SO this week is operation animation (yep). As I think I yammered on about in my previous post, the aim is to have most (if not all) of my 'secondary' animation done - like the walk cycle, etc.
I've been looking at lots of movement references (for things I didn't capture myself) for extra ideas. I found a really useful Movement Playlist on Youtube.
Anddddd some reference images - along with a couple of thumbnails that I did.
Soooooo I've attempted to apply these to my scene - her emerging from the space pod in particular.
INITIALLY, I was really happy with this (after staring at it for about 6 hours straight), however upon reflecting, and taking a step back to AGAIN make sure I was conveying the animation style i'm aiming for, I realised that it didn't lol.
It has that flowy type movement that i'm trying to avoid (and I know that comes with experience - which I think i'm getting more of). So AGAIN after looking at a few other references i've decided to redo my existing animations, including my walk cycle.
I think I can get the snapper / stylised look i'm going for if I take what I learnt from the current cycle and re-did the whole thing. So now that I'v refreshed my walk cycle memory, i'm going straight into creating the creeping walk instead of adding the adjustments on an animation layer.
I found some really useful references to base it on.
(TOO snappy, but still useful to look at)
Also found a few useful things to help in my endeavour!
There are still a couple of tweaks to make - the main one being the speed obviously lol, but this definitely captures what i'm going for. The foot bend not working (still not sure why) its definitely a bummer, but i'm working around it. Sushma's gonna cast an eye over these to give me a second set of eyes / advice.
This is definitely VERY good prep for the dance sequence - which I should have reference footage for by next week. I've been thinking about how to go about it, and sticking to this style reminded me of an animated fight scene. Sooooo I think looking at a fight scene animation would be really really REALLY useful as reference when i'm animating it.
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In ZBrush related news...
We're now getting along (thank you Digital Tutors), and i'm attempting to sculpt a bust... lol lol lol
Adaptive skin view
DT even gave me a fancy certificate for dedicating valuable Eastenders catch up time to loving up ZBrush.
I've been beavering away getting my 'affairs' in order the last couple of days - one of the top being a NEW WEBSITE / BLOG for all my professional art/blog update needs after the course ends (I'll add an animation section once i've pulled together my showreel etc).
I was initially going to build the entire thing from scratch... which meant would have taken a few weeks and would have driven me crazy over android responsiveness etc, but then I came across Squarespace and the rest is history!
Yannis is also making me a new logo which is very much needed! I want something a lot slicker (the current one was something i'd draw a few years ago in a art induced haze)
In animation related news - i've been keen to get a second set of eyes on my animation because mine begin to glaze over lol - also want to make sure i'm not over animating. SO i've been pestering Natasha and Sushma - they've got great animation eyes. They picked up on something i'd missed completely for the breaking animation and that was - the eyebrows ¬_¬... they weren't moving/ reacting at the correct time.
I have the eyebrows as part of the facial blendshapes (not on their own), which means I can't animate them separately (If I were to model her again now this is something I would definitely do different), so i've had to tweak them on the blends and be careful that i'm not overshooting. Lesson learnt!
Thumbnails ahoy!!
So then I felt like I was on a roll! I've pretty much now roughly blocked out all the key bits of animation with the help of referencing anddd some thumbnails to understand the poses a bit better - like the shot where she steps out of the ship.
When I add more keys and clean them up I want to make sure the movements are snappy! And not too 'airy fairy' - I think that' just my own personal preference in terms of style, but I also think it will work really well with this and the stylisation of the character.
Oooo I also changed one the poses slightly - the bit with the flag. I really couldn't get it to work or make anatomic sense so i've tweaked where her hand will be seen placing a couple of rocks on the ground the keep the flag in place.
Lots to tweak, but I see it as just sketching out my rough guide and movements.
I want to have these all cleaned up, finished and double checked by the end of next week - which gives me 3 glorious weeks on the dance sequence - aiming on finishing 15 seconds of animation per week...The last week of June will be for any texture changes /updates before rendering commences beginning of July! (hopefully earlier)
Well... if I thought Semester 1 was quick, this semester has FLOWN by. I literally have no idea where the time has gone, and while that's a bit scary deadline wise, it does make me feel pretty damn proud about everything i've achieved within the time scale.
So my main aim for this Semester was to learn all the key things I needed to complete my solo final project. I think Going Live gave me the best chance to do this, especially when it came to things like setting up renders and compositing. But most importantly I wanted to push myself to be better at the things I learnt last semester - Like Modelling, Rigging and Texturing.
I also wanted to take Semester 2 to grow mentally as well (when it comes to art and animation), so using all projects as opportunities to test and strengthen my problem solving skills by finding new solutions to any issues - whether it be deformations or my initial distaste for texturing (I like it now that i've taught myself to 'think in 3D' so to speak).
