Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Student Demo
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
I Got Some Cool Stuff Check Out
Monday, April 26, 2010
Do You Have Any Special Techniques Using Inverse Kinematics (IK) in "Freehand Animation" When the Hands are Free From Other Objects?
First, it is important to understand some of the differences between IK and FK. When you are animating an arm in FK, you first move the shoulder, then the elbow, and then the wrists. That's more or less what we do when we move our own arms. So, all and all, FK seems a bit more similar to the way we move, with the movement starting on the shoulder. The process of animating an IK arm is very different; instead of starting the movement from the shoulder, you will work in the inverse direction. You position the wrist wherever you want it to go, and the rest of the arm kind of goes with it. Both ways of animating are perfectly fine, and, for example, when animating a character dancing, walking, or running, you can certainly achieve good results with both IK and FK.
The important thing here is to keep in mind that a realistic movement of the arms will mostly start on the shoulder. This is somewhat easier to achieve with FK, because you will will work from the shoulder down. However, it can be a little tricky with IK – the very method of animating with IK, positioning the wrist first and having the rest of the arm following it, will make it look like the hands are always leading the movement. Your job as an animator is to make it feel like the shoulder is leading, even though you are positioning the wrist first.
Another important point is that when you are animating a human body, all the body parts need to feel interconnected. When you move the spine, the arms will also move. When you raise a hand up in the air, the spine will move as well. Again, this is somewhat easier to achieve with FK. If you have the arms in FK and you move the body node the whole arm – including the wrist - will go with it, so we perceive the arms as being connected to the rest of the body. With IK arms, the movement of the spine will not automatically affect the position of the wrist. You will move the body node and the wrist will be stuck in place. Because of that, sometimes we can have the feeling that the arms (wrists) are independent from the body.
So, if you are animating with the arms in IK, you have to try your best to convey the feeling that the movement is rooted on the shoulder, and it is not the hand that is leading the movement. Basically, you have to fight the IK, and animate the wrist and the elbow just like a real arm moves. You will need to position the hands making sure you move the elbow in a way that will sell the idea that the root of the movement is in the shoulders. It is really, really important to pay special attention to the elbow and also the clavicle and chest when you are working in IK. My advice is that you study the movement in question, in your own body and also looking at reference, making sure you understand what is the relationship of shoulder/elbow/wrist for the particular scene you are animating. Then try to get the same relationship going on your shot, even though you are positioning the hands first.
The other important point is to not leave the hands stuck in space while the rest of the body is in movement – a very common error for beginners. That's what we call an “IK-ish look” – for example, let's imagine that a character steps to his right side and reaches out for a glass of water. You will have the shift of weight, the spine/torso moving towards the right, the step, and then the right wrist moves towards the glass of water... but if you forget about the left wrist... the left wrist will be stuck in space as if it is glued to the air. If this happens even for a couple of frames, it will look unnatural; people never have an experience where their whole body moves but their hand gets stuck in mid-air! So, if you have the arms in IK, you have to fight the “IK-ish look” by selling the idea that the movement of the hands is rooted on the shoulders; by making sure the the wrist feels connected to the rest of the body; and by not having the wrists stuck in place while the rest of the body moves around.
Guest Blogger Raquel Rabbit
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
What Keeps You Motivated When working on a Long, Tedious Animation Project?
There are a lot of things that help me to stay motivated, but first and foremost - it's the people around you. I don't think I ever went through a day at ILM and didn't laugh. It doesn't matter how tedious a shot or project can be, the atmosphere is always fun and everybody around you is there for support. You know that you're not alone.
I also listen to a lot of music and movies while I work. Usually I pick movies that I'm very familiar with so it's not distracting me from the actual work, but it provides a comfortable and pleasant background noise. Usually they are movies from my childhood, like the classic Star Wars trilogy, or Back to the Future, The Goonies, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.
Since our projects usually only last a few months and not years, a long project is never really that long. It might feel like it, but there's always a next project lined up that you can look forward to.
And if all of that fails, you just have to remind yourself that no matter what, it is your job to do the best you can, so suck it up and be professional. :)
Guest Blogger Jean-Denis Haas
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
What Did You Do Differently in Your Animation Studies That Made You Stand Out?
After I got the fundamentals down, I turned my focus to acting. I mean, acting is what we do, so why wouldn't I study it seriously like any other professional actor?
I started by studying Stanislavski. I have a book of his that has a bunch of assignments in it. Like...go to your bedroom and pack a suitcase. Now, pack the suitcase like you're going off to war. Now pack it like you're trying to leave your lover who just stepped out for a moment and you want to be gone before he/she gets home. Now pack it like you're being evicted. Stuff like that.
