Feedback is a wonderful thing.

Feedback is a great thing! After working on the vanilla walk for so long, things start to slip past you. I received some awesome feedback from lots of other mentors, students, and my own mentor. It definitely opened up my eyes and I can't believe I didn't spot these before turning it in. I guess that goes to show that we, as students, are learning and improving a great deal at this school.

Unfortunately I won't have too much time throughout this week to revise it with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up this week. I also have a walk with personality due this week as well as an emotional pose for Stu. I wish I had the time to work on it this week before attempting the personality walk because I think that having a good, solid, foundational vanilla walk would be a good thing to have in your bag before trying something like a personality walk. Make no mistake, I will be devoting time to practicing walk cycles come this winter break! =)

Vanilla is so nice and smooth.

Just finished with this session's assignment which was to take the blocked pass from last week and add the in-betweens as well as a concerned pose for Stu. So now I have a nice, smooth vanilla walk. I know there are still some things I need to fix on the walk, but I've run out of time yet again.

This is the very first ever walk cycle I've ever animated so I'm pretty happy with it and I'm pretty sure in a few days I'll look back at it and go, "Why did I turn it in, there are so many things wrong with it!". Such is the life of the animator, ever-changing and always improving especially when you're a student.

During our winter break, I plan to spend some time going over these assignments and putting in more practice. I really want these foundations to sink in so I have a good understanding of them when the body mechanics class rolls around.

Clean-up time, from stepped to spline.

All of the AM assignments I've done before were all animated in a layered, straight-ahead fashion. I've never converted from stepped to spline before so I had no idea what to expect. So there I go, taking one body part at a time and converting them over. Just for kicks I played it back to see what I would get. Feet were getting disconnected here and there, rotations were all funky, and all other kinds of animated mayhem ensued. Just be thankful you didn't have to see it. I will spare you the agony and forego posting it here.

I started smoothing out the curves, caressing them to try and get something that represents my blocked walk cycle from last week. One of the major problem areas I had was how the lower leg would rotate so far and snap back so it would be straight up when it hit the passing pose. After a few hours of coaxing hte curves, trying this and that, and several (incrementally) saved files later I get something that looks like a walk. As soon as I got that far I posted it up for public review and hopefully my fellow students can help me pinpoint any problem areas.

Cleaning up animation is no joke. It's pretty hard work, especially if you haven't done it before. I was going back and forth through the frames trying to get a sense of what was happening and what should be happening. Even though it's a lot of work, I actually had a lot of fun doing it. It was challenging and enjoyable at the same time if that makes any sense.

Final assignment for session 8.

Here is the final video I submitted for this week's assignment. I've kept the previous walk and will wait and see what my mentor says about it. I couldn't work on it anymore because I was running out of time to work on the strong pose that was due this week as well. I feel like I needed a bit more time to tweak the blocking, but a deadline's a deadline. With the feedback I get from me mentor, hopefully my plain vanilla walk will be just as smooth as the ice cream. =)

As for the strong pose, I really tried to go for a pose that was not a physical strong but a type of attitude. I think it turned out okay, still needs a bit or work though. I also threw up a physical version of that pose just in case the attitude one doesn't go over to well.

Second ballie pass.

Here we go with the second pass for this week's blocking assignment of Ballie. What's been updated so far is that I added the squash and stretch (I hope I added to the right places). I also switched the z-rotation on the passing pose. So now the that the side with the passing is actually lower than the side with the supporting leg. Before I had it so it rotated upward, bringing the passing leg higher. I'm not sure which way is the right way yet, so we'll see which one ends up being right. I may barely have enough time to work on this assignment one more time before submitting it. Hopefully I can get feedback as to what else needs tweaking. As for those blog readers out there, feel free to drop a hint or two my way. ;)



I still haven't started on the strong pose for Stu yet. I'll work on that first tomorrow before fine tuning the walk further. Hope your weekend turns out to be a good one!

First pass for ballie.

Here's my first pass for the session 8 assignment. We were given a new rig named Ballie, which is basically a ball with two legs. One of our assignments was to get a blocking pass down of Ballie walking for 2 full cycles. It took me awhile to get it to this stage. The hardest part for me has to be the hip rotation and I'm not even sure if I got it right. I kept second-guessing myself and starting over, which is the reason I got this first pass done so late. So here it is for all to view. If you feel the need and desire to rip it apart and critique the hell out of it, consider this your invitation to do just that! =) Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! by yours truly.



The second part of our assignment is to come up with a pose for Stu that conveys the feeling of strength. I got a couple of rough ideas sketched out, but I'm not too happy with them. I want it to be an emotional feeling, not just physical so hopefully I'll come up with something interesting.

Another session - another week.

We are blazing through this session people! It's already session 8 and there are only 12 sessions in a term. Before you know it, we'll be in body mechanics! This week we have a our first real blocking assignment due as well as a pose from Stu that communicates the feeling of strength. I haven't really blocked out my work before because I felt it's been easier going though the layering and straight-ahead method. This assignment looks like blocking material for sure.

As I'm going through this course I find that I'm planning my shots out more in more detail. When I sit down to animate the first thing I think to myself is if I even know what I'm going to try and do. I think I can take my planning farther and get more detailed because right now they don't include frame numbers, just poses, breakdowns, and paths of action. I do understand the value of planning though. The more I plan, the easier it is.

My assignment last week got critiqued yesterday. One cool thing Bret does in her eCritique is to tell you why something needs to be changed. It helps greatly in understanding why you need to change it and improves you as an animator. I just revised it and uploaded it to my student workspace.

Now on to planning this weeks assignment. Stay cool cats! =)

Final pass for session 7.

This is my last pass for the session 7 assignment. I tightened up the anticipation and settle just a bit. It felt a bit slow and weak before so hopefully this version will work out better. I'll be gone all weekend so this is the last chance I have to work on this assignment. I wish I had more time to work on it, but such is life. See everybody when I get back!

Second pass at session 7.

Wow! I got lots of feedback regarding my session 7 assignment. This is one of the strongest points of AM people! Feedback on how your assignment could be improved upon from people of different backgrounds and varied experiences. It's one of the most important tools when learning to be an animator.

Back on track here, the general consensus was that my anticipation and landing were very linear. So I'm trying to get some nice arcs in there to get a more dynamic motion out of them. Below is the second revision of this week's assignment. Feel free to leave feedback if you so desire. ;)

First pass at session 7 assignment

After some pretty intense planning, I put up my first pass at this week's assignment up for public review in my AM workspace. For those of you browsing my blog and would like to take a look at what I've done so far I've included the playblast below. It's still very much a work-in-progress, but I would still appreciate any feedback you care to provide.

Animation Mentor BBQ and Session 7.

Where else could you have a BBQ just before November and still enjoy a warm, sunny day? Yup that's right, Southern California AM students met up for the day (or half day depending on how early you or late you got there) at a nice park in Marina Del Rey. Great people were present as well as great food. We talked about AM, earthquakes, animation as a career, cartoons, etc. A great time was had by all.

This session's assignment is a collaboration of all the principles we've learned so far. I really wanted to take some time with this assignment and possibly revise my past one with Tailor with my mentor's critiques in mind. But something has come up this weekend so I really only have until Thursday evening to complete the assignment and turn it in. I've been planning most of the day yesterday and hope to break my planning down to specific frames today before taking it into Maya to animate. Hopefully I can pull it off! Wish me luck blog readers! ;)