tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21924333476574314572024-03-05T05:50:31.290+00:00The Bear BlogThe journey and animations of Stuart Munro (aka Stubear) through his travels in the world of animation and VFX (and maybe beyond).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-51815734005270562302012-08-10T15:42:00.000+01:002012-08-10T15:44:13.719+01:00Something new...Hello interweb goers. After taking a couple of weeks off enjoying the sun (what little there's been) and some bowls it's time to get back to work (and blogger).<br />
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As I don't have a job yet I've decided to take a step away from just doing animation, and try to do more of a whole VFX shot to improve my skills in other areas. The idea of the shot is to integrate a CG creature into a live action plate, and in the process I can learn tracking and improve my lighting and comp skills. Then hopefully I'll have something good for my showreel that demonstrates my skills for VFX.<br />
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So here's what I have so far, a tracked plate with a quick slap comp of the creature.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="366" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/47175319?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="650"></iframe>
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And here is an image of a better comp I'm working on with no crushed blacks.<br />
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The next step is to animate the beast, I plan to have him come over the roof and down onto the paving all gorilla like (so I'll film myself for reference, ha!). I'm really looking forward to the animation and I'm excited to see how this turns out. I might even throw in some dust and effects if I have the time.<br />
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As this is mostly new to me I'd love feedback and crits on this as I go along, so feel free to give me a shout if you see something you do or don't like.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-67358679522519946092012-07-18T18:18:00.000+01:002012-07-23T11:18:32.604+01:00...3 years later...Hello again. It's been a while, and in that while I've managed to pass my degree. As surprising as it may be, 3 years after leaving home for the first time and taking the plunge into uni I've graduated with a first class degree in Computer Animation Arts from Bournemouth University. WOOOHOOO!<br />
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Anyhow, so now I'm in the process of job hunting, sending out applications etc. It's going okay but as of yet I've had no luck. In my spare time now I'm working on my animation and rigging skills, focusing on my acting performances. I'm also in the near future going to look at doing a VFX shot by myself. Film a quick plate, then track it and animate something to composite into the shot. This will be a great learning curve and will hopefully make me a more suitable fit for VFX houses in London.<br />
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Tomorrow is the Computer Animation degree show for me and I'm looking forward to that and hopefully making some connections and leads on the job front. Talking of which, below is my new animation showreel, and my generalist showreel.<br />
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Animation reel:<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="394" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/42703937?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="700"></iframe><br />
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Generalist Reel:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="394" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/45099076?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="700"></iframe>
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That's it, just a quick update about where I am right now. Hopefully I'll have some work to show once my big PC is fixed, and maybe a job too. Wish me luck for tomorrow!<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-35988709045968879742012-06-10T20:39:00.001+01:002012-06-10T20:41:38.206+01:00Finally finished...It's done! Yes we've finally finished our major project. As we want to enter it into a few festivals it's not publicly online yet. However we have made a website and trailer for the animation in order to publicise it. Here's the link if you want to check it out - <a href="http://theplaguedoctormovie.blogspot.co.uk/">theplaguedoctormovie.blogspot.co.uk</a><br />
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Because I worked in a group project we each had to produce a making of reel to show our personal contribution to the animation. I had a great deal of fun (and stress) working on the project but it's all been worth it and I'm really proud of our final film. Here is my making of reel:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="366" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/43737939?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="650"></iframe><br />
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So now I'm done it's time to take some time off before the degree show and work on some personal animation and rigging projects. Then hopefully in the near future, get a job!<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-39865802390307552412012-05-09T22:29:00.001+01:002012-05-09T22:29:10.030+01:00All of the rendering, all of the time...Hello again web goers. It seems I've been quite absent form here for a while, but things have been busy. I finally managed to finish my animation shots on the major project, thought I was done, then re-animated some shots based on feedback, but it looks better now so it's all good. And now, at last, we're rendering! Rendering is going really well, if a little slow, but the results we're getting are good. Thankfully our deadline was extended to the 8th of June, so we're not quite worried about finishing rendering just yet. However with all this rendering I find myself twiddling my thumbs a bit.<br />
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So what am I doing with my time? Mostly catching up on some gaming, but when it gets a bit tricky I relax by doing a personal rigging project which I am quite excited about. My house mate and I recently finished watching The Clone Wars series, which is very good, the style and animation is amazing. Obviously I won't be working on that project any time soon (although I would love to), so I did the next best thing - find a model like those from the series to rig and animate. So here it is, this is an awesome model of Starkiller (not official) I found in the style of The Clone Wars.<br />
