Saturday, November 10, 2012

Friday, November 9, 2012

WEEK 10: Motion Studies - Game Cycles -- Walks, wrap-up, transitioning to runs

The famous 'human/dog' comparison scene from 101 Dalmations
We'll wrap up the final stages of the walk, adding subtle details that can make your walk look unique and polished.  There are lots of great examples of hand-drawn cartoon walks from on "Walk Cycle Depot" and "Pencil Test Depot" for us to have a look at.  Good luck with your deadline this weekend!

Next we'll get ready to transition into run cycles which start next week. Remember all of your cycles must link together as one sequence, including transitions (anticipations and follow throughs) to blend them seamlessly.



Please welcome my replacement, Mike Swiegot who starts next week.


Monday, November 5, 2012

WEEK 10: 2D Digital Art 1 - Sprite Animation in PS

 artwork by Eric Frech
Assignment 4: Sprite Animation in Photoshop 
BRIEF:
CREATE A SET OF 2D SPRITES AND ICONS FOR A TOWER DEFENCE GAME OR SIDESCROLLING GAME. YOU MAY CREATE ITEMS FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENT 3 LEVEL DESIGN


YOUR ILLUSTRATOR/PHOTOSHOP FILE MUST HAVE:
2 SPRITES EACH WITH FULL RUN ANIMATION
4 POWER UPS WITH ANIMATION
2 STATIC ENEMIES (TURRETS, ETC)
2 VEHICLES
2 OBSTACLES

DELIVERABLES
AI/PS SOURCE FILE WITH A JPEG PREVIEW
FILENAME: donovant_sprites_000.ext
DUE DATE
WEEK 13 (Nov 29th) @ START OF CLASS
HAVE SOURCE FILE AVAILABLE
MARK BREAKDOWN
2D SPRITES AND ICONS: 20 marks
VALUE 20%
Followed Brief - 4
Run Animation - 4
Art Style Consistency - 4
Techniques - 4
Detail & Rendering - 4
* Late projects are subject to a penalty of 1 MARK per day.
All projects must be submitted within 1 week of the
due date or they will NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Please welcome my replacement, Mike Swiegot who starts next week.

WEEK 10: Texturing & Shading 1: 3D Painting with Viewport Canvas and Photoshop

Viewport Canvas in 3ds Max
Did you know you could have been painting right in your 3DS Max viewport this whole time? Well.. you can, with Viewport Canvas and Photoshop's relatively new 3D toolset. We'll take a crack at it and very quickly learn what advantages and disadvantages there may be to painting in the 3D viewport.

There are lots of helpful resources for these tools:
We have 3 helpful tutorials:
1 - Intro to Viewport Canvas
2 - Viewport Canvas part 2
3 - Viewport Canvas part 3


Click here to download the material files for this class. 

Click here for the Digital Tutors: "Using the Viewport Canvas" - video #44 in the Intro to 3DS Max series.

Click here for the Autodesk Help pages about Viewport Canvas.

Autodesk's "Viewport Canvas toolset" is a good brief overview as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shEl4iMebxM

3D paint in PS

Click here for the Digital Tutors course:"Painting on 3D surfaces in Photoshop"

Please welcome my replacement, Jamie Richards who starts next week.

WEEK 10: Character Acting 1: Run Cycles, continued , plus tips for polishing your animation

Speed drill o' the day - the get-up that didn't get done last time ;o)
the rig: Heavy - in all likelihood a guy that big would require some sort of extra deformation to lie him down with nice ground contact. But we'll pose him lying down and have him stand up making him look as heavy as possible - in under 1 hour - great practice exercise!
------------

Run cycles, continued -
If you're looking for some interesting naturalistic run reference I highly recommend the 1998 movie "Run, Lola, Run" by Tom Tykwer (who also directed Cloud Atlas). This movie is a study in running. You'll see Lola's run from every angle as she tears through the streets of Berlin.

