Animation Training - Part 1

Hello all, once again. As mentioned from the previous blog post, I had started to learn from an Animator, Michael Morgan, who will be teaching my over the duration of 12 Weeks. What this then allows me, is to review the basics principles of animation again, where I was evidently lacking from my course at Uni, where hopefully this will give me a better chance of improving my showreel.

This week coming, it would be the fourth week and I was asked to animate a walk cycle. This was something which I had always needed in my showreel, as it would show the basic understanding of applying other basic principles together, i.e "squash and stretch". 

My tutor then sent me a few resources to help me, for this week assignment.

Richard Williams- Animation Survival Kit

Tutor - Resources

After many trial and errors and persistence of improving the walk cycle over and over again, going into the graph editor to make sure that all of the values looked correct, I was able to produce the walk cycle.

The only problem which I still encounter, is the "Pre infinity and Post Infinity cycle" as, yes it had made my character walk from A to B forever, but the tranlastion for the Z axis would for some reason slow down and therefore the poses would be lost, as it further progress on the timeline.

I had tried my best to amending this issue, where I had to re-do the poses, where I animated the character on one spot, rather than it having moving forward. This seemed to have solved most of the problem, but not all of it. (Some values must have not match up / mirrored to the opposite pose)

This was unfortunate and I'm still baffled as to why and how this is happening. It was early morning by the time I had pushed the limit of my knowledge and searched all over the internet as to why this was happening and any hope of fixing it.  So, hopefully when I ask my tutor on review day on Sunday, he will have a solution to this problem.  I'll see you next time guys.

Graduation- The next step

Hey there, it's been a while since I last blogged, and I'm going to try and ease my way back into doing this weekly. 

I had finished Uni for quite some time now, about a month ago or so where I had achieved a 2:1 for my course. I was happy with the results but to be honest, I feel as though grades aren't important within the industry which I'm trying to get in, however it does help for example, working in another country.

Results day and last day at uni

So, now that I had finished university, I knew that I had to try and and apply to jobs that could help me get into where I want to be in the future, a CG character animator. I had tried applying before, but was unfortunate to have had any replies. I had then, sent and applied to various of VFX companies in London, but again, unlucky to hear from anything.

It was tough the first few weeks, as I felt like I'm not getting anywhere. The news that I watched everyday didn't seem to help, as they mentioned about the unemployment figures and how graduates this year, are finding it much more difficult and competitive to get to where they want.

I then woke up one morning, with the news facts fresh on my mind and the fact that I wouldn't get anywhere. It was hard to take in. I had other plans, where I would continue working at my part time job and try and polish up my animation skills here and now and find networking events, to build up my presence in the industry. I then got an email.

I then received an email from an Animator I had met, as he had turned up to my university to present his work and how to get into the industry. His name is Michael Morgan. He had asked me to whether or not if I wanted to be part of a animation mentoring program which he was holding, over the duration of 12 weeks. I then without hesitation, replied back that I would like to be part of this.

This was a really good opportunity as even though I could've taught myself on how to animate, I knew that I would not achieve the quality which many of the companies are looking out for from a showreel. I would receive weekly feedbacks from Mike and I could therefore learn from my mistakes that he'll point out and I can work at my own pace, but I will always be pushed, due to the weekly deadlines.

So far, I'm a third in of my training and that's quite scary as I've only just realised that. Not good for me...Reason being is that, this was my cushion, something which I can kind of relax my mind on, before panicking again on finding a job suited to my work. I found that Blue Zoo animations are hiring people, but without enough quality of work on my showreel, the likelehood of me being likely candidate, is getting slim. Hopefully this week I will have something worthwhile to add into my showreel. I just have to remain focus and stay with the assignment set for this week.

I'll see you next week