Animation mentor fight webinar

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.

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.

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.

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: