New planning/reference for Week 7

New reference video for upcoming shot. Sort of cut up, but you'll get the jist:



New planning sketches(click for the 100% version):

Class 3: Weeks 1-3

Guh....where's the time gone?!

Been busy as HEEEY-YELL with actual 9-5 work, on top of school, so I haven't posted anything lately. I know, I know. *shame*

At any rate, I've thrown up my most recent blocking + pass for the current sequence I'm working on. It's basically a third of a complete shot that we were responsible for working up, storyboarding and animating over the course of this 12 week term.




And here are the planning sketches for the whole sequence:

Fin: Class 2

Meant to throw this up here earlier, but have been taking it easy the last few days. That last 12 weeks flew past, but they were brutal from a "amount of work" standpoint, what with school/real job/freelance.

Was a great term though. Lots of cool takeaways and inspiration from both mentor and fellow student alike. Kick ass.

At any rate, here's my progress reel from AM Class 2. Still a long way to go, but I think I'm on the right track:

Overlap test

Get Yer Knees Flexin' and Yer Arms T-Rexxin'

Do da creep!



What I've discovered this week: Dances are HARD.

Week 7: Shot Comparison

Wrasslin' with the knees/legs here as I finish up polishing this assignment.


Straight legs on the extremes:



Less straight legs on the extremes:

Wind Walkin': More Timing Tests

So, I tweaked out a bunch of stuff based off of my mentor's notes here, and I've thrown up two options for timing on the initial reaction/resistance when the door blows open and knocks Stew off balance(around f16-f30 in both shots). Thoughts, as always, are welcome:

A...



B...



I think B "feels" better, but I'm open to hearing arguments otherwise. :)

Heel Click Final Pass and Pressing Forward

So, I figured I'd hit Dimos' notes from his "final critique" for this assignment then throw up my final pass of this thing here for posterity:




Moving onto assignment 5 with the blocking of this little number:




I should probably see what he thinks of it this afternoon. This one was a bit more challenging than I anticipated, or rather different parts of the shot were more challenging than I thought they would be while other parts were more straightforward than I expected. Go figure.

Re-timing tests

Tweaking(probably OVER tweaking) the timing of the heel click itself(around f55).


A:



B:



C:




Original Timing:

Clicks McClickinghan

That's right.  He's Scotish. ;)

Just throwing up my re-block of this heel click shot here, with Dimos' notes addressed/a few other massages and tweaks...

Re-block:



And here's the first dirty(nothing adjusted at all) spline blast....

Spline:

Still Clickin'

Throwing the newest revision of my advanced blocking up here for posterity:



Still wondering if I need to hold a few of the poses there for a frame or so longer. I think I may need a breakdown or two in there as well, but think it's going to negatively effect the timing I've got rolling here(which I'm warming to. Hmmm....decisions, decisions....).

Timing tests

A:



B:

Class 2 - Week 2: Blocking for Heel Click Shot

So, for the next couple weeks our task will be to take the reference we shot and planning sketches we came up with and realize that in a short animation with the Ballie character.

For this week's assignment, we were to get our basic idea fully blocked out for approval.  Here's what I came up with:




This was a interesting exercise, in that Dimos(our mentor) has challenged us to try and completely think about our animations this term as nothing more than a sequence of drawings(in this case, "poses", but it amounts to the same thing), and treat animating in CG more as you would if you were animating traditionally with pen and paper.  Along those lines, he advised that at this stage of the process worrying about how curves look in the graph editor is pretty much a complete waste of time...a departure from just about any other training I've ever received("I animate characters, not spaghetti" is how I believed he expressed it.)  This kind of struck home about halfway through my blocking, as I realized I was busting this stuff out waaaaaay faster than I normally had been. 

To this point, and that includes going back to my original training in 3D, it has been pretty much hammered home that clean curves in the GE are paramount...and keeping them clean from the earliest stages is "the preferred method."   So, after getting initial poses I would spend a great deal of time adjusting tangents even in the earliest of stages.  I can understand why one would think this way, and totally understand why one would want to use that method, but after doing it this way for even just a couple weeks......I'm pretty much sold.  Yes, I get that I will still be in the graph editor cleaning up stuff later.  Yeah, I understand that maintaining control of the tangents is paramount in some instances, but for getting down good looking blocking that will allow me to quickly begin adjusting timing/spacing,  using this method(treating the 3D poses as 2D drawings) just seems to blow my old method completely out of the water. 

