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
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
(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 :).
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 :).
Monday, January 17, 2011
(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
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
Thursday, December 16, 2010
(Class 2) Week 8 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics
Hey There Fellow Animators!
So its week 8, and I thought I would really go all out on this one, I want to really improve on my last shot and really get it down this time for this assignment with the dance, the crazy thing is after getting a pretty harsh critique from my mentor last time, I feel even more motivated to try harder! I don't know why, so I really went for it this week and got my blocking reasonable quick, things are looking pretty good and I think I got all the key poses I need for the dance routine.
However when I look at how others are doing their blocking, I get the feeling that maybe I should have down more breakdowns to really tighten the animation up to the point where I can control it. Hopefully it turns out right this time around :), so here is the blocking, cheers again for dropping by on my log.
Cheers,
Meng
Sunday, December 5, 2010
(Class 2) Week 7 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics
Hello Animators of all Kind!
Welcome to week 7 of class two, OK so I manage to finish my drunken stumble but it needed a lot more work, and I think the critique really showed where I did wrong, as a personal goal I think I did OK on it, it was definitely something a lot better then what I did 5 years ago in Media Design :).
So just to point out the flaws in the animation, I didn't have enough overlap in the spine, I guess I am having difficulty putting it down in the poses, it something I have a understanding of on paper but once I start putting it in Maya and seeing the playblast something wasn't clicking so I am hoping to do much better on the next assignment, I am sure you will pick it out in the animation :).
To finish off this week we had one last animation to do, and I chose out of the pick list to do a little dance move, I wanted to move away from doing any break dance, hip hop, so I chose to do something semi-traditional I guess, I chose to do this Malaysian dance I found on you tube, its pretty neat, and I think its at the right difficulty level. My mentor says this one is gonna be a little challenging because the body movement is not so obvious and I will need to push the poses, I think I am up for that :(, if anything I know I love to push things and maybe too much at times.
So please take a look at the reference and final drunken stumble animation, and I will see you guys on the next post :).
Cheers,
Mengster.
Welcome to week 7 of class two, OK so I manage to finish my drunken stumble but it needed a lot more work, and I think the critique really showed where I did wrong, as a personal goal I think I did OK on it, it was definitely something a lot better then what I did 5 years ago in Media Design :).
So just to point out the flaws in the animation, I didn't have enough overlap in the spine, I guess I am having difficulty putting it down in the poses, it something I have a understanding of on paper but once I start putting it in Maya and seeing the playblast something wasn't clicking so I am hoping to do much better on the next assignment, I am sure you will pick it out in the animation :).
To finish off this week we had one last animation to do, and I chose out of the pick list to do a little dance move, I wanted to move away from doing any break dance, hip hop, so I chose to do something semi-traditional I guess, I chose to do this Malaysian dance I found on you tube, its pretty neat, and I think its at the right difficulty level. My mentor says this one is gonna be a little challenging because the body movement is not so obvious and I will need to push the poses, I think I am up for that :(, if anything I know I love to push things and maybe too much at times.
So please take a look at the reference and final drunken stumble animation, and I will see you guys on the next post :).
Cheers,
Mengster.
Monday, November 15, 2010
(Class 2) Week 6 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics
Hello Fellow Animators,
Ok so into week six we go! This week for me, was all about adding in more break down and turning things into spline. However I think I hit a snag this week, as I was having trouble figuring out the movement of the head, which you will see in the video :). So I tried doing something unique but it turns out it wasn't quite selling it with Dana. Basically when I have Stewie turn around to walk the other direction I have his head swing around, and because his head is so Big! It didn't look convincing or possible, and in many cases it looked like he would fall over easy.
The Second Dana mentioned was the head movement, they rotating up and down way too much, to the point where its not humanly possible, and I cam definitely see that once she mentioned it, man I wish I had eyes like that :). She mentions that the head yes should has no focus because he is drunk, but the problem was I made him too unfocused, and there should still be a hint of focus throughout the animation. So she showed us that there is actually a control switch you can turn on and off on the Stewie rig, that stops the head from rotating accordingly to the shoulder movements, kinda wish I knew about this earlier, but with mistakes we learn a lot :).
The third thing that Dana, mentioned was the way he got up from the bench, it was again not humanly possible to get up like that, it very strange when I first did it I thought it was fine, but now that Dana has mentioned it, it was so obvious! Again man I guess to see these things takes experience and understanding, again another lessons learnt, "If you can do it in the real world" chances are its not going to look convincing in the animated world no matter how cartoony.
