So after finally watching the fight webinar brought by animation mentor, that was previously delayed because they had technical issues and had to replay it on a different day i was working. I watched it recently after its been cut up and edited and released on their website (still got lots of good stuff though).
So over all i think it was really good, although it was a little bit different from what i expected, i was expecting it more to be about one set action sequence and him talking you through all the major keys and breakdowns the the animation. Instead it was a good range of technical tips and tricks like how a character should hold a weapon and just how people and creatures throw around their body when fighting.
Found it very interesting that he said about the differences of how people and creatures fight. creatures are born with fight or flight and know exactly how pretty much from birth, but humans have to learn (from martial arts) and many martial arts are based on animal movements. But i find that very interesting and it gives me more of an idea of what i want to do, perhaps to steer away from the amazing Martial artist and go more towards some one who can't fight but pushed into a corner where he has to...but still badly. All just ideas for now, but certainly going to start drawing poses out for a possible show reel piece.
The animal fights also look very very cool. But I think i'l give that more of a go after iv done the creature animation with AM.
Sunday 23 October 2011
Saturday 22 October 2011
New animation exercises
So another week and 2 more good animation exercises for the show reel. After we had a master class he made it aparntly that walk cycles are pretty boring even if its a quadruped or your new to animation. Its always beter to have the character walking to an object or in some way show how it can be used (unless its games in which case cycles are usualy fine).
So the first excersize was just to have the character pick up a coin. Sounds simple but we are getting into acting now, so the body mechanics are pretty apparent but it provides lots of differnt ways to make yours a little more personalisd if you can put emotion into the character. So how the character reacts when he see the coin, or after hes picked it up, Nervous? happy? sneaky? confident? regretfull? lots of differnt paths to be taken.
The next one is all about how characters act to each other. Its basically 2 people on a bench, they are the only guidlines, one person can already be sitting and another joins, or how ever you want it. Then show some kind of interaction and how the characters play off to each other. For instance a well dressed man reading the news paper gets joined by a young teenager listening to loud heavy metal. Or a young girl who has a crush on a guy, or visa versa. This one can be completly unique, after watching a few myself we wrote down plenty of diffent endings that could have happend to each of the stories, i expect mine to last about 8 seconds.
Looking forward to uploading my video soon and see what you guys think.
So the first excersize was just to have the character pick up a coin. Sounds simple but we are getting into acting now, so the body mechanics are pretty apparent but it provides lots of differnt ways to make yours a little more personalisd if you can put emotion into the character. So how the character reacts when he see the coin, or after hes picked it up, Nervous? happy? sneaky? confident? regretfull? lots of differnt paths to be taken.
The next one is all about how characters act to each other. Its basically 2 people on a bench, they are the only guidlines, one person can already be sitting and another joins, or how ever you want it. Then show some kind of interaction and how the characters play off to each other. For instance a well dressed man reading the news paper gets joined by a young teenager listening to loud heavy metal. Or a young girl who has a crush on a guy, or visa versa. This one can be completly unique, after watching a few myself we wrote down plenty of diffent endings that could have happend to each of the stories, i expect mine to last about 8 seconds.
Looking forward to uploading my video soon and see what you guys think.
Thursday 20 October 2011
Animation Master class
So today my theory lecture was canceled and instead we had a master class in animation. Which i was more then happy about.
The master class was done by Benn Garnish, someone who had previously come to Hertfordshire uni quite a few years ago and has been working at framestore for a while now. Hes worked on various things such as harry potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and marmaduke, much like our VFX lecturer who i believe worked closely with him when they were at framestore.
The master class was great he told us about the mistake he made at uni and that he actually decided to change career paths from lighting TD to creature animator AFTER he finished at Hertfordshire Uni. He got his first few jobs being a very junior animator on the TV show prime evil. And went through shot by shot what he did and what he could have done better. Its great to see that hes always seeing how he can improve even when he is already in the industry for a long time.
He went through plenty of shots from different films just explaining how working in a studio goes. with dailies and how you communicate with other animators who are collaborating in one scene. Also how many animators were in the scene and what they worked on, and how much time he took to do a specific shot. Some of it was quite eye opening as he worked very heavily on one shot but you couldn't see much of the animation in the end anyway.
Im really happy to see we are getting more of these master classes this year and industry professionals in and looking forward to seeing who we have next as last year we had Framestore guys Crytek and Sony.
The master class was done by Benn Garnish, someone who had previously come to Hertfordshire uni quite a few years ago and has been working at framestore for a while now. Hes worked on various things such as harry potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and marmaduke, much like our VFX lecturer who i believe worked closely with him when they were at framestore.
The master class was great he told us about the mistake he made at uni and that he actually decided to change career paths from lighting TD to creature animator AFTER he finished at Hertfordshire Uni. He got his first few jobs being a very junior animator on the TV show prime evil. And went through shot by shot what he did and what he could have done better. Its great to see that hes always seeing how he can improve even when he is already in the industry for a long time.
