Class 3 - Finished

This week i took a bold step and really re did the swig from the bottle. Some of it is down to ones just to really keep that bottle on the lips. Refined more arcs and curves, fixed some spacing in places. All in all cleaning up loose ends and tweaking curves in the ye old graph editor.

Class 3 - Term Over

Class 3 comes to a close and its all over again - it goes so quick............... Next term will be even more work and will be pushing my skills further!!! Michelle was a great mentor and gave wicked crits and feedback to the class, so if you get her as a mentor your very lucky. In fact all the mentors i have had to date have been wicked.

We continue on this shot in Class 4, as we will be given another Bishop rig but with full face controls. As at the moment its just flappy mouth with very limited eye stuff...

Here is my end of term reel =O)

Class 3 - Refining

This felt like a very long week. I was refining my pauses more and really getting in there and breaking down more and refining them graph curves. I try to keep the graph editor (GE) under check from the word go, as i don't want all my animation flipping out or have strange things happen. Always check your curves and keep them clean, so that by the end your not messing around to much. As you don't want to leave it to the end as it can get very messy.

So in short keep you curves tidy as you go along, it might feel like more work, but its a time saver in my view.......

Class 3 - Polish

Well i had to refine some minor things here. I did a new pass on the eyes and did a pass on the fingers.

For the most part of the animation i wanted to make sure the hips and spine are fully working and green lit by my mentor before i press on with arms and go down the chain. The reason being, if i screw up the upper body and if have refined right down the little pinky - im screwed big time.

So working in a methodical way helps. Its ok to rough in this stuff but don't key the crap out of it until your 100% committed to the idea. If say the director/client liked it one day and not the next, and wanted a big change in the scene then fair enough. He/she is paying me to get it how they want it. So i have to be able to know how to take apart my shot and put in the new changes while keeping the shot working. OR if its too much start over lol or go back to an old file before you refined it to a high level.

Class 3 - Blocking

Ok my choice was the kitchen but by popular demand "The Brain" won it. For this setting of this audio i thought a pub setting, and with the way the audio is delivered felt it was a more realistic animation over a cartoony one.

This is the block pass, done in copy pairs mode. Its very rough timings and mostly hitting key points of the animation.

Class 3 - Blocking and Breakdowns

This week i had to get the darn thing look a bit more alive and less like the computer is doing all the work..... So with added keys and them all important breakdowns where all the "action happens".

Class 3 - Lip sync challenge

New challenge this week, which will cover the entire term. We had to find good single audio clips which lasted around 10 seconds or less.

For each clip i had ideas and notes of what i wanted to do for them and then from that shot reference for each and then awaited the response from my mentor.

Drug Store

Kitchen Audio clip

The Brain

Also i had some final tweaks on my "Vote for Stu" shot, nothing big just really minor things.

Class 3 - Final Handin

Ok Final hand has arrived and i got feed back only a day ago... The hands are still not correct but I'm working on that - again - as we speak. I have other things to fix and i have just noticed some more areas that need attention. But i guess that's the problem with being an artists/animator our work is never good enough to our self's nore is it ever completely finished, as it can always be tweaked for ever. The problem is knowing when to stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Class 3 - Refining

Another week goes by and im into refining. Michelle really wants me to nail the hands coming up and holding. But its really hard to do that with out them looking frozen or to IK like. Also having to keep them on a nice path of action. I do wish i had kept to my FK roots =O)

Class 3 - Blocking Plus

WAhoo, the idea is going strong, my first pass got the thumbs up and now i can crack on with my blocking plus. For me I did my blocking in "copy pairs" mode and i feel like im steaming ahead but really im just skipping the whole step mode to linear to spline out. Im just starting right in spline. In the past i had sort of done copy pairs before but did it all in step mode rather than start in spline. I must admit i may not do this for every shot i do, but for this shot i feel it working.

Class 3 - Blocking

Ok Well the idea went down pan. As much as Michelle liked the idea, but felt that the idea was hanging to much on a gag. Also along with the fact that Stu had no fingers and also only dots for eyes meant that a lot of the stuff i was doing was not really fitting for the Stu puppet.

But on brighter note, she did think my "Vote for Stu" idea was new and that she hadn't seen it before. So in the long run her vote was on this idea (sorry). Oh did i happen to say that this idea was 30 seconds long!!! Somehow need to get this idea down to 10 seconds.

After shooting, over 50 takes (thats no lie) i had managed to get the idea down to 10 seconds ok 11/12. I quickly thumbed the idea outs (capturing the essence of the poses) and also started a blocking pass. So basically i did 2 assignments in 4 days lol - i got feedback on a Wednesday and had to submit it all by the Sunday.....

In case you wonder, copy pairs is basically finding areas you feel you want more pause time so you double up on them frames (you make holds). So firstly what i do is make all my main keys/golden poses, and then work out when i want that pose to happen. Timing to me is felt more than counting and worrying about frames numbers.... If it looks and feels right to me, than it is right. If my mentor didn't like the movement or i get loads of comments about that movement then i would go ahead and correct it.

So once i have done my key poses, i go back and start to double up on my poses to make nice little holds, this way i can quickly see whats working and whats not. This way i find my beats in my scene.

Now as im already in spline, i can already see how things are shaping up. The next pass would be Blocking plus,here i would start to add in my break down keys and tweak all my curves.

Class 3 - Ideas

Well made it to class 3, and boy do i have to up my game. I have new mentor who is great, her name is Michelle Meeker a former Pixar, PDI and Weta animator, EA in fact shes work all over the place, you name it im sure shes been there.

I have a great new bunch of AM people in the class, most of which I have followed along the way, as their animation skills are amazing. So i feel really pleased to be in a class with such a high level of animation skill.

For this hand in i had to submit a bunch of ideas of a character showing 2 emotions with in 10 seconds. We had to shoot reference too and thumbnail out you main idea. I came up with a few ideas the one i picked was a typewriter idea, where the character is typing away and tries to push the paper roller across but its stuck and then tries again -nothing. Then he pounds the typewriter and the paper roller pings off and then Stu reacts in shock. I acted out a number of ideas around the typewriter and picked the best idea i felt right for the assignment.

Other ideas where a vote for Stu idea, Stu watching TV, Stu checking the results for a race on the radio and some others. But all the ideas had been rehashed soooo many times, hence why i opted for the typewriter.