FK Spine

Okay so now somehow I turned on FK Spine handles and I cant find out how to turn it off. I don't know how that happened I didn't go out of my way to do that.

Zoom Issue

I am having an issue with the zoom feature. It will not reset and so my camera is off. I don't know how to fix it. Please advise. It fixes in the torn off panel but not in the live panel so playblasts are incorrect. My camera is locked.

Thank you

Amber

Splining tomorrow and Monday and maybe Sunday. Hopefully I can graph editor out the pops and glitches. Tell me what you think or forever hold your peace.

Amer

One step forward 7 back

I put in more over lap for the main character for the "Yes, its coffee time" section. Working on this for 6 hours and that's all I got accomplished... its sloooow goings for me. Still in stepped. Please continue with suggestions. I wanted to get all the prior suggestions accomplished, but my cushion and necessary placement changes took way longer than expected. Its the hands, I should have parented them to the counter top. Tomorrow that will be my goal. Critique away please!

Thanks guys!
Amber

Timing

I think I like my blocking for now. If you have suggestions I will be working on splining tomorrow and would love to hear them. But my real issue is timing. I think a lot is going on and wanted to see what you think I could move or cut, preferably with the Batista, but I am open to all suggestions.

Thank you

Amber

Grades - term 911

Here's a grade update for term 9 of 2011.  Remember that you can go to figure drawing and bring in your sketches to get extra credit in this class.  You may resubmit the walk cycle up until we do the performance eval.

~Joe

Rigs Duplicating and Lambert 1 changed color

I have been working on my animation all day, navigated through some problems, but more are around every corner. I am saving my work every 5-8 commands, and saving iterations. I did make a mistake and try to morph my character in my animation scene...now, every iteration I go back to has duplicated rigs, sets and props; constraints are also broken, rendering all my work on my key poses (which I finally got to today, playing catch up). I am losing my mind but pressing forward. I hope this gets to you Joe before 8 am. I try to fix problem for the next half hour, if I do not yield positive results, I have no choice but to start my animation over. I will not sleep and hope to have a playblast with keys and break-downs in the box by 8 am. Thank for any and all help in this matter.

Perverse Blocking

Been catching up. Suggestions appreciated.

Sceenshot from prior rig problem

Rig Problems

Hey all, I am stumbling through these new rigs and trying learn their movement as I go. I grabbed the script from the outliner to create quick select sets to "select all" and after doing so, my rig is leaving the skin bind. Need to get a few hours of sleep before class, sorry I wont have as much done as I had hoped.

_Jimmi

animatic

Still having some weird rendering problems. I put it in the late/resubmit and appeared to work with audio, I hope it works tomorrow. I tried to upload here and it had an error.

theater

did a little modeling for the theater tonight. Needs some more rim lighting but I will make more thoughtful adjustments when I ref the Morphies into the scene tomorrow. Good night all.

Progress From Tonight

I made a few changes to My character to make him stand out more and added holds and fixed a few spacing issues. Also, following the blog doesn't notify you. I was incorrect.
Thanks Guys!
Amber

Key Poses with some breakdowns

What I have done so far today. Lots of lag time which doesn't show up till playblast as we had been told and I will correct. I wanted to get opinions on my key poses. Can they be pushed more realistically? I have to also adjust the camera. Ill work a bit more on it and post that update too. Thanks All!
Amber

Walk Cycle Blocking

I know the hands and fingers need a bit more work, but I was wondering if anyone had input as far as the blocking stages go... Any critique is appreciated!

Relationship

Anim2 Final Draft!

~Duc

Hank Chinaski Bar Scene

My final project. Thanks for looking! - Robert Firestone

Retail Paranoia (fixed)

Final by Josh Bryant

Final Park Creeper

Jenna Kind Final Animation

"Chute"

Final

Note to self. Smaller bites!

Final

My final draft
-Evan Lampi

Ryan Moffett Anim 2 Final

My final draft for Animation 2.

-Ryan Moffett

Final

Far from done, but this is what I got.

Bolyard_Final

This is my final for Animation 2. While this is what I am turning in it is certainly never complete.

Thanks for Looking!
Michael

Final Draft

Here it is in all it's glory, enjoy.

Lance

Here's my draft.

