Friday, February 22, 2008

Juno

For the win, this weekend!

**At least Juno lost to another great movie in No Country For Old Men. And, I love Pixar just as much as you do, but I was really hoping for Persepolis to take home the Oscar.

I usually dont talk about work stuff on here for obvious reasons, but last week at work I was privileged enough to see a character design of mine modeled out in 3D, for the first time ever! Excuse my newbish-ness, but it was so thrilling! I was really taken aback. To take a 2D drawing and being able to realize it in 3D without loosing anything is truly an artform. Especially when its done well. In my case, by the incomparable Tony Thai. The whole project this guy has been spot on bringing the designs to life in 3D. So big ups to him! Awesome job man!


Thursday, February 21, 2008

Quick Breakdown

Someone wrote me recently asking how I approached animating more physical shots, like my work in games for example. So I thought I'd post my general steps for a more physical shot I had done for AM. Not to say this way is the best or only way, but its what made most sense to me. I still have a lot to learn.

The assignment was an exercise in weight. So I chose to show a sense of weight by way of a heavy pulling situation. I'd never do this for every animation at work, but the intent here was to clarify my ideas to my mentor, Greg Kyle:
Once I was sure it all made sense to him, I went off and shot some video reference. Again I don't always do this at work. But I can say that my better stuff has come with the help of shooting or frame-by-framing video reference of some sort. This helps me break out of my cliche thinking of how I "think" something would move:
From that vid ref, I try to start cherry picking stronger poses and accentuating them. Here I'm just trying to focus on a simple clear lines of action, reverse curves, that sort of thing. This is the thing I always do at work. Except they're always messier than this. I think, again, I was just trying to clarify my ideas for my mentor to see:I jump in and try my best to match those poses. I treat the keys like drawings and spend alot of time trying to execute great poses. After that I space them out and play with the timing. Just making sure theres enough variety in both of those areas. Oh and I never really use stepped blocking at work. Again, I guess this was just my way of clarifying myself to Greg:

To get to this iteration is like a hundred steps later, haha. But after the timing on the main keys are working. I convert to spline mode and by then it looks ridiculous. So I added breakdowns and by then there is a key at about every 2-3 frames. Then I go in and just animate the root node
so that its arcs are nice and that spacing works. Then to the spine, head, legs, arms, usually in that order. By the end I make sure every thing is delaying or leading where it should, and all the arcs are ....."arc-like"=P. Even tracking the arc on the nose to ensure the movement on the head is solid, which is a trick I learned way later:
So there you have it! Far from perfect, but I hope this made sense and was of some help. Now, if you want to see some real animation, check this out.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

If I were marooned..


.......I might find the time to catch up on all of my DVD's on queue.
With my pug, naturally. Who might also start to come in handy when bananas run sparse.

*This was for the Unleaded Artists blog, done at lunch.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Love is in the air

Kimbo Slice wishes you a Happy Valentines Day!

This monstrosity of a man throws down with Tank Abbott this Saturday. So guys, after you take the ladies out to watch Atonement, make sure & catch this "clash-o-the-titans" to level out your weekend!

**For anyone interested Here's how it turned out!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Quickie.

Quick sketch playing with making PS brushes during lunch.