I've probably put way too much effort into things like the fingers, but I'd eventually like to do some kind of multi-angle shot of this, so I want it all to look decent from any angle.
I just thought I'd post a quick animation test, since I haven't done so in a while. This is the first 59 frames (plus 20 dead frames at the start) of a 500+ frame obstacle course animation that I've been working on in my spare time. Don't blink or you'll miss it!
I was told from day one in my training in animation that one of the hardest things to do was a good walk or run cycle. As a result, any time that I get a few free hours, I'll pound out a cycle just to practice. What you see below is my latest, which is my "tough guy" cycle.
I usually try and stick to the same rules in that I give myself two hours, and see what I can get accomplished in that amount of time.
Thanks to Richard Williams, I have a pretty good system worked out now, in that I create the contact poses and the passing poses first. When I have those 4 poses down (with the 1st pose repeated at the end), I then fill in the rest.
I'm starting to get better at it, but I'm still far from perfect.
I hope you all head over to the competition this month and check it out. There is SO MUCH talent in this contest every month, and I'm excited to be a part of it again! Swing on by and check out the entries, which should be up as of February 1st of so.
Got a bit done on my January entry into the 11 Second Club this weekend and thought I'd post. This one is still in blocking, especially on the female character, but I'm feeling good about where I'm at in general at almost the midway point in the month.
UPDATE: I got a bit more done on the animation, and replaced the existing one with the most current version. You can watch it below. I wound up re-blocking and animating his final reaction, and added a bunch of extra cleanup. If the audio seems off in spots, it's actually due to the export, which I'll need to get sorted out before submitting the final piece.
I've got a bit more cleanup to do and then what follows next is my favorite part of animation, which is the polish. I can't wait to get in there and really start playing with the fingers and eyes!
This is actually the first half of my entry into this month's 11 Second Club, in its pre-polish phase. There is lots more to do, so I'm off to animate!
Oh and in case you missed it, here is the final version of the building climb...
UPDATE: I asked for some feedback from a few of my animation buddies, and the first response I got was, "Shut the damn motion blur off until it's good and ready and add a frame counter, you boob!" So I did both of those, but don't have time to put it up on Vimeo right now, as I'm headed out of town for the weekend. So if you want to see it in QT form, hit the link below. I added around 55 more frames of animation and tweaked a ton of stuff, so it should look different from the embedded video below.
I've seen lots of people use it, and I'm guessing it's because the quality of the videos is better, though I'm not 100% sure on that. What I am sure of is that chocolate and peanut butter are two great tastes that go great together.
For those of you who think I've been slacking on my animations, I give you... the building climb!
While this is certainly not final animation, it is a good portion of the way along. I've still got some polish to add for sure, and the timing isn't quite right in a couple of spots, but you get the general idea. I also need to finish blocking his final landing, as right now it looks like he faints and then comes to.
Keep in mind that the buildings are ghosted out right now, and they will hide a couple of the wonky hand things when turned on.
You can click the link above or right here to watch the shot in action.
UPDATE: I slapped some textures on it and threw a few lights down. You can see by clicking right here.
Frankly the whole mouth snap at the end is a bit too slow, so I'd like to get back in there and clean that up. That being said, I'm going to force myself to move on to other stuff, including a special Halloween walk cycle I'm working on!
I set the same basic rule for myself on these, which was I only had two hours to complete them. They turned out okay, but I am going to go in and polish the coffee take, as I just didn't have time to add movement to a lot of parts (eyelids, fingers, brows, etc.)
UPDATE: Along with cleaning up the animation a bit further, I went ahead and slapped some quick textures/colors on things and threw a few lights in the scene.
Click the image above to check it out, or the one below to see the original!
I wanted to try some forced perspective stuff out, so I whipped up a quick animation.
The file is pretty small, and you can click on the image to check it out.
