The Foundry - Life in London

About a month and a half ago or so, I had started writing about my experince at The Foundry and it was about my month working as an inten. I had then weighed my thoughts since then and what I have experienced so far since then and I must admit, it's a much more different view from before.

Though my initial goal was to become an animator I force this question to myself, "Do I want to animate?"

 
Glen Keanne - Was able to attend and see how Glen Keanne made Duet

Since working at Miller and Carter I enjoyed the aspect of working in a team, united we can achieve anything and  problem solve anything that comes our way, whether this was a customer needs or how we can improve our way of service. It's just the fact that I enjoy and relish working in a team, even when I played rugby back at school and though we may've lost as a team now and again, we would always bounce back together. This sense of bond really drives my mentality as, if I don't perform to my full potential, then I maybe letting my team-mates down.

The Colorway team at The Foundry is that new team that I play for, and even as an intern, I believe even the smallest person can make the difference. There is a sense of support for one another and believe me, we had some pretty rough times when we were trying to get a build stable enough to launch for a new beta version to the community; and though we sometime didn't hit our mark, we would always regroup and planned he best possible step that we can take.

Marira and Leandro - Two wonderful teachers where I have been learning Tango lessons

I really enjoy working as a QA Engineer, I mean sure, I need to knuckle down and learn more about the technical side i.e python and Mel scripting, which is something I'm learning now but overall, I enjoy working with the developers. Being able to look back at a particular old build and compare, how far we have come as a team to making Colorway a much better product, really gives that extra pinch of sparkle of what we have acheived together and make us wonder, what's the next step for Colorway.

What I had said so far, is an outcry of what my personality is like and I really love being part of a team. I can say however, this blog post is very biased as I have never worked as an animator before, and therefore can't throw in the towel of being an animator just yet. But the truth is, I want to contiune working as QA Engineer and maybe even pursue this path. I find that I may've walked into a forked road that I must take and in all honesty, I want to take that route that could be a bit more a gamble and could potenitally give me a future that I could be happy with.

I must admit they're other factors involved that is affecting my decision with all this such as, where I'm currently living, the potential of seeing that girl and the fact that I want to break away from my past and make a fresh slate here, in London. I would like to say that I should be careful but, I think I need to take that extra risk because what's more worst than not trying is, living with regrets and wondering what could've been.

Carpe Diem a new oppurtunity- for Robin Williams

Hiya guys, I have big news to share and its something that I feel truly excited about and at the same time  it hasn't really hit me yet of the opportunity that I was able to receive. So, unfortunately I don't have anything new to show but bare with me for a moment.

I was fortunate enough to have been messaged by my cousin boyfriend a couple of weeks ago and he stated that there was going to be an intern role at the place he was working in, The Foundry. I remembered that I kind of bowed out from this last year as I didn't feel that I was capable of meeting to their expectations, plus the fact that I was learning from an animation mentor at the time and wanted to really focus on just animation. My showreel wouldn't have stood a chance.

The Foundry

The intern role however would be more technical, rather than a creative position, though that's not to say that it wouldn't be beneficial to myself as it would be a unique chance for me to work at a place like The Foundry. Plus, you have to remember that like John Lasseter said "technology inspires the art, art challenges technology" and I fully believe without this equilibrium, we wouldn't have such dynamic industry.

So, receiving this news, I thought heavily about my future as, yes I do want to become an animator as that is my dream and in the future I would love to give back and teach my skills to future animators. But, what struck me most was what my animation mentor had once said from his experience and that was, "sometimes you have to zig-zag your way to where you want to be"- which is very true to how he eventually got to where he was.

After a few days sending my work and CV my mind never thought that I was able to get the position, let alone an interview. But then however I got one, an interview.  So I then headed down and prepared  to the best of my ability and with the great support of my family, friends and co workers.

It was so daunting walking towards the interview room as I was in such awe from the fact that these are the people that makes VFX studios like MPC, Blue Sky studios and so on, to fully utilise their potential and their ideas on screen from the softwares and tools that they are creating.

I messed up the interview so much and it left me feeling so stupid after a handful of questions were answered incorrectly, and in a manner that was embarrassing to think back on; that, I left a bit annoyed with myself and wishing that I had done better, and had the thoughts of just continuing at my part time job and slowly update my portfolio, to go back to where I was.

You may now be wondering as to how this may relate to Robin Williams himself, well the fact in Mrs Doubtfire, he faced not being able to see his kids again as he cared for them so much, that he never gave up on letting them go. Seeing that from a young age, to never give up on the things you love, really resonates to how I worked on showreel over the last year, to improve and believe for the future.

I got the internship.

I want to dedicate this post to the late Robin Williams as he was one of the very few people that I admired growing up and I genuinely believe that he contributed to my decision, of becoming an animator. From his heartwarming voice as Genie in Aladdin to portraying the most human being in Good Will Hunting. A person who inspired me to be different and not conform to what other people perceive to be the norm and live life in a quiet desperation only to wish, that they had seized the day. And I hope to emulate at least just one percent of his personality, so that I may never forget a wonderful person. You shall greatly be missed.

