"Do I really want to work in games or animation for the rest of my life?"

It is pretty evident that the last half  year has kept me pretty busy work wise and as such the number of blog posts as come to a standstill for the most part. This is partly due to my work being confidential and I can't always share details. But mostly it's because my personal projects feature more dominantly in my blog and I just haven't been doing them lately.

So I suppose my first bit of news is that I am no longer working at Bearded Pixel. As expected the company only had a set budget for various members of staff up till March. As they were unable to secure additional funding, they are now operating with the bare minimum sized team. I have at times assisted with problems related to my field, but for me it's time to move on.
To summarise my experience at the studio I would say I am grateful for the experience, though for large segments of time, I didn't really enjoy it. I developed my skills to a level of a more than competent junior. Mostly in rigging, but the last few months saw me crank out a large amount of animation. Nothing I'm overly proud of, but it was valuable practice working to specification and deadlines.
The nature of games work often means very little time off. As a result I've found myself craving other activities now I've finished my position. For me the experience was a partial answer to the big question. "Do I really want to work in games or animation for the rest of my life?". Initially I would say no, but this is based off the experience of one small studio on its maiden project. I would say at times I really struggled having to work close quarters with 3 other people and always at a computer. But the main distraction was not always having enough work to get on with. Either that or having so much piled on at once the stress would make my eyes throb. I enjoyed having so much to do the hours would fly by on the odd occasion it would reach that middle ground. I've discovered there were few problems in rigging I wasn't able to solve on this project no matter how long it took to figure out, I would always get there. Working in unity however proved a little tricky with the programmers and my limited knowledge of unity/ max synchronisation. We always got there in the end, but I still have many unanswered questions and problems is love to tackle once more! There was a lot of good that came from my position at BP, but in general I really didn't enjoy it. I owe to myself to try another studio or two before I can get a definitive answer.
If nothing else, I am very happy with the question I have answered this year... "What's it like working in the games industry?". That is one thing I will never have to wonder again and thankfully, will not be hanging over me the rest of my life! I would hate to think back 10 years from now and regret not trying hard enough to get where I am now, future is bright and to anyone who may see this. Push on, don't stop working, you are your only obstacle the rest is only a matter of time.

Work hard! It's all worth it. Take care.

Happy (Belated) New Year! Mission accomplished!

First of all Happy New Year to all those people not reading this page! May it be a productive one for you all! With that said, now to explain the second half of the title. It occurred to me the other day when thinking about doing my next post that I should have a look back through my early posts. This usually serves as morale booster as progression over time begins to become clear. When looking at my very first post however I was reminded of the reason I started using a blog in the first place. I wanted this blog to read as a "How I did it!" sort of thing. Now I no I'm not alone in getting a job in the Animation industry and its certainly an achievement a number of my class mates have all shared. But If anyone were to ask "How did you do it?!" and its something many wide eyed animation students have asked, I know, having been in the presence of some awesome animation superstars in the past. But anyway, if someone were to ask what I did and what steps I took, each post on here showed my process month by month, week by week and at some points daily updates. Finally I'm at a stage in my working life that is noteworthy, at least to a humble fellow student looking for work.
Flicking through, if I had to summarize the core points that were important in achieving my goal it would be that through persistence of learning and a continually growing drive to succeed got me through. The act of remaining passionate about my goal hopefully showed not only in the amount of posts on here but also the content. I noticed that over time the written content became gradually more and more positive and more enthusiastic about new findings in my studies.
In the end my job was offered by a fellow college student, playing into the age old saying "Its not what, but who you know". It was certainly true to some extent in the sense that I saw the job on his Facebook Wall.
So it's fair to say this year, is the first in a good few that I have suceeded in completing all the goals I set myself this time last year. If nothing else, this job will bring me the experience needed to continue in my animation career.
All the best for the new year guys!


http://youtu.be/xzeu1z02QKQ

Blast from the past: Go on, have a giggle

Today I managed to find a copy of my old university group project! Its not the worst student work in the world and it certainly makes me appreciate how far we have all come. I was of course responsible for the rigging and animation.. sadly though it came down to only a week of animation time.. which was clearly reflected in the render. Oh well its nice to look back to it. Enjoy.

