Class 2 Week 3 - Progress

This week is going to be about moving from blocked into linear or spline mode. We had to get our shot from last week into blocking plus. So this means no stepped mode and setting up the timing, spacing, overlaps and so on.

After I was quite sure that I've set all breakdowns and In-betweens I needed I selected all helpers in my scene and switched into linear. After making the first playblast I was kind of shocked about the result but who isn't? ;)

So I started to clean every curve very roughly to get the basic feeling of the animation as it was shown in the blocking. After this step the fun part began. Breaking up the movements so they wont hit every key pose on the same frame. Also getting rid of the even spacing in the movements. The next step was to concentrate on the arcs of every body part. I tried to make sure that everything wasn’t moving in a straight line. After a lot of hours tweaking the curves and going back and forth on some parts I started to tweak the knee pops and adjusted the stretch on the legs as needed. 

An with a lot of feedback and great comments of my AM fellers the animation looks now like this

I hope to get some more comments during the weekend to change the last things here and there for now. So I hope you like the animation. Thanks for reading and see you soon :)

New Class, New Mentor, New assignments

So quite a long time I haven't posted anything because there was noting to post.
The new Class started last week and had our first Q&A with our new Mentor Anthea Kerou.
She worked on some great movies like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Planet 51, Bolt and is working right now on Transformers 3. Here you can check her awesome demo reel

The first assignment for the new class was to get some reference video for the shot we want to animate.
I chose to do the big step with Ballie. To make things a bit more challenging I let Ballie step from a boat onto a pier. I planed out everything for a frame limit of about 120-140 frames.
After my Mentor saw my planning, she told me to add some kind of ending to the animation. For her it seemed more like an assignment ending ;)
So with the help of some classmates we figured out some possible endings for the shot. The next day I started to block out an ending with was kind of an combination of some of our ideas.
This is my current work progress.

*Update* - This is my latest progress and I call it final for this week

After today's Q&A I will know if there is going on to much or not, so stay tuned for next week when it goes into blocking plus.

Class 1 - Week 12 - My Progress Reel

The last assignment is done. I uploaded my progress reel and on Friday the class 1 term will be officially over.

I'm looking forward to see the reels of my classmates and of the other AM students. I think this will be great source of inspiration :)

If you want to see my reel as a quicktime file just click here.

Class 1 - Week 11

So this is the last animation assignment in class 1. Its the polished version of my personality walk and the balance Stu-pose.

This week started kind of strange. I got my critique and tweaked my animation a little bit and than, I was nearly done for this week. The last assignment is to put all animations into one reel.
I render a few animation and the poses I made during the last weekend. So for now, I'm considering to put some music in my reel. I read a lot that this is not such a great idea because you can't pic music witch everyone will like. Now I'm gonna with a kind of drum-solo, maybe I'll find something else.

Earlier this day I talked with a classmate of mine and we both agree that its kind of strange starting a week without planning an animation or give it some thoughts. Next week AM will be closed and than a 2 week break benign. I'm planning to read some animation related books during the break and work more on my drawing and planning skills. In addition to that I'll try to animate one or two walks too. But as it is witch planning things for breaks, we only have two weeks and they will pass so quickly.

Later this week I will upload my progress reel for class one and hope you stay tuned for my class 2 animation. I'm so looking forward to get myself in more animation assignments and hope I can learn tons of things next class.

That’s it for now, and here is my work

Class 1 - Week 10

Time is flying by so fast, week 11 is almost over. Right now I'm working on my last big assignment for class 1. Bringing the personality walk into spline mode and getting the last Stu pose done. This week the Stu pose was about balance. I must say that I am quite happy  that this is the last pose for this class. It was not always so easy to came up with something that hadn't been done before, if this is possible at all.

So next week we have to put everything we made over the last 3 month into one quick time file and our first progress reel is done :)

For this I try to tweak all my animations again and add a few frames here and there to get everything nice and smooth.

For last week We had to come up with a Stu pose witch communicates exhaustion.

Also we had to get the blocking done for our personality walk.

Hopefully you have fun with this and stay tuned for the progress reel :)

 

Class 1 - Week 9

The last few days were very busy. I moved on Sunday so had a lot of packing to do and of course unpacking.
The assignment was to convert the blocking of the vanilla walk into spline mode. Besides that we had to do a new pose witch communicates "concerned". It wasn't so easy to come up with something that isn't so cliche. Without any facial expressions its tough to tell that one.
Hopefully you like the work. This week we have to animate a personality walk witch is awesome. Its really cool to see what people come up with and even if like ten people make a sneak walk its ten times a total different walk. I decided to make a kind of double bounce walk with a bit of jumping in it. So stay tuned for next week, than you guys gonna see the blocking stage.

Class 1 - Week 8

The last week was all about vanilla walks. The assignment was to animate Ballie in stepped mode. We had to animate a walk cycle without any personality.

In addition to that we had to come up with a physical strength pose with our Stu-character.

Luckily I hadn't have to change much on the pose and the blocking so I went straight over to the new assignment. This week we have to finish our walk cycle and do a concerned pose with Stu.

Ok than, here are the last week assignments and the revision of the tailor assignment