Week 3

I've been a bit late posting this week...by about a week! :) But anyway, week 3 was an introduction to planning and blocking methods. Our assignment was to animate a bouncing ball (with the weight of a basketball/soccer ball). As it was our first actual animation assignment it wasn't necessary to add rotation...phew! We also had to sketch different poses to communicate excitement. Not as easy as it sounds when you consider that probably post emotion is shown through the face, and our model was faceless :) But it's a great way to involve the whole body in the pose. I've read many great quotes about posing the whole body to communicate an emotion and this was a great way to get introduced to that. I think the hardest thing was to avoid the clichéd poses. I think as a result of trying to avoid this I've chosen a pose that wasn't quite as strong as some of the others. I think it's ok sometimes to submit a clichéd pose as we're still learning. Anyway...here's my work for this week :)

This is maybe what I should've submitted? :)

Week 2

So we're just about to wrap up with week 2 and the assignment was to go out and quickly sketch people in various situations, capturing the pose. We've had a ton of snow recently...which as it turns out was great for me cos I was able to draw some guys playing Ice Hockey on a frozen lake. It was insanely hard to capture the pose even with a simple stick figure cos the action was thick and fast, so I had to turn to some photo's I took and use them as a reference. The next task was to take our most successful sketch and pose Stu like it in Maya. I've had a whole load of great feedback and suggestions from all the guys at AM, and I'm super chuffed with the result. So here it is...

It's here!!!

Today's been such a blur. Ok...so yesterday was my first "official" day at Animation Mentor...but I did a 14 hour shift at work :( So today's my actual first day at AM, and man...was it a mix of emotions. Mostly excitement with a whole bunch of nerves thrown in for good measure. It's kinda like being on a rollercoaster...you know that bit where you're slowly going up and up and up, and you know that when you slow down and get to the top it's gonna be the best feeling in the world from there on in. That was today.

I had my class 1 Q&A and got to meet my mentor and classmates. There's a lot of talent in my class. A lot of previous experience. Some animation, some modeling and texturing and stuff, but I think I was one of the least experienced people in my class. I think it's a good thing though. It's gonna push me to do my best. It's almost like the realization that "you know what...this is gonna be hard." But man...I can't even put into words how much I want this. How excited I am. It's gonna be an awesome ride!

So my Class 1 mentor is Eric Lessard. He's a real nice guy, who's worked on such recent epics such as Antz, Shrek 1, 2 and 3, and Madagascar 1 and 2 amongst other things. I just know I'm gonna learn a whole load of stuff from him. Bring it on... :)

Prep and Landing

Just finished watching Disney's Prep and Landing and man...I was blown away! These guys really are back on top form. It was such a great, heart-warming story which kinda reminded me of stuff I used to watch as a kid. Stuff like they don't do anymore. I'm such a kid, and I freakin' LOVE Disney AND Christmas, so this was perfect for me. Amazing animation, stunning visuals, great gags...just plain awesome! Seriously...check it out. The main character is Wayne, who after working for 227 years as part of the elite "Prep and Landing" crew for the big man himself, is sure he's up for promotion. Unfortunately it goes to his partner, and the guy he trained up, Robertson. Dismayed and given a new rookie partner, Lammy, who's not the brightest of fairy lights, Wayne heads out once again, this time with a little less spring in his step. Hilarity and action ensue as they team up to try and save Timmys Christmas. Hmm...reading this in my head I sound like one of those movie trailer voice-over guys! :) "Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit!" :) Haha! Ok...I'm off to get some figgy pudding. Happy holidays everone...

The final countdown...

Well...this is it. The final assignment for the Maya Springboard Program. I can't even begin to tell you how quickly these last few weeks have gone. It's crazy. I'm gonna miss it. Hmm...maybe not the Q&A's at 3.00 in the morning! :) It's been a great experience already, and it's just the begining. I can't wait until January 4th when I officially become an Animation Mentor student :D Big thanks to my mentor Carlos Fins for all his help, and the rest of the class :)

So here's the final assignment. I'm not 100% satisfied with it. The jumps ok...but I just couldn't nail the slip up at the end.

Finishing touches...

Well I think I finally got finished up on the robot arm. Had a great Q&A which cleared up constraints and let us all put on the finishing touches to this assignment. This was really fun to do, and I'm glad I put a different spin on it by going for a more cartoony approach. Ok, so it's not perfect, and I'm sure I could spend a lot more hours tracking the arcs, looking out for spacing issues and a whole bunch of other things. But I'm gonna put this on the shelf for now and look forward to the next assignment.

Giving it more "snap"...

While doing the robot arm assignment I really thought I needed to give it more "snap" and I remembered that in an earlier exercise I'd posted on the 11 Second Club forums I was recommended that I take a look at one of Keith Lango's tutorials on snappy cartoon motion. It gave me a great insight into offsetting keys to add extra snap, and that you can actually add more snap by lengthening the time of the movement. It gave 3 examples that I've posted here. There's a couple of problems with the arms getting twisted in FK mode that I don't know how to fix, but as a quick exercise I think it's kinda successful and I learnt a great lesson. The first video is literally 2 key frames at either extreme with the tangents set to linear:

In the second one I offsetted the keys to add overlap, also adding ease in and out of the move:

And in the last one I pushed the extremes and actually pulled the key for the lower arm to hit the extreme the same time as the upper arm, just dragging back the hand and fingers, but giving a greater build up to each move:

It's a simple little exercise, and I didn't have time to move the rest of the body at all. I just wanted to focus in the arm. I think it's pretty successful.