It also dovetails nicely with another suggestion that Dimos has made a few times already this term: If you feel that you need another pose to control timing/spacing/whatever.....just create another pose and adjust the timing/spacing/whatever already!  If that means you're dropping poses on ones, then so be it.....yet another thing that was anathema, in my experience, so far.   "Economy of keys" has been pounded into my brain for so long, particularly when working on games, it's going to take some work to stop worrying about that. :)

As with all things, I'm sure there are instances where this method won't be as optimal.....but I'd be willing to wager they're few and far between.  To be able to do something that took me a day, or more, before and be able to get it to the same level of completion in hours is pretty awesome.  Hard to argue against something that makes you more efficient without losing any quality(and in most cases is improving it).

AM Class 2: The "Dimos on 3" World Tour

So, we ramped up into "Class 2: Intro To Body Mechanics" this evening and I got to meet all my new(and a few old) classmates, as well as our mentor for this go-round, Dimos Vrysellas.

At first blush, this really seems like it should be a kick-ass term.  I think I may have a complete, platonic man-crush on Dimos already. :)  He's been doing this a good while, has a background in traditional animation as well(which I dearly love.  Miyazaki FTW!), really comes off that he knows his stuff, but also totally seems to understand that even if you're an avowed workaholic(guilty) you can't take yourself  TOO seriously or you're likely to go ape shat.  In other words, he "gets it"(in my opinion, anyway).  I dig that.  He's reputed to be a "harsher critic/grader"(he, however, insists that "harsh" should be replaced with "honest"), but I sort of welcome that.  Can't get better if you aren't pushed/held to a higher standard, etc.
 
This crop of co-students seems to have a nice range of folks with some prior/current experience in CG and a few with next to none.  I tend to prefer a mix like that.  I get to learn things I may not have known from the fellow "industry experienced" folks, while at the same time get to pickup on some of the more basic fundamentals that I may have been taking for granted since the less experienced individuals will be more likely to ask for those things to be explained in greater detail.

Even more stoked to get this ramped up this term after this evening.

Bring it!!

AM Class 1: That's a Wrap!

So, I managed to muscle through the last couple weeks(so. friggin'. busy!) and we're at the completion of the first term.  It's been awesome, but I'm certainly stoked to ramp up into the more advanced work in Class 2 and beyond.

Got to meet a bunch of cool folks, got some excellent input from our mentor(thanks again for everything, Scott) and really got "re-inspired to make this happen" pretty much every week.  Thanks to everyone for all the help/commiseration/criticism/encouragement. It was always truly appreciated.

For posterity's sake, here's my progress reel for perusal if you're feelin' that way:

Fair and Balanced

Rolling into the home stretch here for Class 1 with AM. This, for all intents and purposes, will be our final week of assignments. On the docket this go round will be a refinement of last week's character walk, as a perspective shot, and our final pose with the Stu rig.

I've decided to jump on the pose early and get it out of the way prior to descending into character walk splining/polishing/etc. Here are my initial sketches:

I'm feeling #'s 8 and 9 the strongest.  Thinking #8 is going to be the winner.

A vs. B?

Trying a couple different sequences here for my personality walk. Undecided on which one I think "feels" best:

A


B


Thoughts?

Mr. Personality.....Walk

Okay, I went back to the planning phase on this(a bit) and tried giving the ol' ball w/legs more of a "motivation" instead of having him just immediately marching across the screen:

I've also thrown together an initial shot for the pose assignment due this week, in which we were to have our biped emote "exhaustion."  Here's that first pass as well:

More Silly Walks

Second pass, adding in more steps/refining the poses a bit:

Ministry of Ballie Walks

And we're off!

So, here we sit in Week 10, out of 12, in the first block of AM.  This is flying by.  Gah.

This week's go-round builds upon the last few week's "vanilla walk cycle" and entails creating a "walk cycle with character."  A walk with character, you say?  Well, if you insist.....

:)

I've soooo been intending to give this a shot since I saw this assignment on the syllabus in Week One.  Here's my initial planning doc:

I'll be diving into blocking this bad boy out later today.  This should be fun.


And here's the aforementioned first "dirty pass" at blocking(the timing still needs serious work. I'm just getting down poses at this point):