WEEK 15: All assignments due in class this week

Motion Studies - your blended cycles are due

Asset Dev - your turntables are due  http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-quads-triangles-use/

Game Dev - your final animation is due

Hooray, you're done! 

Happy holidays to all my students! This is one of the funniest Christmas toons from one of my favorite studios: BirdBox. Their stuff is the epitome of simple, snappy timing and loads of appeal. 

WEEK 14: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 9: Blending: Due next week!

We're going to 'blend' our cycles together using the simplest tools in Maya. Blending between different actions may involve adding extra details between cycles. For example, a walk to a run requires a tricky middle action where the character gathers energy to move more quickly.
Assignment 9: Blending the Cycles

Playblast and Maya file

% of final grade: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Dec 3rd, 2013

Due: WEEK 15, Dec 10th at the end of class
*Late assignments are worth 0

Quicktimes only, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB.
Blend together your cycles - idle to walk, walk to run, run to jump.
If you like you can try blending back to the run.

Please REFERENCE your rig into your shot (do not open the rig and start animating or import him.)

Filenames:

1136_a9_donovant_blend_001.ma
1136_a9_donovant_blend_001.mov

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. 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.

We're also going to continue with our topic of the most subtle of the animation principles -- overlapping action, which is paramount to creating weight. We'll take lots of cues from the Pixar of Game Animation, Blur Studio in California.

WEEK 13: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 8: Jump Cycles: Due next week!

Next cycle -- Jumps!

EVH can do it, so can you

We'll take a look at some different styles of jumping, leaping, hopping, bounding characters and study live action for inspiration. Jumping characters exhibit lost of secondary and overlapping action, and anticipation.

Showing the effort characters take to move their own weight is paramount to creating believable animation of any style.

It's one thing to make the up and down motion read as 'heavy' and affected by gravity. It's quite another to master the mechanics of looping overlapping/secondary action with the character's arms, legs and other details such as tails or capes.

If ever the devil were in any details.. it's animating secondary on a looping action!

Your jump cycles should be usable for avoiding ground pitfalls or traveling forward.
The mechanics of the body in the jump should work well before tackling the secondary action

Remember you will be blending this cycle from and back to the run so you might want to export the start pose from a run position to help it transition smoothly.

Assignment 8: Jump Cycle

Playblast and Maya file

% of final grade: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Nov 26, 2013

Due: WEEK 14, Dec 3rd at the end of class
*Late assignments are worth 0

Quicktimes only, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB.
Animate your character jumping on the spot in a treadmill cycle. It should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long. 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.

Please REFERENCE your rig into your shot (do not open the rig and start animating or import him.)

Filenames:

1136_a8_donovant_jump_001.ma
1136_a8_donovant_jump_001.mov

The jump should clearly show 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 (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.

WEEK 12: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 7: Run Cycles: Due next week!

This week: run cycles.

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. We'll look at some video analysis of running and talk about the major keys.

We'll start dealing with blending cycles together so you can practice in preparation for the last assignment. 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.

Read up on runs:
Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" pgs 176 - 200

Please do NOT use bad reference from the Internet such as Preston Blair or AngryAnimator or Anime. Only source information from battle-tested, quality animators with high-end experience. 90% of the information online on animation is not usable at this level.

Digital Tutors has a great tutorial on runs but I will caution you it veers into territory you do not want to focus on for this cycle such as character sets, scripting for mirroring poses, and editing rotation order. You can learn these if you want but I want you to focus on just animating great poses with great timing using great reference.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/lesson/25052-Introduction-and-project-overview

Assignment 7: Run Cycle

Playblast and Maya file

% of final grade: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Nov 19, 2013

Due: WEEK 13, Nov 26th at the end of class
*Late assignments are worth 0

Quicktimes only, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB.
Animate your character running on the spot in a treadmill cycle. It should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long. 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. 

Please REFERENCE your rig into your shot (do not open the rig and start animating or import him.)