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This is a WIP of my rig, none of the controls are coloured yet so it's a bit messy. But I assure you I know what everything is.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB8Ll9eLDcfWuQfgb5SfUTFNbx4SHaQp8U45DbUGfdstIBcviz1cM1U_3ys0KxzNVB6WKRNhwG-NLgUtU-SxmMGuNZNSHyvuelQ9CoBD4dLqxI4vUyPFMV3YW8xkkafo0aOPg4nJUr90DG/s1600/starkiller2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB8Ll9eLDcfWuQfgb5SfUTFNbx4SHaQp8U45DbUGfdstIBcviz1cM1U_3ys0KxzNVB6WKRNhwG-NLgUtU-SxmMGuNZNSHyvuelQ9CoBD4dLqxI4vUyPFMV3YW8xkkafo0aOPg4nJUr90DG/s640/starkiller2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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So after some re-doing of the UV maps I've gotten down to rigging. I've done my fair share of rigging before, but I'm trying to make this one right. Including stretchy stuff and dynamic cloth rigging I can't wait to get down to animating this. And hopefully getting myself a job on the show! ha. With any luck I'll have some animation of this bad boy to show you guys in June (after rendering).<br />
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Finally, keep your eyes peeled in June for our major project, it's coming together and I can't wait to see it rendered and share it with you guys.<br />
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Stu<br />
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p.s. Don't worry, I have his lightsaber ready for animation.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-49672050957179418122012-04-12T17:09:00.001+01:002012-04-12T17:21:03.812+01:00So... nearly... there...Well hello again fellow interneters. It's been over two weeks since my last post, so I think it's time for a good old fashioned progress update (and maybe a cheeky plug).<br />
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First of all, the major project! It's going well, as of today I only have 6 more shots to animate. So by the end of next week (fingers crossed) I should be done with my shots and ready to set my computer rendering. Talking of rendering we have nearly finalised our characters. We just need to tweak a few displacements maps and turn down the glossyness of the Doctor's gloves. But here you are, two rendered tudor London gentlemen.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39859195?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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And here is a quick turntable with a bit of animation to show the blend shapes of the sick man in action.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/40224527?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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I obviously can't take credit for all of the hard work that's gone into these characters. So if you're interested about who did what:<br />
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<a href="http://www.nestasmith.com/" target="_blank">Jenesta Smith</a> - Modelling, Blend shapes, Displacement & Specular Maps.<br />
<a href="http://www.agathagomes.com/" target="_blank">Agatha Gomes</a> - Character Design & Texture Maps.<br />
<a href="http://www.lewishaley.co.uk/" target="_blank">Lewis Haley</a> - Hair, Sub Surface Shader & Render set-up.<br />
and <a href="http://www.stuart-munro.co.uk/" target="_blank">Myself</a> - Rigging & Pose/Animation.<br />
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...(Cheeky plug coming up)<br />
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In other news it's getting close to the end of my time at university and the reality of job hunting is looming over my head. So with my new show reel up and running I've started to apply for various internships out there. One of which is the CGSA awards, you can check out my entry <a href="http://www.cgstudentawards.com/2012-entries/143-stuart-munro" target="_blank">here</a>. I'd be very grateful if you could check it out, and if you like it please vote and share it with others. Thanks!<br />
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Finally, since putting my show reel together I've been mulling over what kind of animation I'd really like to hone and focus my skills in, creature animation or more performance based character animation. I know they share a lot of similarities, and I love doing both. But I really feel like I need to have a better grasp of one in order to focus my job applications. I might go more into this in another post, but I'm still going over it in my head and I don't want to waffle too long.<br />
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So that's it for another blog post, hope you liked what you saw/read.<br />
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Take care,<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-62424161142572373022012-03-24T00:37:00.001+00:002012-03-24T00:37:20.464+00:00three down, one to go...Hello internet goers. I've finished three projects now and that only leaves the major project to go. We've still got 5ish weeks working on that, but we've got to get cracking with it, other projects have taken priority over the past month or so.<br />
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The latest project I've done is the animation assignment for our AAT unit. Our brief (simply put) was to pick a 10 second clip from any film and then reinterpret that performance in an animation. Once we had picked a clip we had to analyse the performance based on what Ed Hooks taught us, highlighting the objective/action/obstacle and the conflicts within the clip. With this information we could then go ahead and reinterpret the performance.<br />
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So I chose to do a clip from the first Harry Potter film, where the sorting hat is sorting Harry into a house. I chose to reinterpret the performance of the hat for two reasons. Firstly, the hat goes through a lot of thoughts during this clip, and as Ed teaches, thoughts lead to conclusions which lead to actions. With this in mind I knew I would have a variety of options in regards to acting choices. Secondly the hat is... well, a hat, so my view of how the clip could be acted would not be tainted by any live action acting choices. I don't want to say too much about my analysis of the clip, but my main aim was to make the situation seem a little more sinister than it is in the film. I wanted the chara<span style="font-family: inherit;">cter to be</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> like a clever villain
playing devil’s advocate as he tests the hero's worth. One last thing </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">I</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> must say is that the reason there is no detailed facial animation is because we are not marked on it, we are only marked on the body performance.</span></span><br />