It's ALIIIIVE!!

Nothing special, just a one step Walk test for the first functioning iteration of the Ork rig.

Enjoy!

- Paul out.

Rigging Progress!

As promised, here is a more detailed update about my current working life as a Character TD. I've settled into a decent work flow now, having finally familiarized myself with where everything is in 3DSMax. The biggest worry I had when starting out in this new role was the idea of not being able to bring my skills over from XSI. But after customising all the toolbars to have everything quickly available to me and learning the lingo its been a breeze! Sadly XSI is being phased out as best I can tell, so moving over to a new package sooner rather than later was a good move. Its a bonus to be paid to do so as well! Like learning to animate in a different package you mostly just need to know where the graph buttons are along with the keyframe,Translate and rotate buttons are. When it comes to rigging however its more about the technical terms for the processes, Parenting (XSI)  = Linking (Max) etc. It did get frustrating at first trying to find everything, but I got there! Moreover I have replaced most of the long winded processes like parameter wiring for slider controls with some simple Scripts. I still can't get used to the idea of me writing my own scripts... its insane! and really cool.

Anyhoo, the picture in the top left is on a Rig Kit I made, some parts of it are mainly just for reference. But for the most part it can be directly applied to any given humanoid and comes with some basic parameters wired in to allow a quick deformation test if needed. Each rig I make gets a bit cleaner and usually more complex so sadly despite this effort, my rig kit may well be outdated within a few days.. oh well its all progress.

                       
To the right we have the first character rigged with my first rig kit! (Model courtesy of Marcus Mills)  I've posed it in a walk cycle key just to show its actually working. This is also the first model I have rigged that has successfully been manipulated within a game engine! That might not mean much to most people, especially gamers. But for me it was extremely exciting and a career first. SO much to learn and improve on but I couldn't be happier with how its going!



More soon.

- Paul out.

"Where on Earth have you been?" - New Job, New beginning, Neeeeeeew!

It hasn't escaped my notice that I haven't posted in what must have been over 5 weeks. Finally, however it is for an ultimately good reason! "Drum Role please" ...I have a job! Yes it finally happened, I have landed myself that all important first industry job. I am now officially Character Technical Director and Lead Animator for "Bearded Pixel" a brand new indie games developer in Warwickshire!
I have been here a little over a month now, the time has flown and I'm loving it. Mostly I have been developing biped rigs to be fitted to any and all future characters as well as a few animals too. There's been a lot of learning and still loads more to be done! The animation is having to take a back seat for now whilst the character rigging needs seeing to and then it will be down to me to get it all moving.
I am picking up a lot of nice new tricks, never thought I would enter the realms of code and scripting, but I have to say the little I have done so far has made my life a lot easier. All those long winded processes in rigging I can narrow down to a few mouse clicks... awesome!

Anyway, here's a bit of what I have been up to. Using a donor model I pulled from a free model site I have been practising my bird rigging capabilities. Its not quite 100% clean but the wings flow naturally and I've managed a few automated wing fold controls which will save time when it comes to animate it finally.

I'll be updating again soon, so stay tuned!


-Paul out.

Life changes and career beginnings:

I am aware that I have been setting a trend of late.. Posting once or twice and then throwing myself to the wind for a few months of inactivity where the blog is concerned. I will do my best over the coming months to amend this and also to tie up the loose ends I am leaving in regards to the progress of various projects I have talked about.

So, life changes. Sadly a long term relationship that turned long distance came to a close not too long ago. Emotional set back aside, it has for now at least cleared my schedule of many or any breaks for the foreseeable future. I really have been needing to finally get onto the career ladder and maybe the life of a singleton is needed for now to help that happen.