Originally I just had the buildings get smaller in size towards the back of the shot, and when he jumped in the air, the building tops sort of framed him. Then I took it a step further and actually animated the buildings tilting in towards him as the camera rotated up. I'm not totally happy with the results, but I think it may have to do with how the buildings are moving.
It was a fun experiment, and one that I'll definitly give more thought to using in the future, but maybe in a more subtle way.
I've got a new demo reel up if anyone would like to take a look. Here are a few thumbnails from it:
I can't seem to post it on YouTube without it going all "chop city" on me, with the playback making it almost unwatchable, so until I figure out what's going on, you'll have to settle for the 19.8 MB, high-res version.
I'm sure you're all tired of seeing the same animation again and again, but this should be the final one.
I could noodle on it for months, but I need to focus back on my AM short and get that all polished up, so I'm going to call this one good. I'm really proud of how it turned out in just 18 days, given that I was also working a full time job and doing the Animation Mentor stuff. Not only that, but I met some great new people, and learned a TON of stuff. So all in all it was an amazing experience.
This one is very close to final, but still needs a few extra tweaks, so there will probably be one or two more updates that follow this one.
I had never entered The 11 Second Club competition before this month, and there are some kick ass animators who compete, so I didn't know what to expect going in. However everyone has been extremely supportive and helpful, and the experience has been nothing short of incredible.
I'm still not sure if I'll enter next month, since things have been crazy busy for me, but if I don't enter next month, I'll enter the following for sure.
So this weekend we had a strange weather pattern move in and give us one day of 85 degree weather before dropping by close to 20 degrees (with rain) the following day. We don't get a lot of sun as it is in the Seattle area, so I figured I had better take the opportunity while it was there and get out for some sun.
Between my 11 Second Club work for this month (more on that later), and my Animation Mentor work, along with my regular job and two freelance art gigs, it was tough to break away and just relax. However just a few minutes into the walk with my wife and son, and my in-laws who were visiting from out of town, I had totally forgotten about animation for a bit. Did you know there are actually other people outside? Some of them are actually quite friendly even. I had also totally forgotten about these things they call trees... quite stunning.
After a three hour walk though, I was ready to get out of the sun for a bit, and dive back into some animation. Later that evening we had a huge family gathering where we ate lasagna and cheesecake, and hung around in my backyard, so I got a double-dose of outdoors, which was awesome.
So that was my non-animation weekend, but I still managed to get my AM work handed in, as well as add a bunch of stuff to my 11 Second Club animation, which you'll see below. I'd call this a Polish 1 pass, which feels good, since I've still got two weeks to finish it up. I also added in some posters, which you'll actually be able to read in the final render, and a few other odds and ends.
Here is the first polish pass of my short film for Animation Mentor. Please understand that the audio is not final, nor are a few of the transitions, and the scene has yet to be properly lit.
I've got a full quarter to get this sucker up to a final polish level, so any suggestions/comments/feedback you have is greatly appreciated! You can leave a comment or drop me an email (davesj at gmail dot com) and let me know what you think!
No fancy images with this post tonight, just a link: LINK
Clicking that link will let you view (after some loading of course) the second half of the short film I'm working on at AM. This is NOT final animation, but it's getting close.
I've decided to re-take my final quarter at AM to really get this baby polished, so I've got a good 14 weeks or so to work this puppy into shape.
Just wanted to give you folks a quick look at my upcoming short for my final project at Animation Mentor.
Click on the image above to check it out, but understand that this is a blocking-plus pass and not final animation. It's (obviously) also just a playblast and not a final render.
UPDATE (02.06.08): Forget that tired old demo reel I had posted, as there is a new demo reel in town that's ready to shake things up. I remixed my demo reel, added in two new animations, and posted it up for all to see.
Here is one of the new animations that is now part of the reel:
Original post with original demo reel is below.
I uploaded my new demo reel tonight, and you can view it in its hi-res form in my 3D Artwork section or you can view the low-res version below.
Not the most amazing thing ever, but when you consider the fact, up until about a year ago, the only thing I had animated prior to this is the horrific wrestling scene documented in this post, I hope you can see that some progress has been made!