Cat personality animation and thoughts

Hi guys, the last week or so has been quite unusual I guess, as I have to slowly revert back to my normal routine. Balancing part time and animating has not always been easy but I feel that ever since my time off, I have that much more fresher approach as I'm able to focus a lot more on the task ahead rather than getting distracted.

I have then been able to finish an animation which I have unfortunately kept closed doors on but don't worry, it's down there below. I feel that this animation means so much more than just adding an extra few seconds to my showreel, the reason for this is because like I said from my previous post, that I started to get the feel of the creature which I never understood from the books, interviews that I had listened to. Until now.

My creature personality animation

Sure they're mistakes that are found from the video, like when I asked my brother on his thoughts, his initial answer was that "there should be a pause for when the creature sees the ball that is floating in the air", just this simple answer had so much volume and it really triggered my thoughts onto the next animation which I will work on next. 

However with that said, I can look forward to my next upcoming project and take into account all of these intricate details that would make a whole lot of a difference, when I show it to another person. 

Before my trip to Hong Kong, during my stay there for the month and when I arrived back; I knew that I had to start getting out of my room, to start applying to jobs or positions that would hopefully make me one step closer to achieving my goal for this year, which is to leave home. I had contemplated for far too long and after so many animations hiccups from this year, I knew that I can't give myself any more chances to delay this thought of mine. I will indeed be doing another animation or so but, I can't afford to waste anymore time. 

I will therefore start applying by the beginning of August and continue to hold my head up high but keep my head down to continue improving my animation skills. This will also mean that I will have to learn other skills like Mel scripting, Python and rigging. 

So, I'll see you guys next time. 

Creature personality animation and updates

Hey guys, I have returned from Hong Kong last week and I must say, it was a welcome break as there was no worries of work, animation or putting any further strain to my wrist from the RSI. I was there to relax and enjoy living at a place which I have not been to for the last six years. I was then able to look at my life with a much more positive attitude.

I miss Hong Kong

I did however miss my part time job as in a way it's part of my social life where I'm able to work alongside a team that enjoy working with. However, after working a shift or two, I now have a much greater desire to move on and to focus on the career that I would like to have.

I have then got back to working on an animation which I had not yet shared before I had left, something that I wanted to keep down low at the time, as I didn't want to have to show up empty handed or forget to post updates on it.

This animation below is about halfway done as I have yet to complete the rest of the poses. Progress was slow when I started on this project but one of the things that I have started to notice was that, I was able to animate the creature with a lot more feeling towards it. What I mean by this is that the movements from the Nico creature has that sparkle of life, weight and personality which I have never really seemed to grasp from previous projects; something that has eluded me and constantly puzzled me what Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas (Walt Disney Nine old men) was talking about "feeling".

With this, I hope to implement this technique in future projects where it'll make my animation much more appealing to watch.

I'm currently happy with the progress so far and I'm predicting that I should have this animation completed by the end of the week or so. After that, I will then start to polish up my CV and begin to get out there of the job market because quite frankly, I can't keep thinking the old way, to keep improving my showreel content. I have by the way uploaded a fresh new showreel here: Andrew Mo Animation Showreel 2014

Anyway, I got a lot to do today, so I'll leave it as that and see you guys next time.

Pixar Masterclass and having enough

Hey, I know I haven't put up anything new over the past weeks or so, but there is a reason for that and that is simply I've been working more shifts at my part time job. I feel that I have reached a point in my life where I have just got sick and tired of explaining where I am all the time, like how I'm just working part time and just building my showreel. It's kind of had a negative affect on my confidence on who I am, as it's slowly chipping away my mindset. I know that it may sound daft but I feel that this maybe the case for some other university graduates, that have still yet to find their ideal roles that they have worked so hard for.

I have therefore started thinking how I should stop updating my work for the next few months, firstly it's because I will be going abroad for a month soon and this will hopefully give my RSI and my mind a chance to rest, to achieve a zen like mode for me to unwind. Secondly, I have picked up a lot more shifts to cover for another upcoming event that I'm planning to go, where this will cause less free time to work on my showreel. 

I have however been working on an animation which I'm not yet ready to show as it's still in the early works.

Hong Kong for a month

I don't see this as a negative period in my life, just quite the opposite in fact. I feel that I'm accepting where I am at the moment and this will give me the opportunity to, bounce back. If you are ever an anime fan or superhero film, this would be like that brief time period where they train non stop and come back stronger. I.e Rocky V. So when I do come back from holiday I'll be refreshed to continue working on my showreel and I'll be at Pixar's masterclass to learn more about animation, the thing I live for. 