He went through plenty of shots from different films just explaining how working in a studio goes. with dailies and how you communicate with other animators who are collaborating in one scene. Also how many animators were in the scene and what they worked on, and how much time he took to do a specific shot. Some of it was quite eye opening as he worked very heavily on one shot but you couldn't see much of the animation in the end anyway.
Im really happy to see we are getting more of these master classes this year and industry professionals in and looking forward to seeing who we have next as last year we had Framestore guys Crytek and Sony.
Friday 14 October 2011
Cars 2, what went wrong?
So I just got round to watching the Pixar film Cars 2. Let me start of by saying that I, like many other animators, am a massive fan of Pixar and John Lasseter. I appreciate all of what they do and the hard work time and effort that goes into there films and most of the time they shock me into how well they carry out the production on their films and how much their films stand out with great quality.
But the first film, "Cars" never truly gave me that amount of pleasure to watch, i just couldn't connect with the film. One theory as to why might be that its much more American based and perhaps pixar thought that allot of their American appeal with Nascar, road 46, and other American appetisers would appeal to the rest of the world. Sadly it appears not as its not only me who feel disappointed with both cars and cars 2 although looking back, i do sort of feel the first cars had a little more to it, but only by a hair line.
Cars 2 however takes place around the world, this might mean that they came to the same conclusion and tried to take on last stab at it by making it a little more multi cultural. Again sadly i think this failed, cars too has done well, but in relativity to the rest of pixar films its nothing great.
My theory to why Cars never did so well is based on what the film is based on, CARS. The characters feel too "hot wheels" kids play toys, type. The film doesn't lack any imagination by far, and at first i didn't think they would be able to convey the facial animation properly, which i still think could be a properly but they still seem to have done well by exaggerating the facial a lot.
But there is just not enough for the audience to relate to (we are not cars) but then you might say, well we are not fish either but look at Finding Nemo, we are not toys either but look at Toy Story etc. Well these films always showed an implication from humans to fish/toys, there was always a human in them, and it didn't look like the world was being run by fish or toys. once we watched toy story we would imagine how our toys felt, once we saw finding nemo we wouldn't ever buy a single fish again we would have to buy 2 so they could stay together (OK maybe a little to far). But the principle is there, once you take away all relation to humans you take away the connection to the audience. The cars are completely self sufficient, how ever in the very famous child's show Brum, the car was alive but in the same world as us, and we humans had a direct effect on it, giving us something to think about when we next see a car.
Maybe next time pixar, still a nice piece of animation and was fine light entertainment, but I'm hoping and expecting a lot more from Brave.
But the first film, "Cars" never truly gave me that amount of pleasure to watch, i just couldn't connect with the film. One theory as to why might be that its much more American based and perhaps pixar thought that allot of their American appeal with Nascar, road 46, and other American appetisers would appeal to the rest of the world. Sadly it appears not as its not only me who feel disappointed with both cars and cars 2 although looking back, i do sort of feel the first cars had a little more to it, but only by a hair line.
Cars 2 however takes place around the world, this might mean that they came to the same conclusion and tried to take on last stab at it by making it a little more multi cultural. Again sadly i think this failed, cars too has done well, but in relativity to the rest of pixar films its nothing great.
My theory to why Cars never did so well is based on what the film is based on, CARS. The characters feel too "hot wheels" kids play toys, type. The film doesn't lack any imagination by far, and at first i didn't think they would be able to convey the facial animation properly, which i still think could be a properly but they still seem to have done well by exaggerating the facial a lot.
But there is just not enough for the audience to relate to (we are not cars) but then you might say, well we are not fish either but look at Finding Nemo, we are not toys either but look at Toy Story etc. Well these films always showed an implication from humans to fish/toys, there was always a human in them, and it didn't look like the world was being run by fish or toys. once we watched toy story we would imagine how our toys felt, once we saw finding nemo we wouldn't ever buy a single fish again we would have to buy 2 so they could stay together (OK maybe a little to far). But the principle is there, once you take away all relation to humans you take away the connection to the audience. The cars are completely self sufficient, how ever in the very famous child's show Brum, the car was alive but in the same world as us, and we humans had a direct effect on it, giving us something to think about when we next see a car.
Maybe next time pixar, still a nice piece of animation and was fine light entertainment, but I'm hoping and expecting a lot more from Brave.
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Curtis' animation work update
So I'm a little annoyed as my usb wireless dongle decided to play up,
making me miss the animation mentor. So it looks like I'l just have to
watch the re-run when it comes out in a couple weeks. you guys can find
it here at http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/fight-webinar/
But moving forwards, Character animation classes started properly again this week, this time going over sneaks, and the characterisation of walks. Which feels like a comfortable step forwards from all the basic walk run and jump cycles we do for basic animation practise. Of course these still being some sort of walk cycle its all covered really well by Richard Williams, as shown here:
Again i haven't found any book more use full then his. its great stuff for 3d animators not just 2d, tons of the principals he shows still apply and the poses like you see here are really strong and excellent to study. Why try and figure out the timing yourself when you can see the standard mould then tweak and adjust to add some character and test things out from there.
