Spoilers

So I have been working on my final Demo Reel for the last two Terms, so about 4-5 months. One of the ways to show progress is to put together an animatic. An animatic is a way to visually see if what you are doing works in terms of timing and shots. Usually done by editing the storyboards together into one video. So if you are interested in finding out what my demo reel is about below is my first animatic.



So it is a little confusing what some of the camera moves are but that is the basic premise of my reel. The next thing to do is to evaluate the animatic and find out what's working and what isn't. The next phase in my reel was to create a slap comp. A slap comp is very roughly putting your digital work on top of the footage. This allows you to figure out how much time you have for any animation and figure out pacing. The next video is my end of Term 3 presentation which has the slap comp in it (plus my spider assignment ... I was too lazy to take it out). Also, in the upper right corner of the video there is my 3D animatic which I used as a basis for my slap comp.



So the demo reel actually changed quite a bit after the slap comp. I wasn't able to reshoot my final plates at the same location so the location is different in my final. Also, there are a few shots that have been changed and all camera's have been locked so that there are no moving shots. The actor in my reel changed too. I asked another classmate who is older and looks more intimidating. Turned out really awesome.

The robot has also been changed. I added more geo to the robot to break up the silhouette a little and completely retextured it so that it looks more gritty and war torn. Instead of white, the robot is now gray and silver. The inside of the cockpit was also changed. Also, originally the idea for the cockpit was to have it covered by glass. But my mentor told me to change it to metal so I wouldn't have to deal with reflections because it would be harder. But recently I changed it back to glass because it looks so much better and the reflections really didn't cause too much grief. The robot now looks like this:

I would post my most recent presentation stuff which has my almost completed reel in it, but I think that it would be a better surprise to see it later when it's finished - which it almost is. I spoke to my mentor and because of how far along I am with my reel he told me he wants it done by mid Term 5. That is in two weeks. But I really only have one week to finish it because he wants to see it next week so he can approve it/give me comments on it before the mid Term 5 Presentation. If I do finish, it means I will have finished my reel 3 months ahead of schedule. This will give me more time to polish it to perfection or if its good enough work on other projects that I could put on my reel. I'm pretty excited at how far along I am but also it has become quite stressful. Well I hope you enjoyed it.

Spider

So this assignment was my VFX project in Term 3. I am now in Term 5 so I'm posting this really late. We were given a rigged, non-textured mechanical spider. We had to texture the spider, shoot a moving shot, put the spider in the shot and animate it. We were told to do a simple shot that dollies from side to side. I decided to do something a little more complicated than that.

Here it is.




So as you saw in my breakdowns there were little black and white checkerboard pieces of paper taped to the walls, desk and computer monitor. These are tracking markers that allowed me to track the footage a lot better than if I didn't put them up. This allows me to be able to recreate a 3D environment that the spider could interact with and receive shadows and reflections.

Also, if you saw I added the pencil on the table that he cuts in two. I thought it came out pretty good. I used a rigid body simulation on the spider that animated the pencil for me. It took quite a while for me to figure out the correct settings to get the pencil to fall realistically and bounce correctly. It would have probably saved me time and trouble if I actually animated the pencil drop by myself, but it I really wanted to figure out how to use simulations. I think it was a good learning exercise.

Hope you guys like it.

It has been a while

So it has been a long time since I last posted anything. I didn't do my usual recap of the last term, so now is as any good as any (although I am already midway through Term 4). We used Term 3 for developing our Demo Reels - drawing up storyboards, creating animatics (simple 2D or 3D animations used to preview our work) and building our assets. Now that all that pre-production stuff is out of the way this Term is used for production and post-production. I am doing really well with my Demo Reel, however, there is still tons to do.

But before we keep going on about my Demo Reel, here are the last three animation assignments I had.

The first assignment was to animate a baseball pitch and swing.




I made the batter miss because I was going to add a couple more shots where the pitcher laughed at him and then got hit in the face by the bat. Sadly, I ran out of time to work on this because I was focusing on my demo reel stuff. I didn't have a chance to fix the animation on what I already had, let alone add to it.

This next one is the first lip sync I have ever done. The video might be a bit out of sync thought because of the way it was exported. If it is, just trust that I did a pretty good job on it. Again the animation isn't 100% since I didn't have time to go back and refine it.




If you didn't get what movie I picked, I picked a line from Superman (1978)

This last one was a group assignment. Me and one of my friends had to do a small bit of dialogue between two people. We chose a scene from Step Brothers. He animated the John C Reilly character and I animated the Will Ferrell character (my guy has a top hat). Again the dialogue may be a bit out of sync due to exporting issues. At this point we were both swamped with demo reel work that neither of us went back to polish off the animation.





I hope you enjoyed my animation. I will try to update you guys on the other cool stuff I've been doing for my demo reel soon. Let's hope I don't get too busy to update. Peace

VFX

So this is the last post of work that I did last term (Term 2). This post is all about visual effects. Within the VFX stream, there are several essential areas of study. They are compositing, match moving, camera projection and green screen. I will only be showing you examples of the first three since I don't have any green screen work to show you (although I assume you already know what that is).

Compositing simply means combining all elements of a shot (footage, CG elements, simulations, etc.) into one image. Once everything is done a compositer would take the footage shot on the day and add in all CG elements and make sure they blend together. I never really had any compositing assignments because most of the things I did were in class and they are not super impressive. However, I have used these skills in my other assignments (below).

