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.