway so I don't know that I'd want to share it regardless. Here's the frame I was trying to draw:
If you're interested, James Baxter's site is here!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Cheetah in action!
I was analyzing a video of a cheetah running (to study quadrupedal locomotion), and noticed something strange. Sometimes it would put its left paw down before its right... but sometimes it would put the right one down first! And vice versa for the hind legs. Is this a common trait for all quadrupeds? Or maybe just cats? Or just cheetahs? Or perhaps this particular cheetah happened to be ambidextrous?
You can check out the video here.
Since the camera was trucking from the side, I suppose it's difficult to tell whether the cheetah was making adjustments to its running path. It may be that to turn a certain direction it would be more efficient to place a certain paw down first. It would be interesting to study it from different angles.
By the way, if all you animators haven't discovered bbcmotiongallery.com yet, I highly recommend it! Set your preferences to Quicktime and you have a library of stock footage you can scroll through frame by frame. Great stuff!
You can check out the video here.
Since the camera was trucking from the side, I suppose it's difficult to tell whether the cheetah was making adjustments to its running path. It may be that to turn a certain direction it would be more efficient to place a certain paw down first. It would be interesting to study it from different angles.
By the way, if all you animators haven't discovered bbcmotiongallery.com yet, I highly recommend it! Set your preferences to Quicktime and you have a library of stock footage you can scroll through frame by frame. Great stuff!
Monday, June 25, 2007
A long absence
Well... I don't have a legitimate excuse for not posting an update in forever. I would say I had no time to draw during crunch time, but that's not true as I did do a few pieces of fanart for some online games I play called Adventure Quest and DragonFable.
I could also say I didn't have time to work on my film... but that's not true either as I managed to finish all the animation/textures/lighting and am now just working on audio (whoohoo!!). Hopefully within the next few months I'll be able to wrap it all up, send it off to festivals, throw it on YouTube, etc.
Anyway, so about that fanart. I'll probably post up a few of them over the next couple entries; I've been working on learning how to color in Photoshop and got a few tips here and there, but always could use more practice. Man I wish I were taking figure drawing again, too.
This was a character one of the players came up with named Fulcan Ryst; the player is a big fan of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy so I started with reference images from those games, then used his own photo of himself on Myspace to do the character's head.
I could also say I didn't have time to work on my film... but that's not true either as I managed to finish all the animation/textures/lighting and am now just working on audio (whoohoo!!). Hopefully within the next few months I'll be able to wrap it all up, send it off to festivals, throw it on YouTube, etc.
Anyway, so about that fanart. I'll probably post up a few of them over the next couple entries; I've been working on learning how to color in Photoshop and got a few tips here and there, but always could use more practice. Man I wish I were taking figure drawing again, too.
This was a character one of the players came up with named Fulcan Ryst; the player is a big fan of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy so I started with reference images from those games, then used his own photo of himself on Myspace to do the character's head.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
San Diego Wild Animal Park
We were fortunate to have relatively mild weather for our trip to San Diego's Wild Animal Park yesterday! It's not exactly the best place for zoo drawing, since most of the animals are pretty far away. But it's incredible to see entire HERDS of animals roaming the hundreds of acres of land. It's a lot different from traditional zoos, and the animals seem pretty happy there. They're really active and hide often, so it was hard to capture them in the sketchbook! I had to settle for quick, rough drawings. Here are a few of my faves:
Baby giraffe and Shoebill
Evil-looking bird and Tiki Stilt-walker
Baby giraffe and Shoebill
Evil-looking bird and Tiki Stilt-walker
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Zoo trip!
I finally went on a trip to the LA Zoo with Alina on Sunday morning. The weather was cool so the animals were pretty active. There were some baby animals wandering around as well! I tried Vilppu's technique of creating "scenes" by drawing various subjects in one drawing regardless of whether they were all there at the same time. This little group of gerenuks was alternating between attacking the leaves on the tree and chasing each other around the yard.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
It is done. Well, shot 24 is, anyway.
*phew*
Finally finished off the secondary motion! Here's the finished product:
Had a heck of a time with the tail, as usual. I kinda wish I had made the rig with global tail controls instead of local ones, that way the tail wouldn't swing around wildly all the time. Or some kind of nifty local/global switch like we have on the rigs at work. But I'm not that smart. :)
In other news, I've been trying desperately to inspire myself to draw something, anything. It's tough when I'm not in a regular drawing class and my job and student film both keep me glued to the computer. Yesterday I forced open a sketchbook and messed around with some thumbnails until I came up with one that looked decently cool. I decided to make some "fan art" for a video game I play called DragonFable. I have a Rogue character named Caelum and thought he'd be a good refresher course for some figure drawing. I even yanked out my anatomy book for this one!
So here's the rough sketch done up in Photoshop:
He's gonna be holding some daggers in the final version. We'll see if I have enough patience to color it!
I'd like to find some web resources of dynamic figure poses (y'know, martial arts, anime, fighting, dancing, acrobatics, flying through the air, matrix-y stuff). I think they would help me visualize the body in motion and in perspective. Portfolios or photo galleries or video sites, whatever. Anybody have any suggestions?