Click to view larger
Click the image for the animation
There's a lot of detail in this 15-frame run so I took it apart for you. Check out all the secondary action, the extreme twisting in the spine and counterbalancing and looseness in the hips and shoulders. Also note she isn't a world-class sprinter, so you'll see extra energy-wasting movements that Usain Bolt mght not have, details that might be just the elements you could borrow to give your runs a human touch. Note the extension of the legs and feet as they propel the body forward and the dynamic line of action that flows through the whole body from head to toe. There's a lot to study here.
Click the images for the animation

I also want to make sure we're getting a handle on blending from the walk to the run. This is something you should film or try yourself.


Lastly, we'll talk about polishing your animation -- cleaning up arcs, adding in subtleties that make it look professional and crisping up your poses so they can be read clearly.

For the next 3 classes, you have Fight Direction  classes with guest instructors, Simon Fon and Mike Dufays from Riot A.C.T.  Class starts at 12 sharp in the Octagon.  Dress for action.

Please welcome my replacement, Mike Swiegot who starts next week.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

WEEK 9: Motion Studies - Game Cycles -- #1 Treadmill Walks!

You're going to get lots of practice setting up game cycles: walks, runs, jumps, and finally, blending them seamlessly together.

First cycle on the agenda: Walks. It's time for a whole new level of picky: treadmills.  You are about to become very involved with your Graph Editor. If that scares you, it's time to learn to love this indispensable tool.

When animating complex motions like walks it's a very good idea to study live action reference, or even create your own.

Walk Reference:
Treadmill Walk: Dude
"Endless Reference"'s You Tube channel (also see sidebar link -->)
Monster's Inc
Iron Giant

Getting good at cycles requires patience and practice. You should try a few different ones so you get faster at setting them up. It's always better work from reference. Shooting your own reference can be invaluable so you understand the mechanics.

Your final cycles are all due near the end of term but we'll have lots of in-class time to work on them.

We're using a new rig for this term, a more complex, TV-quality rig called "Eleven" made for the Eleven Second Club. Click to download the latest v1.2.
http://elevenrig.blogspot.ca/

Remember to open Maya, REFERENCE in your rig file, and then save your new scene.

Assignment 4: Animation Cycles - walk, run, jump sequence
Assigned: November 2nd
Due: December 14th in class
% of Final Grade: 40%
The sequence must contain loopable cycles blended together into one scene. Include a few loops of each cycle and add any necessary blending between each cycle. Animation should show all 12 principles of animation, especially strong posing, weight, and overlapping action. The character should have believable weight, a clear personality, and move with fluidity and clarity. The cycles should blend together cleanly with all necessary weight shifts, anticipations and reactions added to the final file. Animation work-in-progress will be critiqued in class. The final blended animation sequence will be graded as one project.

Please submit all work to our shared DropBox folder using the following naming conventions and settings:

Filenames:
tdonovan_anim_001.ma
tdonovan_anim_001.mov


File Format: QT
Encoding: H.264
Quality: 100
Image Size: Custom
Width: 560
Height: 316
Good luck!

Monday, October 29, 2012

WEEK 9: Texturing & Shading 1: WIP, Hydrant, continued

We'll do a brief recap of the first 2 assignments.

Next we'll introduce two more types of maps:
Normal and Specular.

Normal Maps are like Bump Maps on steroids - they create the illusion of extra detail using not just height information, but angle as well.
 
Specular Maps define the shininess of different materials. 

All three examples at right are just simple planes. Their appearance has been changed using diffuse, normal, and specular maps.
 
There are many ways to generate normal maps. 2 common tools for creating them from our diffuse textures are CrazyBump and nDo.  We'll go through how to install and use both of these tools in class. You will need them to complete your homework. If you can't install them at home you will need to complete your assignment at school.


nDo tutorial:

You should also be learning how to bake them from high-res models. For this assignment we will be focusing on creating them from images. This technique can be combined with baked normals.

Please always bring a stylus - they are required for painting your texture maps.




WEEK 9: Character Acting 1: Run Cycles using mocap data

Speed drill o' the day: Back Flip! - I recommend a simple back tuck from a standing position. Don't forget the antic!