Filenames:

1136_a7_donovant_run_001.ma
1136_a7_donovant_run_001.mov

The run should clearly show 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 (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.

WEEK 11: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 6: Treadmill Walk Cycles: Due next week!

Now that you've worked out the bugs of handling a new rig and using all the cycling and timing tools in Maya it's time for a whole new level of picky: walk cycles.

There are 2 ways to animate a walk cycle  - straight-ahead, which is often called "walking off the coin" meaning you leave the main controller or god node behind as the character walks forward as you would in real life. In order to turn this into a cycle, the coin slides back in perfect sync with each step so that the character does not move forward on the screen. The other way is to 'treadmill' it by having the coin remain in place and have the feet slide backwards, just like on a treadmill at the gym. The coin can be animated moving forward at the same speed as the feet slide backward to make the character travel forward. Different animators and studios have their preferred method so it is wise to know about them both. We will be working with treadmill walks for this class. 

One common pitfall to avoid is creating a 'vanilla walk' with the intent of altering it later. Please don't fall into this trap. Animators animate characters walking, not generic walk cycles. I will be teaching you a pose-to-pose method of animating walk cycles that should start with an apparent personality from the very start. There are some tutorials online that use a 'layered' approach to creating walks starting with feet sliding back and forth like on a Nordic track ski machine and then adding each detail one at a time. Ok, no. Just no to that. Please do not let me see you doing that. It was the method I was taught too but it is not industry standard and it focuses entirely on mechanics and not on personality, which is the way an animator should be thinking and working.

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

Digital Tutors has a comprehensive tutorial on walk cycles using this this method.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/354-Creating-Walk-Cycles-in-Maya

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 to work from reference. Shooting your own reference can be invaluable so you understand the mechanics.

If we get all the way through the walk cycle instruction I can show you how to import and export animation into other files so you can work on combining them. Until you understand how to combine animation, work on your walks in a completely brand-new file.

DESN1136 Assignment 6: Walk Cycle
Playblast and Maya file

% of final grade: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Nov 12, 2013

Due: WEEK 12, Nov 19th at the end of class
*Late assignments are worth 0

Quicktimes only, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB.
Animate your character walking on the spot in a treadmill cycle. It should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long. 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.

Please REFERENCE your rig into your shot (do not open the rig and start animating or import him.)

Filenames:

1136_a6_donovant_walk_001.ma
1136_a6_donovant_walk_001.mov

WEEK 10: Motion Studies DESN1136 Idle, continued! Transitioning into Walk Cycles

Today we'll continue with the idle adding refinements to the overall action such as overlapping action and tweaking the curves in the graph editor to make sure everything is smooth.  If you're happy with your idle, try another one from scratch in a contrasted pose. Perhaps you could make an 'extended idle' that transitions from one idle to another.

The Digital Tutors tutorial "Animating Game Characters in Maya" takes you through the creation of a character-specific game idle. Starting from a strong character pose, the animator sets up a simple keep-alive idle with overlapping action and uses the graph editor to alter and refine the action. 

I'll go over how to set up your playblasts so you can hand them in next week. 

There seemed to be some confusion with the difference between IK and FK last week so we can do an exercise to clarify that concept a bit more. Here's a link I sent out to a 1-pg explanation of IK and FK Demystified for Animators

If we have time I'll lead into walk cycles by working on the transition from idle to the first step forward - this takes quite a bit of finessing and if you can figure it out you'll be that much further ahead when we officially start walks next week. 

WEEK 9: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 5: Idle

Ready for your term of Maya animation cycles? You are going to create a set of cycles that will seamlessly blend together - idle, walk, run, and jump.

We are going to be using exclusively the new free rig from Animation Mentor, Stewart.

Get your own copy here rather than just getting it from a friend. Sign up for their newsletter, trust me, it's worth it. 
http://www.animationmentor.com/free-maya-rig/
He has more functionality than Buckid and less troublesome detail than Eleven.

First up: Idle no more! (hehe)..