Some of you maybe thinking as to why I would attend a Pixar's masterclass even though I had learnt animation from university, that I had been taught by an animation mentor last year, you know, why on earth would I continue to spend more when I'm not close to achieving my goal this year. Let alone that Pixar animation is more orientated around characters than creatures which I have begun focusing on the early part of this year. Yes, it's true on all of the above but, having the opportunity to learn from one of the studios that I have grown up watching and just purely for their memorable story-telling is enough to counter all of those points. 

Pixar Masterclass - See you there in London

Like many previous social networking events, this time however, I will take a less expectations approach where I had in my mind of gaining a foot in the door of the industry where the employee would offer me a job and so on, and that would kickstart my career. No, this time I'll go in a different manner where I won't be filled up with anxiety and be nervous to talk to anyone. I'll be enthusiastic as usual but remain more calm. (I bet i will still panic). If I knew anyone that was going, it would help a lot. But forward into the unknown!

Anyway, I am excited to attend the masterclass and i'll keep on animating until then. Just a note that they'll be less updates till the masterclass, so this is my goodbye for now I'm afraid. Goodbye

Taking a step back - Foot slides

Hello all! I have decided to scrap the chasing tail animation now as to be honest, I really messed up the workflow of the overall project and it has proven itself to be too challenging. I have naively thought that this would be a simple task to do however, it just shows how little knowledge I have when it comes to quadruped rigs. Further more this has made me realise that I am still a beginner in this area as an animator.

So, my next question which I put myself in is, “what should I animate then?”. I had a lot of ideas running through my head the past few days and i’ve tried to keep them as simple as I can so that, I’m able to have include a shot that has a certain quality in my showreel. I was then watching a walk cycle tutorial that I had mentioned from a previous post about how to animate a quadruped walk cycle. As I continued watching, it struck my mind that I have yet to resolve a certain issue that I have yet to conquer, “foot sliding” in a cycle animation. 

I'd often at times searched the web on how to resolve this, but from what I had seen there wasn't much content on this issue, sure there was mel scripts which i could use, but I wanted to know the reason and find that formula on how to fix this.

I knew that this tutorial had mentioned how to resolve the problem but at the time, I was concerned that I would copy what this person has done and never learn how to animate myself; therefore I chose not to, take on board the tips he had suggested at the time. How foolish of me.

Anyway, I believe that I’m able to prevent any foot slides when it comes to making a cycle animation now, thanks to this tutorial. Feel silly not having mentioned this person name yet, but I’ll include this tutorial on the following link below, as he has really opened new doors in term of animation projects in the future for me. Plus, in case I might lose you guys with my wording on how to prevent the foot slides. Chris Sokalofsky - Basic quadruped cycle tutorial

Alright, so I have set a simple scene up, with a spider bot rig, nothing fancy as this is just to illustrate the steps to take to prevent foot sliding in Maya, with your animation. I've only just figured this out so please bear with me if this whole tutorial fail.

So below, I have animated the front left leg where it starts at frame "0" and moves forward at frame "8" , where by frame "16", it'll go back to it's original position on frame "0". At the moment from the graph editor, the splines are flatted out. We would then need to change this.

Translate Z - Front Left foot 

 I then had to identify which area of the spline we would need to turn "linear" as this will make the foot move forward at a constant speed, with no curve to influence the timing. So below, I have then highlighted frame 8 and 16 keys and turned them linear.

Translate Z - Change flat to Linear

 With that done, I then highlighted all of my key frames from the translate Z and from the graph editor select, curves, pre- infinity, cycle. I then did this again but selected "post infinity", cycle. This would then allow the animation to cycle continually for "X" amount of frames. (Note, that I would bake this, but that's another subject for next time). I would then copy and paste all of this to the other legs for this rig, make sure you do this.

Checking infinity 

Afterwards, I then highlighted the linear curve from the feet and then copy and paste this to the global/ world curve on the Z axis.

Copy the linear curve

 Now the tricky part in my opinion. Depending on the linear curve, and the direction you have been animating your rig, you may need to mirror the curve (scale the curve to -1). So, for example from 0 to 8, at frame "8" the translate Z is "-87". But we don't want this as the rig is going the other way now. We simply add a positive from that negative, "-87=+87", this is scaling to "-1". The rig should then move in the correct direction. Make sure that the curve is travelling in linear mode. To do this highlight the key frames, select curves, post infinity, linear.

Paste onto the world/ global curve

I would like to mention that you should research before animating and this is just a tutorial on how to prevent foot slides. Pay close attention to detail on your foot placements and the principles. I have not mentioned any but be aware of them.

After learning and taking all of this in, I have grown a new confidence with what I should animate over the next couple of weeks. So again, I apologise with the lack of content I have been churning out lately. I hope however, that you've found this useful. 

Chasing Animation- Postponed

As I'm typing this latest blog post, I am feeling quite annoyed and a bit disappointed with myself. The reason for this is because, over the past couple of weeks my RSI has finally caught up with me. Even with the Wacom, that has no doubt eased my pain when I was animating quite relentlessly from a few months ago, it's just become a slight of a headache to try and mentally focus on animating my projects with the pain. If you don't know what RSI here is a link to a previous blog post that I did, current and future animators should take heed : What is RSI?

