WEEK 9: 'Field Trip' Friday, March 11th, 12 pm - 1:30 pm CASO presents Paul Griffin_Animation 2.0 "The Next Level" on March 11th! Reserve your seat today!

Hey, everybody -

Hope you had a great break and aren't as sick as I am right now!

There's a very cool event happening Friday and with Jean-Paul's permission I've decided to make it a "Field Trip". For the DESN1119C class, this means this event IS your class, so you are expected to be there unless you can't afford it.
For the DESN2022A class, I realize you may have another class at this time. Please let me know so I can contact your teachers to find out what they think.  I would definitely like you to be there.

CASO (Computer Animation Studios of Ontario) has invited all of you to to a lunchtime talk:

"Animation 2.0 "The Next Level" with Paul Griffin.

You may not have heard of Paul Griffin, but you've definitely seen his work.  His credits include:
Animation Supervisor :
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter video game, cinematic sequences,  Benjamin Button, The Mummy, Pan's Labyrinth, King Kong, Fantastic Four, Mr & Mrs Smith
Lead Animator:
Star Wars, Ep I & II - ILM
Animator:
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - Weta

WEEK 7: Midterm Exam

This exam is now closed.

If you were away for the exam, please contact me to arrange a make-up time.

tDonovan@georgebrown.ca

Week 6: Idle Cycles + Animation Madness from Blur

Your last week before MIDTERM EXAMS (moo hahahaha...) we'll delve further into 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.

Idle Cycles:
We'll be working on the Rubic's cube of cycles -- the humble "Idle".  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 -- it should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long.

Week 6: Action analysis, continued

Time to polish up those assignments -- they're due next class.  We'll work on them a bit in class today.
Next week: MIDTERM EXAM!  BoooooOOOoooo ...
If there's anything you're in doubt about, now's the time to speak up!

Homework:

• Finish polishing your Action Analysis assignments.  Have the final product and your live action reference posted for MONDAY, Feb 28th.
• Get ready for next week's midterm! Guess what it's about? the 12 Principles of Animation!  It will be based on everything you've learned so far.  Review the work you've done going back to day 1.  This will be a practical test so be sure you understand the tools such as the graph editor, setting and moving keys, adding secondary action, and working from live action reference.

This week we'll have a look at some animation from films that borrowed (without stealing) from live action reference.  We'll see how they added snap, weight, and energy to the animation using exaggeration, contrast, and little tricks like overshoot and settle.

Week 5: Crouching Cycles (Hidden .. Squirrels?)

More cycles! Moah! ha! ha!

Now you'll need to apply your subtle overlapping action skills to a crouching idle.

Homework:

* Crouch cycle  -- idle in a crouch position. This cycle will eventually have to transition back to a regular standing idle
* Due next class

Week 5: Action analysis -- working from live action reference

After a few weeks of studying mechanics, we're digging deeper into action analysis using live action reference.

The next level of applying the Principles of Animation is the most elusive: adding personality to our characters. Staging, solid posing and appeal will come into play even more in this last 3D animation assignment for this course.

We'll be taking a couple of weeks to find, analyze and animate a short live action clip of your choice or creation.

Homework: 

• Find a live action clip no longer than 10 seconds. Download it using 'Save Vid' or another downloading tool (see sidebar links).  Analyze it frame by frame looking for keys, breakdowns, arcs, timing, and any other noteworthy details that make the clip interesting to you.  Take notes on paper or draw over stills.
• Begin animating the clip using the Luxo, the Ball, and any other primitives you need to sell this piece. 
• Zero marks are given for modeling, lighting, or texturing. This is entirely an animation assignment. 
• Start posting your work-in-progress.

Surly's New Rig -- File Referencing Updates

We have an updated rig for Surly with knee controls (pole vectors) -- located on the foot controls.

Click here to download the new Surly Rig

This is a great next chapter in the wooly world of File Referencing.

Without file referencing, every time a rig is updated, you would have to restart your animation using the new rig.  With a referenced rig, you can usually just replace your reference and keep on trucking...

But what happens when you open your animation file and something has changed that breaks your animation?


This is about to happen to YOU!! :oD

Week 4: Jumps! Digging into Secondary Action

Cycle of the week:  Jumps!

Click to view the incredible video of a fox hunting through snow

We'll take a look at some different styles of jumping, leaping, hopping, bounding characters and study live action for inspiration, and analyze the way secondary and overlapping action works.

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 .. tail!

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

Week 4: Luxo Jump, continued

  "Secret of Nimh" by Don Bluth, master of secondary action

We've covered a lot of the Principles of Animation so far, but there's still a lot to cover in terms of secondary & overlapping action.  The Luxo character has only its head and base to drag and settle, so it's important to use them well to show gravity's effects.

Creating Image Planes From Video Reference

Thanks to both my classes for shooting some fantastic video reference in class!!

Click here to see one of you as a lamp.

It's relatively easy to bring this footage into your animation files. You can easily follow the frame-by-frame reference, ie, rotoscope, but you'll quickly see that with just a little exaggeration you can make your animation even better, heavier, and snappier than the live action footage.

While I've worked on many projects that used live action reference, this was my first experiment animating directly over live action footage in my viewport. I spent about 5 minutes on this test & I simply could not believe how easy and quick it was to get the keys down & tweak it to bring out the emphasis I wanted.

So from now on, I'll be expecting even GREATER animation from all of you, hehe..

Check out the video to see how I turned one of you into a lamp...

Here are the instructions on how to view an image sequence in your viewport: