Maya

For our next module, Acting For Animation, we have another presentation and two animations to do. My presentation is going to be on psychological gestures which, when our tutor gave us the gist of what that is, sounds like something I really need actually! Watch this space for research on that!

One of the animations we are going to do is the March 11 Second Club competition which should be fun. No idea what the clip is going to be but we'll see in March! I think it's going to be a dialogue, or at least our tutor seems confident it's going to be.

The other animation is going to be a team effort about mime auditions. In groups of 3 we have to decide on a location, the stage, lighting, layout etc and animate a character each who is auditioning for a mime position of some description (could be a talent contest, screening for a kids party etc).
For the team animation, I am going to learn Maya because it's a program I've been meaning to learn (because a lot of job advertisments seem to want you to be able to use it) and my team mates (Rachel and Raf) also use Maya. So that's going to be fun...

I haven't decided whether to stick with SoftImage or use Maya for the 11 second club animation. It depends on what the clip is and if I'm allowed to use Malcolm. As far as I'm aware, there are certain rigs you are not allowed to use (if you are entering into the competition anyway, which I might because why not? haha. No seriously, it'll be interesting to see what feedback I get from the community there and if it helps me improve my animating skills then it'll be worth it!) and Malcolm belongs to AnimSchool, who have certain rules about using him, so I'm not sure if he's allowed. It's hard to find decent, WORKING rigs for SoftImage. It also depends how I'm getting on with Maya. I'll be playing around with Maya this weekend.

Scrapped!

I've decided to scrap all the blocking and lip syncing for my presenter animation (don't worry, I made two copies and kept the original file with the blocking on!!). It wasn't going well because I'd lip synced first and tried to block afterward which wasn't an issue in the first lip sync task but presented problems during a bigger task.
Basically I was having problems blocking over the lip sync, as it would key the face controls too which was something I didn't want it to do. So I've decided to do the blocking first, then lip sync after I've finished blocking, like the process of an animation video I posted a few posts ago.

Juuuust keeping you updated.
I'm taking a break from the presenter animation so that I can come back to it with a fresh mind. In the meantime, I'm working on the song and dance animation with Another One Bites The Dust by Queen.

Pendulum: Test 1

I rendered a quick first test of my pendulum for feedback from other students yesterday. I wasn't really happy with it. I thought it was too long and not enough really happened to demonstrate follow through and overlapping action.



I got some feedback on it last night from last year's Masters students who pointed out that the pendulum's swings weren't quite swinging lower than the previous. I agree with this as someone had previously said that the swings 'snap' more than actually swing. I also noticed the second drag isn't quite right either.

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I also had feedback about my latest render of the ball animation from previous students. Both say the second arc of the yellow ball needs less air time and the arcs need widening a bit. They also think that the black ball enters too quickly and suggest spacing it out a bit.
Watching the reference of the black ball again, it does seem that the ball does enter really fast but it does not play well in my animation. So I will follow the advice given to me and try and space it out a bit to see if that improves. Another camera angle might also help..

EDIT: Also, I have some sketches I need to upload from the previous week (note to self).

Ball Animation: Test 3

Apparently I've already exceeded my weekly upload allowance at Vimeo so I've had to open a new Youtube account so that I can put more vids on here.

Anyway, after feedback from other students on my course, I've tweaked the animation. Main feedback was the yellow ball's slow down wasn't natural (slowed down too fast) and the 8 Ball zoomed off screen too quickly. I've also rendered from home so the textures are fixed now. I'm pretty happy with this test though it probably could do with some more tweaking. I'm not sure where to go from here so I'm going to leave this and begin the pendulum assignment. I will get feedback on both on Wednesday.

And it begins..

First day on the Masters course was Tuesday 4th October and I already have plenty to do!

# 6+ pages of sketches from life. (Images soon to be uploaded.)

# Presentation for 12th Oct on an animation principle (Follow Through and Overlapping Action).

# Ball Animation:

"Principles employed: Timing, ease in ease out.

This task lets you explore some basic principles with the simplest of models. Using the 3d software of your choice; animate 2 balls with different physical properties. Such as: a beach ball and a bowling ball or a balloon and a tennis ball. I would like you to explore the difference between how the two balls move. The balls should not have personality at this stage; this is a simple exercise in physics. I would like to see the balls bounce and also hit another simple obstacle such as a box. How this happens is up to you. The balls should have some sort of texture or marking to show rotational movement."

# Pendulum Animation:

"Principles employed: Timing, ease in ease out, follow through and overlapping action.

Create box and a ball and link them together by a three boned chain. The box must be at the top and the ball at the bottom. Move the box and animate the action as the momentum travels down the bones to the ball. The quicker the box moves the more exaggerated the resulting pendulum movement will be. Experiment with moving the box in different ways."