I believe however, the main cause for such pain was due to my job at the restaurant that I'm currently working part time. I would lift these tray of glasses with my right hand and would take them out to the front of the bar, where normally others would use both hands due to the weight. With the increase pressure I put on my right hand, I woke up the next morning with agonising pain.

Hoping that this would subside over the couple of days with rest, my hand just never seemed to be the same again. It has made me think about my career more deeply than ever as I have yet to enter the industry. With the horror of such a consequence that I may end up losing out on my dream job as an animator because of this, I've decided to postpone this project.

However, this doesn't mean that I will give up on building up my showreel as i intend to break into the industry this year. So, I will start on another project that I have already lined up but only work on the references, early thumbnails sketches and research, not the animation itself (animating). This will then hopefully give my hand to recover as the workload will be less intensive as well as giving the chance to share my work on this blog.

After I am fully sure that my RSI has subsided, then will I go back to this chasing animation project. Again, I feel a bit frustrated with how another medical condition has cropped up from just a couple of months ago when I had those chest pains.

 I really do wonder how other people of my generation are coping with the level of competitiveness of achieving their dream job based on their university degree. But, I guess that is what life is about, sometimes you aren't dealt the favourable cards. Anyway that's enough of my rambling, I'll see you guys soon. I'm sorry also for the lack of content as it's just paragraph after paragraph of jargon.

Chasing Tail Animation and events - Part 2

Good evening everyone, don't have a lot to show for this post but I'll try and beef it up as much as I can with some other news. So I had continued on with the chasing tail animation where I have finally moved to Maya and had begun animating. Blocking out the poses took a while as I really wanted to make this work out perfectly...no such thing as I slowly progressed. Each pose took me about 10- 20mins and that is still pretty quick as I've heard animators from the industry sometimes take as long as one hour for one pose.

You may notice that some parts of the animation that I haven't animated, most notably the tail from the Nico rig. The reason for this was because it had got to a point where it was a bit overwhelming animating, as I had to focus on the body, feet, head, shoulders and etc. So to help relieve the load of work, I then decided that it would be best to animate the tail, ears, mouth and eyes at a later point of the workflow, as these can be easily animated afterwards on spline mode.

So at the moment, I have splined out the poses and focused on the timing and spacing. I then begun to review the squash and stretch poses. This is taking a while and I have estimate that I'll have this project done, near by the end of April, slightly longer than I had hoped but, it's something that I want to polish.

A few weeks ago I had registered with Escape studios with a free webinar of "how to animate a multi-legged creature" by Alexander Williams but that was delayed, until today. I've learnt a few neat tricks in Maya, though it's something as embarrassingly simple as copy and paste, as I never knew how to do it...silly me. Anyway the one elusive question I had on my mind was that "how to prevent sliding on a foot?". I was hoping to be given an answer, like a formula, how you must take into account of this and that together. But unfortunately, Alex answer was pretty vague. It's something that I have wondered how industry people resolve this problem. I will probably go back to another tutorial that has already mentioned how to fix this sliding, as hopefully, I will understand it more than I did back then.

Besides that, Alex was able to deliver a simple tutorial on how to animate a multi-legged creature, in this case a tarantula. I simply made one below but I will revisit this project again, as I want to try something else that I've been thinking of doing plus, adding some personality to it will help my showreel go a lot further.

I was able to talk to one of my cousins boyfriend "Ashley" who has had the chance to work on a series of MPC films like, Dark Shadows, Prometheus and most recently, Man of Steel. It was a pleasure meeting him last year at the VFX festival and he has again been able to offer some great advice on what I could do, to help get into the industry. Something that he has mentioned and now really bugs me, is the Creative skillset VFX animation recruitment event, gosh that is a mouthful to say. Anyway, this was one of the places that had helped Ashley land a role as a roto-scope at MPC, as he had talked to one of the directors from the Creative skillset event.

Creative Skillset

Going to this event would be a dream as it's possible that I could make some connections and start somewhere with my career. Though it is invites only and more orientated to students, Ashley had said that he would be able to get me in. Just having a chance would make such a difference in my career. The problem though is that the event has yet to be confirmed and that last year event was in July. If it does fall down to July this year, then unfortunately, I will miss the chance of attending, as I have made arrangements of a holiday during that time.

I would be devastated to miss this event but, you know what, sometimes that is how life works, you have to sacrifice some things in life even if it means that job. It's not all doom and gloom. I had then compiled all of my animations together so far and looked at it as a whole and if I could say one thing about it, it's that I'm heading the right direction if I keep at it and have 100% faith in believing that I could break into the industry.

Chasing Tail Animation - Part 1

Hello all, finally I have re-gained my confidence to start animating again. It's been quite tough trying to mentally get back into the routine since my illness but never the less, I will continue to push ahead and stick with my goal in mind for this year.