Match moving is the process of calculating the movement of a real camera used on set and using that data to recreate a digital camera that would move in the same way in digital space. This would allow you to recreate the scene in 3D and integrate your CG element with the correct scale, position, and rotation. This new 3D camera would move around the CG element as if it were shot with the original camera. Below are two small tests I did for my match moving classes. You might see a flash right when the video starts because at the front of the video there will be a frame showing the 3D object I tracked into the scene. You can ignore the flash.

This first one has some geo built in to mimic the ground plane (so I can add shadow from my CG objects) and other parts of the step. If this were a final shot, then these pieces of geometry would be removed (they are set up for shadows, casting reflection or receiving reflection).




In this next one I removed the geo that I created for shadows. You'll notice that my CG item becomes obstructed at one point. Geometry was put in to allow for this obstruction then taken out.




In both the last two cases I used my compositing skills to try to integrate the live action footage with the CG elements and trying to make them fit together. You be the judge of my success.

Finally we have camera projection. Camera projection is when you take one still image and project it onto geometry in 3D space so that you can do a camera move that will give the illusion of depth. The move is limited since at one point the illusion of this projection would break. This technique is used mostly for set extension purposes. Below is the image I started out with, and then after the video of it being camera projected.

Well I hope you enjoyed this VFX post. More are to come since this is what I am streaming into. Peace.

Environment

So the final project in Term 2 was to make 3 environments as a group.  The environments were a graveyard, a house (exterior) and the inside of Beatrice's room.  These were the concept art that we had s a basis for our project. (click to see full size image)

The graveyard and the house were both created by my friend Tyler who is a super talented artist. Whenever I have a question regarding design or art in general I go to him (he has a fine arts background). The third was made by another member in his group (also a pretty sweet image).

Below is my group's final video presentation of these three environments. You will notice that our trees and bushes are very stylized as we tried to keep with the designs given to us. Whether they work or not is up to you.



So what did I do in this project?  Our group of 8 was divided into 3 sub groups - one for each environment.  I worked on the graveyard scene. My job was to model the hero gravestone (the main cross gravestone - called "hero" because it is the main focus of the shot).  I also built the proxy geometry for all the gravestones (there are only 5 shapes that were randomized in the scene and altered slightly). I completely finished (finalized model, shaded, textured) one of those 5 while the other 4 were finished by someone else.  I also did the layout of the graveyard (put the other props in the scene), made the bushes, built the fence and gate, did the brick pathway, put in the grass, and lit the scene (I did a lot on this scene).  I also did the camera moves in the first two scenes (the graveyard and the house).  In the other two environments I didn't do that much. I did the bushes in the House Exterior portion and helped a bit in troubleshooting the other two scenes.

So here is a link to close up stills of some of the stuff I modeled (Click here)

Hope you guys like it. Peace.

Beatrice

So if you recall, in Term 1 my class was split up into groups to design 2 characters (Beatrice and Biggles) and her environment (her house, the graveyard near her house, and her room).  Last term (term 2) one of the groups' designs were chosen (due to simplicity of the character's dress), and we were given the task to model her and the environments designed by that group.

So without further adieu, below is the style guide given to us for the character (Beatrice) and my 3D rendition of that character. (click for full size)

You can tell that there are a few differences in terms of poses. In the concept art she is smiling and has her arms behind her back. In my 3D model she is not smiling (in a more neutral facial position) and has her arms to her side. The reason being is that this makes it easier for rigging (putting the underlying skeleton in the geo). Also, I took small liberties with the textures of her dress, but overall I tried to make the model as close to the concept art as possible, which was the point of the exercise - in industry modelers are given concept art and must follow it.  There are a few things that didn't translate from 2D to 3D so well (such as the shape of her face) so I tried to change it so that it would work. My 3D model has more of a distinct nose than the drawing. If I had a bit more time I would've liked to give her a better nose, but I feel I did a pretty good job regardless.

Lastly here is a video turnaround of Beatrice for your enjoyment. (click on video to watch larger version on youtube)

Well I hope you enjoyed this. Peace.


EDIT: I noticed that youtube compressed the hell out of my video so the image quality kind of sucks. Here is the link to an album of higher res images if you are interested: http://donel.imgur.com/beatrice#6AI0X

To animate, or not to animate

So I'm back at school and ready for Term 3.  During this term we will be starting on our final demo reel (which will act as my business card when I graduate as I attempt to get jobs).  I had a hard decision to make in terms of which stream I will be taking. I kept going back and forth between animation and VFX, and if you have been talking to me lately you would know that it was a very very hard decision to make.  But ultimately I ended up picking VFX.


Until something came up and brought this whole question back with a vengeance.  As I have stated in my last entry, I had a presentation to give to some of my instructors last Monday on the ideas I would be doing for my demo reel. I also showed them a two minute video showcasing my term 2 work. After I had finished my presentation they somewhat questioned my decision of going into VFX as (it turns out) my animation is very strong.  The idea that we chose for my final demo reel involves an animated robot (more details later), so naturally I would be taking classes in VFX and animation (major/minor). They suggested maybe making an animation reel instead of a VFX reel. This completely threw me for a loop because I had already made up my mind to do VFX and now they toss this at me.  So for the past week I have been going back and forth, back and forth, animation, VFX, animation, VFX.