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And without further ado, my animation:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39063448" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Now that the animation project is done it is all hands to the pump on the major project. I've done half of my shots on the animation so far, which is great, but I've got some pretty tricky/important shots left to do which will take some time. It is going well though, and overall we have a third of the piece animated now. Below is another sneak peak of some of the W.I.P animation I'm doing. (The last shot is still in blocking).<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="296" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39083588" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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That's it for now, I might go a bit quiet for the next few weeks as we work flat our on the major project, but I'll try and keep everyone posted on progress when I can.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-25829100183003651412012-03-03T13:12:00.002+00:002012-03-03T13:12:11.036+00:00while the going is good...Hi again people. Just thought I'd write a little post while everything is going good to show you what I've been up to.<br />
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First off, the innovations project is due in soon, so I've finished that. It's about the process of fantasy creature animation, and how a company would build a creature document to ensure continuity of movement when a creature is animated by more than one animator. The main point of my project was the report, but the bit i can show you is my final bit of creature animation. The model and rig are not my own work.<br />
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Here you go, short and sweet.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/37585420" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Moving onto the major project. I've been putting off starting animation on this because of other projects, but now I'm fully into animating my shots on the major project. I've been starting with some of the smaller shots, just to get used to the rigs again. It's going quite well at the moment though. We have a sick man in our animation who coughs a lot. I've been dreading animating coughs, but so far with a lot of reference it's not been too hard. All of the coughs for the sick man have been provided by one of our group mate's dad - Phil Smith. We also have a good few sound effects for our animation, and people working on the music. So overall it's going very well. Below is a sneak peek at one shot I've animated.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="328" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/37830052" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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In other news, we've now been given out AAT2 animation project. It is basically to take a 10 second film clip, analyse the performance based on what Ed Hooks taught us, then reinterpret the performance in an animation of the same length using the film audio. I've found a nice clip I am going to use and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into some nice physical animation. I say physical because we're only marked on the body animation, not any facial stuff.<br />
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So that's it for now, good progress everywhere, just got to keep at it.<br />
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Stu<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-16918252637769793462012-02-22T12:05:00.002+00:002012-02-22T12:15:29.798+00:00animators are actors?<br />
As you may have seen in one of my previous posts, in the last week and a bit we have had Ed Hooks lecturing us at Bournemouth Uni. Now his lecture series has come to a close I'd thought I would share with you some of my thoughts about his theories, and expand a little bit more my previous post and the question are animators actors?<br />
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<b>Psychological Stuff</b><br />
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First of all I'll talk about the last of his lectures. We started looking at psychological stuff, more specifically status transactions and negotiations. Ed Hooks says that status transitions happen all the time through 'negotiation'.<br />
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A conversation is a perfect example of status transition. For example students give a lecturer high status by listening to them, then when a student asks a question the status is transferred to the student as people are listening to them now. A good example of a negotiation is eye contact, we do this all the time, when people catch you looking at them and you look away quickly. You are 'negotiating' at this point, if you hold their gaze you're engaging them in some way, whether it be showing you're listening or challenging them. When you look away you are saying 'fine you caught me I don't want anything to happen'.<br />
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He went on to talk about how as humans we see 80% and hear 20%, therefore what you show the audience carries more power than what is being said. This is where 'psychological gestures' come into a performance. This is when an actor makes a gesture that contrasts what is being said, and by doing so adding some more depth to a performance.<br />
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For me personally this is a really fascinating way of seeing our social interactions, it's really interesting how quick negotiations can be and how our body language can contrast what we're saying, it definitely puts a new perspective on things when I'm people watching. As Ed says, if you're an animator, you have a licence to stare!<br />
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<b>Animators & Actors</b><br />
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There was some more stuff Ed talked about regarding heroes and villains, human emotions and micro expressions, but I'll save that for another day. I am now going to delve into the are animators actors debate once again.<br />
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I said in my previous post that I believed animators were actors. I wrote this post after coming out of the lecture, and I had my stubborn head on. After posting I had a discussion with a course mate about the issue and it really got me thinking.<br />
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My course mate (who isn't an animator) agreed with Ed on the issue of the present moment vs the illusion of the present moment, whereas I've always gone with the whole 'animators are actors with a pencil' argument. The case I was making was that Hooks' argument lies solely on one point, a big point, but still just one part of a larger process, and if the process is almost identical then I don't believe the two areas can be so definitively separated. Hooks' argument essentially boils down to spontaneity and that animators cannot really achieve this as an actor would. Anyway this debate left me thinking for a few days about my stand point on the whole issue.<br />