I have decided from the flying bald eagle animation that I wanted to re-visit the Nico creature as it was thoroughly enjoyable to animate. So this month I have planned to make two distinct animations and both will feature the Nico rig. As titled, this Nico rig will have a dog like trait and what's one of the most outstanding habit which a dog does, it's chasing their tails. I chose to do this as I wanted to keep it very simple but also have that appeal of movement that I can animate from.

So as usual, I have looked at a handful of video references and carefully studied the way a dog chases it's own tail. So from the size of the dog, the duration of the spinning and the poses before and after. I won't talk about this in detail a lot as I believe the by watching the videos below speaks louder than what I type.

 



After this, I then isolated a particular dog that sort of have the similar build of the Nico rig that I will focus on, as I found that the smaller dogs tends to have a much more tighter turn compared to the larger ones. I then drew my thumbnails of the key poses that will help establish the chasing tail animation.

Dog Thumbnails - Sketching out the key poses



I had always thought about making an animatic after I had drawn the key poses so that I could get the whole feel of the timing and spacing for my animation. But, I have usually left this part out as I could just adjust the poses in Maya. However I think there is always that sense of urgency and anxiety to see whether or not your work is slowly piecing itself together. I then downloaded a free app on the App store called "imotion HD", which I recommend doing so. Reminded me back in 1st year at university where I had to use a similar software for my 2D animation.

  

Though the aspect ratio is 4:3 I still found this to be incredibly useful. I was delighted with the results of the app. The video is looped three times as I had shared this on instagram, wanted to see how well this would be received, so far positive.

 

I then went back to the thumbnails of my animation and then analysed and annotated areas where the squash and stretch would occur and when I would need to make the paw foot roll and peel off, from the ground. I then simply just coloured coded the up as green and down for red, to not over clutter my work. I found this to be useful and saved a lot more time.

 

Dog Thumbnails - Colour code the up and down

Dog Thumbnails - Green, up



Dog Thumbnails - Red, down

Dog Thumbnails - Simple Annotaions



 

Finally, I was ready to set my scene up in Maya to begin blocking out my poses for when I resume the project. So, I then roughly posed out my starting position of the Nico Rig and rigged up three camera angles into the scene. I want to make sure that I get a very realistic feel of the Nico and therefore not even had the very idea of cheating, something I have felt very strongly about improving myself as an animator and from reading Steve Jobs book. "The audience may not know it, but I will"- a very loose quote.

 

Nico Rig - Behind camera

Nico Rig- Front camera

Nico Rig - Persp camera



 



 

I feel as though I have finally begun to step up and stop going back into the old habits of leaving something half complete but, I must not lose sight of this new philosophy of mine. I guess only after this project is completed can I really have a say on whether or not I have improved as an animator.

 

Anyway, I will begin animating this in a couple of days time and not tomorrow because I have decided to go back to work. I'm really excited to share more about this project soon so stay tuned.









Bird Animation - Flying Cycle - Final

Hello all, I was able to finish animating a very simple bird cycle last week and with that I was hoping to do another animation which will show a personality of the bald eagle, taking off and flying in the air. However, as I reached the conclusion of the bird cycle, I had a moment where I knew that this isn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed animating the bird cycle and found it to be a great challenge but, when I looked back at animating the Nico rig a couple months back, I remembered how much I enjoyed animating a land creature compared to a flying one.

It's also the fact that as I look back at this animation and the heavy character animation, i just knew that this isn't pushing my skills as an animator. Sure I'm making a creature/ character move, but there isn't that hint of personality or feeling that it's alive. Very much of the last couple of animations felt robotic and lifeless unlike the Nico rig, which has that moment of  life. I therefore want to focus a lot more on this part as it'll help breathe life into my showreel, rather than some generic animations that seem dull and doesn't have that appeal about them.

Again, I apologise that this blog post, is kind of empty, but believe me, I'm glad that I was able to realise this now, rather than later .Plus, I have no regrets on animating the bird cycle, as it has taught me a lot about how birds fly, something I won't forget and will hopefully use that knowledge again someday.

Tomorrow I will posting about my next project.

Bird Animation -References and Theory - Part 1

Hello all, once again I am starting on a new project and I have looked at the list of animations that I have set myself for, and so far, I feel comfortable with what I will have at the end for my showreel. I did have a moment on whether or not to skip to just personality animations but, I feel as though I would be missing a key animation. So if you haven't guessed already, I'll be animating a bird.

As usual,  I will be animating a cycle of a bird so that I get the idea of how the body mechanics work and that I will get used to the rig more. Then later, I will take on challenge of making the bird land, as I progress, something I've been told from Cassidy Curtis, an animation supervisor from "How to train your dragon" that is said to be a difficult part of any flying creature. He explained how the folding of the creature wings and vice versa, is challenging.

So, like many animations, it's time to hit the theory and references.