This morning I came up with my final decision (after a week of suffering through this decision). I will continue doing my VFX reel.  However, since it is animation heavy (and I still get to take classes in animation) I will try to incorporate as much animation as possible. After speaking with an instructor about this, I found that this was a great decision and will allow me to somewhat have my cake and eat it too.  I decided I would get my foot in the door doing VFX, and if I want to switch later I can try to transfer into the animation department at the studio I will theoretically be working in.

So now I would like to show you the animation that I did in this last term.  There are a few pieces (both 2D and 3D as usual).  This term, though, the animations were a bit more complicated so the 2D animations were used only as a starting point/guide. It only has the major keys/poses and so it is not as smooth as if it were a polished animation.  However, this stage really helps in the understanding of the mechanics of timing and line of action, etc.

First is a walk cycle (this one is a little more fun than my last walk cycle)






Next we did a "personality" walk cycle. More fun to do because now the walk has a bit more character/emotion.





And as an added bonus here is lighting test I did with this sad walk.

Next is a run cycle.





Also, for fun in the last 2D class we did a double bounce walk (didn't do this in 3D though)




This is the end of the cycle animations that we did. Now came a couple of assignments that were a bit more tough to do. The Push and the Lift. The main purpose of these assignments is to show weight and force exerted and make it believable.

PUSH

LIFT

I am especially proud of my lift. I wish I had a bit more time to work on it because some parts of the animation could be a bit smoother, but overall I am happy with it.

Well this was a super long entry. Sorry for the length. The next entry should be shorter since I will have less to catch up on. I hope you enjoyed this. I will try to upload more frequently. Peace.

Do I really need sleep?

So I haven't been updating this as often as I'd like and I think I promised to show some of my work in my next blog (e.g. this one), but I am too busy to upload anything at the moment. So I'll just give a quick update while I'm my lunch break (the only real break I get in the day).  I am about a week away from the end of my second term here at VFS. My last day of instruction is Monday, however most of my projects are due Wednesday.  So at this point I am super busy.  This week I have been going on 20-22 hr days at school working.  Today I am running on less than 3 hrs of sleep. I seem to be running fine at the moment, but I'm sure this is going to hit me hard soon. But in the meantime I'll probably keep doing it until end of Term.

At first I thought this term was going to be more laid back at the end because the whole term was pretty chill up to about 1-2 weeks ago.  That is when they gave us our final assignment (well we have multiple assignments to do but this one is definitely the biggest).  This project is comparable to the Still Life in terms of how it encompasses several disciplines (modeling, surfacing, texturing, rendering/lighting) but on a much larger scale. If you recall, last term we had the Design project where we had to design a couple of characters (I drew the cat and girl) and a couple environments.  Well, this term we are expanding on it.  One of the teams' design was chosen by the instructors to model out the main character (Beatrice) - due to the fact that it was probably the simplest to model and rig (in terms of how the dress lays on the character).

So we have to build, model, shade, texture the girl. That isn't too difficult (although it does take a long time to do it right).  But that's not the big thing. The big thing is that we have to do the same thing for her environment. We were given 3 environments to model, shade, texture, render in CG - the exterior of her house, the inside of her room, and the graveyard near her house.  We were set into different teams of 8 to do this.  In my team I took on the role of project manager, making sure people did what they said they would and on time.  Also, I am in charge of the graveyard. So when this project is done I will go into further detail on what I did.

Aside from that we have other assignments due for the other classes (Animation, VFX, Visual Storytelling).  But apart from the environment the other big stressful thing on my plate is my end of term presentation. On Monday we have to present a 2 minute "demo reel" of all the assignments we have done so far in this term to the instructors.  Then we will pitch 3 ideas for our final demo real and choose a stream.  The instructors (one from Modeling, Animation, VFX) will then talk to us and help us decide what stream, minor, and demo reel project we should take (in terms of our skills and scope of our ideas).  I am super nervous because I am unsure still of what to minor in.  I am definitely doing VFX as a major, and I thought I was doing animation as my minor. However, one of the things I enjoy the most is shading and texturing (which falls under the Modeling stream).  Also, my VFX reel will probably profit from taking the modeling stream since it will be more modeling heavy.  But we'll see what the instructors say.

Well I have to go back to class. I'll probably not have a chance to update this blog until after I am done with this term. Until then, peace out.

Mirror Mirror On the Wall

So at the beginning of the year on my first day of school they handed us a VFS backpack with some free stuff, including pencils, erasers, a sharpener, etc.  One of the items they gave us was a smallish personal mirror. At first I thought maybe it was to do some perspective drawings or something.  I then also noticed that they had full length mirrors in every classroom that spanned from the floor to the ceiling.  I thought they were just there as part of the design of the room, but they serve a very specific purpose (as does the mirrors we were given).

The mirrors are there for animation purposes.  As I have stated a number of times, the best thing to do in anything you do in 3D (whether it be animation, modeling, or VFX) is to have reference.  These mirrors are basically there for you to act out your scene in front of your mirror so that you can see the action as it is, instead of imagining what it might be.  You can also have someone else act it out for you, that way you can strictly observe and not be focusing on the acting.  It is also a good idea to tape yourself (or others) doing the actions.

I realized that this was the purpose of these mirrors when early in my first term I noticed one of the guys in the class ahead of me acting out his scene in front of the mirror.  In this term when I got to animating a person (before we were animating inanimate objects) it became really useful. I have acted out in front of that mirror a couple times and it does help. I've also asked others to do the action so that I can see. You get to pick up a lot of what you miss by just trying to imagine it and you pick up the subtle details the body does during these motions. 

