Final Animation

Out of a lot of cutting and redrawing, this is what I came up with. The emphasis is on weight by how the character is able to lift a heavy object while maintaining his balance.



It looks like my movie takes a while loading. Click the link below if you're impatient like me, haha.

"Heavy Weights"

Update: More in-betweens

So after talking to the professor, I've decided to make the lift from a profile angle to show how weight and balance seem to work. I still need to enhance the character's emotions as he checks out a woman at the gym right before fixing his belt and lifting the bar.

Final Animation with in-betweens...

I added a few more poses for this animation. I plan on having him walk over to the bar, which is why there is a huge gap in between two frames. I also need to tweak some of the motions when the character is flexing to make him look more hyped.

Final animation idea

I've been thinking about this for a while. As I was doing my usual workout today, I noticed this overly buff guy doing deadlifts. As he was doing his sets, I thought it was a perfect thing to animate as far as weight, expressions, and follow-through with the hands.

So this is my animation ideas:
- Starts off with really buff dude with small legs walking towards the bar and weights
- Looks at his hands, anticipation before clapping and rubbing hands together
- Raises hands in anticipation before quickly grabbing the bar
- Body moves forward a little with anticipation before quickly pulling up the bar
- As he pulls the bar, he struggles as his expression scrunches like a reaction after eating a lemon, steps a little to the side
- He then drops the bar, stumbles back a little
- Gives a sigh, poses, and turns around




*Note* Those of you who don't know what a deadlift is, here's a video:

The grieving process....

So it was down to the wire and during the last half hour, I tried to submit my project to the 11 second club. There was something wrong with the encoding so I checked my file again. Then I renamed it and rerendered it as a mpeg-4 file. Then when I submitted it again to the website (keep in mind there was only about 15 minutes left til the competition was over), after 5 minutes of waiting, my file was rejected again due to it's file size. So I compressed it and re-rendered with 5 minutes left. Filled out that stupid form once again and resubmitted. It was still uploading as the time expired. The end result: 80 hours of focus and dedication for an 11-second animation ended up NOT being up for submission. FUCK (pardon my French)

After I threw a couple tantrums, swore quite a bit, spent Halloween bitter as hell, and went home, I thought about how ridiculous it was that I spent sleepless nights only to have my animation not submitted. Not only that, it wasn't even MAYA that gave me this problem.


Now that I calmed down a little, I present to you the animation that never was...

11-second dialogue v4.0

So I basically added in more in-betweens. I have about 10-25 in-betweens left. As for the dialogue, I've started animating the first 3 seconds so hopefully it'll turn out okay when I put everything together.



Cartoon Character Design

NAK



Weekly Scans: 10-29-09

11-second keyframes v3.0

Basically, I just filled in a little more keyframes and created some keyframes entirely to fit the scene. I intend to make the character do a follow-through with his hands during the transition between "glazed" and "all minds are jelly." Hopefully I'll be done with the in-betweens by class today. The lip-syncing is what I'll be doing after I get all the motions done correctly.

11-second keyframes v2.0

I've decided to change my keyframes completely because I felt it didn't deliver a genuine emotion. I did do a few in-betweens and practiced with dialogue so I get a feel of how to accomplish syncing the animation and dialogue together. However, my main focus is still getting the expressions out through body language.

**Updated: 10-21-09**

So I just added on a few more in-betweens. Still need to draw out a couple of frames in between the in-betweens (lol) to make it flow more smoothly. I have yet to figure out how to animate the second half of the animation. However, I am going to use Linda's advice and delete a couple keys and fill it in with more basic gestures while implementing the principles in them.



Chase scene:

11-second keyframes

Weekly Scans: 10-09-09

TV is power...

Storyline
From this sound clip, I immediately thought of a very powerful, Mafia-like leader with an ambitious attitude and very renowned reputation. His intentions are to spread a message of his corporate plans to take over the government. He is talking to his fellow members of this corporation, persuading them using rhetoric that allows these members to follow him on the path to world domination through intimidation and chaos. Why is he doing this? So the public knows who they are and who not to mess with.