Who would have thought that frame by frame animating a book and hands could be so stressful and daunting.
Anywho... Here's my 'final' piece. There are still a lot of tweaks and polishing to be done. I'm not very pleased with the book sliding around in the hands, but my battle with time has me in submission. I will most definitely work on this to clean it up a bit.

Exploding Morpheus

How do I fix this?

More to come

Ok, not bad for a days work. What do ya think of this?

C&C

Bring it.

Looking for comments.

Here is the front portion so far. I'm looking for comments on the movement of the painting stroke and the relax bit right after. Try to ignore the tray in the background...




or this if that doesn't work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4_KCHNtiAE

Thanks,
Lance

Michael Bolyard is onboard finally.

Grades for Term711

Here's our first chunk of grades for term 711.  These assignments (excluding the Pitch) can be resubmitted for a better grade.  Assignments from the Blocking on, for the rest of the term may not be resubmitted, as each assignment builds on the previous.  Remember that a C is work that meets the assignment requirements, B goes above and beyond, and A's are for industry quality work.  Keep pushing!
~Joe

The Great Dane Rig

Does anyone have any ideas about Scaling this rig. it will not scale.

Daniel Machuca

Welcome term 711

Hello, and welcome to the blog for Animation 2!  Let's make this a place to post questions and problems, as well as get feedback and just share what you've been working on.  Please be professional in your feedback and give critique that is useful to your fellow classmate.  If you put something up, also take a moment to give feedback to another project so we can all grow from this.

I do ask that you put your name at the bottom of any posts you create so it's easy for everyone to tell.

Thanks, and happy animating!

~Joe

Dakota's Final

Andrew's Polish After Final

So I continued to work on this after the final, just to see what level I could get it to, since the technical problems I had on the day before the final really affected my final product. I addressed the problems that you guys mentioned, as well as some stuff that I had noticed. Could definitely use even more polish, and I'm not completely happy with it, but I had fun working on it. Thanks again, David and Elissa!

Manuel_Andrew

Matt's Animation 2 Final

Fly from Matt Picasso on Vimeo.

Treleaven_John Final Animation

My final from animation 2. I'm uploading a low quality version on Blogger and I'll try to upload a higher quality version from Vimeo later.


Light Speed Scooter Animation 2 from John Treleaven on Vimeo.

Roth_Josh_Final

And thanks again to David and Elissa. You guys are the best.

This animation project was a really engaging, though stressful and exhausting experience. I felt pretty comfortable once I had my reference video shot. Getting that set up and getting the lines right proved to be pretty difficult. Blocking in the poses was simple enough , but once I got to the polishing stage, I got really stressed and confused, as I usually do in that stage of Animation. The lip-sync process was hell on earth for me, due to Maya 2011's sound offset bug that prevented the fcheck playback(scrubbing) from recognizing the 30-frame gap of silence at the beginning of the clip. Overall, it's been a great experience working on this project.I definitely feel way more comfortable with this stuff. I will not, however, be pursuing 3d animation specifically in the near future as far as i can tell. But once again, I'm ultimately grateful for the experience.

Denice Dehelean- Animation II Final

Brittany's Final

Animation 2 Final







Barnes_Brittany

Nate Rodriguez Final

So where are youUu headed? My final product for Animation 2! B)



This was the final pass I did for lighting. I Didn't end having enough time to render the entire scene but here is a rendered screen shot!












Thank you David for everything!

Andrew's Final

Manuel_Andrew



So this is my Final. I had to deal with a lot of technical issues on the last couple days so I wasn't able to polish it as much as I hoped. There are definitely things I want to fix with this, especially the hitch in the motion trail of his pointing pose before "When this baby..." which I just noticed after I dropped my final into the folder! Other than that, I had fun working on it, and fun in the class. Thanks, David! You rule!

Tim's Final

This is my final for Animation 2. The sound clip is from a show called Malcolm In The Middle and is said by the character Dewey. It was alot of hard work but i'm really happy with the result. Thanks to David Latour.
-Tim Xenakis

Alas_Jason Final

Here's the product of 5 weeks of work. Enjoy!