The smaller mirror is for facial animation. I haven't done any facial animation yet. That will be covered in Term 3.  I wanted to post up a clip from Making Nemo (I believe that's the correct title) to prove my point about mirrors (and recording oneself) and its importance to animation.  We'll in this documentary on the making of Finding Nemo (which I think is on the DVD special features), it shows an interview with the animator who worked on Dori and how he prepared for Dori's facial animation by acting it out in a mirror. It's an amazing documentary and I highly recommend it.

This entry seems like its getting a bit on the long side now. Was going to post some of my animations but I will leave it for my next post or else this one will be super long.  Until next time.

Everybody's Nekkid

So its been a while since I posted anything that I have worked on, so I guess its about time I do.  At the beginning of this term, we started focusing heavily on the study of human anatomy.  Although we did look at bones, the main course of study was muscles and muscle structures within the human body.

I am so glad that we started studying this because I have never really studied anatomy on my own and knowing where muscles are and how they connect within the body is very useful.  I feel that what I have learned over the past few weeks has greatly helped me understand how the body functions and has made me a better artist.

We looked at anatomy in my Modeling class and in my Life Drawing class.  In modeling we began to model the male figure in 3D.  And as I have said before reference is key when it comes to doing anything.  On the school network there are tons of folders with reference - i.e. naked people.  We picked a model to go off of, in different poses and from different angles - Front, Side, 3/4 and close-ups of various parts of the body.

It was kind of humorous to look around and see that on everyone's monitor there was a picture of a naked dude.  Here is my 3D model of my male anatomy study. We were told not to worry about hands or feet, so my model doesn't have any hands. We did take a brief look at hands but only after this project was finished. (click for full size)

As you can see, our assignment was to focus on the muscles. So we basically modeled the body as if it had no skin so we can only see the muscle.  I think I did a pretty good job for my first time dealing with anatomy.  Some of my classmates were surprised to find out I never studied anatomy so I took that as a good thing.

I already received my marks for this assignment, and I did really well. The comments I received from my instructors were that overall proportions of the body is correct and that most of my muscle groups were fairly accurate. Only thing wrong is that some of my muscles weren't the right size (though they were in the right place). 

I usually post up pictures of my reference (as I did with my Still Life) so you guys can compare what I did to the real thing, but I assume that you guys don't really want to see a bunch of pictures of a naked dude.

Unfortunately, we did not do a female anatomy study.  A lot of people  in my program (including myself) felted cheated since the class before us got to do both male and female studies.  There are a lot of differences between the male and female body - different proportions in body size and muscle size, difference in fat deposits, etc.  Although I didn't get to do this study in class, now that I know how to go about studying muscles and anatomy, I can study on my own. Although now I won't have an instructor telling me what I'm doing right or what I'm doing wrong.


Although we didn't do the female study in Modeling, we are getting some study in Life Drawing.  Life Drawing is a class that specifically is about the study of the body.  In this class (which meets once a week) we have a model (male or female) come in and pose for us in different positions in the nude.  The instructor gives us a certain amount of time to draw each pose. Usually we get a several 30 second poses, then we work up to 2 minute poses, a couple 5 minute poses, and at the end a couple 10 minute poses.

We are lectured in how to approach drawing the body, looking for lines of actions and curves the body naturally makes.  We are also lectured in how muscles connect to the different bones in the body.  I have learned so much in this class. 

I would post up some of my work from this class but at this stage in my learning it's not super impressive (plus I leave my Life Drawing notepad at school and am too lazy to get it).  Since most of our drawings are of poses with a very small time frame, a lot of the drawings consist of lines and curves that give the feeling of the pose. As our instructor taught us, the dangers most new students face is that they will try to workout details of the body even with such a small time frame that they get a really crappy drawing. What we are to do first is to get the pose down, nice and loose, and then if we have the time (such as in longer poses of 10+ min) work in the details.

I will try to post more of my other works for you guys when I get the chance.  I get pretty busy sometimes and don't have time to update this blog. But I will try harder.

Donnie

So throughout most of my life I have never really been called anything else that wasn't "Donald".  No cool nicknames really. One of my buddies in high school used to call me Trump and as a joke another one of my friends now calls me D-man. But for the most part it's "Donald". Which I guess is how I have preferred it.  Never really been into derivatives of my name such as Don or Donnie.  But ever since I have started school this is what I am mostly called, and I have gotten used to it.

It started with my friend Jeremy who on one of the first days of class decided to call me Donnie because he thought that the name made more sense for a guy who came from LA.  He also usually yells it and elongates it when he says it. So that name stuck.  Also, people just shortened it to Don.  So now I'm either Donnie or Don, and rarely Donald.  Which is cool.  It was a bit strange to respond to those names since no one has ever called me by those names (with any frequency).

Also, the newest nickname that has been bestowed upon me has been Wahlberg.  My friend Connor (by calling me Donnie) was reminded of Donnie Wahlberg - former member of New Kids on the Block and older brother to Mark Wahlberg.   So now he refers to me as Donnie Wahlberg or just Wahlberg.  This name is probably the one I like best because I found it clever - like when I was called Trump (because of Donald Trump and I played trumpet in high school).

Also, during the ending of last term I was helping out a lot of my classmates helping get their textures and shaders for their still lifes working.  Since I was able to understand how it worked and was teaching so many others about it one of my friends said I was the Godfather of Texturing.  And so instead he decided to call me the Donfather. So every now and again he'll call me that.  Again another clever one. 

