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.