Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Other fun stuff besides animating

I'm starting to add in the little touches that help with animation now, mainly dynamics for the hair, shirt and pants. I'm trying to be careful though... I don't want to add it in just for flair. I'm trying to hit the point where it complements what's already there vs distracting from the animation.
I'm also having a little fun with the hair shader... I'm not one much for shader network stuff, but it's nice messing with the pretty colors. Nice break from animation too. Quick post for reference:

Thursday, April 20, 2006

And so the Polish Phase begins...

Now that animation's complete, it's on to polish. Since I'm pretty much the director here, I usually know exactly what I want, so I'm able to polish pretty heavily as I go. Hence, there's not an overwhelming amount to clean up. Lots of camera fixes for things that just aren't making sense cinematically (such as the boy falling out of frame). There are animation things I've noticed that I've always just been saying 'Yeah, I'll get it in polish', which, I guess is what I'm doing now. I have a list of about 15-20 things I need to tackle, which shouldn't take too long.

I think overall doing this short was a good idea. It's a good indication of my current skill level, and doing it has also shown me that I have a long way to go. It will be a while before I do another one. I'd like to focus more on short dialogue pieces for a while, and really break down what makes a good performance. I value that this was a silent piece -- it's helped me realize how to show a character's thought process without the use of dialogue.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Juggles is Animation Complete!

Well, 1st pass, anyway... but still... major milestone!
There's still tons left to go back and polish, which is the next step. I'd like to be able to do some preliminary renders so I can submit what I have to scholarship competitions before I'm out of school.
This is finally starting to come together. I can't wait to see how it comes out in the end.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Ice Age 2

I just saw Ice Age 2. It's amazing what those guys can do. I hear the film was done in under 8 months. I see things in their animation that I haven't even attempted to do yet. At least I can see it, I guess.
There's an exercise I've always wanted to try... take a really, really good piece of professional animation and just try to duplicate it, frame for frame. Though it'd be completely worthless as a reel piece, it might get me to sort of get in the head of what the animators were thinking when they did it... we'll see. One animation at a time.