I had thought about going back to Proffessor Stuart Sumida as he had helped animators in How to train your dragon but, I remembered from an animation workshop that I had attended back in November at the VFX festival in London, whom I met Alexander Williams. The workshop was how to animate a crow in flight and part of the source of reference he used as an Animator named Brendan Body, click the name to follow his work and tutorials. Anyway, I then used his notes on what he well explained on how birds take flight.

Bird Anatomy was one of the key areas to understand how the wings a bird moves.

Bird Anatomy- source

I won't explain everything and instead just bullet point some the important bits, but if really want to learn how to animate for yourself, I suggest taking a look at Brendan's notes as he has compiled some visual aid to help reiterate what he is explaining. Something that I don't do very well.

-Humerus- "forward on the way down and then back on the way up" - has a medial rotation

-Wings- As the bird moves downwards they are pushed forward and then rotate back as they return to the up position

- The slower the bird is flying, the further forward it'll push its songs to generate lift, the faster the bird is flying the less it'll push its wings forward.

Below is a very simple video of how a bird flys and how lift is involved. I really want to save the time for you guys to read my crude explanations and I thought that it'll be a welcome break. Enjoy.

I have found a rig online and it's a Bald Eagle and so you guessed it, I have been looking at a couple of video references of how these birds fly, hunt and even interact with one another. I then found a brilliant channel on youtube that has the national geographic wild documentaries of animals and will surely be using it as a great source of reference material, for other animal animations in the future.

With all the notes that I have written down and going over the video references I have to admit, that this is an animation that I will probably struggle on. Reason being is that, it's a flying creature that is going to be cycled in 3D space, where it won't have any contact on the ground, something that I have not done before. Just have to see how well I do as I get stuck into this.

I know I'm jumping the gun here but below is a free webinar with Alexander Williams next week, where he will be going over the process of animating a multi legged creature, something that I will be doing after this project. But for anyone that is starting to animate or wanting to learn how to animate a multi legged creature themselves, this is a good start. Get registering though! Alexander William Webinar

Anyway, I'm off and hopefully I'll have something substantial to show at the end of the week.

Heavy Character Animation - Part 4 - Final

Hello all once again, I know that I'm a few days late but better than late than never. I have reached the conclusion of this project and have had the extra time to think about my next which I'll talk about on my next blog post but for now, lets review the Heavy character animation.

I feel as though the weight of the character needs to be worked on a bit more, the reason being is that this character is holding a heavy gun which would strain some of the character poses from time to time even though, this character would seem to have no trouble of carrying the weapon at all. This has also made me think about my planning before animating again. So next time I begin animating a character or creature, I will provide a background history, so that I can get a sense of story and personality.

The jump when the character gets the courage to go out and fight, doesn't really work for me. I think I got the timing of it right but the poses, aren't exactly the best one, as it's kind of exaggerated a bit too much.

A point which I just want to make is that, this project was more orientated to a game showreel at the time but because of the complexity of the character story, it wouldn't seem ideal for a game asset. Therefore the next video below has different camera angles. Another reason for the multiple cameras was that it was to train myself to see from different angles of the animation that I was working on so, I didn't cheat. This proved to be useful and I would do this again for upcoming projects.

I remember the final project of my university course and as much as it haunts me of how bad the animation was, I now understand what my tutor "Michael Morgan" was talking about, how the performance of the character poses has to be done first, so that you can communicate to the audience on how that character is feeling. Rather than just focusing on the facial animation, which is another part of the animation. Even though I didn't animate much of the facial expressions for this project, I understand how the character is feeling nervous first, but then calms himself down to remember what he is doing.

My next project will be a creature animation and it's something that I can't wait to animate, but more about that later on the next blog post.

Heavy Character Animation - Part 3

I'm back. After having a week off from animating and working from my part time job, it was a welcome relief for my mind. That week off, really made me think about where I am at the moment and really exposed the flaws of my schedule which I have planned for this year. So, after carefully going about what to do now, I realise that I may have to one day admit that I won't become an animator straight away and instead, should find an equal passion that will drive me to become eager to work every day. I have a job in mind and it's something related to what I'm doing at my part time job but will be orientated around technology.

Anyway back to the animation. I have blocked out all of the key poses of the heavy character and have encountered a problem. It's something to do with the heavy character hands where once I have keyed the gun to discontinue the constraints, I'm left with the right hand acting as the driving force for the left hand, therefore I can not independently move the right hand as it still affects the translations and rotations for the left hand.

I had tried to figure a way out of this but was unsuccessful in solving this problem. Since the animation is going quite long, approximately around 40-50 seconds, I then had to review what I could keep and what I had to cut loose. As there is so much going on in terms of character personality, I then decided to keep the first 20 seconds of the start of the animation. I can then focus a lot more on this short section of what I had planned out from the start and make sure that the performance is a strong as it can be.

With that said, I have given myself this week to finish this project. Bit disappointed with the problem which I wasn't able to fix but, they'll be another project which I will try to resolve this problem. I'll see you guys next time, where I hope to have this completed and talk about my graduation day, which is tomorrow.