To balance the scale, the plus side of recent weeks is that I have been busy beavering away on a trial project for a new start up Indie game company in my area. I am in good standing with them and stand a really good chance of being hired as an Animator/rigger. There will be a lot of opportunities to learn along the way and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into what will essential feel like I am being paid to learn. Which beyond awesome!

Rigs! Yes rigs, I have used a number of them in the past and whereas up till now the only rig I have ever truly loved using was the Animation Mentor "Stewart" rig, now we have a new creator in the mix. I'd like to welcome to the scene, Joe Daniels. Joe has taken time to create an awesome rig pack for Maya animators. The rig consists of no less then 12 human rigs of both sexes and every body type. Now you may be thinking at first glance they don't look too dissimilar to other mannequin style rigs that have gone before..but, these ones are really very simple to use and quick to pose and repose for a great animation work flow and are incredibly affordable. The controls are simple and easy to use and don't have convoluted controls for a simple move and rotate. Something I have found with other rigs is that 2 controls are needed just for that..which can really increase posing time.

I have opted to try out the Muscular rigs as I am all about the action sequences. I received the Dex, Herc and Ugg rigs all for $10! So I salute you Joe and look forward to your future works.

A link a video of the rigs in action and how to buy them yourself can be found bellow

Body Mechanics Rigs
Joe's blog

I will upload some test videos of these rigs shortly!

My current project:

So i've not posted so much in the last month and a half, this is mainly down to a new focus. I am doing an advanced animation class that is more about character performance. Showing me the best way to go from planning stage, to blocking and then through the breakdowns. Now I knew all this stuff before.. theoretically. Its one thing to know how its done, but its been far, far better to see how a pro does it. Its been very beneficial and now even my less than 'awesome' stuff is done more efficiently and in such a way as I can improve it quickly without considering a complete write off.

For this project i've taken a clip from a recent film featuring Cate Blanchett. In this scene she's fairly inebriated so its been fun doing the reference filming.



It's very early stages really, I just wanted to get the rough acting down. I've just started to do the breakdowns, there are some wandering eyes and lots of ironing out to do as well as completing the rest of the clip. A good way off lip sync and splining yet!

Stay tuned.

Paul

This could halt progress a little...

On a strange and more personal note, I have applied to be on the second series to the Bear Grylls show "The Island". If you're unfamiliar with the programme, it basically involves 15 people being left on an island with only a few knives and 2 days drinking water between them. They are then expected to survive for a full month, living off of the land and taking from the  local environment. It would certainly be a brilliant life experience though it could halt my learning a little!

Good story writting

I'm still plugging away as ever, though I suppose I haven't felt the urge to add anything on here lately. I'll add some progress clips of my current work soon I suppose. I am 60% of the way through the Advanced animation course with Jim Finlay ( jimfinlay.com )On top of that I have made it through the major planning stages of  "Top secret" project which I hope to be able to engage a wide audience that will stick around to watch more of my stuff. Anyways, I have come across this video on a Facebook group called Animdailies.

The video is about engaging with characters within a story, its major point being that sympathetic doesn't mean you have to like the person. Its all about association through vulnerability, its ben well timed as I am still developing a story for my own project. I definitely recommend giving it a watch.

Sympathetic Doesn't Have To Mean Likable from Jennine Lanouette on Vimeo.

Paul Out

Advanced course and new rigs

So the time has come to once again take up some tutoring. Its all well and good doing my little experiments to make new and cool action shots but I still need help to see where I am going wrong. University seemed to serve only in getting me that bit of paper which so far hasn't really gotten me very far. This would not have been the case had the course actually allowed me to spend 90% of my time animating. In reality 90% of the time was spent creating scenes, assets, characters and rigs, essay writing and more horrendously time consuming nonsense that actually kept me from doing what I started out wanting to do!