Sam's Final

Sam's modeling checklist

Organic Modeling Check List

Concept
-develop and commit to a good concept

Reference
-get or make good reference preferably some sort of turnaround

Base mesh
-create a simple mesh. make sure your proportions are correct

Sculpting
-take base mesh into a program like mudbox or zbrush and sculpt character

Anatomy
-make sure the anatomy of the character should be accurate

Retopology
-sculpt mesh goes into a retop program to correct topology

Edge Flow
-edges of mesh must follow anatomy of character and has to deform properly with a rig

N-Gons
-all n-gons and triangles must be changed into quads

Alas_Jason's Animation Workflow

1. Concept

Spend time to come up with a couple of ideas. It's good to always have at least two, just in case one of them turns out to be a dud when it is pitched (just because you like an idea doesn't mean it's gold). It's also wise to never fall in love with your ideas, as they should be as malleable as possible for when you pitch them.

2. Storyboard

Draw out your animations, a storyboard frame per sec is a good rule of thumb. Fully rendered drawings aren't necessary, just as long as your poses and camera choices are as clear as possible.

3. Pitch

A bit self-explanatory; make sure you share your ideas with lots of energy. Act out what happens in your scene as you pitch it, and ask for feedback on what you're doing. More often than not, you'll receive a lot of good input that will make your idea more successful, so there's no room in being shy.

4. Shoot/Seek Reference

Act out your performance from at least two camera angles and multiple takes. Try to mimic the scene as much as possible; i.e. if a character is swinging a bat, then swing a bat, and swing it with meaning! Once you're finished, look over your reference and take note to the key poses you hit in the reference, writing them down or marking them in some manner.

5. Staging

This is where you go in Maya and start setting up your animation file. Place your characters in scene, as well as the set and any props necessary for the performance.

6. Key Poses

Keeping the animation principles in mind, start blocking out your key poses. Work in stepped mode, as interpolation isn't of importance at this point in time; the poses are your biggest concern. Don't spend an inordinate amount of time on any one pose starting out (5-10 minutes per pose), as it is easy to get bogged down and obsessed with fixing minute details early on. Key poses, as with most aspects of animation, can always be changed or polished.

7. Breakdowns

Once all your key poses are blocked in, start inserting in breakdowns in between your big movements in your key poses. This allows for better interpolation so the polishing stage goes by smoother, and it lays the foundation for follow through.

8. Polish (First pass)

Once you've finished all your breakdowns, spline out all your keys. Go through your animation and beginning a first level of polish, fixing odd interpolations, plateauing keys where needed (i.e. feet in walk cycles), and adding things such as overshoot and follow-through. The face hasn't been touched up to this point.

9. Lip Sync

If you don't have dialogue, then skip this step. If you didn't shoot reference of your dialogue, then shoot some (makes the process easier). Write out the dialogue, and note where inflections, and other emotions lay. Writing out the phonetic spelling of the dialogue speeds things up as well. When doing your lip sync, it's not crucial to hit every single phonome, so long as words aren't lost in the lip sync.

10. Eyes and Facial Animation

Make sure you're done with the lip sync, as facial expression will effect the mood of the dialogue greatly. Take care in making the eye lines of your characters avoid direct contact with the camera, unless your intent is to break the fourth wall. Pupils that are frozen dead in the eye seem glassy and spaced out, so move them around, even if slightly. Don't go crazy with the brow and such.

11. Polish (Second pass)

Once all your facial animation is done, it's time for another polish pass, touching up any discrepancies that have been pointed out or that are still present.

Through this whole process, solicit as much feedback as you possibly can, from a variety of people. The more eyes that see the piece, the better.

Roth_Josh Organic Modeling Workflow

Organic Modeling Workflow



Reference searching- Googling images similar to or composing of aspects that may relate to your design

 Conceptualization- This often includes drawing your design, prior to the modeling stage

Creating base Mesh -This can be done either using a base mesh in Maya or in Zbrush using Zspheres

Laying in basic shapes-  Piling on general mass to start to form the shape of the creature.