I also spent some time at the Lyric School of Acting in Vancouver, BC. It's interesting how similar my first animations were to my first live acting assignments. For starters, my hands were way too busy, and I would just stand there waiting for my line. But eventually we started working on subtext, backstory, and ways to really own your character. I recently read a quote by a screenwriter that went something like, "I wanted the audience to get to know my character quickly, so I had him pull a used paper filter out of the coffee maker, rinse it, and reuse it."
Guest Blogger Mark Pullyblank
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
I'm at the Student Level. How Many Hours Should I Practice? How Many Hours Do I Need to Work at a Professional Level in the US?
This is another difficult question, because the answer is different for everyone.
Malcolm Gladwell writes that it takes, on average, 10,000 hours of practice and study for anyone to become truly proficient at something.
For myself, I just added up on a calculator all the time I spent studying/practicing animation in school (including stuff like figure drawing), time with my mentors, and animating on my own. I added all of that up, and it turns out that my animation education time before landing my dream job at ILM was 18,400 hours.
That might sound daunting, and it clearly took me more than the requisite 10,000 hours, but really we're just talking about 5 years of focused studying in order to have a reel that got me into ILM. I have no idea if that's average, fast, or slow, but we're all going to have different speeds as we study and absorb this animation stuff.
I would guess that the number of hours "necessary" to excel in animation would be radically different from one person to the next. I think the actual number of hours is irrelevant -- what matters is how much you can focus on animation.
For me, especially during the 4 years where I was focusing the most on learning this stuff, animation was my life. If I was awake, I was animating. That literally isn't really much of an exaggeration. I wasn't going out much with friends, I didn't have a girlfriend, I was missing movies I had been excited to see, I didn't get to play the video games I wanted to play, etc. Animation was my life.
Maybe that isn't always the healthiest way to approach something, but it's probably the fastest, and certainly works.
I know not everyone has the option of focusing their whole day on animation - you have families or non-animation jobs and other responsibilities. Well, my advice then is to just focus as much time as you can. If all you can do is 5 hours every night after your kids go to bed, then start spending those 5 hours animating or studying animation.
5 hours a night is 1,780 hours per year. If you manage to squeeze in an extra 10 hours each weekend, then you're talking about 2,300 hours per year, and suddenly that 10,000 hours doesn't seem so far off!
I wish animation was something you could learn in a few months, but it just isn't. It's an endlessly complex art that takes a lifetime to master, and that first 10,000 hours will only get you to the tip of the iceberg. Luckily for us, the rest of that iceberg is a ton of fun to spend that next 100,000 hours exploring!
Hope that helps!
Shawn :)
Guest Blogger Shawn Kelly
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
How Important Is It To Get An Internship As A Beginning Animator?
Of course it will depend on the type of internship. Sometimes animation students get internships doing PA type of stuff in companies that are not so great... I mean, if what you really want is to animate you probably won't be happy making xerox copies or going pick up dinner for the boss. This type of internship will probably not turn you into a better animator. It's true though that getting an internship in any of the big studios, even if it's not exactly in production, can be a nice way to get a feeling for how it all works, and also to get good connections and some professional experience. So it all depends on what is the internship like, and in what company.
The best situation is to get an internship where you can develop your skills as an animator and artist, and in a good studio. This type of internship is a wonderful way to start a professional career. Well, at least it worked for me! I was an intern first at Briquet Studios in Sao Paulo (2D), and then at Rhythm & Hues Studios in LA and these two experiences were crucial to my background. At Briquet Studios I was lucky to be an intern under the supervision of Renato dos Anjos – he later ended up moving to the US and worked as supervising animator on Bolt, Surf's Up and Open Season. I knew nothing about animation at that time, so it was really my very first experience, a way to get a feeling for how it all worked on a professional environment. The studio was really small but their work was great, Renato was really good and I learned so much from him. It was not enough time to get good at it, but I felt the experience planted the seed of animation on a fertile soil.
A couple of years after that, I went to School of Visual Arts in New York for my master's degree. During my first summer vacation I got an internship position at Rhythm & Hues. It was amazing. I felt I learned more in this time than in all my time at school! Rhythm & Hues had classes set up for new employers and interns, it was very organized and that's when I really started to understand what 3D was all about. I learned so much. I came back to school after the summer full of energy and started working on my short film. I also met a lot of really nice people, made important professional connections and went to a couple of cool camping trips. Fun times!