Well I have to head out to class. Until next time.

Decisions Decisions

So a couple of days ago we (my class) was informed about the newest edition to our curriculum.  If I have not stated this before, my class is getting a new curriculum from the previous classes in hopes of giving us a better education.  The biggest (and I think the most useful) change to our curriculum is that they implemented a Major/Minor set up for our program.  Usually what would happen is at the end of Term 3 you decided what stream (Modeling, Animation, VFX) you wanted to go into and from Terms 4 to 6 you work on your final demo reel. Now they have changed it so that at the end of Term 2 (so in a couple of months for me) we must decide two fields of interest - one to major and minor in.   You'd specialize in these two streams in Term 3 and then at the end of the term pick one to actually stream into for the final terms.

They implemented this change because in Term 3 what would normally happen is that students must take courses in all 3 fields regardless of they wanted to do at the end. For instance some students going into animation could care less about VFX, so instead of actually taking those courses they could focus on animation and modeling. 

It's good that we can now focus our energies into what we want to do.  And with the class divided in this way we could get more personalized instruction since the classes would be smaller.  The only problem for me is that I don't know which two to pick.

Going in I knew I wanted to take visual effects or animation. So the logical choice would be to do a major and minor in those two fields. BUT now that I have had a taste for modeling I am quite confused.  They told us to focus on fields that would be useful in your final demo reel. So if you are doing VFX, and its a heavy animation based scene then do animation for a minor. If it requires complex models (and not much animation) then do modeling as the minor.  Problem is that I don't know now what will benefit me more because I intend to implement animation and modeling in my VFX reel - be it a robot, monster, etc.

I think my biggest problem in making a concrete decision is that I love everything about what I'm doing here and I thirst for knowledge. I want to know how to do EVERYTHING. I know this is impossible but the more information I can gather and more I can do the better (at least for my own satisfaction).

As of now I am leaning towards VFX and animation.  I am thinking that when I graduate I probably will not go seeking a modeling job, nor do I think I would like to be modeling for a living (even though I enjoy doing it).  So it might be better to focus my attentions towards the other two streams.  We'll see what happens.

Final Still Life

In case you don't already know, my final project for 3 of my classes (Modeling, Surfacing, Rendering) was to produce 5 objects for a Still Life image.  This is my final rendered still life image (click to see full size)

The 5 items that I modeled, shaded, surfaced, and textured were the mitten, the Superman toy, the Flash doll, the camera and the desk lamp.  The rest of the scene was given to me (although I did slightly alter the texture of the desk to make it look better) and it was up to me to pick the composition of the shot and light it however I chose. As you can see I chose a night time shot where some light comes in through the window but the main light source is the desk lamp.

I am very happy with how this came out. I put in a ton of time and effort and I think it looks pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

So now I would like to show you guys close up pictures of each item so you can see the details that I put on them a bit better. One of the things that killed me was that my final submission was this single image and some of the details that I spent so much time on aren't 100% visible in the image (especially on the camera since I put it towards the back of my composition). So here are the close-ups, plus a reference photo of the real one (again, click for full size image)

Camera

The Flash

Desk Lamp

Mitten

Superman

 

My favorite parts of the models are probably the small details that I put into them that you may have not noticed at first. Like the scratches on the camera, or the scuffs on the back of the camera or the fading of some of the writing on the buttons.  Also, on Superman the paint job isn't perfect (like on the toy itself). Some of the red mashes into the yellow of the belt, or the red paint from the boot comes onto the blue of his pants.  And I don't know if you can see it in these images but on the side of Superman's arms there is a small plastic seam that comes from the neck, down the arm, and around the hands.  This I assume is comes from the mold the toy was built with.

So I spent a ton of time working on small details that I knew would never actually be in the final image. For instance, there are only two sides of the camera that are visible in this shot, yet I spent HOURS working on the other 4 sides.  Some of this could be justified by saying that I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to composite my shot so it was good to cover all my basis.  But I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to show the bottom of this camera (which is  4th/final picture I am showing you guys) in my shot, so I didn't really have to work on it. But I did.

I guess I spent that much time on the sides that weren't going to be shown to practice. But the main reason is that I'm a perfectionist. There was no way I was not going to do it. It would have drove me insane leaving a side not finished, not to mention untouched.  However, later on in my schooling (and when I get a job) I will have to learn to just let things go. You always work for the shot that will be shown.  There is no point in actually doing something that no one will ever see. But since this was my first exercise I wanted to go all out.  I hope you guys like it.  This is why I didn't sleep much the last week and a half of last term.

More Classical Animation

So I just wanted to show you guys just how much drawing goes into animation.

This is a stack of the animation paper for all my 2D assignments.  Its about 3/4 of an inch.  Over 150 pages worth.  And this doesn't include the drawings that I didn't use in my animation but I still drew. I have a stack of about 30-40 more pages that I took out - for timing purposes or that had to be redrawn.

2D animation is filmed at 24 frames per second.  Luckily we don't have to draw 24 frames/drawings per second because most of the time you are shooting your drawings on "two's" - meaning you hold one drawing for two frames.  The reason is that the eye for the most part can comprehend movement even when things are held for 2 frames at a time.  You can do things every single frame but from what I understand it's not that common. Interestingly enough, anime is shot on three's (one drawing is held for 3 frames).

