WEEK 4: Motion Studies - Animation Blocking to Rough Animation

Don't forget that this week's class now takes place in 2 parts:
(1) Thursday Sept 27th - 12:00pm-1:30pm the CASO "Previsualization for Feature Films" lecture at the Scotiabank Theatre at John and Richmond
http://tarateach.blogspot.ca/2012/09/casos-visionary-lunches-series-presents.html
You should RSVP at: SHIRLYN@CASONT.CA
Make sure you mention you're from GBC to get the $10 rate (lunch included!).
There's a Starbucks on the second floor of John and Richmond if anyone would like to join me for a coffee afterwards. :o)

(2) Friday Sept 28th - 12:00 - 1:30 pm in our regular classroom 516

I look forward to seeing your WIP animation -- last chance for help before final animation is due next week....

I'll go over the process of moving from blocking to rough and then final animation. Animating this way allows you to make the most of your posing and timing and build layers of detail into your scenes from blocking to final polish

Here's a beautiful example of this layered approach by the ridiculously talented Jamaal Bradley

Progression of an Animated Shot: Gothel & Rapunzel Disney's Tangled from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.

Don't let me forget to show you how to compress your video files using Adobe Media Encoder!

WEEK 4: 2D Digital Art 1 - Comic Book Art in Photoshop, continued -- Adding the Ink Effects

Today we'll continue our comic book illustration - step 2: adding the ink effects.

We'll learn how to make the most of Photoshop's many brush presets and settings to create custom brushes to make ink splatters, textured shading effects and other details that make the piece look dynamic and painterly.

Click here for some excellent tutorials on Digital Tutors about creating and using custom brush effects in Photoshop.

WEEK 4: Texturing & Shading 1 - Bump Maps and Alpha Maps for Grass

We'll continue building detail into our simple sign by learning about 2 more kinds of maps:

No craters here - just a bump map

Bump maps add the illusion of detail and are very simple to edit.  We'll work with creating some gritty surface texture and cracks on the sign's base, scratches in the rusty paint, and add height to relief details such as the bolts holding the sign in place.

Here are some videos explaining how to create and use bump maps correctly:

Using Bump Maps in 3DSMax
Painting Bump Maps in Photoshop

Grass cards from Skyrim 

Alpha maps are useful for masking out areas we want to remain transparent. One common use for alphas is in the application of foliage to our scenes. We'll add some simple grass elements in our scene and experiment with layering these elements to make the grass look more complex and realistic.

Here are some videos explaining how to create and use alpha grass:

Painting grass textures in Photoshop
Applying grass textures in 3DSMax


Next week: instead of our regular class we have a guest lecturer Andrew Shyshko, a modeler/surfacer from Arc Animation to talk about production techniques. Meet in the Octagon (515) next Thursday, October 4th from 6-9

WEEK 4: Character Acting 1: Working with Motion Capture Data

Quiz Recap:
About your Quiz results.. we need to have a little post-mortem on that. The class average was about 55% before I took pity on you and curved it up a bit. Uh... guys, you need to know this stuff so we're having a quick recap.

Motion Capture, continued...

Rick Mercer at EA

Next we blast forth into the wooly world of using mocap to create beautiful animation.
You can continue shooting and recording mocap with Dan in 515.
If you already have your data you can clean it up in the peer tutor lab or use the teacher's station.
We'll then get to the job of exporting and editing data in Motion Builder, and finally, exporting it to Maya.
There are several steps in this pipeline and you may need to practice to get them all working properly.
If your mocap data is not yet available you can spent the time learning the pipeline with some sample scenes. Your assignment is due in 2 weeks so today!
Next week please have all your blocking in Maya ready to start polishing.

Please check our shared DropBox folder for some helpful info on MVNStudio including the manual and some tutorials (no sound!).  There are also skeletal rigs in there as well as a bunch in Motion Builder-> Tutorials.  

Here is a link to a ton of free mocap data you can use:
http://accad.osu.edu/research/mocap/mocap_data.htm

IMPORTANT NOTE RE VERSION COMPATIBILITY WITH MVN:
516  (Octagon) HAS BOTH VERSION 3.16 and 3.4 
THE PEER TUTOR LAB HAS ONLY 3.16 
IT IS NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE -- PLEASE RECORD IN VS 3.16