The Character

Living in a world of crime and corruption, this gentleman knows how to get his way with pretty much everything. He moved his way up in the hierarchy to get where he is today by "putting in work," which is what makes him very intimidating. He feels reassured as he talks to his members because he knows that they also have the same intentions of being powerful. Following the main character's way of getting that power is the highest chance they'd accomplish their goal based on what the main character's experiences and what he's already accomplished. He is only afraid of two things: failure and death.

Setting
After hearing the echo of the sound clip, the setting that came to my mind was an abandoned auditorium, where they would hold secret meetings.

Rough Character Design


Thumbnails

Zoo Pictures

ZOO PICTURES


***Spider Monkey***


***Meerkat and warthog***


***Motion study***

As I observed the movements of the Spider Monkey, I noticed four things:
1. Follow-through of the legs
2. Rotation of the shoulders and hips
3. As the monkey swings it's arms, there is a downward to upward movement
4. The monkey's tail moves according to their dominant arm (most likely the right)

What's in the box?: Final version

I just added in the thought process and a little secondary motion with the character's hand. I think I should've added a little more follow-through with the hair. Other than that, I'm really happy with how it turned out.



Weekly scans: 09-26-09

What's in the box?: V2.0

So far, I've managed to complete the key frames and a couple in-betweens. I still need to work on the timing of the head turn and anticipation. I intend on making the character look around as if he was bored, and look back again before he snatches the box in sneaky fashion. Then there's the anticipation right before he checks what's in the box. After that, he transitions into a sly smile, suggesting that he is about to do something evil. I'm still working on about 14 more frames to make this animation run more smoothly. I just wanted to show the progression I've made so far.



Edit: I just noticed the box is transforming into a 2D object. Oops! Lol.

Weekly scans: 09-19-09

What's in the box?

The biggest problem I have in character designing is creating something very simple. I've decided to practice breaking down facial features to a more simplistic character based on a reference of a video I saw on youtube. The reason why I chose to do this person's reactions based on this video is because his emotions are very genuine, which I believe would enhance my character's emotions.

Video reference:


Practicing character design


Emotions


Weekly scan: 09-13-09

Run cycle

EDIT: I forgot that Teach told us to go by 2's. What a moron *slaps head*



Weekly scan: 09-08-09

ACM 316 Compositions

Animation pose-to-pose

I filled in the key frames. I think I still need to work on creating a more fluid motion, especially when the kid is throwing the ball.

Pose to Pose

The concept of my animation is focused on a little kid wanting some candy (or beef jerky?). Anyway, the big bully wouldn't give it to him so he looks around and finds a rock. He throws the rock at the bully.

I'm gonna display weight by the little kid pulling on the candy/jerky in a tug-o-war pose. I'll use facial expressions to show his frustration and anticipation in picking up the rock and eventually throwing it.



**I tried to upload my picture earlier using my phone, but it was very faint. I finally got to use someone's scanner to upload the pic.

Maya Walk *edited*

3D Bouncing Ball

Gestures

Norman should have a reason to celebrate! He's HAPPY!

Expressions...

Here's my final animation. I think I should've made his expression more explosive. Maybe I'll revise it after my study session. Midterm week = BLAH!

This animation is the EXACT expression I had when we saw the examples of the rotating still life in our ACM 215 class.

Turn Around...

**EDIT** Here is my updated version of the turnaround. I think I needed to fill in more of the frames to make it look more fluid...


Due to time constraints, I only managed to make key poses. I still need to fill in more frames and I'll probably get that done along with the expressions by tomorrow or Tuesday night.

My walk animation.

*EDIT* Final Walk

I adjusted the length of his arms and altered some of the drawings so his foot doesn't look like gravity increased on Earth.


I'll just leave my previous walk here for comparison.

Weight and gesture study

My follow through animation

So, I finally got the ITS people to help me connect with Fugu. But it's still giving me problems so I just used my last resort...Blip.tv. Hopefully this still shows.

Click To Play

Click To Play

EDIT: Here's another version of my bouncing ball.

Sketchbook observations

I didn't have a chance to upload any of my gesture drawings because my scanner is acting weird. Here's an observation drawing I picked out from a picture in a magazine. I wanted to see if I can get all proportions of the face correct


I'l upload the gestures as soon as I get a new scanner.

My favorite quote from the reader is:
"Don't let wind, rain, or cold or heat deter you - those conditions sometimes yield the best sketching."

First blog

Still trying to figure out how to embed a quicktime vid. Oh well...