In our final class of 2D in term 1 we worked on a walk cycle. Here's mine.



My instructor picked mine to show the class because he thought I did a good job and had a good understanding on the principles of what makes a walk cycle. If you are interested this is a 16 frame walk cycle (8 drawings) that is looped. Walk cycles vary in frames depending on the animator's preferences (some do it in 12 frames for instance).  Also, something that is pretty interesting (that you may have noticed from my walk cycle) is that when you draw a walk cycle, you don't draw movement - the man is not moving from one side of the page to the other. Instead you draw him walking in place, loop it, and move the background behind him.

*P.S I just realized that I forgot to add my 2D animation of the flour sack in my previous post, so if you are interested you can go back to that post to see it.

Two Balls and a Sack

So there are two very important principles in animation that if you understand them and can execute them well then you can pretty much animate anything.  These principles are bounce and delay.  We were taught these principles through some basic animations.  For bounce, we were given the task of animating (in 2D and 3D) a soft, squishy ball bouncing and a hard, dense ball bouncing.  Below are my examples (first in 2D then 3D).


Soft Ball

Hard Ball

(forgive the crappy quality of this video. They got new camera's at school to capture our 2D animations and they pretty much suck)

If you notice in the ball bounces we employ the concepts of "squash and stretch".  Basically when the ball hits the ground it will squash and when it lifts off (or falls) it will stretch.  This is to show the force(s) acting upon an object. In this case the stretch is caused by gravity/momentum and the squash by the floor.  The more you emphasize this the more cartoony your animation will be.  Also, it is important to know just how much a ball should squash or stretch.  The harder ball hardly has any squash or stretch because since it is denser it won't be affected as much by these forces.

The next important principle is delay.  This is when parts of an object that are being pulled move in wave-like patterns.  It is probably best shown in this animation of a tail.




The tail is made up of 3 "bones". Each bone is being pulled by the one before it. What causes the tail to move naturally is that the second tail is delayed by X number of frames from the movement of the first and the third is being delayed 2X frames.

Apart from tails this delay method is extremely important when dealing with the human body. The legs, the arms, the neck and head all follow this delay principle. When an arm reaches for something the different bones of the arm do not move in unison, but a wave goes through the body/shoulder to the elbow, to the wrist, to the fingers as the arm becomes stretched. If you want to see how this works you can put one of your arms down to your side then reach for something. This wave should be very subtle but its there.


Putting both of these principles to use, you can pretty much animate anything.  We used it to make something jump - a sack of flour to be more precise.

The 2D animation assignment was to make this flour sack jump from one end to another. I decided to make it a little more interesting by adding facial movements plus a flip.

This is my 3D version of this jump (minus flip and face)

This next one is my final in which we were supposed to have the flour sack jump from a platform and then off a diving board. I wanted to do something a little tougher and more exciting.

We weren't taught any principles of character animation nor walk cycles in 3D. But I think I did a pretty good job on it.  So yeah in terms of the two principles you can see that these last two animation use the bounce (which includes squash and stretch) within the jump and the delay principle when it comes to the way the body moves and how the ears wiggle as they are pulled around.

Design

So I am done with my first term at VFS. Holy cow were the last few days super busy!  I spent about 20-22hrs a day at school with only 2-4 hrs of sleep the last week and a half. My body pretty much hated me during that time.  My last day was Wednesday, so I spent all of yesterday recovering and now I'm back to update you guys on what I have been up to.  But since I have quite a bit to show you I will break it up into a couple entries so you guys don't have to read so much in one go.  Today I will show you the work I did in my Design course. Later I will show you what I did in animation and last what I did for my final Still Life project (I am saving that for last because I think it is the most impressive).

So to begin, my Design class was about learning the process that the art department of any production goes through to visualize and design concepts for their project.  The first step is getting the script (or whatever the source material is for the production).  The class was divided into 6 teams, each of us getting a one page script about a girl (Beatrice) and her talking friend cat (Biggles). Each of us got a different part of the story, meaning different interactions and scenarios (i.e. tea party, fort building, dress-up, etc.).  My script was about the two finding a chest under the floor boards where they find an old picture of a man (Lord Bigglesworth) that resembles the cat. They then try to solve the mystery of why they look the same (the instructors never actually solved this mystery within the scripts so I was a bit bummed that it was never resolved).

Once we got the script we did research on the era this thing was supposed to take place (Victorian Era - or at least Victorian influenced). Research is the most important part of the production process. Even if you don't use everything that you researched, you will have an understanding of how it really is/works and your work will reflect it.

Within my group I was given the role as lead character concept artist. Since my team found out that I can draw they made me in charge of creating the concepts of the characters.  The first step was just playing with different shapes, sizes and proportions. This is what I came up with.

From here my team decided what shapes of bodies they liked best - we decided on something like the last Beatrice and something like the first Biggles.  These drawings also helped us decide that we didn't want Biggles to be walking around on two legs like in my final 3 drawings and that he was going to act more like a real cat.

Below is the first few sketches of Beatrice and Biggles.  I drew them in different styles (and there are a ton more drawings that I didn't include). The best thing to do in the concept stage is drawing as much as possible. Even things that you know won't work. Because once you know what doesn't work, you can focus on what does. At the bottom you will see some of my concept for Lord Bigglesworth as well. Also, the quality of these drawings aren't the best because I tried to keep them as rough sketches. It is not wise to spend too much time drawing perfect drawings at the beginning of this process because most of it will be thrown out and you need to work fast and have many different iterations of each character/prop/environment etc.