I then got introduced the the animation test that is given to new animators at Framstore and i think The Mill too. This is the pillars exercise. its where you have to animate one character (usually without arms) from one block on one side to hop along pillars or stepping stones to get to the other side, usually about 3 no less then that.
Its an interesting exercise with lots of focus on how the character is using its weight. I'm really looking to nail this one as its a little bit more difficult and i know we are going to have a 3 hour test on it later.
But moving forwards, Character animation classes started properly again this week, this time going over sneaks, and the characterisation of walks. Which feels like a comfortable step forwards from all the basic walk run and jump cycles we do for basic animation practise. Of course these still being some sort of walk cycle its all covered really well by Richard Williams, as shown here:
Again i haven't found any book more use full then his. its great stuff for 3d animators not just 2d, tons of the principals he shows still apply and the poses like you see here are really strong and excellent to study. Why try and figure out the timing yourself when you can see the standard mould then tweak and adjust to add some character and test things out from there.
I then got introduced the the animation test that is given to new animators at Framstore and i think The Mill too. This is the pillars exercise. its where you have to animate one character (usually without arms) from one block on one side to hop along pillars or stepping stones to get to the other side, usually about 3 no less then that.
Its an interesting exercise with lots of focus on how the character is using its weight. I'm really looking to nail this one as its a little bit more difficult and i know we are going to have a 3 hour test on it later.
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Curtis' film progress
Getting a little further forward with my film. Starting some serious and productive talks with other close students about what we are looking for and who we are looking for, could be that iv found a modeler and even the style of the film today.
Basically i am 100% sure i need at least one other modeler on my team as i really want to be able to focus my time on the animation, but that's not to say i Can not help out with prop extras. Seems at the moment it could be me (dedicated animator), a dedicated rigger, and a dedicated modeler. We all seem to be interested in a style which we can adapt for our short film. Can't name them yet as it is early days, but hopefully soon.
Keeping a close eye on the french students from Gobelins is a great idea to see what the competitions like, but also an interesting look at the style in allot french animation. of course there is the well known Octopodi that became academy award nominated, which would be an absolute dream for students. But Gobelins spit out many great films like that every year.
Talks are still going on about story line, hopefully the basics can be settled soon so we can get a head start on asset modeling and animation tests. Hand painted textures are looking like a likely method to our stylised look, but can't give away too much yet.
for now, check out this great animation that we all remembered and admired, and the environment relates closes to my idea.
While i was digging up that video i also found a fantastic old favourite of mine. More experimental then usual western story driven films but still has a lot to keep the viewers attention. Love the unsettling and un-hinging effects it puts towards the audience.
That's actually a film from a while ago from our course, sadly i didn't get to meet the director as i joined later on, but he drop in again, you never know.
Basically i am 100% sure i need at least one other modeler on my team as i really want to be able to focus my time on the animation, but that's not to say i Can not help out with prop extras. Seems at the moment it could be me (dedicated animator), a dedicated rigger, and a dedicated modeler. We all seem to be interested in a style which we can adapt for our short film. Can't name them yet as it is early days, but hopefully soon.
Keeping a close eye on the french students from Gobelins is a great idea to see what the competitions like, but also an interesting look at the style in allot french animation. of course there is the well known Octopodi that became academy award nominated, which would be an absolute dream for students. But Gobelins spit out many great films like that every year.
Talks are still going on about story line, hopefully the basics can be settled soon so we can get a head start on asset modeling and animation tests. Hand painted textures are looking like a likely method to our stylised look, but can't give away too much yet.
for now, check out this great animation that we all remembered and admired, and the environment relates closes to my idea.
While i was digging up that video i also found a fantastic old favourite of mine. More experimental then usual western story driven films but still has a lot to keep the viewers attention. Love the unsettling and un-hinging effects it puts towards the audience.
Monday 3 October 2011
Animation fighting tutorial
Just signed up for another great webinar from Animation Mentor. I try to never really miss their webinars, you can always watch the replays but if you get signed into the live feed then you can always ask these masters questions at the Q&A period.
So the next webinar is on Tuesday, with 2 separate times, one starting 10am, other 7pm, both pst times. This one is specifically covering fight animation. Taught by a really experienced animation mentor who's also studied allot of martial arts. I'm really fond of animation mentor's webinars and i think anyone studying should really make an effort to attend these. Hopefully this summer i will start the creature animation program, but that's still on the cards for now, will have to see where work experience takes me.
Take a look:
So the next webinar is on Tuesday, with 2 separate times, one starting 10am, other 7pm, both pst times. This one is specifically covering fight animation. Taught by a really experienced animation mentor who's also studied allot of martial arts. I'm really fond of animation mentor's webinars and i think anyone studying should really make an effort to attend these. Hopefully this summer i will start the creature animation program, but that's still on the cards for now, will have to see where work experience takes me.
Take a look:
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