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So some time went by and i had another discussion with an animator this time. We discussed some more things Ed talked about, in particular delving deeper into the present moment argument. I mentioned Ed made a point about eyebrows. That an actor is not concentrating on his eyebrows during a scene, but as an animator we think about them for every frame and what they're doing and when exactly, emphasising his theory of the present moment again. He believes the characters are the actors, which is fine, they are technically the ones 'on stage'. But surely just as a live action actor would get into the character, an animator does as well. It just happens to be for a significantly longer period of time.<br />
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My animator friend then came back and said that an acting choice is an acting choice no matter how long it takes to arrive at that decision and if you're not a performer you'll never "get" the character enough to convince people. This is exactly what I agree with, to create a convincing performance you have to 'get' the character, regardless of the medium you are using to create the performance.<br />
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It was nice to hear that someone shared my original views of Ed Hooks' theory, and after some more time deliberating I've decided I am going to disagree with Ed Hooks, and I'm going to stick with my original belief that animators are actors. But it is nice to now have a deeper understanding of why I believe this.<br />
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Well that was a long post, I hope people out there find this stuff as interesting as I do, it's nice to get into discussions about these things, it gets you thinking. If you made it to the end congratulations. :)<br />
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Stu<br />
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Ed Hooks is the author of 'Acting for Animators' and has taught all over the world in all of the major film and games studios. He is obviously teaching us about the art of acting, and in particular acting from the point of an animator.<br />
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One of the first points Ed made was that animators are NOT actors. I do believe that animators ARE actors, however Ed makes some interesting points against that. Mainly that the animator has 'no present moment', they just have '24-frames-make-a-second, or the illusion of a present moment'. This makes sense, although I still believe that as animators we prepare in the same way as actors, and although our 'present moment' might be different we go through a very similar process from start to finish. This includes researching the role through to taking directors notes and changing the performance accordingly.<br />
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Throughout the few lectures we've had so far I have learnt an awful lot about acting, Ed has clearly spent time crafting his teaching of animators and has given us some very useful concepts to think about. Something which should stand me in good stead before tackling some of more important major project performances. Ed defines the role of an actor/animator as having to create empathy within the character they portray. I've always understood that, but have never been completely clear on how to achieve that empathy. We empathise with emotions, but how do we show emotions? Ed's formula is that 'thinking tends to lead to conclusions, conclusions tend to lead to emotions, and emotions lead to actions'. We have emotional responses to the conclusions we make, if we think someone looks threatening, we might come to the conclusion they will attack us, which leads to fear.This was a revelation moment for me, I now understand in a practical way to approach the thinking of my characters, and in turn, their emotions.<br />
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The second major point Ed made was that at any given point in any film any character should be 'playing an action in pursuit of an objective whilst overcoming an obstacle'. This really made me think about the animations I have done in the past and how I could improve them. As Ed said the reason characters become compelling is because they aren't just moving, they have a brain, they are thinking, and acting based upon their thoughts.<br />
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The most impactful point I've taken away from the lectures, is that you should animate the thought, not the word. He said it was a classic new animator mistake, and one I have fallen into. I've done several lip sync exercises purely thinking about the words, and not looking deeper into the thoughts behind those words, and the reason the character is saying them.<br />
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I'm sure that's quite enough of waffle for one post. As you can see, I've learnt a lot, and my animations will certainly be better for it in the future.<br />
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I promise my next post will have more moving stuff and maybe even a flashy image!<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-36913373948660656732012-02-02T23:45:00.002+00:002012-02-02T23:53:02.151+00:00One man, four animations...IT'S DONE! I've finished all four of my master class animations, and handed them in. It's nice to chill for a bit before getting back to the grind tomorrow.<br />
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Overall it's been a pretty good learning experience. I purposefully went for a more cartoony style of animation because I've never tried that before and it was nice to get away from realistic stuff. I've had a lot of good feedback from Kevan Shorey who has helped me out a lot throughout the process. Talking to him and getting notes has definitely opened my eyes to my work process and how to improve it. A general note he gave me in all of the animations was that I needed 'more'. I need to push poses and keep the audience interested. I improved my animations a bit on this front, but not as much as I'd like. It'll certainly be at the forefront of my mind in the future.<br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">So, here they are, hope you like them:</span>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">The Clone Trooper Sting</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/35279375?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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The Sneaky Guy<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36110022?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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The Angry Guy<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36110114?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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The Depressed Guy<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36110239?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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I think on the whole I was too timid from the start. I had some good ideas but was afraid to try them because I wasn't sure I'd have time to finish them, so my blocking passes were a bit dull. I think in future I'll follow the advice of Kevan - 'If a shot is daunting, pick the single most important moment/pose and begin to visualise around it. Pretty soon you'll have a shot!'. I think I would've had a lot more success if I'd have chosen the moments where the character interacts with the gate and worked around that. Having said all that, I am actually quite happy with the animations, they're by no means perfect, but I feel the perfectionist in me would make being 100% pleased with it impossible. There is always something I'd like to do better.<br />