A week off - Heavy Character Animation - Part 2

I have decided in the best interest of my own health to, take a week off from animating. This is due to the amount of stress that has built up over the past few weeks where I had experienced some pain in my chest and slight headaches. I have not yet seen a Doctor yet but, I feel that this would be the best prescription for myself, if I had been told by a doctor. I'll be booking one in a couple of days time.

Show some work so far- reference video 

I know that I want to become an Animator and be able to break into the industry this year, seeing my university friends able to find a job after the course and how well they are doing has pushed my mentality to where I have to non stop work. Sure they're times when I do take that one day break off to see friends and relax and there are even times when I do procrastinate. However to be safe and sure, I'll take this week off. I will try and do some small animation maybe, prep for the upcoming animations along the way so I'll be ready.

Thumbnail and Annotation of poses

Blocking the scene in Maya

I am a bit disappointed with myself and how I have put myself into this situation, at times, I feel like I'm throwing in the towel. But, like the people I have spoken from friends, family, meeting others from events, that you sometime have to have patience, you don't need to rush in. With that said, I hope that this isn't a long term worry and that I should be back animating and posting my work in no time.

Heavy character Animation - Part 1

Hello all, once again I'm back here to talk about the next animation which I will be working on over the next couple of weeks. I had at the time wanted to produce more creature animation but, I feel that there is a particular area which I lack and have not developed my skills enough yet and therefore, I have decided to work on it.



Valve- Team Fortress 2



This time I will be animating a character from Valve's Team Fortress game, the "Heavy" character. I had other rigs that was available for me to pick at the time but they're a couple of reasons of why I have chose this rig. For one thing, I wanted to test a different rig that I wasn't used to. Secondly, the fact that this asset is from a game, so I wanted to try and add some gaming animation towards my showreel which was suggested by Alex Williams at the workshop that I had attended a while back. Another reason I have chose this is that, I wasn't proud of myself, where I had cheated some of the poses because of the camera angle that I had chosen; this time however, I will continue to stage my scene with one camera, in addition I will put multiple cameras around my scene, so every detail like weight and balance are there. Lastly, I wanted to have a prop animation where the character has something, inevitably, this would mean that I would get the chance to work with the IK and Fk Switch, something which I need to get past.



I also chose the Heavy character as I wanted to have an update from my mentor lessons animation assignment, which only had a basic ball as the body and two legs. This time, I would have to work on a whole body which I'm excited to work on.

This isn't the first time that I have animated a character holding an object but, I think because of past experience on that and another animation project which I had to shelve as it was so badly worked one, really is making me fear for the worse when I begin working on this project. But, somehow I have to look past that and make myself believe that this is another challenge which I must overcome.

The Heavy Rig





Poses are not right- testing constraints

Need to go over the tutorials to how to properly constrain the character with the object (gun).

I have therefore decided to look at Digital tutors again, as I wanted to make sure that I animate this correctly. So after, signing up for another month worth of content, I started to note down a few tips that would help me with this animation.





Digital Tutors

 

It's been a slow start and I'm already not happy with the amount of work that I was able to achieve, no matter, a new day tomorrow. Also to add on just before I go, I was able to amend the frame rate issue that I had with my Dog animation personality.

Dog Animation Part 5

Hello, I know it's been a while since I last posted something on here and I wanted to keep you guys up to date but, it's quite hard to find the time when I was busy animating, especially when I was in the zone. By the way, Happy Chinese new year guys! I didn't even get the chance to celebrate that, that's how busy I was.

Anyway, I have completed the dog animation and right now, I feel great, having it all finally done. I must say, I had one week which I thought that I was animating quite well but, after scrubbing through the poses I felt that it wash't up to scratch and I decided to re-do one part of the animation as I wasn't happy with it. It wasn't easy to acknowledge but, I knew that if I wanted to become a better animator, I will have to make the decisions such as re-doing it again.

Final video- Frames missing

With this project,  I did I a different workflow where instead of blocking it out in stepped mode in Maya, I did it whilst I was in spline mode. It was distracting, as I wanted to change a lot of the poses and I was animating in straight ahead rather than pose to pose which I was more comfortable with. Seeing the animation move like this slowed down my progress. However, what I was able to take from this was that I took more time and consideration of each pose and as i continued doing this, I noticed how I didn't tweak every in between pose and was beginning to animate in a block out workflow. 

For the next several months I will be trying to stage my animation to make it seem more appealing where for example, I added trees and some basic lighting. The problem which I have now is that I have lost at least 10 frames from the final video which may not seem a lot but, the fact that every frame is a drawing and together forms the bigger picture, will effect the whole animation. I.e what if there is a footing of the animation which doesn't make contact? All of this will add up and it's something which I must seek to resolve as soon as possible. 

Anyway, after completing the animation I knew that there are several mistakes, even my friends who I showed this to, have pointed them out and so I will be refining this animation one more time. After that I will start my next animation project, which I will talk about in a couple of days time. 

