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.