Greeks gave the world souvlaki
 and contrapposto

The humble idle is the Rubic's cube of cycles. How your character behaves when he's just waiting around conveys a lot of attitude. You'll need a lot of subtle control to keep a character alive. Too little movement and they'll just look dead, too much and they'll appear to be having a seizure. :o)


I must warn you that as simple as it may seem to make a character 'do nothing', it is most diabolical! With great subtlety you must add some movement to every part of the character. Nothing should bump or pop, everything should have a nice smooth arc and you should not really be able to pick out where the cycle starts and stops

The key to idles is mastering 'Overlapping Action'. Show how movement flows from the main muscle groups of the body out to the extremities using the 'wave principle'.

Start with a nice pose. Work in a little contrapposto if you can.

woah, that's a little too
 much contrapposto

Get the attitude working before you move on to animation. Create a slightly different pose in the middle and then some breakdowns in between. This looks not too bad, but the movement will all be happening on the same keyframes. Get into the details by offsetting the joints. All changes of direction must use lots of slow ins & outs. Use your infinity/cycle views and check for smoothly flowing curves in that Graph Editor.

DESN1136 Assignment 5: Idle Cycle

% of final grade: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Oct 29, 2013

Due: WEEK 11, Nov 12th at the end of class
Playblast and Maya file
*Late assignments are worth 0

Animate your character in a typical (not generic) pose, idling. It should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long. The QT should be set up to cycle on a loop so be sure your 1st and last frame are not repeated.

Quicktimes only, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB. You can use a variety of tools such as Handbrake, Adobe Media Encoder, Quicktime Pro and more to format your videos. I use the 11-second club guidelines: http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/encoding

Please REFERENCE your rig into your shot (do not open the rig and start animating or import him.)

Filenames:

1136_a5_donovant_idle_001.ma
1136_a5_donovant_idle_001.mov

WEEK 8: Mid term break! Bye! Have a nice break! See you the week of Oct 27th!

License-Free Maya Rig Testing **Update 2013**

Rigs, rigs, rigs....
They're all similar but oh, so different.
A great way to get ready for rigging your own characters is to try a LOT of rigs.  Learn what you like and don't like. Peek into the Outliner and see how organized it is (or not!). Check out how usable it is for animation.  Then you'll be ready to borrow ideas for your own rigs.

Please note if you use any of these rigs they are not for commercial use and must be properly credited!

3 sites with lots of rigs for you to try:
Animation Buffet

Creative Crash Maya Rigs

22+ of the most fun rigs for maya

FLOUR SACK:

Beautifully made flour sack rig (at last!) Created for Maya 2013 by Joe Daniels - check out his cool video clip as well!

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/jd-floursack

ELEVEN:
Created as a group collaboration project by members of the 11SC community!
I love the look of this super cute girl/guy rig!
It looks like a lovely rig so far. Very teensy compared to some other rigs. Fast, easy to use. Nice rig. We use this rig a lot at school.
http://elevenrig.blogspot.com/



NORMAN:
by Leif Jeffers, Morgan Loomis, Peter Starostin, and Neal Thibodeaux

This rig isn't much to look at but it's packed with features -- maybe too many? He's even got 'bend bows' for arcing limbs, sweet! The GUI is totally customizable and you really ought to be able to do anything with this rig.
Only a couple of problems -- the head CTRL -- you know, the one you might need to grab like 1000 times a day, is on the BACK of his head ??? So, unless you love working in XRAY mode or wireframe, you have to do a little tumbling every time you want to grab it.

People have customized Norman into all SORTS of amazing models. Check them out!
https://sites.google.com/site/normanrig/

MORPHEUS:

by Josh Burton 

Wow. Just wow. This is a very distinctive.. and unique GUI.  Is this a good thing? I'm not sure. I find it distracting.  Good news -- it's just to customize the rig into all sorts of different 'looks'. Then you can hide that sucker.