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Happy animating!<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-58415484537725286842012-01-26T14:42:00.001+00:002012-03-06T14:39:54.125+00:00A lot of animation...It has been a while since I last posted. I've been working flat out on my master class animations, and as much as I am enjoying doing it, it's a lot of work. I need to get it done asap as well because I have innovations and the major to be working on. Also soon we'll be given the yet unknown AAT2 animation project. Hectic times and late nights ahead I feel.<br />
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Anyhow, I posted my blocking passes for the master class animations a while ago, unfortunately those videos are no longer on line, however I do have one of the animations nearly finished. Here was the first pass of splined animation I did - The Sneaky Man.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/38024471" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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I was pretty happy with this and would have been happy to hand it in. However it was of course still worth getting feedback. So I asked some people and sent it off to Kevan at Dreamworks for some notes and critique. He was very helpful and gave me some good notes (as well as a telling off for not including frame numbers, haha). His main points were that the beats in the animation felt a bit separate from each other. I tend to agree with this, looking back I think it was my response to my animations being too 'floaty' in the past. So I made a concious decision to add pauses to the animation. Secondly he suggested that I look into making the piece more energetic, particularly after he does his tip toe run, as the animation slowed down after that and I risked losing the audience's interest. Finally he suggested I remove some of the fence so people can see more of the animation. Which I did.<br />
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So, after that feedback, this is my re-worked version (with frame numbers):
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/38024472" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Hope you enjoy!<br />
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Stu<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-15470217681830946822012-01-17T16:07:00.000+00:002012-01-17T16:07:27.805+00:00Dreamworks?! YES... Dreamworks!Since I last blogged a lot has happened. Uni has actually properly started, and its hectic. Lots of animation for me to do this term, it's a bit daunting really.<br />
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Other than that we had the week of animation lectures from Kevan Shorey and his wife Robyn who work at Dreamworks in San Francisco. The whole week was a great series of lectures and talks about Kevan's process and approach to animation, it was an invaluable insight into how another animator works and I certainly came away from it having learnt a lot and will be applying a lot of what he taught us to my own process. On top of that Robyn talked a lot to us working in the US and the studio's pipeline and departments as whole, after hearing everything I was sure that Dreamworks is where I want to work one day. Overall it was an amazing week and it was shame we couldn't kidnap Kevan and keep him as a full time lecturer, haha.<br />
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As for my projects, everything is plodding along nicely, I'm currently finishing up doing the layout for our major project. Once that's done I'll be focusing my attention on the Masterclass project and it's impending 3rd of February deadline. I had a good meeting with Mike Wyatt who set us our Masterclass brief. He says I seem to have a good sense of animation, I just need to push my poses more, which I agree with, it's come up a few times so I need to work on that. My innovations has been slow to get going, but after a meeting with my tutor this morning I've got a clearer idea of what my plan is and I'm really looking forward to that one.<br />
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Kevan mentioned when he was talking to us that animating a horse was hard, he was right, you can see my attempt here in my latest showreel edit. Hope you like it, let me know what you think.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/21218294?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-19013429611938803652012-01-06T18:20:00.000+00:002012-01-06T19:27:31.034+00:00Busy, busy, busy...Hello again. I've got a lot to show you in this post. Here we have the environments for our major project. But this time we can see all of it as we fly through the Tudor streets. The (not so) stealthy cube in the posher street (1st video) is where the Doctor's surgery will be, however that is still to be modelled by Nesta.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34577037?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe><br />
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Moving on. Next up we have the final and re-worked rig tests/walk cycles for both of our main characters. The sick man I've only done recently. But the Doctor I went back and started again after taking on feedback from one of our screenings. People generally said he looked a bit stiff and had no character. So I gave him his cane and tried to give him some more swagger. I decided he needed to look more posh and dignified, so I slowed his walk down from 16 frames a step 20. Which I think helps, it makes him look more deliberate and less in a hurry. I also added more shoulder movement because it helps loosen characters up and make them look less robotic. I don't think its quite there yet, however the Doctor only has to walk once in our animation, so for now I think I should concentrate more on the acting side of things.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34369598?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/33630089?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe><br />
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I am very much looking forward to having some Dreamworks animators, Kevan and Robyn Shorey, coming to talk to us next week. It will be nice to learn from animators from one of the best studios in the world.<br />