Animating- Dog animation Part 4

This is just a quick update on the progress that I have made so far. At the moment, I do see some benefits of the new workflow which I have decided to do for this project where I started with the main body, squash and stretch and then posing out the legs. I found some pros and cons to this.

Some of the benefits that I have found animating this way is that, I feel a sense of progression of my work and that I feel more confident with working with the graph editor, whereas normally it's quite confusing when working the graph editor after the blocking out my animation.

However I can see the cons in this, as sometimes I do feel like I'm animating in straight ahead, and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. 

The two videos that are rendered out are in it's early stages and I can see a number of faults already. I have mainly focused on the body and quickly moved the legs into their key poses to get an idea of what it may look like in the future. 

One thing which has bugged me was that it felt as though the trot cycle was very slow. I think to be honest, that I have one too many poses in this and that I have to get rid of one. This problem had occurred when I was doing the run cycle with my character and that my mentor had pointed this out for me. 

I believe that the pose which I can get rid of, is the image below. The reason being is that it takes too long for the Nico leg to touch the ground. 

One too many poses

As this cycle is at it's early stage, I wanted to try and exaggerate some of the rig but, sometimes it doesn't always work out. The image below highlights the rotation of the Nico, where I think I should tone it down.

Rotation needs to be toned down

Even though I' trying to make this move as realistic as possible, I still think that there needs to be that touch of emphasis on the movements. I therefore think that the front and back needs to be clearly contrasted, to make it look more appealing. 

Contrast- feels robotic

I'm really pleased with the progress so far, even though it means going back and re-animating some poses again. 

Keep animating- try something new.

Trotting cycle and trying something new- Dog animation Part 3

Hello all once again. It's back to business and back to the dog animation. Although I had done a cheetah walk cycle from the previous month, I feel that it had lacked the necessary details and realism of a quadruped animation, and with all the research I had now done from Professor S. Sumida power point I feel that I have missed out an important task to getting it done right.

Trotting cycle- Key poses

Trotting Cycle- Key Poses

I have then replayed the reference video which is part of the storyboard that I have done and focused a certain cycle that the dog performs, in this case, "trotting". So, I would then animate this first and then go back and continue with the story. I feel that this would refresh and hopefully change the way that I will animate this time around.

Technical Difficulties

I then however ran into another problem with one of the rigs, where I wasn't able to save the file. This meant I had to find another Dog rig for the animation. I was going to give up when I found a video tutorial that had mentioned how the rig "Nico" was a very good one to use. So below, is the new rig that I will be using. It'll be kind of cool as I would then try to make this animal have a dog-like personality.

Nico Rig

The video that suggested this was a person that I'm currently following. He has some terrific videos and tutorials. The one thing that I like about some tutorials is that I get to see the methodology and hopefully find a tip that could help me animate that more efficiently. One of the things that I saw which I have tried doing and proved successful, was how he worked on the body first and emulated the bouncing ball effect. By doing this, you will have made sure that the creature or character will have that bounce life like effect (12 Principles of animation).

 
Basic Quadruped Walk Cycle Tutorial from Chris Sokalofsky on Vimeo.

I just want to mention that I'm not copying from this tutorial. This was mainly to educate myself to how another person workflow works. Plus, the person is going through a walk cycle rather than a trot, which I am trying to achieve. Read my previous post to learn more about the difference...or : A trot is when two feet are off the ground at the same time- unlike a walk -_-

As much as I hate to try a different approach to my workflow I thought, "when else is a better time to experiment and learn from your mistakes?". So as well as animating the body first, I'm also going to try and animate without blocking out my animation in stepped mode. Instead, I will still do pose to pose but, will do this in splines. This is another topic which was mentioned from Animator mentor, and already, it feels like refreshing approach. Like my friend once said, "everyone has a different workflow but will also reach the same conclusion".

I'm going to try and aim to complete most of the trotting cycle by the end of the week, though no garuntee as I might have to pop into work, lets hope not.

Keep animating, try something new.

Happy new year and projects completed

Happy new year! I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating the new year. This will be the last few days of my break before I start to pick up where I left off, from the animation which I have had planned. Again, I apologise for the lack of work as I had more shifts at work and that the holidays were around. Got to enjoy life right?

I have however, have something to show to you guys which I'm quite pleased to have completed. I technically started on January 9th 2013 for this project but, I was able to recover other previous recorded content that I had done earlier of 2013. Anyway, the video below is based on my life where I have recorded each day for one second for one year. Each day had a meaning to me and are moments which were important.

One Second each day for a year 2013 from Andy Mo on Vimeo.

As I watch the video, I have the sense of feeling of when times were good and I was full of optimism of my future but, then there is a point where I lose myself and start to lose heart of where I want to go in my career.  However, as I look at this as a whole picture, I realise what I must do in order to get where I want in this new year of 2014.


This video project would not have been possible were it not for "Cesar K."here is a link of his talk about his one second project idea. Thanks for his inspiring talk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_kuriyama_one_second_every_day.html