Finally finished off the secondary motion! Here's the finished product:
Had a heck of a time with the tail, as usual. I kinda wish I had made the rig with global tail controls instead of local ones, that way the tail wouldn't swing around wildly all the time. Or some kind of nifty local/global switch like we have on the rigs at work. But I'm not that smart. :)
In other news, I've been trying desperately to inspire myself to draw something, anything. It's tough when I'm not in a regular drawing class and my job and student film both keep me glued to the computer. Yesterday I forced open a sketchbook and messed around with some thumbnails until I came up with one that looked decently cool. I decided to make some "fan art" for a video game I play called DragonFable. I have a Rogue character named Caelum and thought he'd be a good refresher course for some figure drawing. I even yanked out my anatomy book for this one!
So here's the rough sketch done up in Photoshop:
He's gonna be holding some daggers in the final version. We'll see if I have enough patience to color it!
I'd like to find some web resources of dynamic figure poses (y'know, martial arts, anime, fighting, dancing, acrobatics, flying through the air, matrix-y stuff). I think they would help me visualize the body in motion and in perspective. Portfolios or photo galleries or video sites, whatever. Anybody have any suggestions?
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Shot 24 - cleanup in progress
So here's that shot a week later, unfortunately it's going slow because of work deadlines and such, I don't have much time to work on it. But I moved the center character out of breakdowns and into cleanup. You can see I haven't gotten to the fingers, ears, or tail yet, but the important part was getting the torso, head, and limbs moving naturally before getting into details.
It's funny, whenever I move from stepped keys to linear interpolation, there's always some kind of timing issue. For some reason, something that looked fine in keys/breakdowns will end up being too fast or too slow when in-betweening. But it's easier (for me anyway) to fix those timing issues since I still have easily readable keyframes to adjust. After this, there's no turning back! If I have to make any major timing changes at this point, I'll just start deleting chunks of keys because the dope sheet is such a mess that it'd be almost impossible to make changes on a macro level.
Someday I'll draw again. :) Alina, when are we going to the zoo??
It's funny, whenever I move from stepped keys to linear interpolation, there's always some kind of timing issue. For some reason, something that looked fine in keys/breakdowns will end up being too fast or too slow when in-betweening. But it's easier (for me anyway) to fix those timing issues since I still have easily readable keyframes to adjust. After this, there's no turning back! If I have to make any major timing changes at this point, I'll just start deleting chunks of keys because the dope sheet is such a mess that it'd be almost impossible to make changes on a macro level.
Someday I'll draw again. :) Alina, when are we going to the zoo??
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Shot 24 in progress
I'm working on the last character for "Shot 24" in my student film, Swing. This thing has taken quite a long time as I've been trying to work on it while also working fulltime at EALA. I'm lucky if I get to work on it for a few hours each day. But slowly it's getting finished! After this shot, I'll have about 5 more to go. Two of them are quite long, though, and involve all 3 characters, so I'm expecting to spend a lot of time on those two. On the positive side, the remaining shots are super easy!
So, Shot 24 happens right after Mack (the guy on the left) has shown off his "mad skillz" by throwing a rubber ball through two hoops (swish!). Now it's Hayley's turn. However Hayley has a broken arm, so she has to resort to... inventive methods.
This shot is pretty far along, I have most of the breakdowns in place already for the center character. You'll notice I work with stepped tangents, I find it closest to traditional animation and helps me maintain strong poses throughout the animation. But after I get the keys and basic timing down, I start doing breakdowns one limb at a time, to focus on arcs. That's when the dope sheet starts getting messy, because I add breakdowns based on what I feel the appropriate timing is for each arc. Don't want all the parts to move at exactly the same time, that would look rather silly! However it is still easy to see my main key poses, since when I hit "Select All" I can see which frame has a key for every body part.
It's interesting hearing how other people work. There seems to be no single definitive method of animating. How do you begin an animation?
I did video reference footage for one of the characters in this shot, complete with props... can you guess which? :)
So, Shot 24 happens right after Mack (the guy on the left) has shown off his "mad skillz" by throwing a rubber ball through two hoops (swish!). Now it's Hayley's turn. However Hayley has a broken arm, so she has to resort to... inventive methods.
This shot is pretty far along, I have most of the breakdowns in place already for the center character. You'll notice I work with stepped tangents, I find it closest to traditional animation and helps me maintain strong poses throughout the animation. But after I get the keys and basic timing down, I start doing breakdowns one limb at a time, to focus on arcs. That's when the dope sheet starts getting messy, because I add breakdowns based on what I feel the appropriate timing is for each arc. Don't want all the parts to move at exactly the same time, that would look rather silly! However it is still easy to see my main key poses, since when I hit "Select All" I can see which frame has a key for every body part.
It's interesting hearing how other people work. There seems to be no single definitive method of animating. How do you begin an animation?
I did video reference footage for one of the characters in this shot, complete with props... can you guess which? :)
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