The rig is very slick and there are more ctrls than you can shake a stick at.
http://www.joshburton.com/projects/morpheus.asp

MOOM:
by Ramtin Ahmadi

This ugly-on-purpose rig has a very slick GUI and it's easy to find your way around right out of the box. *NOTE* - one of the arms was IK and the other FK (perhaps purposefully?) but the switch turned out to be not that hard to find (on the ground).  My favorite so far for ease of use.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/moom-v4-0-3-by-ramtin

MAX: (Maya or Max)
by Peter Starostin and James Hunt

Last but not least, this well-used rig has a lot to recommend it.

I liked how easy it was to find everything ... except one very important thing... the MAIN CTRL!
I'm used to seeing, 1, 2, or 3 big, obvious ctrls somewhere in the area of the character's feet.  I see a ROOT but it's in his middle and with IK legs, it only moves the middle. My apologies if it's staring me in the face and I just can't see it!
http://www.bockstyre.com/james/maxformaya/

HEAVY: from Team Fortress - might be some copyright infringement going on here but it's fun to play with.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/heavy-character-rig

SQUIRRELY by Josh Burton:
This is a great opportunity to test out Anzovin's popular autorig, the "Setup Machine".  Very quick and easy to use, also the setup machine rig can be purchased and used with any of your own characters. 

http://www.joshburton.com/projects/Squirrely.asp

Lovely rigs but not recommended for school:

STEWART: *NOT FOR SCHOOL USE :(
Meet Stewart, Animation Mentor's new rig from their "Tribe" family. It's a very versatile athletic rig with lots of bells and whistles like bend bows, stretchy everything, double gimbals, IK/FK switching and more.
Be sure to include their attribution for non-commercial use. Download it here: http://www.animationmentor.com/free-maya-rig/

MALCOLM: * NOT FOR SCHOOL USE :(
AnimSchool has a very cool rig up for grabs as well: Malcolm. Its only 2 negatives are that it is a fully-decked-out feature rig complete with 1000 ctrls and it might be a bit over the heads of students just learning Maya. The other negative is that it's the ONLY free feature-quality rig out there, imho, which makes it extremely popular. The 11-second club winners use it almost exclusively.
I am using it myself, but the female mod which looks a bit like this:
http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx

BUCKID: Buckid is a super simple Maya rig for people just starting out.  1 major flaw: lack of independent hips. The one hip CTRL drives all the ones above. That means if you use hip rotation in your walks, you will need to counter animate the upper spine and head. But aside from that it is a fun, snappy, simple rig with stretchy limbs and spine that is really fun to work with.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/buckid

Conclusion:

Well, the jury's still out. People have certainly created some fantastic animation with all of these rigs.  

I'm looking for a simple interface like Moom that has a neater look like Eleven.

I'd have to vote for either ELEVEN or MOOM.
Morpheus is also worth another look if you don't mind that interface.

Try-em out for yourself and let me know what you think!

WEEK 7: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 3 Due Today! + QUIZ

Your cartoon anatomy studies are due today in class. It's ok if you need time to work on them in class. :o)

Please be ready to take our quiz which should only take about 30 min. Once you've handed in your assignment and taken the quiz you are welcome to leave or stay and work on other projects.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE QUIZ - responses closed until quiz is in progress


Anyone interested should attend tonight's storyboarding seminar:
The Art of Storyboarding with James Caswell - An Animatic T.O. Event
https://www.facebook.com/events/1414030428815095/

$10 (Cheap!)
@ The Victory Cafe - 581 Markham Street
(Bloor & Bathurst behind Honest Ed's)
Doors 7pm
Talk Starts 7:30pm

Enjoy your break!  See you on the 29th of October

WEEK 6: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 2 Due Today!

Your second assignment is due today in class.

We do have one small topic to cover before we dive into 3D animation in Maya after the break:

cartoon characters have skeletons, right?

Anatomy! You've already covered anatomy in your drawing classes so this will be a review. We'll be using various tools to revisit terms you should have learned last year and start working on a specialized drawing based on your character design: an anatomical cartoon study. Next week we'll wrap up with a little 10-question quiz on everything you've studied.