------
Transitioning from walk cycles to run cycles this week -- we'll start dealing with blending cycles together. I don't want to see just any ol' computer-tweened morphing from you guys! I want a real transition! Think about how you'd go from walking to running. Slap on those runners, hit some pavement or a treadmill and feel the difference between the two gaits. Make sure it's obvious in your animation that you understand a new action requires an anticipation.

Does your COG drop a bit lower before it springs higher? Do you need to lean forward? Do you take one big walking step before your first running step? Exaggerating things like this to make the audience appreciate your analysis.

We'll look at some video analysis of running. There are so many kinds of running -- sprinting and long-distance running, jogging, barefoot running, and all sorts of speeds (spm) and styles, including cartoony.


Read up on runs:
Richard Williams dissects the run in detail
Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" pgs 176 - 200

Assignment 5: Run Cycle using mocap data
Assigned: 31/10/12
Due: 14/11/12
% of final grade: 20%
Submit to DropBox using the following naming conventions:

tdonovan_run_000.ma
tdonovan_run_000.mov

tdonovan_runref_000.mov (for video reference files) 

File Format: QT
Encoding: H.264
Quality: 100
Image Size: Custom
Width: 560
Height: 316 

Animate a treadmill run that clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character.

Your file should include the walk cycle and the transition to the run as well as several running steps.
Use any mocap-suitable rig.

The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical (apparently if not mathematically) and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:
Exemplary: Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent: Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic run not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

WEEK 9: 2D Digital Art 1 - Sidescroller Level Design, continued, plus: special guest Jamie Richards CEO of Alien Concepts

Please note class will be from 9am - 12 pm this week only!

At Risk sidescroller for the Toronto Zoo
This week we'll continue working on our sidescroller games for the first half of the class.

At 11 am we'll move to the Octagon (515) for a guest speaker.
Please welcome Jamie Richards, veteran game animation pro and CEO of Alien Concepts.
Night of the Scarecrows
Before starting his own company, Jamie worked as a level designer at Pseudo Interactive and an instructor at both Seneca and Centennial College. 


Scarabica

Monday, October 22, 2012

Instructor of the Year Award: Visiting Digital Tutors Headquarters in Oklahoma City

With David Bittorf, Donovan Douglas,
and Digital Tutors' CEO, Piyoush Patel

This year George Brown students nominated me for Digital Tutors' CG and VFX Instuctor of the Year award! It was a great honour just to be nominated so thank you to everyone who voted for me. :o) It was even more amazing to be voted a top-3 finalist! I was very excited to be flown down with the 2 other finalists to spend a few days at the Digital Tutors' headquarters in Oklahoma.

If you're a DT user, you can imagine how funny it was to hang out with the guys behind the voices on the tutorials! That's Delano on the far left and Kyle on the far right, with Joshua, Eddie and Justin in the middle.

Here's a link to my write-up about the trip:
http://www.taranimator.com/2012/10/instructor-of-year-award-visiting.html
Swapping ideas with the fantastic DT instructors

Intercession Week!!


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

WEEK 7: Motion Studies - Anatomy of Movement 2: Muscles

Animation speed drill o' the day - new rig! Up on DropBox you should find "Krag" the awkwardly adorable dinosaur. Your mission is to create a little surprise 'take' for Krag. I will explain :o)
-----------------------------------------
Human Anatomy + Photoshop Basics, continued.  Once again we're in lab 520 continuing with part 2 of our Human Anatomy study: the muscular system.

Bring drawing materials, and a stylus.

Description:
Part 2: Muscles
Continuing working on the same file with the action photo as your base layer, and your skeleton in the middle, draw the major muscle groups that move the skeleton as a final overlay. Feature the most visible and important muscle groups for artists and animators. Show perspective in the shading as the muscles wrap around the body, the direction they lie and the deformations caused by the effort of the pose. Use colour variation to differentiate between the bellies of the muscles and the ligaments and tendons that attach them to the bones.

Aim to make your drawing a portfolio piece that shows both your knowledge and your artistic skill. The drawing can be very detailed or you may generalize forms as shown in the study above.

