WEEK 14: Animation Direction 1 - Game Cycles -- Idles, blending cycles, continued

Last week before your due date for the cycles.

As it took a little longer to get started with these cycles I'm altering the assignment as we discussed in class.
The assignment description now states, "The sequence must contain at least 3 of the following cycles, blended together into one scene."  Click here to read the full description.

We just touched on Idle Cycles last class, so I'll dig into the details a bit more. 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 -- it should be a loop about 1-2 seconds long.

Greeks gave the world souvlaki
 and contrapposto

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 lot of slow ins & outs. Use your infinity/cycle views and check for smoothly flowing curves in that Graph Editor.

WEEK 13: Animation Direction 1 - Game Cycles -- Jumps!

EVH can do it, so can you

Next cycle -- Jumps!
We'll take a look at some different styles of jumping, leaping, hopping, bounding characters and study live action for inspiration. Jumping characters exhibit principles of animation we haven't spent that much time on in our walks and runs: 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 in some cases .. tails!

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
The secondary needs to loop smoothly as well as connect to the run.
This cycle should work from every angle, especially side view.

WEEK 13: Texturing & Shading 1: Skies

All about skies today -- typical approaches include sky boxes and domes. We'll mostly focus on domes and create one by converting a tiling panorama to a usable map.

Skies are so interesting and contribute so much to atmosphere. I'd like to get beyond simply applying a photo you found on the internet like a sticker -- we'll get into painting skies, clouds, including graphic treatments.

WEEK 13: Character Acting 1 -- Acting for Cinematics 3: Dialogues, group scenes

We'll continue working on our long shots and get ready to dive into dialogue and multi-character scenes. We'll spend a little longer on these so you have ample time to prepare them with a partner for our final class.


Here's the link to the tracks for this week:
http://soundcloud.com/taranimator/sets/dialogue-scenes/
Here's the link to the scripts again:
Click here to download all the script excerpts to study or print.

Assignment 7:  Dialogues
Assigned: November 30th
Due: December 14th
% of Final Grade: 20%
Please keep file sizes under 2MB
Filenames:
tdonovan_longshot.avi

Description:
With a partner or 2, choose one of the dialogues and deliver a compelling performance to the voice track. Record it on video using a camera or webcam.  Make sure the audio and video sync well, it's in focus, well-lit and well composed.

WEEK 12: Texturing & Shading 1: Reflection Maps, Nonliteral Textures

Epic Citadel

Reflection maps are used for all sorts of details - shiny metals, mirrors, water, windows.. But real reflections are very slow to render. Solution: reflection maps -- entirely fake reflections created with textures. We'll apply some basic reflection maps and talk about some potential uses for your game.

Prince of Persia

Our other topic today is "nonliteral textures" - meaning non-photographic realism.
Texturing in the style of a specific game often requires us to conform to a specific art style. We'll look at some popular games that use alternative art styles and talk about how they achieved the look.

WEEK 12: Character Acting 1 -- Acting for Cinematics 2: Monologues, long-shots

Do you feel lucky... to get acting classes? Hellz ya!

We'll continue with our close-up monologues and start working on the long shots. The new scenes  require you to do a little more acting -- you may have to walk around, gesture, perhaps storm off in a huff or plead your case.  As with last week, spend some time listening to the tracks.  Choose one to use for class this week. Download and bring in the track on an mp3 player and don't forget your headphones. You're welcome to bring props, cameras, etc.


Here's the link to the tracks for this week:
http://soundcloud.com/taranimator/sets/monologues-long-shot/

Click here to download all the script excerpts to study or print.

Assignment 6:  Monologues Long Shot
Assigned: November 23th
Due: December 4th
% of Final Grade: 10%
Please keep file sizes under 2MB
Filenames:
tdonovan_longshot.avi

Description:
Choose one of the long-shot monologues and deliver a compelling performance to the voice track. Record it on video using a camera or webcam.  Make sure the audio and video sync well, it's in focus, well-lit and well composed.

WEEK 12: Animation Direction 1 - Transitions to Run Cycles

Usain Bolt = fast

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.

WEEK 11: Texturing & Shading 1: Terrain and texture libraries

Planning textures for the city.

Mood boards

Terrain:

Creating tile-able textures in Photoshop to add to wall and ground planes

Click here for a tutorial on creating tileable textures.

Tile-able Normal maps
Displacement maps

Texture Libraries:

Downloading textures, collecting your own

Preparing photos as texture files – batch processing, resampling

Assignment 5: Texture Library
Assigned: November 16th
Due: November 27th by ftp
% of Final Grade: 10%
File sizes should be under 2 mbs, around 2048 px max.
Filenames:
tdonovan_<descriptor>_texture.jpg

Description:

Build a sample texture library
Aim for a variety of surfaces, colours, and textures.
Minimum number of images: 12
Include at least 4 examples each of walls, ground, and details.
Try to find images you can use in your project -- ie you need old, grungy textures.
You may reuse images you shot for your 'entropy' project.
Shoot in flat light, dry weather, perpendicular to your subject.
Correct the white balance if you can.
Make sure they're in focus.
Shoot a large enough surface area if it's potentially tileable, and get close enough to the subject if it's a detail.
Avoid perspective and warping by zooming in from a few steps back.
Edit in PS -- crop out extraneous details, use levels, contrast, and hue & saturation to bump up details and get rid of fake-looking colour casts.
Remind yourself of keys to good textures on this site:
http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=shootingtextures

WEEK 11: Character Acting 1 -- Acting for Cinematics 1: Monologues, close-up

We're very fortunate to have Ed Sahely with us for a few more weeks to teach us some real acting skills. Moving from close-ups to long shots and finally to multi-character shots, we'll learn some of the secrets of creating believable, compelling performances.

As I've mentioned before, animators should always be acting out their scenes, creating video reference to study for their own shots. On high-end productions it is common to have to act out ideas in front of directors and fellow crew members. How many animators are truly comfortable doing that? Well .. one person who is obviously gifted in this area is Blue Sky animator Jeff Gabor. He's put up a great video demonstrating his creative use of a voice track, and the resulting detailed animation performances.

Check out his progression reel from "Horton Hears a Who" 

You're going to create 3 of these videos over the next 5 weeks.
First up -- Close-up monologues.

Here's the link to the tracks for this week:
http://soundcloud.com/taranimator/sets/monologues-close-up/

If you'd like to print the dialogue click here for links to scripts or excepts.

Spend some time listening to the tracks.  Choose one to use for class this week.
Download and bring in the track on an mp3 player and don't forget your headphones.
If you like, bring in small, simple props (ex -- a glass, a bottle, a fake gun, a magazine).
You might also want to use a mirror for practice.
Remember that animators need to be comfortable acting out both male and female roles, of any age.

Assignment 5:  Monologues Close-up
Assigned: November 16th
Due: December 4th <-- NEW!!
% of Final Grade: 10%
Please keep file sizes under 2MB
Filenames:
tdonovan_closeup.avi

Description:
Choose one of the close-up monologues and deliver a compelling performance to the voice track. Record it on video using a camera or webcam.  Make sure the audio and video sync well, it's in focus, well-lit and well composed.

WEEK 11: Animation Direction 1 - Game Cycles -- Treadmill Walks, runs

We'll continue our treadmill walks until you're well on your way.
Also covered -
-ways of cycling in Maya including view -> infinity and timeline copy/paste.
-offsetting joints to create nice, fluid secondary action or wave action.
-adding variations to our cycles.

Next up: Runs! In some ways, these are easier than walks because there's less ground contact.

We'll also touch on some key points for transitioning between walks and runs.