DESN1136 Assignment 3 & 4: Anatomy Study + Quiz

% of final grade: 5% each, TOTAL: 10% 
Assigned: Tuesday, Oct 8, 2013

Due: 

WEEK 7, Oct 15th at the end of class

*Late assignments are worth 0
Quiz will also take place in the first hour of class. You may write it in either class period. Once your quiz and your assignment are handed in, you're free to go!

Please work on paper or digitally (ex, PSD) in high resolution but SUBMIT only JPGs following the image formatting guidelines from this post.

Max 1200 px along longest edge @ 72 dpi

Filenames:

1136_a3_donovant_anatomy_001.jpg

Description: 

Cartoon characters have skeletons, don't they? Of course they do. Draw what's under your

character's skin. This is great preparation for rigging as you consider the joint placement and proportions of anatomy that may need alterations to adapt it from the familiar human skeleton.  Don't just phone it in, make it a nice looking piece of art to go in your portfolio. Draw over the character in PS with the lower layer's opacity very low. Label if you want. And you're not limited to human skeletons - you might need animals, dinosaurs or other skeletons to help you.

Here are some more examples:
http://www.gloriousmind.com/the-anatomy-of-cartoon-characters/

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/09/anatomical-cartoon-characters-by-jason.html

Rubric:
Choose one image of your character in a pose and draw a cartoon study of its anatomy. Aim to make your drawing a portfolio piece that shows both your knowledge and your artistic skill.

Exemplary - thorough and well-drawn study of your character's skeleton that shows the skull and major bones of the skeleton adapted to your character's anatomical form and design, special limitations or extra capabilities
Excellent -  a good study of the character's skeleton including all the major landmarks 
Acceptable - a simple drawing that attempts to follow the skeletal form
Not Acceptable - a sparsely detailed or poorly constructed drawing that doesn't follow the character's form

WEEK 5: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 2 Due Next Week!

Reminder: this Thursday is the last day to drop courses.

So you're busy on your thumbnails, right? I hope you're keeping it nice and simple. Don' add too much detail, just focus on planning the action.

I've heard from a few of you who are interested in improving your thumbnail drawing technique.

sample page from "Simplified Drawing"

Here are two resources perfect for planning animation. One is by a former teacher of mine and former ILM animator, Wayne Gilbert. You can buy his book directly for $35 including shipping here: http://anamie.com/anamie_book.html

Wayne Gilbert's excellent book, "Anamie" or
"Simplified Drawing for Planning Animation"

sample page from Drawn to Life

A bigger, meatier resource is the 2-volume tome "Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures"  by former Disney instructor,Walt Stanchfield. You can get these online or at Labyrinth. 

Read a great review here:
http://www.splinebomb.com/book-review-drawn-life-walt-stanchfield/

WEEK 4: Motion Studies DESN1136 Assignment 1 DUE TODAY IN CLASS

Today is a critique day for your first assignment. 

First we'll be going over your next assignment consists of "thumbnails of your action". 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.

Thumbnail examples from Animation Mentor

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.

Thumbnail translated to 3D

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"

DESN1136 Assignment 2: Animation Thumbnails

% of final grade: 20%
Assigned: Thursday, Sept 26th
Due: WEEK 6, Oct 8th in class

*Late assignments are worth 0

Please work on paper or digitally (ex, PSD) in high resolution but SUBMIT only JPGs following the image formatting guidelines from this post.

Max 1200 px wide @ 72 dpi

Filenames:

1136_a2_donovant_thmb_001.jpg

Description: 
Plan the animation for a sequence in your virtual game. It can be built around the travelling sequences such as the walk, run, and jump cycles to be animated in the second half of the course. It could also focus on another significant part of the game. Drawings need not be clean but they should be clear, dynamic, and detailed. Consider using live action reference for this challenging assignment.

Rubric:
Exemplary - In-depth planning of all the movement and surrounding actions for animation sequence showing the character's specific personality and style of movement.

Excellent - Detailed movement study of animation sequence showing all major actions with some personality.
Acceptable - Simple study of most of the planned actions for the animated sequence.
Not Acceptable - Sparsely detailed study of a few of the key poses of the animated sequence.

WEEK 3: Motion Studies DESN1136: Storyboarding 101 - 1st Assignment Due Next Week!

Story boarding is one of the key planning tools in film and animation. It requires clear drawing, storytelling ability, and a knowledge of the cinematic tools used by filmmakers for decades. Story boards can be drawn using digital tools but paper is the ultimate collaborative tool for sketching ideas out in teams of artists who are among the highest paid in the industry.  Why? Because in animation, the story board artists direct the action with input from the director, of course. They take the script and turn it into a blueprint for all the action to follow. 

I'll be showing you lots of examples of storyboards for different types of projects. 

Dream Works artists hard at work with pencils, paper, pointers and push pins - old school!

There are a few tools we need for this process. At first I recommend keeping your ideas loose and not drawing in 'boxes' until after your ideas have been explored from many angles. But once you're ready to draw in the squares, make sure they're the same aspect ratio as your final output: 16:9. We have some stickies that size available for you from the office.  Create your own boards in seconds with a cardboard frame or print out fancy ones.  It's up to you. Each studio has their own process and tools.

The master story artist, Pixar's Alex Woo, shows the key to all acting: line of action.

Pitching session on the Fairly Odd Parents - more paper!

Once again, come ready to draw as we will be building on the skills we learned last week to draw from movie stills and learn more about the cinematographic language of story boards.  We'll be referencing the classic animated feature "Iron Giant" - if you haven't seen this movie, take some time to watch it soon. There's a lot to learn both from the cinematography, the storytelling, and the animation.
Try reading the script to see if you could draw a storyboard from just the words on the page:
http://www.freestyle.mvla.net/webaudio/p2-narrative/screenplay/Screenplay_THE_IRON_GIANT.pdf

I'll have a look at your work in progress. By now you should be about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through this 4-part project which is due at the start of class NEXT WEEK.

WEEK 2: Motion Studies DESN1136: Environments and Composition

Sidescroller "Beast Hunter" from local Industrial Brothers

Hope you brought your drawing chops today because we're going to be digging into the next part of your first assignment - the environment!

Sidescroller "They Bleed Pixels" from local Spooky Squid

3D multi-level shooter "Damnation"

We'll be looking at some typical game environment designs to get an idea of the planning process for your virtual game. It's a good plan to think about the action style of your game and build a world to accommodate it than to build a world and try to fit your character's actions into it.

In the planning stages artists thumbnail ideas to collaborate and sketch out the big picture for the game or project. This process requires great skill in distilling information to simple shapes while communicating the main idea of the story. This must be more than just who/what/where nitty gritty detail. It also must add emotional information. This requires a basic knowledge of cinematographic language - subjective and objective camera angles, and what various angles and shapes communicate to the viewer. We'll have a look at several sources that can teach us about the major elements of composition:
1- Focal Point
2- Framing
3- Lines
4- Space / Position
5- Perspective / Depth
6- Balance / Hierarchy
7- Scale / Volume
8- Pattern / Rhythm
9- Value / Contrast
10- Color 

All 4 are trees but from completely different movies!

It's not enough to just read about it, practice is essential. And you can start anywhere - freeze-framing movies and searching through photos that illustrate the elements described. Two great books to invest time reading are, "Film Directing Shot By Shot" and "The 5 C's of Cinematography".

A lot of great information we'll be covering in class is available here:
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/comp1.html

I'll show you some successful assignments from past classes so you know what to aim for.

Character design by GBC grad Maya M

I'll also have a look at your work in progress from last week. By now you should be about 1/4 of the way through this 4-part assignment.

Next week we'll get into drawing some more formal story boards for our action sequences.