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For now though the Christmas holidays have come to an end and I'm back to uni tomorrow. It seems like it's been non stop work for the whole of the 'holidays', however I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-35569844781040196992011-12-31T00:07:00.001+00:002011-12-31T13:35:20.053+00:00rigging up a storm...After a long, hard fought battle with rigging I've emerged victorious. I've finally completed the second of our two character rigs. It was a long and at many times frustrating process but we got there.<br />
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The whole process of rigging two characters to a level at which they can move realistically was a challenge. It was the first time I'd attempted such a level of rigging, previously I'd rigged very simple cartoony characters. I didn't appreciate the amount of work involved, particularly in skinning. I was introduced to a few new things along the process, namely Pose Space Deformers (PSDs). These are essentially corrective blend shapes but are easier and quicker to produce using Michael Comet's scripts and plug-ins. Although the PSDs do the job on the rigs, I am curious as to how well muscle systems would've worked on our characters. The characters aren't very muscular, but they do have areas of loose clothing and I think that muscles would've been very useful to get a nice roll over and around the skin in the absence of nCloth. I've never used muscle systems but I'd love at some point to look into them when rigging, I think it's a very interesting area.<br />
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I am overall pretty happy with how the rigs work, if any issues crop up during animation then I'm sure I can go back and tweak the rigs suitably. So without further a due, here is the walk cycle rig test for the sick man:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34369598?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
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This is just the rigged model. The displacement maps have yet to be added. I will post the final version up soon.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-68250708838620399482011-12-21T19:13:00.000+00:002011-12-21T19:13:01.911+00:00rigging the sick man...So for the past 2 day I've been working (almost) solidly on the sick man rig for our major project. It's had it's up and downs but I'm back on track now. There's a lot more work to be done, but for now this is how it looks:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiD6hVs2tsnQxh495-OlhEtkzlBAuZk3b_wZ1PKx6spuZxBgP1t8Md_rhG77IQR1IxCpQHr8hlHjS0B2e38OBhO3YYvwCyshXJt9RIEzqFCGBxtZgAaBpzEXvnPZCdoWIqguQMcEjAsnht/s1600/sickManRig.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiD6hVs2tsnQxh495-OlhEtkzlBAuZk3b_wZ1PKx6spuZxBgP1t8Md_rhG77IQR1IxCpQHr8hlHjS0B2e38OBhO3YYvwCyshXJt9RIEzqFCGBxtZgAaBpzEXvnPZCdoWIqguQMcEjAsnht/s400/sickManRig.JPG" width="363" /></a></div>
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Unfortunately due to my lack of concentration on the first day I have spent the second day going back through the rig and fixing things. It's my own fault, I should have made a plan like it did for the Doctor rig, however I thought I could just breeze through this as it's pretty much the same. Alas it's never that easy, and by missing one little step I've managed to lose a day of productivity. At least I now know in the future not to be so keen and take the time to make a plan, especially for rigging, but also other things. The time it takes to make the plan will be more than made up for in the time saved from avoiding mistakes.<br />
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The rig is working pretty well now though, and is almost identical to the doctor's rig, except for a few spine alterations to allow us to hunch this guys back. I still need to do the hands and the face, and of course skin the damn thing, which is by no means the most exciting thing to do. However skinning is made a lot easier by Michael Comet's scripts and plug-ins, I don't think I'd be so keen on rigging if it wasn't for them, they save so much time.
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Ah well, live and learn I guess. At least I can crack on and make some progress tomorrow (with a plan!).<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-44166560536396991272011-12-19T20:54:00.001+00:002011-12-19T20:54:23.610+00:00all quiet on the front...Hello again, I spent this weekend moving back home for Christmas and playing bowls, hence the lack of posting. It's been a pretty hectic weekend overall, but now everything is settled I can relax back in to my steady pile of work. I haven't forgotten about my post-it per day, I did draw them, just couldn't find the time to post them what with my computer being packed up in a box. But fear not, here are Saturday, Sunday and Monday's drawings!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKj694X0Xj0IXF1e7Uqps8Bl6nmbkW2nhVUXFNMMNjS5DycseFKB2Bn_nci1KbWqIiKVnK1EhBhLqFWZxZMnfJW7wHDgSY7vDRRe81WrS78PUzukZWnPATPIfbNIGcMixYrqy_9f46gUF0/s1600/Drawing+2+%2526+3+-+Trulop+%2526+Zingo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKj694X0Xj0IXF1e7Uqps8Bl6nmbkW2nhVUXFNMMNjS5DycseFKB2Bn_nci1KbWqIiKVnK1EhBhLqFWZxZMnfJW7wHDgSY7vDRRe81WrS78PUzukZWnPATPIfbNIGcMixYrqy_9f46gUF0/s400/Drawing+2+%2526+3+-+Trulop+%2526+Zingo.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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So these two cheeky chappies are Trulop and Zingo, they're wanted for something, I don't know what yet. But I really like these guys. They're a little clichéd however I think we might see more of them in the future. I imagine them being like a corrupt Penn & Teller.<br />
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This cute little guy I think would be the kid who foiled Trulop and Zingo's master plan (whatever it might be).<br />
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As for everything else, not much has moved on, the next step for me is rigging the old man character for the major project, but I'm sure you'll see some of that soon enough.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-23812063014644455382011-12-16T23:51:00.000+00:002011-12-16T23:51:06.754+00:00major progress...Today I'm packing to go home for Christmas tomorrow evening. But me and Lewis have found some time to finish up the exterior environments for our major project. Here they are:<div>
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This is the first scene street</div>
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Second scene street<br />
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So our project has two exterior scenes, both streets however both need to have different vibes. The first one is meant to be a posher more up market street, it has bigger houses and is where our doctor character will live. The second is set at night and is where the murder will take place. It's supposed to be a poorer street and feel more claustrophobic and intimidating.</div>
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I think these streets have come out really well, I modelled all of the houses and laid out the streets, then Lewis come along with his TD hat on and procedurally generated the cobbles and curbs for the streets. I think we've really managed to capture the feeling of each street, and even though the second street isn't lit correctly it already has the feel of being close and a little bit uncomfortable. Also what helps is that there are few straight lines leading down the street, we originally had the curbs of the street straight down the middle and it just looked too CG and perfect, so with a quick lattice deformer we managed to give the street a much more organic feel. If I had more time I think I would add more detail to some of the houses, but ultimately they're not the centrepiece of the animation and they don't have to be perfect, I'm confident that they'll do the job as they are.</div>
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Next up - rigging the old man. I'll let you know how it goes.</div>
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Stu</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-4666030381554984162011-12-15T15:38:00.000+00:002011-12-15T15:41:30.308+00:00yet more animation...So all of the projects I've talked about so far involve animation for me, which is great because I want to be a character animator. I was intrigued to know what our last project (AAT2) would be. Turns out... it's animation. I couldn't be happier that all I have to do this year is animate stuff (and write and exam, but we won't talk about that). Its a bit daunting, there's a lot of animating to be done, but it's what I love, so it won't be a chore.<br />
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Anyhow, more on the AAT2 project. It's a combination of an animation assignment which we don't know any more about and an exam at the end of the year. This is a great unit as we have 3 lots of visiting practitioners teaching us for this project:<br />
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<b>Campbell McAllister and Susannah Shaw</b> - Cambell was Animation Director at Red Kite,<br />
Animation Director at Axis and FX Animator at Aardman. Susannah is Director of ‘Animated Exeter’ and Director of the Bristol Animation Course supported by Aardman.<br />
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<b>Kevan and Robyn Shorey</b> -Kevan is an NCCA graduate and senior animator at Dreamworks. Robyn is Department Manager for Layout, with prior experience in Lighting, Surfacing, Paint Fix and Animation from the Production Management side.<br />
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<b>Ed Hooks</b> - author of ‘Acting for Animators’. He presents master classes in acting theory for professional animators internationally.<br />
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We had a really good week with Campbell and Susannah a few weeks ago, and the others will be coming early next year, which I can't wait for.<br />
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For this unit we have to keep a blog/journal about what we do and how we work, and also critically evaluate our own work, both in this project and in all our other projects. This is the main reason I've set-up this blog so I can put my thoughts down somewhere. I'm looking forward to the rest of this project as it is an amazing chance to learn from and work with truly great professionals.<br />
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In other news I've recently found some of my old drawings from my foundation and first year at uni. This has inspired me to start a new sketchbook in which I will keep scribblings and thoughts for this blog. I have also decided to do a drawing a day on a stack of post-it notes it have. It's not a new idea, but it means I can practice my drawing skills and maybe come up with some new ideas and characters. I might post them up here everyday or maybe do a series and post them at the end of the week. Either way here is number 1. Enjoy!<br />
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Stu<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-10857868219125185402011-12-14T13:18:00.001+00:002011-12-14T13:23:07.348+00:00innovative?The next project I have for this year is innovations. It's a bit of a daunting project at first, it suggests we have to be innovative in the world of CG, and although it is partially marked based on your innovativeness, we don't have to be innovative in the world of CG, we just have to justify how what we're doing is innovative to us personally.<br />
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So for this project I have chosen to do fantasy creature animation. I found it hard to come up with anything really innovative in the field of animation, so I've decided to push myself and try something new for me. I've done a bit of quadruped animation before, but I stuck strictly to reference, it looks good and still needs some tweaking, but it is purely a motion reference project. You can check it out <a href="http://vimeo.com/21218463" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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As the name suggests i am going to animate a completely fictional creature. This is where the challenge lies. I cannot just go out and find it's real world equivalent, study it, and more or less copy its movements. I have to think outside the box, study the fantasy creature's anatomy and compare it to similar real world creatures, then piece together how the beast will move and act etc. I am looking forward to this project as I have some scope to really explore the area. My project will focus on combining elements of real world creatures, so for example the fantasy beast might move like a spider but have the mentality and aggressive streak of of a lion, this is what I am going to look into.<br />
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Here is the rig I will be using (I did not model or rig this):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpR9vw3GCDLFIFZ4QgXN9MBbgJA3oz9Vg4q0P3XsqtfSvIwgLJqf71bdgYY_4w7lFAciVd7zj5s6OLnFPSH7ibZrxOpnVHAni-vOwWiOlnl3R0NhCoj4t4F36iUm8yYD9sZa0zcGdewjkF/s1600/thresher+Rig.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpR9vw3GCDLFIFZ4QgXN9MBbgJA3oz9Vg4q0P3XsqtfSvIwgLJqf71bdgYY_4w7lFAciVd7zj5s6OLnFPSH7ibZrxOpnVHAni-vOwWiOlnl3R0NhCoj4t4F36iUm8yYD9sZa0zcGdewjkF/s640/thresher+Rig.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is the project I have barely started on, however I have some basic initial research. I started where most people do and googled creature animation and a few other similar searches. This was very unsuccessful and annoying, as all the results were for creature animation schools and I couldn't find anything on the process or techniques involved in creature animation. So I decided to take a chance and I emailed MPC asking if one of their animators could help me by answering a few questions. Thankfully (and a little surprisingly) they replied and i managed to get my questions answered. I'm glad I took the chance as the answers to the questions will help inform my research and allow me to plan my project similar to the professionals.<br />
