Week 12

Been a crazy week what with meeting our client and things but I managed to get out and film some footage!

I think I got quite lucky; the sky was pretty overcast so the lighting is quite even!

I think I was a bit silly with the markers for the bench.... I didn't include black spots I thought the white might provide a better contrast but live and learn.
I think truthfully I agree with Lynn anyway that the arch way will be more fun to have a character in! I'll try and have him sitting on the wall etc!

When I re-filmed the archway I rolled up little balls of paper and they just fade into the scenery which is great!  It remains to be seen how well they track!

Last week of term already....

A little sparse on the art I'm afraid.... no characters to design or anything....

Week 11

I tried to get out and film the locations yesterday but by the time classes and group meetings were finished I lost a lot of daylight and they ended up a bit dark!

In the meantime I filmed my desk as a test! I used a Digital Tutors Matchmover tutorial to try and get something working but I was having trouble with the coordinate system; evidently I missed the fact that you can look through the camera once it is created but Lynn put me right!

I got a box moving check it out! xD

I'll hopefully have the proper footage next week to discuss as it's the last week! I have the camera for the week so I am going to go out tomorrow or Thursday to film again!

I'll just use the Andy rig in animating!

Week 10

Earliest I can get a camera is next Monday!  Doesn't leave much time for recording but I will get it done quick so I have something I can try in class next week!

Already had a bash at recording with my digital camera but the quality is too low for the tracking points to work properly!

Lynn was fond of the archway and I like the bench so I will film both locations and try to track them both!

In the meantime here are the thumbnails I was working on for each!

Week 9

Lynn showed us the compositing process involving Matchmover and Maya and I have to say it doesn't look as complicated as I thought!  Actually looks kind of fun!

They way I did it before was just using a static camera and judging the size etc myself.  This actually tracks the camera and makes a 3D camera for use in Maya!

Had a chat in class with Lynn about it and she suggested I grab a camera from the library and give it a bash!

I just want to do something simple, like a guy walking down the street or standing at a bus stop or something.

I am going to go out and take some photos while I wait for a camera!

Week 8

Unfortunately I missed Crit this week because I went to Glasgow to visit my mum who was taken into hospital with Pneumonia so I've been pretty busy with that =/

We've since, however, seen all the coursework briefs and we've looked at Game animation and some VFX stuff!
I'm not sure what I'd like to do! VFX would be cool but it looks kind of complicated!

The game character animation briefs may be simple enough as you can use any rig =P

Bit of a useless post but just checking in!

Week 6 - Animation

We looked at eyebrows and different facets of the characters over the last couple of weeks and in the labs Lynne showed us how to do some particle effects etc!

I haven't been able to complete the 11 Second Club at all in the time =(

I still hope to get it done but I have been rubbish at managing the time with the other animation!

Still that's done and dusted, and apparently we set the bar with the standard of presentations =P but now it won't get in the way of uni work! 

Gotta just get on with the rest of things from here on out!

Week 5 - Animation

Lynne showed us how to do some Lip Syncing!
I really need to get a move on with the 11 Second Club! Time is running out!
I'll post the results of my attempts here when I get it done!

I don't think I will get this finished in time for the deadline of the 31st! Shame! But I WILL finish it as much as I can! =/

Missed rigging this week! Will try to catch it up next week! Almost finished this Sperm animation though!

Ciao x Pink

Week 4 - Animation

Pitch went well enough, I showed a few of the thumbnails and the Time Warp video.

Generally need to advance on the 11 Second Club stuff though.
I did a few designs for slight changes on the model and I downloaded a couple of rigs with which to play about with!

Alex Rig

Andy Rig

I like the Alex rig above actually but the Andy Rig seems to be really flexible and offers both male and female versions so I will probably use that for both characters instead of trying to get to grips with 2 control set ups for the male and female characters!

Hopefully if I can finish the Sperm animation I've been doing for someone this week I will be able to focus solely on that! Been a bit time consuming!

Ciao

Week 3 - Tech Arts

We made bones this week!
It feels a little easier than in Max, although I only got half the rig finished today!

And there is still the matter of skinning =P

We shall see! Again, very helpful with the animation and may come in handy if I have to do something like rigging in Computer Arts Practice!

Is it sad that I kind of enjoy this stuff? xD

Ciao x Pink

Week 3 - Animation

Just worked a bit more on the 30 Second Club, although I neglected the task a little this week, oops!

Fleshed out some thumbnails to try and block it out.

The lip syncing will be the hard part really.  It's something I've done before in College but in 3D Studio Max so it will be interesting to see how to do it.

I will need to get a rig from the internet and see what the handles are for controlling these things.
We saw a couple in class so I will get some before next week and try to play about with them!

Also Graeme Young and I filmed some reference footage for use in helping with animation which was pretty fun to say the least lol

Here's a semi-serious example =P

Ciao x Pink

Week 1 & 2 - Tech Arts

I've been attending the Technical Art Applications class in addition to Animation.
It's actually really useful and informs the animation material a lot!

We learned how to make a custom button that would reset the rig back to it's original position!
This was really useful in making Grunt do the Time Warp.

I'll try and keep up with the work in Tech Arts as well and will decide which class I want to take by Pitch Week!

In the second week, we tried to use scripting to generate some simple objects on the screen!
Max and I sat and worked out just how to generate objects in a circle!  So that was pretty cool!
We were okay with the maths in the end but Grant helped us to actually write out the script in Python.

#write a script that creates an army of cubes in a square formation #i will need to use a 2 for loops to create identical cubes in rows and columns #all that changes is the position import maya.cmds import math radius=15 counter=0 angle=0 for counter in range(24): angle=(counter*15) angle_in_radians = angle / 180.0 * math.pi x_position=((radius*(math.cos(angle_in_radians)))) z_position=((radius*(math.sin(angle_in_radians)))) maya.cmds.polyCube(w=0.75,h=2,d=0.75) maya.cmds.xform(t=(x_position,1,z_position))

Python seems pretty simple but it could get a bit hazardous.  All the indentations and things have to be done manually! It's like using TrueBasic again in high school =P

Week 1 & 2 - Animation

This week was pretty simple! We got a taste for animation with Grunt!

Here we posed him to try and portray some basic emotions and then we made him dance xD

Of course, I decided to do the Time Warp.

I suppose the best things are...
And the worst things are...

We're taking part in the 11 Second Club! So we have til the end of October to try and animate to the following script:

"Oh no, everything's fine"
"But the animal is inside out..." *BOOM*
"And it exploded!"
"Hold please."

My initial idea was to have a phone call to a tech support company about the failed construction of a DIY animal of sorts... it's not the most original but it's about the animation quality over the actual narrative really.
Still, perhaps I'll try and drum up some more ideas!

Advanced Animation

Hi!

This page is for all my Animation work!

I shall try and keep it coherent! xD

ciao x Pink