Looking for a good muscular system study reference? -- ok, maybe more 'memorable' than good? Click here!
No, seriously, these are better - Front, Back

WEEK 7: 2D Digital Art 1 - Sidescroller Level Design, continued

Picking up where we left off last week, we'll continue with level design adding a mid-ground layer, elements like platforms and door frames, and apply techniques such as shadows and filters to dress up the art style.

We'll discuss more esoteric concepts like continuity and atmosphere, create repeating elements and build depth by placing panning objects in the foreground and midground.

Check DropBox for the latest instructions.

WEEK 7: Character Acting 1: Walk Cycles using mocap data, continued

Click to enlarge
Please note: class will be starting at 12:45 and going straight through to 3:00 (no breaks) to accomodate those who want to go to the OCAD presentation of Chris Solarski -- see info:
-------------------------------------

Animation speed drill o' the day: start your character lying on the ground and have him get up to a standing position. See "Turkish Get Up" exercise for further study.
Turkish Get Up - a few of these will give you a lot of information.
Don't drop the weight on your head!
--------------------------------------

 Walk Cycles, continued:

We'll pick up where we left off last week with Dan showing you how to create cycling animation from live mocap data. Remember that this assignment requires more than just a 'generic', vanilla walk. It must have character.  So, once you're finished cleaning up the data and bringing it into Maya, your real animation work begins.

When analyzing mocap data for your walk cycles, you'll have to hunt for all the key positions that give the character weight, such as the ones pointed out in this Muybridge image on the left. Note that even video reference may be missing vitally important details.

All 3 of these walk cycles use the same base animation.
You can alter cycles to give them more attitude and character - some great tools to help you with this are the graph editor and animation layers. Having great control over your curves in the graph editor is great for editing cycles, in fact, I'd say it is essential. Remember from last year that precision is the key to a smooth cycle. The foot slide must be linear and cover exactly the same distance as the forward motion.  All the tangents must be working correctly and there must be no pops or sticky spots in your screen arcs. Animation layers are very powerful for non-destructively building more subtle motion on top of a basic piece of animation. In the Eleven rig examples pictured, the original 'vanilla' walk was turned into a snappy, happy walk and a more hesitant, scared walk using layers without altering the original base animation.




For more practice, Digital Tutors has a course on Creating Walk Cycles in MotionBuilder.


Monday, October 15, 2012

WEEK 7: Texturing & Shading 1 - unwrapping more complex models, continued

We'll pick up where we left off last week, finishing up the unwrapping of our fire hydrant model.

Always keep in mind the importance of grouping your objects to make them easier to paint. We'll (hopefully) get started with a little painting today.

I'll give you a little background about ye olde hydrant to get you thinking about how to make it look really nice and beat-up. Maybe we'll even pay our fire hydrant a little visit in RL. :o)

This assignment isn't due for a few weeks so you'll have lots to time to paint it and apply a couple of new kinds of maps.


TEXT2010 Assignment 5 & 6 
Assigned: Wed, Oct 17th 
Value: 30%: UV's 10%, Diffuse 10%, Normal 2.5%, Specular 2.5%, Final Look 5% 
Click here for the rubric for this assignment 
Due:  Wed, November 14th 
Hydrant, UV'd and textured: 3DSMax file, diffuse map, normal map, specular map, and a simple render
SAVE your work uncompressed (2048 x 2048 PSDs recommended)
SEND me only Targas (.tga), one for each of your maps.
Maximum resolution: 2048 x 2048 pixels, 8 bits per channel, no alpha
File naming convention example:
tdonovan_hydrant.max
tdonovan_hydrant_diff.tga 
tdonovan_hydrant_nrm.tga 
tdonovan_hydrant_spec.tga
tdonovan_render.jpg  (a screengrab or render of your final piece)

Save your Max file at a nice angle, maps applied and paths stripped. 
Please be very careful with your naming conventions.  All assignments are to be handed in via Dropbox.