Refining basic shapes- Using box alphas or clay tubes or rake brush to create the lines of the anatomy

Critiques- A good time for critiques is definitely before retopologizing, however it helps to receive critiques along the way at almost every stage of the process

Retopologizing-also an important stage to look at reference in. See how others have handled edge flow on similiar creatures and see how well it applies to yours

Detailing stage- sculpting the small bumbs and crevices that make up the creature

Texturing- This includes laying out UVs and gather more reference images and painting either onto the map or directly onto the sculpt

Rendering- Applying any and all needed render passes to best display details of your work

Andrew's Guide to Modeling/Rigging Success

Manuel_Andrew

1) Character Sheet. Create a good character design through reference gathering and developmental sketches. If possible, use existing back story or create one to help in developing the design. Once a direction is established, create a character sheet which contains a 5-point turn of the character (Most ideal setup), or at the very least a 3-point turn. Pose studies will also be good supplementary artwork to use as reference to help when you are handling the deformation of the rig. Face studies are also nice to have to apply more detail. Applying proper human or animal anatomy is advised.

2) Block In/Base Mesh. Create the main volumes of the character. Correct any anatomical issues that may be occurring from the original piece of concept art. It's okay to keep it at a low res polygon count.

3) Define Volumes/Sculpt. Choose your 3D sculpting software of choice (Zbrush is recommended) to import your blocked in model of the character. Start from the lowest sudivision level of the model and sculpt the details on the model. When you are no longer able to add more detail, raise up to a higher subdivision level. The main focus of this initial stage to show a clear separation of the different volumes in the body i.e. chest vs. shoulder.

4) Polish. Once you are up to higher subivision levels, you are getting into the finer details of the character i.e. skin texture. Keep polishing and sculpting until the model has a high level of detail. Do the same for clothes if the character's clothes are meshes.

5) Retopoligize. Once the model is completed to your level of satisfaction, import a lower resolution model of it into the 3D Package or retopology tool of your choice. Fix the topology of your mesh to contain only quads and have the edges flowing in the direction the muscles will flow so that the deformation will occur probably.

6) Skeleton Setup. Set up the joints/skeleton for the retopoligized mesh that you have. Place the joints in the proper areas, also making sure to fix the orientation of the joints so that axis's face the proper direction for each.

7) Skin Weighting. Paint the skin weights of your mesh so that they deform accordingly when you move the joints. Test often and in every manner and direction that each joint could bend to make sure the muscles are deforming properly. If needed, adjust joint placement if it will allow for better muscle deformation.

8) Rig Setup. Reference the final skeleton & make another copy of the skeleton within the file. You will be working with this copy of skeleton by adding all the rig controls to it. Import a low resolution poly version of your model and constrain each section to it's corresponding joint. Use this to make sure that the constraints on each joint are behaving properly. Start at the root of the character, and work down and up until you've covered all sections of the body. Set up IK/FK controls for hands, feet, and any other sections of the body that will be desired/needed.

9) Apply Weight Painted Mesh to Final Rig. Reference the polished weight painted mesh into the finalized rig file and constrain the joints of the weight painted mesh to the joints of the rig.

10) Final Polish/Blendshape. Continue to work on any deformation issues. Apply blendshapes to help any muscle deformations that are difficult to achieve with weight painting alone i.e. biceps, triceps, thighs, etc. Create blendshapes for the facial expressions as well covering all the mouth and eye shapes.

Denice Dehelean- Animation Workflow

1. Planning- Planning is the most important step. It's where all ideas take place and is the most creative part of the process.
-Gathering resources(sound clips, models, references, etc.)
-Storyboarding
-Recording reference
-Gather peer opinions and critiques

2. Analysis- Analyzing and editing gathered resources for use and functionality.
-Editing important sound clips
-Analyzing your video reference for key poses, and breakdowns.

3. Enter Maya- Go into maya and place your characters, important environmental elements that characters will be interacting with. Important sound clips. And set your camera.

4. Key poses- Create characters' key poses based on the reference gathered. Exaggerate where effective. Make sure to play to camera.

5. Breakdowns- Create characters' breakdowns based on the reference gathered.

6. Adjust timing- Adjust the timing of the scene to be more believable and reasonably spaced.

7. Critique- Seek critique throughout the entire process of animation, from idea to finish. It is important to receive critique at this time to avoid investing valuable time and work into poses that aren't working.