So, based on my personal experience, I think a good internship can help turn a student into a good professional. I was lucky in that my internships were really about the animation work. They were also at good companies with a solid reputation. It was a real learning experience on many levels.
Some of my students get internships and I see how positively the experience affects them. In many cases, a company offering an internship program has hopes that that student will be a possible hire in the near future. In a way, you are being “tested” by them, while at the same time you will be learning tons of useful things. Some companies have a very structured internship program – they put a lot of thought into it, and these are the internships you should definitely apply for! Here in California I know that Dreamworks, Pixar, Disney and Rhythm & Hues all offer this type of opportunity. And I bet there are other companies with great internship programs that I just don't know about.
Of course it is not exactly easy to get an internship at one of the best companies in the world - they are very competitive programs, but these would be the first ones I would try if I was a student now. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it can be life changing to spend a summer working at a studio like any of these. You will meet amazing artists and professionals. You will get to know how the pipeline works, how is the day to day of a CG artist, how the films are done, what the work ethics are like. You will learn about work flow, techniques and art, and you will learn it from real artists. It can make a real difference in your career.
Guest blogger Raquel Rabbit
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
What Do You Enjoy Most About Being An Animator?
There are so many things that I love about being an animator. I'm surrounded by so many talented artists - it's intimidating and inspiring at the same time, but it allows me to be a student, continuing to learn and push myself. I love that I am around people who share the same love for cinema and cartoons.One of the best things about being an animator is that I get to be an actor and breathe life into a character. What's really great is that I'll go to the movies and sit next to a complete stranger that will laugh or cry at my performance, and they won't know that was done by the person sitting right beside them.
The things that I love most, though, is that, if I'm fortunate enough, I will be part of something timeless - a film that children and adults will continue to watch and love after I'm long gone. Something that my children's children will show their children, and say "Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandpa Hartline did that!"
Guest blogger Aaron Hartline
Monday, March 8, 2010
How Do You Balance Life With Animation?
Well, when I was working full time in the industry I actually had a lot of fun, made many good friends and really enjoyed what I was doing. So animation and work in general were a big part of my life. Overall it didn't feel unbalanced, even though I always felt that a 10 hour work journey is a bit much for someone who has the desire to also pursue other interests in life outside of animation. But overall, working in the industry felt like it was the right thing for me at the time. Still, I found time to sing in a couple of bands, make puppets, write a couple of children's books, go out, enjoy my friends, go camping, etc.What I found harder was to balance studio animation with personal animation. Let me explain: After school, I thought I was going to be able to work full time in an animation studio and also do my short films on the side. Unfortunately, somehow this was never possible. That also happened to a bunch of my friends. I know a lot of people who had dreams of making many short films; they actually had stories, character designs, etc., all waiting to come to life. The reality is that it is really hard to work on your short film after 10 hours (at least) of animating in a studio. So, I could never really balance animating in a studio with animating my own shorts!
In any case, after many years working in the industry I felt that the 10 hours a day was not really working for me, because I really wanted to spend more time on my personal projects. I also missed having a different type of interaction with people. I love teaching, and little by little I got more involved with teaching. So I got a tenure track position in a university, where I teach animation and help students with their own short film projects. In addition, I am a mentor at Animation Mentor, and I love the work I do with them. Parallel to my work in the university, I do some freelance work doing animation – in 2005 I worked on Henry Sellick's Moongirl and on Charlotte's Web, the next year I worked on Happy Feet and on a couple of cool coke spots (with Psyop), in 2007 I worked on SpiderWick Chronicles, and last year I did some freelance for Wildbrain.
Also, I now have time to dedicate to my own artistic projects, which feels great!
So, I think I found my own way to balance life and animation. I interact with people, I discuss, study and practice animation all the time, and I have time to work on my own personal projects as well.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Maya Fluid Cloud
Hi,here i have made a cloud in maya using fluids.it's so simple to make a realstic cloud but little bit compliecated.
if anybody need scene file send me request at my email ID.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
$Moving$$$$$Hold...........
Some guys always ask to me what's a moving hold.?????..........
Now i don't need to describe because here is a nice where you will fine the nice answer from expert.
So don't get confuse
1. What is a moving hold? How do you go about moving holds?
Great question!
Moving holds can be really tricky. It's so easy to have your character moving too much, giving the performance a floaty "CG" feel, or have the character freeze too much, which is instant death, especially in CG animation. You've worked so hard to convince your audience that your character is a living, thinking, feeling being, but no matter how much you've sucked them in, a frozen character instantly appears dead, and all your hard work goes down the drain as the audiences remembers they're just looking at a cartoon.