So rant aside... Around this time last year I began studying with Jim Finlay (www.jimfinlay.com) a seasoned vet in the world of animation having worked on "Happy Feet" and various Disney projects. I have completed both the beginner and intermediate course and am now due to start the advanced level. When I first started I felt almost down hearted at the idea of going back to a beginner stage having just done 4 years at university. However the importance of the skills of basic timing and spacing principles I picked up on in the first few lessons left me pleasantly stunned and relieved I had agreed to do the full course. I can now comfortably plan my whole scene always knowing where to go next or whats missing from a shot. My work process is so much cleaner, altering one frame can make the difference in the shot. Whereas before my keyframes were so messed up that making any improvements could take hours, not seconds.

So, for the next phase I am doing a 10 second acting piece based on audio from "Blue Jasmine" featuring the voice of Cate Blanchett. The character is kinda tipsy in this scene which makes some of the phrases more interesting. In the past I have completed one or two 11 second club entries (Never to my satisfaction mind...) But this time round I will have a pro showing me the ropes. This project will teach me the correct way to approach an acting piece, start to finish. The benefit of a guiding hand telling how crap some of my poses are should point me in the direction of creating something reel worthy!

I want this vid to come out better than my previous works, so with that in mind I coughed up for a new rig. The above picture is the "Claire" Rig by www.longwinterstudios.com bought as part of a double pack including a male rig. I will be doing a full video review of the rig soon as others wanting to know the of the rigs potential before forking out 35 quid or more will benefit from it. So far I have found it deforms well and the facial controls are nice and clean. Considering all of its controls are on the rig itself rather than in a control box it doesn't appear too cluttered. One snag I have come across which is actually quite frustrating is the arm control setup. After finding and unhiding the IK/FK control I have found that you need to use two separate controls just to move and rotate, which when your doing a lot of blocking quickly it can get a bit frustrating. But worse still is the lack of elbow effector. An elbow up vector/effector is typical of most rigs i.e Josh Burtons "Morpheus" rig and allows you to change angle of the arm via the elbow. For the claire rig however you have to use a mostly forward method to position the arms, which may be a bit of a drag when it comes to find tuning. I am yet to get the hang of its controls and often send the limbs jerking uncontrollably.
All that being said I remain optimistic about this rig and will no doubt enjoy using it for my coming project!

Progress: Render One

So today I cleaned up the shots a bit, the animation itself runs smoothly but is no where near what I would call complete. I have had to force myself to set phases, the end of each I need to render and review whats happened so far. As it stands it looks pleasing, but a lot of the impacts are yet to be refined.



So there it is, there are a number of poses that have body parts moving too soon and timings need adjusting. For my final version I also want the Orange character to hit the pipe with force. So far he just floats up to it and bends it out of shape. I think I will animate the pipe a little more whilst adding a bit of exaggeration to the poses at the point of contact. Adding a bit of camera motion as he hits might add to it also.
Other than that there are a few more camera shots to throw in before I view the curve editor for splinning etc. I will definitely be adding a second impact at the end as he splats against a wall.

Progress Report

So for sometime I have played about with a shot involving a super powered character over powering an opponent. The shot was based on a reference taken from a episode of a super hero series. I chose this sequence to exercise my animating abilities as well giving myself chance to experiment with matching camera shots, angles, timing and posing based on a reference. Plenty of things going on at once  there.




So theres a chunk of it roughly rendered, its over very quickly with only two shots included so far. But there will be a shot of the orange character splatting against a ventilation pipe of some kind before falling in range of a punch that will send him flying into a nicely placed destructible prop.
Most of the animation has been blocked out now. So i'm busy tweaking the timing of the shots before I tidy the poses, iron out the curves and add in any extra magic.

More to come soon!