Click here for a reminder on how to strip network paths in 3DSMax

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

WEEK 6: Character Acting 1: Walk Cycles using mocap data

Animation speed drill o' the day: lifting a heavy box. Here's a very nice example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHkxieQ_Z7c&feature=plcp

 -----------------------
Walk Cycles using mocap.
We'll get started this week with some refresher concepts about cycles and animating walks in Maya.  This time around we will be using mocap data as the basis for our walk cycles. You may record this yourself or use prerecorded data.

Your Walk cycle must be a character-specific study backed up with video reference, thumbnails etc.

I want character walks, not just any old generic tutorial walks. You shot reference, you can shoot more. This is where all your animation principles and study all come together. Make it yours and make it awesome.



For next week, please read the chapter on walks from page 102-163 in Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit".

A metronome is very handy for animating walks and many other actions. There are tons of free metronomes online and free metronome apps.
Click here for a handy chart comparing metronome beats to frames per second.




Assignment 4: Walk Cycle using mocap
Assigned: 10/10/12
Due: 31/10/12
% of final grade: 20%
Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.
Animate a treadmill walk based on mocap data. Walks should clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character. The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:
Exemplary: Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent: Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic walk not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Please submit files to our shared DropBox folder.

Please hand in 2 files named as follows:
tdonovan_walk_000.ma
tdonovan_walk_000.mov
tdonovan_walkref_000.mov (for video reference files)

File Format: QT
Encoding: H.264
Quality: 100
Image Size: Custom
Width: 560
Height: 316 

Include any referenced files and video reference. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces. Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

WEEK 6: Motion Studies - Anatomy of Movement 1: the Skeleton


Please note that for this week and next week the class has been moved to Room 520 at 3:00 pm  Bring drawing materials, and a stylus.
----------------------------------
 Animation speed drill o' the day: handstand idle
It can be a funny handstand or a serious one. Once the pose looks nice see if you can turn it into an idle cycle.
-----------------------------------------


Human Anatomy 1 + Photoshop Basics
We'll work in the Cintiq labs (TBA) and begin part 1 of our Human Anatomy study: the skeleton.

Motion Studies Assignment 3
Anatomy of Movement:
Part 1: Skeleton
Part 2: Muscles
Assigned: October 12th
Due: November 2nd
% of Final Grade: 20%
Work large (ex 2048px) but save final version at 
1024 px x @ 72 pixels/inch

Filename:
tdonovan_skeleton_001.jpg
tdonovan_muscles_001.jpg

Please hand in by FTP
Description:
Part 1: Skeleton

Using a photo of  an action pose as a base layer, draw the underlying skeleton. Aim to make your drawing a portfolio piece that shows both your knowledge and your artistic skill. The drawing can be very detailed or you may generalize forms as shown in the study above.
This is most easily done digitally, but you can draw on tracing paper and scan it. Find your own photo or use one of these from ESPN's body issue.

Use lots of reference for the skeleton -Visible Body is very helpful but it  costs >$30.

Another great idea -- create a pose-able mini skeleton using a cheap model and sculptor's wax. Available on Amazon.com. I called around and didn't find any in town.
http://illustrationfixation.blogspot.com/2011/05/skeleton-model.html

Another option is to download a 3D model. The good ones are expensive (>$150). I searched Turbosquid for models under $25 and this is what popped up. One or two aren't terrible.
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm?keyword=skeleton&max_price=25

More here (these actually look better)
http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/people?cat=1071

Looking for good skeletal system study reference? Click here!

