(Class 3) Week 4 - Advance Body Mechanics

Hello Animators and Guests of course!

So its week 4! And we are onto finalizing our first shot, and planning out the second shot. I am happy that I had a interesting idea to begin with, hehe I guess spending sometime during the one week break in between really helped. So I went out to shot some reference of myself hanging on stuff, and feeling the nausea of being upside down, and what better place to do those things was at the children's playground! And yes for all you animators out there asking if I got the evils, oh yes! Indeed I got the evils, it was like they were afraid that I was taking videos of their kids, posting it on the Internet ooh, hang on! I guess I kinda am :(.

Anyways so the planning was good but I had a feeling it maybe a little long, I really wanted to emphasis the stickiness of the magnetized hammer, but I think I may have to end up cutting some things out :(.

As for my first shot, I think that went really well, the leg movements was very smooth, and I was very happy with the way it turned out, it was still a little retro scope feel to it, and I feel I could have pushed some of the moments a little bit more, but overall I was very happy :). Please have a look, and don't report me to those children's parents please, they are only there as backdrops nothing else.

Cheers,
Meng The hobbit.

(Class 3) Week 3 - Advance Body Mechanics

Hello Animators of the world! And visitors of course :),

This is week 3, and things are going really well, I think spending that time on blocking really paid off, as it seems moving to smoothing which I kinda like to call it blocking plus :), really easy, and I didn't really have to change much. My new mentor made some awesome critiques though, really getting us to push those poses into more dramatic and fun, he also went through with us the importance of curves and poses, going through some of Disney's best 2D animation and how each pose is pretty much like a painting on canvas, which really inspired me to make sure I make every key pose a pose that leads the user's eye towards the expected direction.

I definitely felt like I am heading towards a good work flow here, for me blocking plus is still keeping with the key frames, and inbetweens, but not offsetting anything, that way you can still adjust timing in places needed, or even adjust poses when the director changes his mind :). Another thing also since you have things in smooth (spline curves), you can really start seeing the timing of your animation, I know at this stage, every time I think something is fast and snappy enough, it turns out not to be even close.

Again have a look at my smoothing stage of the first shot of my AnimJam, hope its ok with my mentor :), but I know there will always be changes.

Cheers for popping over,
Meng

(Class 3) Week 2 - Advance Body Mechanics

Hey Hey Hey!

Its week 2 of class 3! So the planning is done and now its down to blocking out the first of three shots that will be connected together as a Anim Jam!

So I went ahead and started blocking and doing the things that I didn't in class 2, by putting in a lot of key frames, almost to the point of it so close to the video reference, I know its not the ideal thing to do, I with all the things I tired in last class that didn't work, and seeing how everyone was pretty much copying the video reference identically, I thought I would give it a try this time. Of course there are some parts of the animation where I will have to make it up on my own :).

My new mentor is very kewl, he is really getting us to push poses, really looking forward to his critiques. Have a look at my blocking and you will see that I put a lot more key frames that I did in the past.

Again cheers for dropping by,
Meng

(Class 3) Week 1 - Advance Body Mechanics

Hello Again my awesome Animators!

First week of advance body mechanic! New mentor and new class, I have a good feeling about this class, I know for one I really want to push my planning and blocking process, I feel that was something I lacked doing in class 2, and I really want to practise it and get it right.

Before coming to this class I spend some time on deciding what I want to do with the Anim Jam, I figured it would be fun to try it out :). I ended up coming up with an idea for a construction guy getting his hammer magnitized, I had some other ideas before hand involving various things like bouncing balls and giant metal rolling balls! Crazy!

Have a look at the planning, and you will get the idea for my Anim Jam :).

Cheers for dropping by as always,
Meng

(Class 2) Week 12 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanic

Hello Again Awesome Animators,

So this is the last week of Class 2! Man it sure went by really quick :), I learnt so much in this class, lots of things about weight and the importance of arcs, not only in hands and feet, but everything, and how the hips is the core of the animation, and how it leads movements of other parts of the body. I have a good feeling that I will have a good head start going into class 3, and that is all because of the way our mentor has taught us to look at the hips with such importance, and strictness. I have to admit there were times where my mentor would crack the whip on us, but I think in many ways it was for the best, and I would love to have her again for acting class.

So I have ended up rendering the frames out and made my little Malaysian dance. Boy! Things look so much better when they get rendered out, I also gave Stewie a traditional Malaysian hat as well :). The animation again is not perfect, but I think for the level I am at its not too bad, its not the worst animation in the world, but I really wish I could do it again but this time with better planning and blocking this time around.

So I have updated my progress well with the new dance animation.

Again cheers for dropping by,
Meng

(Class 2) Week 11 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanic

Hello Fellow Animators!

I apologize for not updating in a long time, and I have to admit its really hard to keep things up to date, especially when you not only have animation work to do, but also other hobbies that keep you doing as well :).

Anyways this week things are starting to make a little sense, I am still not quite hitting the mark with this animation piece it seems, I am sure I had all my hips covered and going into arcs, but my mentor still feels there is something not right, I can definitely start to see how things are becoming a lot better, its funny how the more I work at it the more it starts to be come polish, but again I think its because of my lack of planning and blocking in this shot, is where I got myself stuck here. Its probably a little too late to go back and re-block everything and start from scratch, which I would love to do, but time is not on my side so I will have to do best with what I got.

Again have a look and you see that its a lot better then the previous video, but there are definitely still areas that are not right.

Cheers for dropping by,
Meng

(Class 2) Week 10 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics

Hello again animators of all kinds! And also guests of honour!

OK so its week ten of class two, I am having some real difficulties in this animation, looks like I am not quite hitting the mark, and I think the biggest problem was the arcs in the hips, my mentor is telling me that I am not hitting it :(. I totally agree with my mentor, my hip arcs are just not working, and I think its a reflection of my blocking, again goes back to how important the blocking stage of animation is, I feel the more you can add in the blocking the better your animation be and less time you will have to spend on the last hundred metres to the finish lines.

Another thing I learnt from this week was the study of video references, I really wished we had this lecture at the start of the class it was really good, in that the lecturer Rick 'O'Conner gave a real detail on how to study video references, and would have been awesome to have known that earlier in the class. I think eventually you will probably just get acting choices from video references and not really rotoscope it, but in order to understand the body mechanics and how to make the breakdowns in between key poses, you really have to go through this method. Now I really wish I had more time to start over again with this animation exercise.

Cheers for dropping by, and I will keep you fellas posted :).

(Class 2) Week 9 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics

Hey There fellow Animators!

Week 9! Boy is this class going really quick! So after doing the things that was critique from my mentor I did my best to correct those things, its definitely getting there, and I think you can see it when you compare to the ones I did before. However because I have been constantly worrying about getting the hips right and arcs right, I totally forgot about adding the push off for the legs! And my mentor was right, it felt like Stewie is being pulled up out of the sky, because I didn't have that stretch on the leg to make it look like Stewie is pushing off.

The major thing for sure I learnt in this week is understanding not only about hip arcs, but how the hips are also controlled by the ankles of the foot, that move does start off from the hips but they are also slightly governed by the fact that its you feet that pushes it into position, kinda crazy thinking but seems to send a light bulb into my head.

So anyways I hope you guys like this version of the animation you will see that things are getting better, but obviously still needs a lot of work.

Cheers,
Meng