So this week was pretty hardcore, I had a little too many mistakes that I will have to clean up for the next week. I have to say animation is not easy, and the joy of animating can be extremes! One minute the director will love where you are going, and you feel like you are on top of the world, the next minute you find out that is not there at all and you feel like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, I guess its part of it, and I think this course gets their student into that frame of mind before getting into the industry.
Cheers and see you next week,
Meng.
Ok so into week six we go! This week for me, was all about adding in more break down and turning things into spline. However I think I hit a snag this week, as I was having trouble figuring out the movement of the head, which you will see in the video :). So I tried doing something unique but it turns out it wasn't quite selling it with Dana. Basically when I have Stewie turn around to walk the other direction I have his head swing around, and because his head is so Big! It didn't look convincing or possible, and in many cases it looked like he would fall over easy.
The Second Dana mentioned was the head movement, they rotating up and down way too much, to the point where its not humanly possible, and I cam definitely see that once she mentioned it, man I wish I had eyes like that :). She mentions that the head yes should has no focus because he is drunk, but the problem was I made him too unfocused, and there should still be a hint of focus throughout the animation. So she showed us that there is actually a control switch you can turn on and off on the Stewie rig, that stops the head from rotating accordingly to the shoulder movements, kinda wish I knew about this earlier, but with mistakes we learn a lot :).
The third thing that Dana, mentioned was the way he got up from the bench, it was again not humanly possible to get up like that, it very strange when I first did it I thought it was fine, but now that Dana has mentioned it, it was so obvious! Again man I guess to see these things takes experience and understanding, again another lessons learnt, "If you can do it in the real world" chances are its not going to look convincing in the animated world no matter how cartoony.
So this week was pretty hardcore, I had a little too many mistakes that I will have to clean up for the next week. I have to say animation is not easy, and the joy of animating can be extremes! One minute the director will love where you are going, and you feel like you are on top of the world, the next minute you find out that is not there at all and you feel like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, I guess its part of it, and I think this course gets their student into that frame of mind before getting into the industry.
Cheers and see you next week,
Meng.
Monday, November 8, 2010
(Class 2) Week 5 Animation Mentor - Psychology of Body Mechanics
Hello Animators and Bloggers,
So week 5 is the beginning of a new animation, again we had to pick out from a list of things to animate, but this time around we have a new rig called Stewie, which is essentially Ballie with a body and head, no arms yet.
What I chose to do is a little bit of a challenge, and that is the drunkard stumble, according to Dana this is tricky because the character has no real control over the movement of the body, there is no real sense of direction or control, I guess that's pretty much what trying to walk while you are drunk is pretty much like :).
So I made a video reference of my self, and did some rough thumbnails out to animate what I want. This time I am taking bits and pieces from different takes, I really want to try doing that instead of directly taking it off on take, I think this is something I will be doing in the future if I was to be animating something I know I can't do in real life ( which is leaping over buildings and levitating, but I still try every now and the ;) ). Also I am trying to keep my thumbnails to story telling poses, I have a feeling thats what thumbnails are meant to be, and they should be done quickly, I personally think that adding breaks down only really make sense when you are blocking in Maya, but drawing them out first may make sense too.
So have a look and see me do silly things yet once again, I think someone at the park thought I was crazy, as if I am not already :).
Cheers,
Meng
So week 5 is the beginning of a new animation, again we had to pick out from a list of things to animate, but this time around we have a new rig called Stewie, which is essentially Ballie with a body and head, no arms yet.
What I chose to do is a little bit of a challenge, and that is the drunkard stumble, according to Dana this is tricky because the character has no real control over the movement of the body, there is no real sense of direction or control, I guess that's pretty much what trying to walk while you are drunk is pretty much like :).
So I made a video reference of my self, and did some rough thumbnails out to animate what I want. This time I am taking bits and pieces from different takes, I really want to try doing that instead of directly taking it off on take, I think this is something I will be doing in the future if I was to be animating something I know I can't do in real life ( which is leaping over buildings and levitating, but I still try every now and the ;) ). Also I am trying to keep my thumbnails to story telling poses, I have a feeling thats what thumbnails are meant to be, and they should be done quickly, I personally think that adding breaks down only really make sense when you are blocking in Maya, but drawing them out first may make sense too.
So have a look and see me do silly things yet once again, I think someone at the park thought I was crazy, as if I am not already :).
Cheers,
Meng
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