Just as with anything else, there are times you'll want to freeze a character for dramatic or comedic effect in a more stylized project, just as there are times that you might want a particularly floaty "hold" in your work. However, for the vast majority of your shots, you will probably be working somewhere in between, aiming for a moving hold that feels mostly still, but alive nonetheless.
Here's a few "moving hold" tips:
1. Overshoot is your friend.
Coming to an abrupt stop is OK in animation, but in order to make it feel organic rather than robotic, you need to employ some amount, however subtle, of the idea of overshoot. Overshoot isn't a very complicated idea. It basically works like this:
Say you have a shot where a man is surprising his date with her favorite flowers. He whips them out from behind his back, and holds them out to her. As he stands there holding the flowers, you will need to do a "moving hold," which is basically just a way to hold a key pose for a long time without looking dead. So what do you do?
A) Figure out your end pose. The first thing you need to figure out is what this guy's pose is going to be as he stands there holding the flowers out to her, and no, this isn't something you should be trying to miraculously discover as you randomly save keys in your scene – it's something you should have worked out in your planning stage. Is he holding the flowers proudly? Shyly? Is he embarrassed? Excited? Sad? Nervous? Is it their first date? Last date? Both? All of these things will affect his pose, and his pose should be communicating some of these ideas to us.
OK, so you've figured out your main "holding the flowers" pose. Some people will call this your "extreme" or your "key pose." Generally, you want this pose to be as communicative as possible, especially if it's going to be part of a moving hold! If we're going to be staring at this pose for a few seconds, it better be more interesting and emotive than the average run-of-the-mill pose, right?
Well, now it's time for:
B) Designing your overshoot pose. This pose is basically your previous "key pose," but taken up a notch. Lift him up onto his toes a little, push the flowers a little closer to her, hunch his shoulders a bit more, widen his eyes a little extra, etc. Any and all of these ideas can contribute to the creation of the overshoot.
If you take your "regular" key pose, which, in and of itself, should already have a slightly exaggerated silhouette and line of action, and then exaggerate it EVEN MORE, now you have your "overshoot pose."
C) Now all you have to do is slap that overshoot pose into your scene, maybe even just a couple frames after your "real" pose, and then arc back into your "real" key pose. You'll need to overlap some things to pull this off properly – probably some rotation on the wrist holding the flowers, some overlap on the flowers themselves, and probably some overlap rotation in his head, but basically you're just going from your "real" pose, to your overshoot exaggeration, and then back to your "real" pose.
Arcs and timing are key here, as it will help a lot if everything doesn't stop on the same frame, and you nearly always must have nice arcs on the wrists, head, hips, etc.
2. Keep the eyes alive.
As long as the eyes are alive, you can darn near completely freeze the body and still have a chance at keeping the audience feeling like your character exists, so pay special attention to the eyes during any moving hold! Put some time into working out eye poses that really communicate his intentions, emotions, and thought process; and choose your blinks carefully and for specific reasons.
3. Ease in!
Having a character slam to a complete stop is always going to look phony-baloney. There are certainly times when the style demands this sort of thing (Warner Brothers springs to mind) and if the style allows for characters to completely freeze, you can use this for great comedic or dramatic effect. However, most of us won't be able to just have our characters freeze all the time, and when our guy pulls out his flowers, we'll need to keep him alive, thus the moving hold.
Well, in order to pull off a moving hold, you need to ease into it, at least a little bit. You have to make sure your character doesn't feel like he just hit an invisible wall or something, which is far too common on the demo reels I see.
While you will use the concept of ease-in on any moving hold, there are two basic types of moving holds, in a sense. The overshoot hold, where you zip past your destination and then quickly recover back into your intended pose, and then there's the long ease-in pose, which is basically just a long slow subtle ease into your key pose.
In either case, once you've arrived at your key pose, you will need to keep that sucker alive, right?! As I said, eye animation will help. Overlapping animation on the limbs will help a lot as well. However, a great trick is also:
4. Ambient motion
I want to stress that this isn't "random motion," but it *is* really subtle ambient movement you can put onto your characters. It can be tiny chest rotations that feel, even subconsciously, like breaths. It can be small readjustments in the head, or a slight shifting of the weight in the hips (and the chain of events that follows). It can be secondary animation, such as a sniff or fingers subtly rubbing against each other.
In any of these cases, you're basically adding in some subtle complexity that will work wonders as far as helping your character feel truly alive.
I hope this stuff was helpful! Keep animating, and as always, have FUN!
Shawn :)
Here is the link
http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/0609/feature_geek.html#tipTrick