Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Squastacle Course: Part II

After thinking it over, I decided to do something a little more involved with this. Figure it'll give me more opportunity to play with squash/stretch.

Planning doc:


First dirty pass:



As always, comments are welcome.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Week 5....wait, what? Week 5? Already?!?

Indeed.  Week 5 is upon us.  This term is really flying past.

At any rate, just chucking initial planning sketches up here for this go 'round.  Two assignments this week include animating a ball through an obstacle course, using anticipation/squash and stretch, and another pose with everyone's favorite melon head, Stu, with this week's emotion to depict being "devastation."

Here're the sketches so far.  Rip 'em up/share your thoughts if you're feelin' so inclined:




And here's the initial blocking for the ball animation:

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Dueling Spheres: Fin

I think I'm calling this one done for the week.  Here's the final rendition, after much tangent tweaking to get the rotations/drop rates to look more realistic:




(Incidentally, those physics classes from 18-19 years ago actually came in handy, after I finally forced my brain get out of the way of fighting Galileo's case studies. :) )

I feel pretty okay with it.  Still a few minor things I'm convinced I could noodle to death to get looking "better", but in the grand scheme I'm not sure anyone would even notice them.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Beach vs. Billiard--



Just chucking up my initial blocking/tweaks for this week's assignment. Input is always appreciated if you are so inclined.

Planning:



First pass:

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Rio = Win!



So, my bride and I just got back from catching "Rio" this evening. Really, really enjoyed it. Story wasn't exactly groundbreaking or fantastical, but the animation WAS.

All the "arial dance sequences" were excellent and among my favorite shots. So much going on, but it was so fluid and meshed so well with the music. Favorite sequence though? Easily "Bird vs. Monkey!!" Hell, all the squirrel monkey stuff was great, actually.

Looking forward to finding out what shots my mentor at AM,(Scott Lemmer), had a hand in on Tuesday.


(Full disclosure: I'm pulling for "It was the monkey stuff", Scott. Cuz monkeys rock. :) )

Friday, April 15, 2011

Quick Render Test

Probably getting way too fiddly here, but I've tweaked out a handful of poses in an attempt to get rid of the "twinning" feel of Stu's arms in this before I submit it as final(don't want to keep noodling this to death, no matter how fun it may be. :))

Any input is appreciated.





Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Stu-sain Bolt

Throwing up the first pass I took at this week's posing assignment.  We were to sketch a bunch of different poses that would evoke the feeling of "excitement."  I chose to take a swing at the one that I used a photo of Usain Bolt crossing a finish line as reference.





What say ye?  Swing and a miss?  Solid single?  Ground rule double, maybe? :)

Second Planning Attempt

So, I wasn't digging my initial attempt with the wall collision much and after discussing it a bit with our mentor, I thought perhaps I should "go back to basics" and eliminate the wall thing altogether at first.  Lock it down without it first, then toy with that afterward if there's time.

At any rate, here's the thumbs for this one:

And here's the initial blocking:



I'm thinking my "hang time" may be a little too long on most of those bounces, particularly the first and second one....but I've been staring at this too long and it could just be my eye.  Would love to hear what others think if you feel so inclined.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

We Gots Ta Bounce

So, I figured I'd chuck up my initial scribbles/animation pass of the second portion of my assignment for Week 3 here.  We're required to animate a simple ball bounce(basketball weight), and provide the requisite thumbs to sorta outline what we were envisioning prior to diving into Maya.

Here's the quickie thumbnail:



And here's the first pass at the animation:


Sunday, April 10, 2011

Rollin' on to Week Three

So, in this episode we'll be animating a simple ball bounce as phase one of our assignment.  Phase 2 is another sketch element which we'll be using as reference for the next bipedal pose we're required to do with Stu.

In the same vein as Week 2, I've chucked a couple pages of sketches up here that I'm contemplating using.  The poses we choose are supposed to invoke "excitement."  Tried not to fall into the trap of using cliches....which at first I failed at.  That was pretty much my entire first page of sketches that I didn't bother posting here. :)

At any rate, I'd love to hear any feedback that anyone would like to give about the sketches in general, or other ideas that I may be overlooking to get a more "non-traditional" representation of excitement.  I think I have a few of those, but maybe not.   Anyway, here're the sketches:


Friday, April 8, 2011

Messin' Around For Practice

Figured I'd play around with a second pose from my crop of sketches this evening, just for fun.  I went with this one:


Here's the initial pass:




Komments, kondemnations or kudos(see what I did there?!), as always, are appreciated.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

"Whatchoo doin', Stu? Waitin' for a bus?!"


I think this may be my last "twiddle" with this pose. I'm happy enough with how that left arm looks now, and I think overall it holds up better as a silhouette than the previous iterations. Plus, if I spend much more time staring at this one pose I'm either going to:

1. F- it up all to hell, or...
2. Break things. :)

I'm starting to get the feel for this rig though, so I'm excited to try another pose or two as I head into the weekend.

Thanks for all the criticism/help to those that criticized/helped. Appreciate it.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Crack That WIP

Tried adding more exaggeration to the curve of the spine and a more relaxed, "just hanging there" look to the left arm.

More WIP-iness

Still tweaking the left arm and a bit of the spine.


This one ain't bad, I guess. I posed this way myself and it didn't feel "unnatural", which was my concern.



This one felt more natural(supposed to have his thumb hooked in his non-existent pocket), but I don't think it reads as nicely as the other one.

Week 2 WIP: Reloaded

Did some more twiddling here, and eliminated the props.




Trying to work that left arm and left leg a bit.  General consensus from input I've received is that the dangling arm didn't read well(I agree).  A few folks commented that the leg needed to look straighter too, since it's what's driving the character's back into the post he was leaning on.

I may need to make the arc in his torso a little more pronounced, from left to right too.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Week 2 Pose WIP

So, I decided to go with the sketch of the guy leaning against a column at the airport for my first foray here. Here's the first pass:



Thoughts are welcome.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Descent Into Week 2: Sketch-o-potamus

So, given that I knew we'd be needing to dive into gesture type stuff pretty quickly in this term, I've been carting around my sketchbook the past few weeks just in case I saw anything interesting.  Figured I'd go ahead and throw up the better stuff I was able to tweak out.

First couple samples are from the past weekend at the beach.  It's been forever since I've done any gesture drawings of this type and I realized quickly that my speed has semi-deserted me. :)  I was hoping for more action-y type stuff, as it was a beautiful day and not very hot, but everyone was content to loung/stroll it seemed.  Didn't get much of anything dynamic, and what little I did get I had to capture in just a few seconds and then tweak out from memory afterwards:




These next crop of thumbs were from a couple weeks ago at a few airports while my wife and I were traveling.  Most were more interesting looking than the beach stuff, but were also generally a lot of people doing similar things.  One plus about these was that I could typically get more sketch done before folks moved, since you're doing a lot of standing around waiting at the airport, so I was able to flesh these out a little more on the spot for each of these:



At any rate, that's where I'm at so far.  Haven't started playing with any actual posing in Maya yet, though I think a couple from this group could be interesting, but I'm hoping to hit the dog park tomorrow.  That's usually a decent place for people watching and I may get something I like a little better.