Posing

This is a subject that I often think about regularly. I found I began to enjoy my work a lot more once I paid attention to the individual pose. To easily I can become distracted by the cool pose in the middle or the cool hand position 3 frames further ahead. Each pose matters, allowing the computer free rain of placement of any parts of the model just detract from those all important Golden poses.
In my earlier animations I would just rush about the timeline plotting as many rough frames as possible trying to make it all happen at once. An experience I would liken to attempting to dress yourself was running down the stairs, its just not the best way to get something done. So i'm going to continue to take it slow and enjoy even the less dramatic poses, each of them matter after all.
Its always a great thing to be excited about a scene or even an exercise but maintaining discipline and doing things the right way will definitely save time in the long run. I do love to stick in those secondary motions often before the whole motion is blocked... "I haven't finished yet, but doesn't that secondary wrist action look convincing!" .. yeah it will do for a full hour or so before you realise the timing is all off and that wrist action serves as a knot to untangle once you have relayed your foundations.
In short, a bit more control and less haste, enjoying each and every pose as you go will save a lot of time feeling the ups and downs of a scene increase and decrease in quality for reasons that despite being glaringly obvious, elude you long after frustration has claimed many a fistful of hair.

A change of focus: The Art of Action Animation

I've been busy lately and although I haven't made time to blog about it I have been busy animating away and making future plans. I am currently on pause with my mentored studies and will be forced to go it alone for now whilst I come up with the dosh to continue. So whilst no one is telling me what to do and how to do it I am going to concentrate on the fun stuff. Lately I have been really getting back into animating action. When watching a film or episode of something It can really get annoying to see a punch thrown with no real force behind it or seemingly no impact. Too many action sequences have no weight to them and the contacts are far too light.

So from now on I will be using this blog to study method of creating action sequences that are visually pleasing. To do so I wont just be brushing up on getting the basics of weight, timing and spacing down, I will be looking beyond the animation side and study current examples of good action sequences. I will be focussing in on areas such as; Character weighting and structure of strikes, reactions to impact, use of camera motion to add impact as well as the practicality of certain strikes within a real life situation ( A roundhouse kick is rarely the answer). 

I intend to study the different martial arts, their pros and cons, different weight distributions and styles of movement. I will also pick out a few of my favourite action sequences in attempt to recreate them and possibly improve upon them.

For those of you who are reading, my intention will be present my research and findings in resulting videos and hopefully pass on my preferred methods of delivering a convincing fight to the fellow aspiring animator.

Stay tuned, first video to follow soon!

Something a little more fun.

Now don't the title confuse you, I enjoy most of what I animate. The only issue I have at the moment is time constraints. I have a lot of places to be lately and it squashes down the time I can commit to the monthly competition I like. So as a break, today I decided I would animate something off the top of my head that appeals to me. No deadline guidelines, just creativity.

So here it is, it's using the Animation Mentor free Stewart rig again ( for links on getting it yourself follow the link on youtube in the about section) I hope to do a minute sequence using this character, acting him out as some sort of ninja-esk guy. Think part Bruce Lee, part parkour wizard and one part 007 and you get the idea of all the stuff I want to do with it. So heres the first test to get me flowing again. Enjoy!



It's short and sweet at only a few seconds. I need to alter the arms at the end as they appear to pull in and backwards which is a bit off.

Getting off to a good start?

Throughout last year my blog featured some snippets of work I had done on potential entries for the 11 Second club. Now if I remember rightly I have attempted to enter as many as 6 maybe more... I always take a look at the site on the first of every month and scope out the new sound clip. Now I may have once again left it too late to enter this months as I have no more than 10 days to work on it. But reviewing the past years work and knowledge gained I can see that my work speed has increased many times over. I don't make the same mistakes that cause me to circle round to re-correct one thing over and over. So I am optimistic about this months entry, having formed a strong idea for it and having no work days cropping up between now and the deadline to get in the way. Last year I only managed to enter two out of the full 12 competitions, my second score was higher than the first. My rank was higher by 3% roughly and my mark went up by 0.79 stars with the highest possible mark being 11 and winning entrants getting around the 7.5 mark. Looking back, both those videos were terrible and both were completed before I even started my animation course with Animtutor. So I am really looking forward to creating a strong entry and gauging my new skills against last years work!