This means it was trying and testing new things and picking up new skills along the way and not just relying on what I'm used to. For instance with the whole texturing hate I was convinced that using the 3D Photoshop function would make me like it, and while it kind of did it was only when I saw the issues with it and gave in and tested Mudbox again (taking all i'd learnt from Photoshop) that it clicked and started to make heaps of sense.
I've also used this time to set myself lots of personal creative goals, including learning ZBrush, TV paint and drawing everyday. I've learned to take things one step at a time, but still have to remind myself that I can't run before I can walk D=.
So the key things i've learnt from Semester 2:
Practice and Confidence is key
I 100% want to keep getting better at both art and animation, and to do this I now know that I literally do have to just keep practising every day, even if its in tiny chunks. I'm more likely to get better quicker if i'm doing 1 hour as opposed to 4hr spurts once every couple of weeks. But in order to do this I need to remain confident in my over all goal and get things wrong before getting them right. (I sound so deep, pffft)
Positivity and Practicality
This is something that Going Live definitely revealed to me. I definitely see myself as a relatively calm/chilled out person (i'm sure most do), but there is really tested when you're under stressful conditions such as meeting a tight deadline.
I think I was able to retain this throughout the project in spite of any issues that did come up. Keeping a calm head also helps you think more practically and solve solutions a lot quicker and more effectively. So my hope was that my Powerpuff Girls positivity would rub off on other people, because I really wanted everyone to come away from it with a really positive experience (I also like to think that high-spirits can positively impact a production).
Having worked in a very high pressure role previously (and done a lot of panicking), I really really wanted to approach this differently and I think I managed to achieve that :)
Director of all the Art!!
I think this could be a good career path for me... Now while I didn't perform the role in its entirety for Going Live, now that it's done and i've reflected on it, I feel like this is a role I could fulfil one day.
I love to get involved in everything, and support where I can. I'm also fully aware (I hope) of my creative strengths and weaknesses - and I think I can recognise them in other too. I know Art Direction is more than that, but it think these are some of the core things needed - everything else would be learning and experience (I hope). I'll see where it takes me!
I love artists
This is actually the first time (not including school), that i've actually worked with and around lots of artists and i've loved it. I didn't realise how 'isolated' I was as an artist until joining this course and working with everything. I've learnt sooooo much from them especially in terms of style and technique and just different ways of thinking, and thats definitely something i'm really grateful for.
I've loved working in a team and the dynamic (and the fun, food, jokes, banter and booze it brings) and I feel like i've really begun to thrive in those types of situations.
As sappy as it sounds this course and these peeps are great. Long live the artist/animator!
Besides finishing (lol) my final project, I think my main goals for Semester 3 are pretty much to continue on as I have been these last few weeks - lots of art, practice and learning! But I also need to really start thinking about my next move career wise and how I can initiate my plan to take over Marvel.
I've taken a quick from the walk cycle to focusing on another piece of animation which is the bit where she breathes out into her helmet (Shot #7). Thought it would be a nice change of pace, and quick (she says 5 hours later). Its only meant to be 2 seconds long (currently 4... oops, will cut it down), but I wanted to get the basic movements and characteristics!
I looked at a few references and filmed my own. Huzzah
Also I know from all my biology / physiology geeking the basics of respiration and how the rest of the body follows a split second after the chest when you inhale and exhale.
I'm pretty happy with the outcome and again the Graph Editor is an absolute beast of a savior. I'll probably make a few more tweaks once I look at it again tomorrow (i've spent so long looking at it) and make it a tad more extreme. I made a slight tweak to the blendshapes to get the cheeks to pull in slightly too.
I'm definitely picking up lots of little things along the way, and I just want to make sure that I don't over edit... and I don't want it to look to 'fluid'/'flowy' (if that makes sense).
I'm a big fan of these types of movements and I want to achieve something similar (fingers crossed), but I know i'll be making a hell of a lot more mistakes before I get it right. But I remain hopeful and awesome!
I decided that music would be needed to accompany this feat - firstly some Gaming tunnnesss and then of course Mr Q-Tip.
So I think i've pretty much finalised the standard walk cycle. Now i'm starting to add in the extra characteristics via animation layers! Hopefully these will all still work when exporting via ATOM (the tests I've done so far have worked).
(need to fix the jump in the neck)
(UPDATE - FIXED!)
The one think the cycle has definitely alerted me too is that one of the joints in the foot is no longer working (the joint controlling the ball of the foot), which means I couldn't perfect the foot roll. At this stage I think I can get away with it, and tbh i'm not sure when the problem happened as i've tested the rig- I think it might be a weighting issue. But considering all the keys that have been added to the foot i'm very weary of 'fixing' the joint cause it might muck up the foot animations!
