Its been a looong day.

So I have spent the day tinkering with the start of this months 11 Sec club entry. I managed to navigate through usual hasle of scene setup related slip ups fairly quickly this time, theres nothing like a few disheartening multi-hour set backs to kick start a project. Moaning aside I did manage to clock up a number of hours into planning, filming and blocking today so heres a clip of what I have so far. For some reason... the file plays the sound on my Mac, but won't if I used the wrong version of quicktime. Uploading to youtube has also dropped the sound. But hey-ho its all about the movement! Enjoy!

Suit up!

So, its a little over a week in to september now and almost all other projects are clear for now. So I think it's time to have another crack at an 11 Sec club entry! YAAAY. One of the main buzz kills of going into the competition is a bad audio choice. I know it needs to vary and it won't always be what I define as awesome but it pretty much defines how I go into the project from the out set. Anyway this months is pretty cool, fairly sure its a clip from the latest Bond movie and is taken from a scene involving 007 and Q. The clip is a minor intellectual verbal confrontation and has already given me a few ideas about how to go about it.

So heres a still of my first basic scene layout. The clip mentions a laptop, so the obvious props are there, this also means a lot of entrants will most likely be basing their work around a similar setting as this. I think I'll work on my originality next entry though. This time round I wanted at least one improvement, so I've opted for throwing out the leotard look of the morpheus rig and gone for a suit and tie look! curtesy of the guys over at http://ecmwp.blogspot.co.uk/ Thanks guys! these costumes will come in handy! Unfortunately the costumes didnt come with a guide on how to attach them, though I have managed it after 20 mins of fiddling with the explorer and a further 10 finding out the translated terminology from one software to another Enveloping = Skinning etc... I do miss XSI. So i've had a play about and the only minor hicup is the deformations of the clothing are a little out under the arms. Would be easily fixable in my mother software, but hey-ho its Maya so I best get cracking swatting up on altering the weights before I can move on. Work hard people! Felty

Balloon progression

So the other day after smashing my head into the keyboard I decided to go and buy some balloons to see what they should look like... yes you would have thought with my previous experience with messing things up until filming reference and starting again, I'd have gone straight for that method... But no once again complacency got the better of me!

So, Here we have a revised version.. Still work to be done. But it bounces like an actual balloon now! One or two of the bounces are questionably high and I played around with the rotations a little too early in the blocking phase so its a bit choppy. But I'm pleased with the progress and will continue to create better versions.

Work Hard!


Note to self... Sort the first part out, its far too fast :P

Bawooon

Continuing from other tests involving bouncing about, I've animated a balloon this time. I have started by just trying to eyeball this one. I've laid out my arcs and got a rough spacing down, but i'm not overly sure on the height of the last bounce... I am yet to add some twisting to the balloon as it lands and bounces.

Tomorrows task... Buy a pack of balloons :P




Critique: Having stepped away for a while and looked at it with fresh eyes I know I need to start it again. I've been and thrown some balloons down there stairs and its not really like this. I have the weighting a bit wrong really. It still falls too fast, I'll have another crack at it tomorrow!

Keep working imaginary peeps!

Punch Tests, early phase

So heres the fruit of a half a days (well an hour or two if you include what ever else got in the way) work, I have just blocked out the major poses for the lead punch. With it being a snappy punch most of the frames have gone towards padding out the return to the characters "ready" stance. My very first play through had the punch looking very stabby. The fist would stop at the arms full reach and then come back, no flow just an abrupt stop and then return.
So ! This version, featured above, has had a bit of tweaking, its had a frame put in to cushion it after the arms full reach and to give the follow through (no giggling) effect. As it stands, it now seems to have little impact, so I'll go ahead and give it more snap back after the punch lands and possible start exaggerating the pose to get a little more from it.

More soon! - Work hard.

Into the swing of things

So lately I'm being a bit forgetful with posting updates on here. Perhaps its to do with the increase of work shifts i'm taking or maybe its partly to do with a dip in my work output. The first reason problem effects the second, but if I want to get somewhere fast then I need to try a bit harder and not see the end of my work shifts as time to crash out but rather a chance to give me a shot at a worthwhile job. Procrastination aside heres what I'm on with at the moment, between cracking on with exercises set by my fairly new mentor i'm improving my drawing skills. Now whereas I have no trouble pushing myself to copy something I see in front of me my actual knowledge and understanding of creating anything via pencil or wacom is pants to say the least. So i'm stripping it all back to basics. Which is an odd phrase considering the subject, i'm not talking basics as in simple shapes, I want to understand, stances, posing and structure at the very core. If I can get the hang of bone structures first, it will literally lay foundations or the bones of my characters and poses which will in turn help me in my animation work.

So my first documented study seen in this sketch is the hips and rib cage. If I can lean what they look like and learn how to simplify these shapes quickly and correctly I can move onto the next phase.. Muscles!

Picture two is for one of my pet projects. Yes another one, but this one is actually getting worked on. It is quite simply the study of the punch. I am a keen animator and Marital artist both, so it will help me in both areas if I combine both my disciplines. I often get wound up with films/tv or games when a character supposedly hits another and it just looks hideously unbelievable. Now whereas in good scenes where a decent physical altercation takes place a simple camera trick can be used, I have the luxury of actually being able to make my characters collide.

One thing I know, is its all in the contact. The weight of a punch must be believable, for a strong punch a person must incorporate their body weight into its momentum. For a great punch it must follow through the target, only coming back stance (for defence or a second punch). So my study is creating the best look in a 3D, rather than looking too much into other peoples methods too much, I will be studying this one from my own references.
The posing I seem to be getting down fairly well so far. I have recorded myself doing a few JKD or Bruce Lee style lead punches to study its snap back look. The trouble with this particular punch is it focuses it technique on not being seen, simply put there is no anticipation for this punch. If done properly the practitioner lunges his first forward and his/her first motion, there is no wind up or bring it back for momentum. Now muscle memory for pretty much any other motion involving the fist causes us to bring our hands back, be it a punch or throwing a ball. With anything else it wouldn't be effective to generate enough force this way. But with this punch the idea is to connect your bodyweight with the other guys face whilst using little strength from your arm muscles at all. Given correct timing and structure of your body right down to the origin of force or contact point with the floor, you will be using your whole body weight to push an opponents face back.. Result, knockout. So coming back to my point, I want to be able to create this look in my animation test.
So what issues am I facing. Well As I just mentioned above, there is no anticipation with this movement, so out of the box it looks a little odd. In conclusion to this visual issue I will most likely simulate the character in motion before loosing his punch. That and putting another model on the receiving end would make it look better perhaps.

I've been studying up on the use of time bars a lot now. As in those little animator sketches that plot out the keys used in a time frame. So Jim if your reading, thanks for giving me that useful skill its helped my planning no end and I will upload more of my exercises shortly! Enjoy the rest of your holiday mate.

To the rest of you, Work hard :)

Felty

Ball update

I haven't posted in a while. But just to show a bit of progression heres the updated version of my latest work on the ball exercises.



The previous one was a little daft in the sense that the ball seemed to have a mind of its own, somehow bouncing on each step with equal force and distance. So heres the updated version, with actual gravity!