This time I have decided to slow myself down a bit, as I often get carried away. I have gone back to the basics from my college days studying film making. I've done my shot list, set up the scene, set up each camera shot and even made a short animatic. This year, planning is the key!

So heres a clip from the animatic, enjoy!

Interview!

So I'm off to an exciting start for 2014 already! Just before Christmas a close friend gave me a heads up about his company hiring runners. So after he did me a solid favour and put in a good word I sent in my application and extras. It can't have gone too badly considering they have offered me an interview, as it is a runner position I hopefully just need to show up and be myself. They haven't asked me to bring anything with me.    
    
So anyways the company in question is Prime Focus World. A company that first came to my

attention for a number of cool projects they have been working on and will be working on such as "Gravity, "Maleficent" and "Sin City". I obviously payed more attention when said friend got a job with them last year. The company seems to offer quite an array of interesting services such as film to 3D conversion as well as VFX. The friend in question told me its not an overly large studio and he really enjoys working there and thats more than enough for me. Looking at all the future projects they have on their site its looking to be the first job I've been excited to be interviewed for! Well its certainly the first film industry interview I've ever been offered!

Bring it on 2014!

New Year, more progress and a heap of learning ahead!

Happy New Year people! Yes I've been away for a while but I've been partying continuously with the family at no less than 7 parties. No it wasn't sessions of endless brain cell battery, more a continuos battle of the board games and stuffing myself silly.
Anyhoo this year will be a great year, on a number of previous occasions I have stated "This will be my year!" in a rather stereotypical manner the like of which featured top to bottom on ever Facebook feed world over. However this year is stands the best chance of being my best yet thanks to the foundations laid by the labours of last year. This time last year I was trapped paying rent whilst working every hour sent in a job I didn't want. There and then I decided to make a change to leave no matter how hard and get myself in the film industry! So here I am 8 months later with my first showreel (of many to come). Granted i don't love it, but the point is it is there finally and I will continue to beat it into shape till I get that all important foot in the door! All other years I have allowed every excuse not to take what I want. But not anymore! I learnt so much in 2013 and how time has flown, this is the year of the first job wherever it may be!

Thanks to a truly excellent mentor Jim Finlay, I finally feel I have the tools to keep my studies going and work on some personal projects I really love. I am psyched to be applying to some really exciting London studios in the coming months. Its the first time since sitting wide eyed at the Animex festival 2013 that I have been excited at the idea of working within the film industry. In 2013 I fought past my health issues, failing hardware and battled financial issues to get myself a working desktop and start my studies again! I completed the 13 mile Tough Mudder course with some excellent friends and had my first ever interview in the industry I want to be a part of. 2013 was a hard year and to be honest 2014 doesn't stand a chance!

I'll quit ranting now, heres an update on the weight lift video I've played with. Its still in the blocking phase and a little jolty from some miss placed keys but I'll work out the kinks shortly!

4 Weddings (and no funerals)

So its been a heck of a month! last week was the wedding of the last of my two siblings and the last of four weddings I have attended this year! Must have been something in the water. So I've been through the endless planning, rehearsals, Stag dos and my own best man speech and come out the other end unscathed. It was actually a lot of fun and the day was brilliant!
So other than that this month has been one of scrabbling about for extra cash for Christmas pressies and travel expends. So you know, the usual December stuff. I have still just about managed to continue on with my studies though they may have suffered a little due to distraction, but at least I'm keeping myself warmed up.

My latest exercise is an Olympic style lift, I've just blocked out the first draft of key poses. To be honest though I struggled to position the rig for the first time since its release. It was mainly the elbows I struggled with, I wanted to raise them level with the chest but I will have to keep trying it out once I review and correct the poses. anyways heres the first clip.





More to come in the New Year, but thats all for this year. Have a great Christmas to all who might be reading and a Happy New Year!

Paul Out!