WEEK 6: 2D Digital Art 1 - Sidescroller Level Design

Assignment 3 - Sidescroller Level Design

CREATE A 2D SIDE SCROLLING BACKGROUND FOR A VIDEO GAME.
SELECT ONE OF THE GIVEN THEMES TO BETTER YOUR ART STYLE.
(DESN1130 CROSSOVER ASSIGNMENT)
YOUR PHOTOSHOP FILE MUST HAVE:
PROPERLY NAMED...
  • BACKGROUND FOLDER AND LAYERS (PARALLAX)
  • MID GROUND FOLDER AND LAYERS
  • FOREGROUND FOLDER AND LAYERS
THEMES:
A) MEDIEVAL B) UNDERWATER C) ARCTIC D) SPACE

DELIVERABLES
PSD SOURCE FILE WITH AN IMAGE SIZE OF 600PX(H) x 600PX(W) 72dpi (Ground)
PSD SOURCE FILE WITH AN IMAGE SIZE OF 600PX(H) x 1000PX(W) 72dpi (Mid ground)
PSD SOURCE FILE WITH AN IMAGE SIZE OF BACKGROUND 600PX(H) x 2000PX(W) 72dpi
(PARALLAX / LEVEL DETAIL)

FILENAME: donovant_level_000.psd

DUE DATE
WEEK 10 - Thursday, Nov 8, before class!
MUST HAVE SOURCE FILE AVAILABLE TO WORK ON IN CLASS!

MARK BREAKDOWN
2D SIDE SCROLLING LEVEL: 30 marks
VALUE 30%
Followed Brief - 5
Layout - 5
Repetition Parts - 5
Contrast Parts - 5
Various Obstacles/Entities - 5
Aesthetic details - 5


* Late projects are subject to a penalty of 5 MARK per day.
All projects must be submitted within 1 week of the
due date or they will NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

WEEK 6: Texturing & Shading 1 - unwrapping more complex models, creating texture libraries

Our next texturing challenge is a bit more complex -- a beat-up old fire hydrant. Together we'll work through the UV'ing of a pre-built model.

century-old hydrant at King & Jarvis
Click here to download the model.

Next week we'll wrap up the UV's 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 which we'll go through over the next couple of weeks.
6 UV Layout

But let's not get stuck UV'ing for the whole class -- the next assignment is all about how texturing shows the effects of time, use, and weather. You will be going into the wild to start taking photo reference of urban decay.  Using these photos you will be creating a style guide for your upcoming texturing project.

Assignment 4: Texture Reference Library & Guide
Value: 20%
Click here for the rubric for this assignment
Assigned: 10/10/12
Due: Wednesday, Oct 31st, before class

1) Shoot and process a library of at least 10 photo textures related to your fire hydrant project. In addition you may include related reference images such as backgrounds, ground and wall treatments.
2) Create a reference guide using your photos showing how you will approach the texturing of the hydrant assignment.  (Note: you do not have to follow the guide exactly for the texturing assignment.)

Make your photos look their best by fixing levels, contrast, hue & saturation to bump up details and get rid of fake-looking colour casts. Images should be clear, in focus, and free from extraneous detail.  Textures should be ready to use with shadows or highlights removed. Shoot in flat light, dry weather, perpendicular to your subject. Avoid perspective and warping by zooming in from a few steps back. If it's potentially tileable, shoot a large enough surface area.  If it's a detail, get close enough to the subject.

Remind yourself of keys to good textures on this site:
http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=shootingtextures

SAVE your images at any resolution.
SEND me your images only as NON-interlaced PNGs.
Measurement of longest edge: 2048
File naming convention:
tdonovan_descriptor_001.png

ex:
photo textures:
tdonovan_peelingpaint_001.png
tdonovan_scratches_001.png
tdonovan_brickwall_001.png
tdonovan_grafitti_001.png
tdonovan_grafitti_002.png

reference images:
tdonovan_streetcorner_ref_001.png

reference guide:
tdonovan_texref_001.png

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

WEEK 5: Motion Studies - Rough to Final Animation "Splining"

So you have created all the major poses and some important breakdowns, roughed in the timing and all is well. What next? Well, the next step, as they say, is a doozy!
It's one thing to see all your poses nice and clearly separated. It's quite daunting to make them all transition fluidly to create a good animated performance.

Today we'll go through a few more techniques to make this process more manageable.