So as you can see some of those cats look horrifying.  But that was me playing around with different shapes and I knew that they didn't work at all. So I kept closer to the first design in the second row with more of a circular head. Also, the cat's mouth/whiskers mimic Lord Bigglesworth mustache.  So I kept working at the design of the cat and got more concrete with what I wanted it to look like.

As you can see the design for Beatrice also drastically changed as there is an updated version of her in this picture.  I wasn't too happy with what I had earlier (although my team was) and decided to have another go at her. That is what I came up with and I drew her next to the cat so you can see the comparison of size. You may have also noticed that the cat has a top hat, monocle, and bow-tie because in the script he wears them after they have a dress up session.  I showed this to my instructors and they gave me feedback saying that they liked my Beatrice but the cat didn't look like he belonged in the same world. He had too much detail in terms of the way his body is angular and pointy. They told me that a more rounded character would match better. So I drew him over.

This Biggles is a bit more rounded and I really liked the way he was coming out.  So the next step was to draw the two characters in different poses. This is to give a better idea about the personalities.

First Beatrice.

Then Biggles.

Then Biggles next to a finalized concept for Lord Bigglesworth

And then Biggles and Beatrice interacting with each other.

On the side of the last one you can see I started playing with colors. Giving them a more finalized look of how I thought they should look like.  However, the name of the game is iterations. So what I did next was show Beatrice's final design next to Biggles' final design playing with size and color.

I am not sure which one my team ended liking most. I think we were leaning towards the redhead Beatrice, with the Biggles next to her but in the size of the first (bigger) Biggles.

When we presented our concepts to the class and instructors at the end of the term, the instructors told me that they really liked my Beatrice and Biggles. They said they could see the two of them being in an actual cartoon. I was really happy to hear them say that.  So yeah that's what I did in that class. Let me know what you guys think.

Busy Busy

It's almost 3:30am and I just got back from school.  I wanted to have some of my work to show you guys (such as animations and models), but it takes some time to render out images and sequences and I really don't have of it to spend not working.  I do, however, want to give you guys an update of what's going on with me.

All of my final assignments are due either at the end of this week (one is actually due on Monday) or by next Wednesday - which is when I'll have a week and a half break!  During that break the school will be closed so I wouldn't be able to work there even if I wanted to. I just hope they don't assign a lot of homework for the break because Monique is coming to visit (I can't wait!) and I'd rather be hanging out with her than doing homework.

I finally finished all 5 of my models for my Still Life project.  Next step is to unwrap the objects. Unwrapping is taking the faces of an object and placing them down flat (not unlike neatly unwrapping a present), so that you have a 2D representation of your object that you can use in the texturing process. If you don't quite understand here is a picture of how this would work for a cube.

Unwrapping can get really hard when the object is more complicated than a 6 sided cube.  After I unwrap my items, I will then surface it (give the object properties of the material it is made of in terms of how it reacts to light). Then give it bump - placing "bump maps" on the object to make it "feel" like what its supposed to. Then texture it - which is basically giving it the color properties of the material its made of. And finally I will light it and render it. It's going to be a lot of work, but I enjoy it.

Well this short update became longer than I first intended and now its getting late and I need to catch some Z's before I head back to school tomorrow. Goodnight.

Long Luscious Hair

So its been about two months since I have been in Canada, and about 4-5 months since I have cut my hair.  It is is not as long as I'd hope at this point.  It is very much afro-like if I there is no gel in it.  Although it is getting longer, it seems to just be poofing out further away from my head instead of falling down as I'd hope it would act.  I think that I still need it to be longer so that that the weight keeps it down. I hope it just doesn't stay an afro forever. That would really blow.  At this moment it still does not look like Antonio Banderas' hair (as many of you know this is what I wish my hair looked like).  It seems, very sadly, that my hair will never look like this. Damn you curly genes!

I've always wished I had straight hair.  I have been analyzing myself and why this is so and  I think this desire stems from my adoration of Superman that I have carried since I could remember - which is why I wish I had blue eyes, were buff, and had superpowers.  Although I can't make myself grow straight hair, turn my eyes blue, or lift a car over my head, with lots of work I can acquire muscle mass. Which due to my super busy schedule here in Canada, I don't think I will accomplish this goal just yet.  Sadly, it must be pushed back yet another year (my overall laziness too affects this plan). But I digress.

Even though my hair won't grow out straight like I'd wish, I still don't plan to cut it until after I return to LA.  Today in class I revealed my plans to not cut my hair (or shave) this year, and they thought it was pretty funny that I'd do that and were wondering how I'd look like with my normal shorter hair and hairless face. One of the girls then asked "how long have you been growing that?" and pointed at my face. I assume she meant my weak ass moustache and (not weak ass) goatee. I told her I haven't shaved since we started school as the last time I shaved was for orientation when they took our ID pictures. She laughed. "It took you two months to grow that?" I wasn't really hurt by the comment but it did make me feel less manly in some way. Especially when she pointed to my roommate's face who has a beard that he can grow in less than a week.

I've never been a hairy guy and it really doesn't bother me too much because I don't think I look good in facial hair (neither does Monique - I can't even count how many times she's told me to shave my face during our skype convos haha).  Even though I don't think I look good in a moustache they have always fascinated me. My uncle, who has always been a father figure for me, has an awesome moustache. I think that's why I want one. Regardless of how bad I think I may look with hair on my face, I think that every self respecting man should have one at least once in his lifetime.  Even if it takes me all year I'm going to grow me a moustache. Or die trying.