Standard walking before I can run! Sooo i've gone back to basics and blocking out a standard walk cycle to get all the movements and weighting right - then I will use another animation layer and graph editor to add the exaggeration.
Here's what I started working on (for her creeping)...
There were too many issues - no weighting, no real follow through etc, so as I said i'm going back to creating a basic walk cycle, i'll then tweak this to make it look more how I want.
This is how the currently walk is shaping up - still a bit go (this is just getting the leg movements) but it's getting there! To be honest I always felt like the walk cycle would be a bit more complicated than the dance sequence... mainly because it has to be so right (if that makes sense), there's a hell of a lot that goes into walking (again if that makes sense), but I was really aiming for it to set me up well for when I do tackle the dance.
Huzzah, I have also (finally) learnt how to use the graph editor! Woop woop, it's already making tweaks a hell of a lot easier - and by keeping it open whilst i've been setting my keys means i've been able to see the effect these keys are having. Still trying to figure out the Tangents though...but getting there!
My approach to ZBrush has been the same (shame on me), but after some words of advice from Amit, i've completely gone back to the drawing board so to speak...I thought i'd learned my lesson really =/ obviously not lol. I'm going going to be doing an hour of ZBrush everyday courtesy of Digital Tutors.
I've found this year that I learn a lot quicker (and produce more) when I work in strict shorter chunks like this, and i'm hoping that by the start of next week (there's 42 lessons - aiming for 5-6 a day). So far its working - i've learnt far more about the interface in one day than I've learn in this last week - things are clicking slightly. To celebrate I (accidentally) made this weird bacteria gross green thing.
ENJOY
TV Paint is still on the cards for learning too as I think i'll prefer to 2D animate in this much more than flash as I can get more of a painterly style - but i'll only tackle this once i've got a firmer grasp on ZBrush.
Soooo after a long 10 days of 'recovery' i'm ready to kick this project into gear. I've been gathering together my references - which include the ones that Sushma helped me film as well as a few others that i've stalked from the old interweb.
I've been focusing on the walk cycle in particular because apart from the dance sequence this is the only 'major' movement that my character will be performing, and so I really really want to nail these.
Also been doing some reading / looking at some tutorials (sup Digital Tutors) to try and get a handle on the creeping / exaggerated type of walk that i'm going for - which is particularly important seeing as her body movements will be doing all the talking (so to speak).
These are the styles that i'm going for.
(Reference footage for when my character creeps into the cave)
I've also been thinking ahead to when I block out the dance - this will all be pose to pose but I still want to have some of the exaggerated / jumpy movements that will be present in the walk cycle. Again I think the MTV ad and this video are perfect examples of this.
This longer than expected break has put me off track again which means I have only 4 weeks left to animate - but i'm hoping to nail the walk cycles in the next week (along with tests), with the shorter animations the following week, followed by the 2 weeks for the dance sequence! Still feeling confident that I can achieve this (scarily enough).
On the non animation side, art and comic life is still occurring - with some slow ZBrush learning thrown in there for good measure. I've just been doing lots of sketching and trying to learn alternative ways of painting/drawing, to try an speed up my processes cause I am SO SLOW.
This is a quick sketch of a new character - Claudia.
Also been doing a lot more work on paper cause i'm so out f practice since becoming a slave to digital. For shammmeee
I am back in London and in full blown art mode.. although sadly this hasn't translated to animating =/ to be honest the short break after Going Live has been very much welcomed, so I want to use this week as a chance to recharge my batteries so to speak and stay up til 5am painting.
Here are the currently fruits of my labour
Billie Holiday is currently a work in progress
Now whilst i'm very happy with these, again i'm falling into old habits - so the next paintings I've got lined up i'm aiming to do something a bit different, and I really want to branch more into the concept art side of painting. I feel like i've got my portrait skills up to a level i'm happy with, and to expand this I need to again start trying new things and branching out.
There's a lot I want to achieve int he next 12 weeks, and ZBrush learning has now begun, and can I just say, the shortkey for Zoom is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard (i'm sure i'll get used to it in now time)... all this swapping between Maya, Photoshop, Mudbox, Zbrush is definitely confusing the mind.
Very excited to be able to use it probably once ive learned the basics courtesy of Yotube and Digital Tutors and my embarrassing first sculpture will be arriving in no time.
I would also like to take this time to say that I reallllyy really want to Sculpt and Paint the Vision, and that the West Coast Avengers saved Age of Ultron (sorry Joss)...