Here are some key pro tips for moving from blocking to final animation:
  • break the shot up into distinct beats - work on the main actions separately
  • shorten the timeline - don't get overwhelmed
  • look at what’s driving the motion - make sure it's nice and clean
  • hide the arms and legs if they're distracting
  • try using ghosting or creating motion trails if that's helpful for seeing arcs and spacing
  • convert the body curves to “clamped” or “spline”
  • go through curve by curve, adjusting as necessary 
  • focus on one moment at a time
  • take a step back and review the whole file occasionally
Adapted in part from the article "The Fear of Moving Past Blocking" by Eric Scheur

Here are some of the most important things to watch out for when finalizing your animation:
  • Arcs
  • Line of Action
  • Offsets
  • Overlap and Follow Through
  • Energy
  • Pace
  • Silhouette
  • Motion Problems
  • Timing
  • Staging
  • Acting
  • Watch your previews many times and write down any problems you should go back and fix later.
Adapted in part from the article "Life After Pose to Pose: Taking your Animation to the Next Level" by Keith Lango

Final polish is a finesse pass where many subtle details can be added. This is not a requirement at this stage but something to look forward to. Some examples of final polish are:
  • add squash stretch to the head
  • add deformations on the body for squash/stretch and single-frame effects
  • add subtle bows bends on arms, legs
  • animate nose / cheeks
  • overlap brows, blinks
  • overlap fingers, toes
  • eye-darts
Reminder: your deadline for this assignment is next week before class! Good luck!


WEEK 5: 2D Digital Art 1 - Comic Book Art in Photoshop, continued -- Adding the Final Colour Effects


Now it's time to finalize our image by adding colour to mold the 3D look of the characters. We'll continue using the special brushes we created last week and add a bunch of new tools and techniques such as layer styles or blend modes, gradients, highlights and shadows, and blur effects. These are great pro tricks to make your artwork look really slick and get used to the amazing power of Photoshop.

Reminder: this assignment is due next week before class in our shared DropBox folder.


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

WEEK 5: Character Acting 1: Working with Motion Capture Data, continued

 Animation speed drill o' the day:
Sidestep. Here's a nice example: http://youtu.be/rD7vNYqC3OI
--------------------------------------
By now I'm sure you're finding out that applying motion capture data to a rig is quite a process! For starters, you need a rig. The good news is that almost any rig can be made viable for using mocap data. The better news is there are many rigs available - from the Tutorials folder in Motion Builder to sites like Turbo Squid.
Control Rig example

But you need to do a few steps - some technical, some artistic.

Technically, the rig needs to be 'characterized' to get it to accept the data. This is covered in a very detailed Digital Tutors Tutorial "Characterizing the Skeleton"

There is also the business of creating a 'Control Rig'. Motion Builder has a very helpful procedure for creating a blendable FK/IK character setup Click here to read more about this process.

Once you get through the gauntlet of smoothing the MVN data, exporting it to Motion Builder and characterizing the rig, the really important work begins: the artistic part.

Student WIP showing blending between 2 clips.
Note the detail added to the posing in the original file.
It's our job as animators to take the data we start with - mocap, video or photo reference - and 'plus' it, make it more than what we started with. The poses must look solid and well-silhouetted. The motions must be fluid and clear. The actions must be crisp and strong or smooth and nuanced, depending on the actions.  This is where your knowledge of animation principles comes into play. The data is a good starting point - it's the animator's job to make it great. We'll go into more detail about what this means in class today! 




Monday, October 1, 2012

WEEK 5: Texturing & Shading 1 - Guest Lecturer from Arc Animation

Please not that there will be no class Wednesday, October 3rd.

Instead, we will be joining Phil's Texturing 1 class to hear a guest lecturer: Andrew Shyshko, a modeler/surfacer from Arc Animation will be coming to talk about professional texturing techniques.

Meet in the Octagon (515) next Thursday, October 4th from 6-9pm

Arc Productions (formerly Starz) is a major feature, tv and visual effects studio just around the corner from George Brown College. Here are some examples of their recent productions:
All Visual FX for the live action/CG pre-game series “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn”
Animated feature "9"
Visual Effects for live action feature, "Dolphin Tale"
Animated feature "Gnomeo and Juliet"