Notice how I didn't post any pictures of my weak facial hair and my long hair? Well I probably won't post any until I can get a decent moustache that you guys won't laugh at.  So I have spent entirely too much time talking about my hair, so I must go. I only have about a week and a half until the end of term and there is a LOT of things I have to get done and work on before then.  I probably wont be sleeping at all for this next week and a half.   But I will try to post some of my work by the end of the weekend so you guys can see what I've been doing. Until next time.

Damn Metric System

So up here in Canada they have this new thing called the Metric System (apparently its big in Europe too .... and the scientific world).  I'm sure you already know this but values of measurements are based off the meter (centimeter, decimeter, meter, kilometer, etc). Anyway, as an American I have only dealt with the American system that deals with imperial units (inches, feet, yards, miles).  Oh god how I miss my inches and feet.  For all of our modeling assignments we have to model everything to scale, and we model it in centimeters.  Which is fine and dandy because I can visualize centimeters to an extent (and it makes a lot of practical sense). For instance my Superman toy is 9.6 cm. It's easy to understand that 0.6cm = 60% of a centimeter, where in inches we deal with values divisible by 2 (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32). It's hard to find out what 1/32 actually is percentage wise without a calculator.  Also I am forced to use meters not just because I am in Canada but because the modeling software we use has a standard unit of measurement which is the centimeter.  So its an industry thing.  Which, like I said, I don't mind because I understand how to read/take measurements and bring them to scale in 3D.


What gets to me is that I don't understand what the people around me are talking about when discussing dimensions of things I haven't physically measured.  Like the other day in class we were designing the interior of a little girl's room (for one of our projects) and everything was meter this centimeter that.  I was able to get an ok handle on it as I was able to gather that 2 meters is roughly 6 feet, so 1 meter is roughly 3.  So now I can do alright knowing that bit of information. This means that I can roughly calculate that 1 foot is about 33 cm. Even though I can do this, I don't like having to do calculation in my head to find out how long or wide something is. Especially when it comes down to something that is less than a foot long. I know how long an inch is. I would have to calculate it in centimeters.

And don't get me started on kilometers. When people tell me how far I am from something else, they use kilometers (instead of miles). I can visualize miles to an extent, although I've never really been too great dealing with them either (at a large scale). But at least I understood how far one mile is.

Also, I never know how cold or warm it is here in Canada (usually how cold it is).  They are on the Celsius system instead of the Fahrenheit like in the US.  So whenever someone or the something tells me how cold it is I don't actually know.  Also, the other international students use Celsius too so I can't get the info from them either (not like I'd actually want/need it. I understand cold haha).  But when people ask me, "how cold does it get in Los Angeles?" I cant really answer. I know that when I got here it was 30-mid 40 F and it was like 0-6 C here. I can learn the formula to convert it but I'm too lazy.

Logo Update and Superman

So I was looking at my logo and I thought it was too complicated for it to be a logo.  Usually when I think of logo's I think of something simple with maybe two basic colors. So I reworked my 3D91 logo a few times and came up with these. 3D91 Logos (Click here)

I think they work better as logos. My first one is still there because I didn't want my effort to go to waste.

Also, I finally finished modeling my Superman toy.  It took me quite a long time to get all the kinks out of him but I think he looks awesome.  The colors on him are not the final colors. I simply changed the color of different geos so I had a better understanding of what object I was working with when I was modeling. Also, he is not textured (which is why he doesn't have his S). Only the form is completed.(Once again click to view it larger)

The part that gave me the most grief in making him was probably his hands. Took me too long to finish them but I think they came out looking pretty good.  Also making him look rounded when starting with a box/cube geo as a base gets tricky at times too. Hope you guys enjoy the work I am doing. Peace homies. I have to go to school now to do more work.

Logo

So there are two class reps for my class (3D91) who act as messengers to the administrators if we have any concerns/comments/criticisms that should be passed up. Our class reps (Marcela and Josh) are trying to make the class come closer together and bond so that we can ultimately be able to collaborate together better.  The tighter we are the better our work will be because we will feel more comfortable asking each other for help and feedback.

One way the reps think we can do this is by creating an identity within the school. They decided that we needed a class logo. (They made an announcement in class about it and the instructor was really happy and proud that our class is trying to become such a solid group.)  They made this like a contest. So whoever wants to participate will make a logo and submit and we will have a vote on it on Friday. There were no specifications about what it should look like or anything so I went home and started brainstorming ideas.

My first instinct went into designing something with a rocket in it. I think it may have been the large amount of Futurama that I have been watching while in Canada.  Here is my first concept drawing (click on the image to make them bigger).

I thought it was a good start but I wasn't too keen on it. So I reworked it some and I came up with this.

I really liked this design so I took it and started doing a much more polished outline of it.

And then I added some color and a space backdrop.

I really liked the way it looks, except that when I think of a logo I think of things that are rounded. Almost like they can fit on a pin or button. So I rounded out the space around the image.

Then I thought maybe there is a way to make the rocket POP more than this. So I finally decided on making this my final design for my logo.

I think the final design makes it look as if the rocket is actually coming at you. I'll let you know what happens with the results. Let me know what you guys think. I bid you farewell. I'm going to be late to class!