domingo, 22 de enero de 2012

Week 3... pfff!

Ok, so, here's my early entry for this week. I got an early revision form my mentor Don, so even better to complete this post.

Geez! So, that was a hard week, and the hardest part is: Its not even the hard part yet!
Mainly, we were asked to animate a bouncing ball with the weight of a basket ball or similar and a pose showing excitement, along, of course, with both the planning and the sketches.

The bouncing ball was hard, even though I've animated some thing before, now in AM its really going back to the basics and start from there, get it right and understand, I think that's an amazing method, because before I just had to kinda learn-what-was-happening, kinda animate kinda get-it-done-NOW! So going into the basics like this has been really helpful, there's so much to understand and to really acknowledge, before you even think about animation something as "Simple" ( ejem...not simple at all) as a ball. It can get a bit overwhelming, because you really want to just get it done and have it look amazing but... well not yet.

With the bouncing ball, there are so many things to keep in mind!
Spacing, sense of weight, timing, residual bounces...pweff!
First thing to note is that the height right after the bounce (Contact) should be slightly lower than the one previous to the bounce, and go forth keeping that in mind, also having it bounce each time, at least half of the previous height.


The thing I got most REALLY MOST trouble with, was making the residual bounces and the tiny comeback/rollback/translate back thing on the ball at the end, because right now it just comes to an abrupt stop and that does not work at all...
I need to work on that and figure, but mostly, understand how that works in the curves, because I get such a messy result every time I try to fix it....

So, here´s how both my pose and bouncing ball came out, please fell free to give any feedback!


http://vimeo.com/35473375

Cheers!!

Revision

jueves, 19 de enero de 2012

Week 2 sum up!

Ok... yes... I know now its almost the end of week three but I swear I've been meaning to post since Sunday, then I wanted to wait for Don's (My mentor) Critique and then... well, ok no excuses!

So, Week two is over; it was actually quite a fantastic one, our assignment was to sketch some poses, go outside, and sketch, sketch sketch. Then pick our favorite one and pose it on Stu! Which was actually pretty fun, because, even when he's a fun fella, he's not that friendly to pose. He's got this HUGE head and hands, so most of the poses you draw, turn out a bit different when you try them on him. But this is actually a pretty good thing, this way, and with this I'm gonna quote some of the amazing feedback I got form my Fellow students, peers and mentor, it helps you understand the importance of basic and important things, to nae a few:
1.-Line of action
2.- Negative spaces
3.-Silhouette.
3.5.- Arcs
4.- No twining. (which basically means, try to avoid joints touching each other or limbs doing the exact same thing)
5.- The curve! This one being a new one for me, most of the shapes we do, draw or pose, have a curve, either in a C o S shape (both can be inverted) And understanding this was really great, good discovery, it does really change the way you start planning your sketches, and your poses; It does, like one of the lectures says, make you see the world different, is like starting to understand how things work and why they move and how they do it. Its really fascinating.

Yes, there's plenty of other things you have to mind while posing and sketching, not to mention animating, but So far, this week those up there were the ones that got to me the strongest.
I'm gonna try and make this posts a bit more interesting, because there's so many images and links that might help you understand what I'm babbling about, but its gonna have to be for the next one.. sorry! I gotta go a bounce a basketball!!

Thanks and see you again! (For whom might be reading)

BTW, Here's how my sketches and Stu came out last week.


domingo, 8 de enero de 2012

First week's gone.

So, apparently in only one blink, first week is over.
It's funny how time can go so very s-lo-o-w-l-y when you're waiting for something so badly and the suddenly you're there and first week... gone, finní, adiós....
Anyway...
So week one is over already and I've already have a lecture for week 2 and a new assignment. For week one we only had to update our profile, introduce ourselfs to our Mentor, classmates and basically start expolirng the campus and talking to some of our fellow students, and getting around.
For this second week we're gonna upload some sketches of poses and choose the one we think works the best and use STU! ( Yei! ) to pose him with the one we choose.
It's gonna be real fun and basically and very important this week is gonna be all about OBSERVING! observe observe and observe a lot, start to learn how the body moves and how to make a pose out of lines, and rough sketches and simplify what we see and be able to translate those poses into lines and eventually make them work, and be readable in a drawn and 3D character.
Pweef!
I've never been any good at drawing so this is gonna be fun... A fellow student recomended the book: "Simplify drawing for planing animation" by Wayne Gilbert, so I'm gonna stick with it as a bible.

I also started reading, this week, "The Illusion of Life" and though I'm not done with it yet, it's incredibly amazing, and I don't think this is a one-time reading book. Each chapter is full of all this amazing information and history that you just can't let go of it. Every page I turn it's a new discovery and its just as if I knew absolutely nothing of animation.

So... back to week 2
I'm starting to stress out a bit for not knowing exactly how I'm gonna organize my self and my time to get it all done by sunday, but most of it, organize to actually getting the most out of the subjects of this week, be sure to get them all in my mind as firmly as possible, cuz I know, all the basics are gonna be the most importat to hold on to in my entire animating journey.
I'm gonna work in a to-do list and workflow for this week, and I'll make sure to let you know how it goes and what works for it.

Well, this was a long post, so, I'm off to planning.
See ya around!

lunes, 2 de enero de 2012

30 minutes to go!!!

We're 30 minutes away for Winter 2012 term to start.
I don't even find a way to stay still, stop moving and silly giggling for the excitement!
I'm shushing everyone around since 9 am and time is moving so slowly!

domingo, 1 de enero de 2012

The previous night.

So, hello there!
Here I am, just 13 hours 'till my very first Animation Mentor class.
Geez, it feels like forever since I've been wanting for this, I can hardly express the feeling but right now it feels like a dream come true; the rest of my life is about to begin.

Happy animating!