8. Lip Sync- Sync characters mouth and facial movements up with dialogue.

9. Eye line- create appropriate eye movements, pupil direction and focus, eye lid placements, and blinks.

9. Polish- Refine work. Add moving holds. Clean up any bumps and hitches.

10. Critique

11. Finishing touches and adjustments- edit work according to helpful critiques.

Brittany's Animation Workflow

Animation Workflow


1. Brainstorm, Get inspired

2. Act it out (Storyboards, Video Reference, DRAW!)

3. Have Animation principles in site

4 Begin laying down Key poses, ( look for balance and line of action, begin thinking about timing, and key places in audio) .

5. Put in the breakdowns

4. Add in some moving holds and change the animation to stepped to spline

5. Clean up any problems spline might have caused (checking the in-betweens and how it flows to the next pose.)

6. Add lip Sync, and begin adding expressions, fix any pops.

7. Begin Polishing, Play-blast as needed.

8. Have other look at your progress, take notes in any changes they suggest.

9. Review the Animation Principles, fix any problems

10. Fix any graph editor hitches, Get more Critiques, fix Problems

11. Play-blast, take notes, make sure all principles are there. If you find any problems repeat steps 8-11

12. If there are no more problems then you are finished.

Barnes_Brittany

Andrew's Dilemma

Manuel_Andrew



So my rig exploded. Does anybody know how to fix this when this happens?

Thanks in advance!

Dakota Fulmer Organic Modeling Check List

Analyze the concept art.
Look up reference close to the concept.
Main shape/block in
-The basic shape of what you are modeling
Negative space shaping
-Using the negative space with the edge of the polygons to form the best shapes.
-Use this throughout
Appropriate anatomy
-Shape the muscles and bone protrusions according to the concept/shape of model.
Good edge flow
-Edges flow in a way the mesh can deform properly.
Fine detail
-Add detail such as the wrinkles and warts.
-Add as a displacement map

Nate_Update!

In this update I have added the new poses to the animation as well as a first pass on lip sync.

Animation 11 Second

Joe mentioned this site a while back but in case anybody forgot about this site. It's a monthly animation competition. Anybody looking to do animation as their focus should participate to get better in animation.

http://www.11secondclub.com/

Progress so far

Andrew's Walk Cycle

So this is my walk cycle that I am going to resubmit. I want to do another pass on it, but before I do so, I was wondering if anyone had any feedback before I get in there. The main thing that I know I need to do is polish head, but if you guys see anything else that you think could help me improve this please let me know.

Nate_Update

Here is the progress of my animation. I also have my bus stop modeled and the first pass on
lighting/textures.




Test render on lighting..

Oops, forgot to post this yesterday!

To all those who would like the easy way out of doing constraints! I use this tool ALL the time!


http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/zv-parent-master

Walk Cycle

I cant remember the quick way to slow down a walk cycle, what were the steps.

For what's due tomorrow, if we have walk cycles, do you want them walking in world space or treadmilling? also, do you want one camera, or do multiples shots as we would have for the final product?

Storyboards

Here are the storyboards for my animation. I'll post a progress video Sunday

My key poses thus far

ok.This is what I have so far.Pay no attention to the timing of the audio. even though its there. I added in somewhat of a walk cycle at the end for when he says the line "I'm hitchin a ride back home".

I know the walk ,especially, needs work.I basically started from scratch with it (this is the 3rd time this term I've started a walk cycle from scratch...i may end up taking it out if i can't get it looking decent). I will be adding some minor movements to the secondary character this weekend.Hes just a placeholder for now...so.....Suggestions?Insults?Bring em on.

Publish Post

Andrew's Video Reference/Storyboard

This was the video reference for my scene. So the changes I had made since my pitch are that the other person, played by Dakota, is a mannequin, & the baby is in a catapult instead of a slingshot. Each of the key poses of the crazy guy, played by Tim, are laid out in the storyboard.

This is the storyboard for my scene as I have it right now. One thing to note is that I drew the baby in a slingshot in this one, while it will be in a catapult for the actual scene, as I mentioned above. I think there might be some more key poses I could possibly add. Please let me know what you guys think, and how I can improve this. Thanks!

Tim's Revised Storyboards

I revised my storyboards showing where I want to put the camera angle. The text got cut off in the first image so I edited it back in. Most of the emotions are there give or take a few revisions that i've made with my video reference for instance when he says "then I got to ride inside his head" instead I chose to have him run his fingers over his head with a somewhat surprised look on his face.

