Thursday, October 6, 2011

WEEK 5: Animation Direction 1 - Animation Thumbnails -- Drawing Tips & Tricks

Thumbnails, thumbnailing, thumbnail posing... in animation these terms get tossed around a fair bit.
They all refer to drawing quick, small gestures in planning animation. 

Drawing is the premier means of visual communication and it's absolutely essential in collaborating with other artists.  Drawing is a learned skill that comes more easily to some than others -- but make no mistake, a few hours of dedicated study can make all the difference. Animators have to draw so darned many drawings that they've spent a century developing a list of tricks to streamline the process.

Pixar's Victor Navone's run study from The Incredibles
This week I'll give you some of the most important tricks I've learned to help you get your gestures down quickly to convey maximum information in a minimum of lines.

Click here for more information: 
Animation Mentor article "Animation Tips & Tricks: THUMBNAILS"

Check out Victor Navone's beautiful collection of thumbnails here.


Monday, October 3, 2011

WEEK 5: Texturing & Shading 1

We'll dig deeper into our observation of the effects of time, use, and the elements on everyday objects and have a look at your reference photos.

Moving on to a higher res model -- a beat-up old fire hydrant. Together we'll work through the UV'ing of an example model.
Click here to download the example model.

Your goal is to UV and texture your own model fire hydrant. It will be somewhat different than the example we'll be using for practice. This will give you an excellent chance to abstract the material.


The mission for this week:
Start unwrapping the fire hydrant you modeled. Get as much done as you can and bring in your work. Next week and we'll continue our UV maps in class and answer any questions that may have come up.

To help you continue your work at home, we've made you some very helpful tutorials:
1 Overview Base and Top
2 Front and Top
3 Body
4 Details (note - sped up, no audio)
5 Chain and Bolts
6 UV Layout

If you need further help or you'd like to learn more, check out the Digital Tutors Courses:
Getting Started with UVs in 3ds Max 2011, and
Texturing Game Props in 3ds Max and Photoshop


TEXT2010 Assignment 4

4th Assignment, Part 1: 20% <-- NEW!!
Rubric coming soon.
Assigned: Tuesday, Oct 3rd

Due: Sunday, Oct 30th <-- NEW!!
Hydrant, UV'd and textured: 3DSMax file, diffuse map
SAVE your work uncompressed (4096 x 4096 PSDs recommended)
SEND me only Targas (.tga), one for each of your maps.
Maximum resolution: 512 x 512 bit, no alpha
File naming convention example:
tdonovan_hydrant.max
tdonovan_hydrant_diff.tga

Please be very careful with your naming conventions.  All assignments are to be handed in via FTP.

WEEK 5: Character Acting 1 - Fight Direction 2

 Chuck Norris also battled Ninjas in the Octagon
Greetings, survivor's of last week's hand-to-hand combat class:

Hope you're ready for another round of Fight Direction training with Riot Act's Simon Fon.
This week we're getting into short-range weapons. 
Bring sketchbooks/cameras if you can.

See you at 12 sharp in the Octagon. 

Dress for action.