5th Pass

Ok, this is as far as I had time to make it this month. Much too long of a scene to finish in time. Good lesson for everyone, including me, don't bite off more than you can chew, the old Quality versus Quantity. So, I got through my 5th pass. Still need about two more passes through this to get it ready for prime time. Just to get it to feel a little better I added some blinks and worked on the transitions of some of the expressions. There is plenty of work left at this point. I have done very little tweaking of curves at this point, all the clean-up of curves and smooth out in-betweens & strengthen arcs is missing at this point. Some of the actions still need some softening and finessing. The hands have been worked a little more, but are still not complete. Like I said the Lion's share of the work, I'd say, at least two days work left, two long days. Best wishes to everyone in class moving on with there studies and best wishes for a happy and successful career.

4th Pass

Ok, so this is the scene out of stepped after I've taken a run through it and Broken it down more, slow-ins, moving holds, more breakdowns, some added anticipations. As I spoke about before a whole lot of wresting with Timing & Spacing, checking arcs. Trying to get an interesting pacing of my ideas. Basically playing with how my character should move. I still have not got a clear idea of the feel I want him to have. Next month probably a shorter scene so I can focus on a style. This is still not even close to being finished. Although I have done some work on the hands and fingers, much more needs to be done, rotates and arcs need to be finessed and cleaned up. Face needs to be broken down and animated, Blinks, Brows & Eye darts to give him some life, the end part needs some breaking down still. And you may have noticed his hands cutting through the walls when he comes up in the elevator. That's what you get when you hide your BG for too long. This is about 19 seconds worth of animation, like I said when I pitched it to you, this is a big involved scene.

More Breakdowns, & some Refinement

Ok, as you have seen in class, I've been showing you where I am now with my scene. It's out of stepped, and I'm as I termed it wrestling around with many things to get the over all performance to work. I'm adding in my other pass of Breakdowns, that include slow-ins, & moving holds. I'm reworking timing and the spacing of poses to get some texture that suites my type of character in my scene. That is what this is an example of. Before I was showing you examples of this with many changes going on throughout my characters whole body. This is an example of the use of timing & spacing changes just focused on my characters right hand when he grabs the gate just before he walks out. Now I was happy with the overall timing & action of my characters body moving out of that section, so I did not want to change the timing of the over all poses. I started by adjust the hand & fingers poses (SPACING), throughout that section to speed it up and get more of a crisp snap to it. Once I pushed it as far as I could get it, I put in a couple of keys just on the hands to control it more. After I pushed it too far I brought it back some so I could not see the distortion of the fingers. I'll tap through this in lecture to show you the difference in the poses that are creating the change.

3rd Pass - Breakdowns

Ok, 3rd pass. Adding in the major breakdowns at this point. For my students, keep in mind how important Breakdowns are in animation. They are usually the most interesting and dynamic poses in your scene. They create the arcs, and offset the action in so many ways. Since they are in motion, they give you the power to drag things so everything is not moving at the same rate or time. They can favor in both the timing & the spacing, so that you can bring more texture into the movement of your scene. When you think of texture, think contrast. At this point I'm still using my reference, although I am exaggerating greatly and starting to alter my timing a bit. My poses are not set in stone as I move forward everything will be up for debate as I move out of stepped and start adding my slow-ins and moving holds, I'll be constantly tweaking my timing and the poses to get the feeling I'm going for with my character. It becomes a big wrestling match with those two very important things Timing & Spacing.

Second Pass

Ok, Second pass. I laid in my next pass of keys. I call them lesser keys, which consist of other anticipations,& keys, which I felt could be left out without losing too much in my 1st pass. Like I said in class, many people will have their own opinions on the exact label of a pose as it relates to keys, breakdowns, some of us have sub-catorgories. To sum it up it's a way to go from the Macro to the Micro, working from the Bigger idea down to the fine details, work-flow or in this case- AKA Pose to Pose one of the Principles. As long as you are clear on the pose and what it is doing to help create the action in your scene. These poses can all be considered extreme poses, without them the character will be missing something in the interpretation of the reference I'm working from. I'm still not concerned with my timing at this point. I'm using the timing of the reference just as a guide. After I get my breakdowns in and am happy that I have what I need from my reference, I'll start working with my timing. My character is a very cartoony type of character so I'll be pushing farther and farther away from my reference, exaggerating much more. The broader I move him the more I will have to work with my timing. Everything leads back to Timing & Spacing. I cannot use the same timing from my video if I change my spacing that drastically without him moving much quicker and maybe popping too much. Again, at this point I'm more concerned with good strong poses other than motion, checking to see that the mechanics are doing what they need to and that the poses relate to each other while also keeping in mind what I'm seeing in my reference. I'm going back and forth from the perspective window to the shot camera and working in the graph editor to keep my progression clean and tweak my poses.

Block Out / 1st Pass

So I'll just write this from the point of view of talking with my students. At this point don't worry about seeing your animation move with interpolation / in-betweens, in stepped your focus should be about staging and mechanics to tell the story and build the framework of how your character will move in and out of those Key ideas. I've blocked out my key poses and took a second pass to try and design and push the poses before I move on and add more poses. I've tried to make good decisions with the mechanics of the poses & staging. The silouhette, line of action, use of negative space, and over all appeal. Keeping in mind the type of character I am animating I want to exaggerate my poses to suite him, and make good choices on how I use & stage his large forearms. At this point the keys are strong enough that I will move on and add the rest of my keys knowing that all of these poses will continue to be tweaked in the process so that all the poses are working together to create the action. I'm using the timing from the video, and the poses just as a guide right now, as I continue through the scene, I will start abandoning the reference and reworking the timing to better suite my character and animation style. Although it's early on in your development with computer animation you should be aware of how you are creating your poses and the progression in the graph editor. Much like the clean up and progression of the walk, your whole scene should be looked at in the same manner. Keeping your progression smooth starting with the block out is a extremely important part of your workflow if you want to excel at computer animation. Ask e more about this in lab for specifics about your scene.

Reference Analysis 3DA2_1608

So this is the start of the August Portfolio 2 class I am teaching at FullSail University. I plan to post the animation and process I do each month as inspiration, demonstration, & general love of the medium that I share with my class. In my class I really stress the use of reference, creation & analysis, with a strong emphasis on mechanics. Here is the reference I created for this month with some quick notes to start defining the Key & breakdown poses and start to define the mechanics of those poses. I've broken this down to what I refer to Keys, lesser Keys, and then main Breakdowns. There are still more breakdowns to be found, slow ins & Holds and such. I'll be animating my Character I created, modeled & rigged (Rig still in progress). I'll post the block out soon.