I considered having him run around in an energetic way but when I introduced the camera angles it made more sense to keep him relatively stationary and instead just make good use of limbs, body movements and facial expressions to describe his story. I also added a shot at the end of him slurping his slurpy as I felt it would make it funnier. Hope this newer Storyboard gives you a better idea of what i'm going for! Thanks!

Dakota's Storyboard

Dakota's Reference

Video

Audio The audio should be about 10 minutes long, but when I exported it, it must have exported the time remaining time I hide.

Key Frames on frames
Andrew:
0, 5, 18, 20, 24, 27, 30, 42, 55, 61, 64, 68, 74, 88, 95, 97, 107, 120, 147, 150, 160, 176, 196, 213, 224, 262235, 242, 247, 250, 255, 261, 262, 272, 283, 289, 298
second angle
328, 333, 349, 356, 363, 374, 387, 394, 404, 419, 425, 434, 441, 450, 457, 462, 469, 476, 491, 509, 527, 534, 548, 556, 560, 570, 577, 594, 602, 613, 626

Tim:
45, 57, 69, 79, 99, 115, 137, 159, 182, 205, 224, 233, 256, 262, 276, 292, 312, 326
Second angle
377, 392, 405, 422, 435, 445, 455, 473, 492, 517, 525, 533, 539, 546, 550, 554, 557,567, 577, 589, 594, 609, 628, 635

INSTRUCTOR POST - To hand in for Class #5

At this point you'll have handed in your generic walk cycles, and you'll have done your story pitch to the group (and possibly refined and re-pitched your idea.)

At the end of class #5, I want you to hand in a folder with the following contents:
 - A scan of your storyboards. (jpg)
 - Your scene audio. (no extraneous audio)
 - Your selected reference (one unified take, no chaff)
 - Analysis of reference - showing where your key poses are.
(you can use red marks in video, .docx with frame counts and description, or hand drawn page with frame counts and thumbnails.)

All in one folder called Last_First_Planning
ie. Latour_David_Planning

There will be a Hand-In folder in the 511 folder similar to where you handed in your generic walks called: 03_AVE2_511_Planning_Hand-in. Drop your stuff there by 3:30pm on Wednesday.

How much reference footage are we supposed to hand in?

Like should we narrow down our footage to our best take?or should we have multiple takes compiled and ready to hand in?

Dropbox - pretty handy

I've invited you all to use it - think of it as a cloud based 2G thumb drive. The web based interface means no install needed to use.  You can get it here

I typically keep my latest working copy of any animation file (and with referencing the file size is small)

side note: if you need more room and have multiple emails - each login can get you 2G more of space. The security of your data is unknown. Caveat Emptor

Dakota's Pitch

I changed my pitch slightly so my pictures are different but essentially the same.
Pitch:

The scene opens up to a kid smashing computer monitors with a baseball bat in a store. The manager walks over to the kid and says, (Audio: Wheatley from Portal 2)“You know what I have too many of around here? Monitors.” He reaches for the bat while the kid was surprised by his reaction. “I was just thinking earlier today I wish I had fewer monitors that were working. So you're actually helping me by smashing them.” Then the screen cuts to black.

The first and second shot is switched.

Welcome New Students

Welcome to Term 511 and Ex'pression College class: AVE Animation 2
This is a persistent online site I use to allow my students to solicit and offer feedback on their animation. A few important notes:

1. Conduct yourself here as you would in the class. Play nice with others and be supportive and constructive with your comments. Limit the posting to information relevant to the class.

2. I use participation here as part of your class participation mark. If you're shy this is a great way to be involved in the classroom discussion.

3. This blog is as helpful as you make it. Be active with comments, post your work regularly and take advantage of this venue. Check this site at lease twice a week, on our days off. I will use this as a forum to answer common questions, so you don't want to miss out.

Even If you're new to blogging you'll find this a pretty painless and straightforward process. If you have something from class you'd like to show: just playblast your work, click "new post" on the upper right corner of the screen and use the "add video" button on the right side of the upper menu of the new post interface.

I try to look in here regularly and offer critique and guidance as well. Welcome to the blog and have a great time.