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That's my innovations project so far, I'm sure I'll put some more up about this over christmas. That only leaves one more project for me to introduce.<br />
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Stu<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-32061723380594575232011-12-14T00:13:00.001+00:002011-12-14T00:13:12.936+00:00the big one...The second of my projects for this year is THE major project. The culmination of 3 years at uni, the thing you have to show for your efforts. It's big.<br />
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So for my major I'm in a group with three of my friends; Nesta Smith, Agatha Gomes and Lewis Haley. Our project is set in the 17th century and is centred around a plague doctor and a sick man and it's called 'His Cure'. I'm not sure you want me to explain it all, if you want to know more then head over to Aggie's director's blog, which can be found on the right of my blog.<br />
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My contribution to the group is rigging and animation, and I also happen to have modelled the Tudor houses for the streets in our piece.<br />
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These are the houses, the cobbles are generated procedurally by our TD Lewis. This isn't the final layout for the houses, but I think it gives a good feel for the scene.<br />
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The rigging for the Doctor character is done and the man will be done soon. The only animation I've done so far is simple walk cycle and rig test for the Doctor.<br />
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It's not come out exactly how I would hope, I'm happy with the mechanics, I think they work fine. But the walk lacks any real character, you get no sense of who this guy is, or what his demeanour is. The one thing I'm really going to have to think carefully about and work on before I get into full swing animation is acting. Getting into character and really thinking about what their motivation is etc. I know I've got the ability to animate well, I just need to stop being so cocky sometimes and rushing into it, I need to take a step back and plan my animations, take time to really get into the moment.<br />
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But that will be the focus over the christmas holidays, for now I have to rig the sick man.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-82282206549361916152011-12-13T15:31:00.002+00:002011-12-13T15:57:42.635+00:00A class from the masters...The first project I'm writing about is the masterclass project set by Blue-zoo. As a course we had a choice of briefs covering different areas of CG, each set by a different studio including MPC and Framestore. As I want to be an animator, I chose the character animation brief set by Mike Wyatt at Blue-zoo.<br />
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For the interim deadline tomorrow we had to block out 4 animations. One 2D animation which would be a sting/ident for the NCCA, and three 3D animations based on a given scenario. I chose the going over a fence scenario. The interim deadline is so that we can get feedback from the professionals, sort of like getting a shot approved by the director.<br />
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This is a great project and having contact with professionals in the big studios we hope to work at one day is invaluable.<br />
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Anyway, that's the project, and these are my efforts for tomorrows deadline. Enjoy!<br />
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2D Animation (geeking out with a clone trooper)<br />
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Angry Guy<br />
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Sad Guy<br />
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Sneaky Guy<br />
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</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Overall I'm pretty happy with all four of them. I'm not sure what Mike will think about the fact that I've used 3D assets in the 2D animation. This was more of an aesthetic choice as the Lego blocks at the end weren't really reading as Lego in 2D. But we'll see what he says, it's easily changeable.<br />
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As for the 3D animations, I'm pleased with how they look in blocking, and I think most of the timing works. The sneaky guy was really hard to get right, and definitely gave me the most frustration. I did consider changing the idea completely to something else, but I decided to stick with it and I'm glad I did. The issue was that I took reference of me being sneaky, and when animating I stuck too rigidly to real life and didn't push any of the poses, so the animation looked dull and also the timing was off as it turns out I'm not very good at being sneaky.<br />
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The sneaky animation was the only one of the animations I made a proper plan for. I took reference, drew key poses and the animated around that. I'm glad I did it, and i wish i had done it for the others, it certainly sped up the process of animating, even with the initial set backs i encountered. It meant I could go back to my plan and drawings and assess what it was i didn't like and change that. Without this plan I fear I may have changed my idea.<br />
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So that's the masterclass project.<br />
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I know this post is a bit long, but I'm getting into the habit of assessing my own work and practices for my Advanced Aesthetics and Techniques 2 (AAT2) exam. I'm still a bit unsure of what exactly the tutors are looking for, but hopefully I'm on the right track.<br />
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See you next time,<br />
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Stu</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2192433347657431457.post-63910152884700044402011-12-13T13:36:00.001+00:002011-12-13T13:37:33.024+00:00a new day, a new blog...I started a blog a few months ago on my website, it did the job, but it wasn't amazing and I got a bit lazy with it. Now I'm starting a proper blog, because it's easier to use, it looks better and I wanted a fresh start so I can document my major project and keep a journal about everything.<br />
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I'm going to keep this brief as I will add some more posts introducing you to all the projects I'm working on in my final year at Bournemouth, some in full swing, some still in planning stages. Keep your eyes peeled for those.<br />
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StuAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18143081824533092266noreply@blogger.com0