Between returning to work, having a 5 week old son, and attending Animation Mentor, I have lots of free time, so I decided to kick out a quick dog test.
Having never worked with a dog rig before and only one two-plus legged rig at all, I was a little intimidated to say the least, so I decided to go easy on the first test. It's only three seconds long (almost 4) and doesn't involve any running or walking. That's next!
As always, the AM rig was a dream to work with, and now I really want to do something with the dog and a human character.
Click the image above, watch the crappy YouTube version below, or hit the link below that to see it.
EDIT: I tossed up a side view of the animation which you can see with the link at the bottom of the post, if you're into that kind of thing...
The model that Animation Mentor provides is named Bishop. Over the weekend I learned (with the help of the AM forums) how to convert the adult Bishop into a more child-like rig. This will help a great deal since my final short film at AM will feature a child.
Once I got him converted over to a child, I had to animate him, so I threw a baseball cap on his head, slapped a goofy smile on his face and made him run!
Click on the image to check it out.
The timing is a bit slow, but fixing that will be a snap. I can't wait to get started on my final short film. Right now we're in the planning stage (storyboards, animatics, layouts, etc), so it's still going to be after the first of the year before I begin animating the piece, but I'm really excited for all of you to see it!
Click the image or the link below, and let me know what you think, or if you prefer the lower quality, but faster loading YouTube version, I've got that for you below as well.
Please Note: The stuttering in the YouTube video is not do to the animations themselves, but due to the fact that YouTube flat out rules. If you like your animations pop-free, click the link!
My dialogue shot for this quarter of Animation Mentor is almost done.
What you'll be seeing is not final animation, and is only a playblast of the latest version. I've got lots of refining to go on this bad boy, and we don't have access to full facial rigs yet, so true facial expressions will have to wait for next quarter.
I should also mention that the mouth is a bit off, timing-wise, especially in the middle portion of the animation. This will be fixed as well.
Oh how it will be fixed...
I should also mention that I made a bunch of changes to my 3D Artwork section, namely re-lighting three of the animations on the page. So if you haven't stopped by in a while, go have a look!
This is a rendered image from my latest animation. While the animation is still in the blocking phase, I'm working on some of the props and lighting in my free time. The big green block on the counter behind the character, for example, will eventually be a microwave.
This is my first dialogue shot for Animation Mentor, and I'm pretty excited. I've posted a link to the blocking pass below (in playblast form, not fully rendered as the image is above), but be aware that the lip sync is far from final. To begin with, we don't have full facial control yet, so I really just get to do a flappy up and down motion on the jaw. The other thing I should point out is that the lip sync isn't fully synced yet, so some of the words don't match the movements.
Again, this is not the final animation, but is instead a series of key poses and breakdowns, with no real in betweens. The final animation (I hope) will be much more flowing and not "pop" from pose to pose.
UPDATE 05/15/07: The updated and near-final version is now up. This is probably the version you'll be seeing for some time, as I won't have a break in my schedule for at least 6 more weeks.
Below you'll find a link to my finished Guitar Zero animation.
I'll tell you now that the walk up at the start of the animation is far too fast and winds up looking jerky. I had to speed this up to get the entire animation under the frame limit for the assignment.
Outside of that, she's pretty much finished, so if you have comments/critiques, I'd love to hear em'!
If you've got better things to do than watch a QT movie load, here is the YouTube version:
I would suggest the QT movie though, as the overall picture quality is much better and allows you to actually see the string break.
What has two thumbs and desperatly wants to put up an animation to have some type of content up while he's getting all of the links working on his new site?
This guy...
That joke would have worked much better if you could see my thumbs.
Dave Johnson is an Artist and Animator, employed at Microsoft Game Studios in beautiful Redmond, WA. In his spare time he enjoys playing guitar, golfing, and hanging out with his wife and son. Poke around in the links above and drop him a line if you feel the need. Thanks for stopping by!
