In the air

if only briefly

Learning to Jump.

Screw walking and running, go straight to flying.

Bouncing Bundles of Joy

The final versions of all three ball bounces! : D

Uploading the final animations...

...may take a while. Each of these compressed puppies are still over 100mb, so Blogger's having a bit of a fit trying to upload them. Thank you for your patience. : )

Sketchbook

Proof it exists.

Evolution of the Shuttlecock

A flight of fancy.

Evolution of the Bowling Ball

It all had to start somewhere.

The Evolution of the Tennis Ball

Massive post is massive.

Learning to Walk

Y'know what's funny? In captures, my Moom's knees pop viciously. However, in the render, it looks smoother. The popping is hardly noticeable.

If it didn't take so bloody long to render, I'd watch the render files more than the captures. Captures are certainly more accurate for observing your own work than playing the movement within SoftImage, but renders seem even more true to the timing of the movement!

Ah well. In other news, I declare this done. : )

Breaking Down the Break Down

In a fit of my own resounding awesomeness, I give you the final sequence of Shot 10:

I really like the look of this. While the individual cutting out of everything single frame was a bit of a pain in the butt, it ended up being worth it. Also, the ink texture looks really lovely. I'm glad we decided to move forward with that.

If there was something I would like to fix, it's the "naturalness" of the character's movement. Andy had pointed out that the character was "twinning" and a simple fix would be to have the arms lift off the table at different times. Unfortunately, there isn't anymore time to animate fresh frames, but I will definitely keep that in mind for my next project.

I'm so proud of my group. All we need to do now is fix a few consistency issues in the style of the piece, import the final versions of two shots, and add sounds, then we're done! I'm glad we scheduled the animation to be done before the Easter holidays so we could relax and have more time to focus on the upcoming theory essay. : )

Now to see if I can animate the logo...

PREPARE FOR SPAM.

Blog vomit imminent.

WHOLE SEQUENCE LINE-TESTED

Now, to sleep? Or not to sleep? That is the question...

"SLAM" Test

Well, it certainly doesn't have as much power as I would've hoped. :S

Once I see it in the full sequence, I'll add/delete frames. For now, BACK TO LINE TESTING WHOOSH.

Reference Footage for Acting Piece

Manjit's "star jump."

I left in a bit of fidgeting because the shifting of weight and "waiting" positions are quite good captures of personality. I thought they might be neat to animate.

OP Note: THIS TOOK SO LONG TO POST. I put the little key frame thingy in two days ago at this point, but the video kept giving me an error message so salkjdnsakjndkajd fml TT ~ TT

Latest Moom Walk Cycle

With lots and lots of help from Jon. I have no idea how to make the knees stop popping or what to do about the rubber feet. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

New Stand-Up

Followed Steve's advice and added the bend forward to the stand-up sequence.

Oh wow, this looks so much better. I have a smoothing frame to add at the very beginning, but besides that, it looks a lot more natural. Sweet.

Spine Reference

Just thought I'd share this nice little reference I'm using that my friend Steve drew for me. It's been super useful.

Further Line Tests

Did these line tests of the rough animation I completed over the weekend.

Just character animation:

Just paper animation:

And I animated them together, and here it is:

Notes I took on these sequences:
- Keep neck consistant
- Look at push motion (add in smoothing frames)
- anticipation shoulder lean
- frame 37 to contact, anticipate the bend then push
- smoothing frames to falling paper
- left leg suddenly becomes his right leg
- forearm appears and disappears, fix!

I also re-drew some of the arm movement on the stand-up sequence, to add more emphasis to the slam, and this is what happened:

His arm looks like his arm is having a seizure. Ron also pointed out that the actual standing motion is a bit too robotic. To go simply from point A to point B is not natural. So, he suggested I lean my character forward to create a more natural flow to the movement. On top of that, my friend Steve also suggested I added a bend backwards to help anticipate and exaggerate the slamming motion of the hand. So, adding both the bend forward and back, hopefully this will give me enough frames to do a more effective slam.

SLAM.

Will the Real Atychiphobiac Please Stand Up?

Last line test post, I swear.

This didn't come out nearly as angry as I wanted it to, but it might look okay once I feed it into the whole sequence.

I might also replay some of the timing and add a short "bounce" to the ending position. When someone slams their hands onto a flat surface, they lean into a little, no? I should tape someone doing that...

brb going to bother strangers

Breathing Line Test

A little breathing cycle for my shot (10). Poor little guy. :(

I don't know if I should make it slower or not since it is a "shuddering" breath. I might shoot more frames before I draw any more.

Nicknamed the animation FEAR. Hope I don't get sued by Monolith Productions. : P

EDIT:
New take shot on three's.

Blurgh. It stutters far too much. :T I'll just keep the original two's shot unless someone tells me to change it.

That's How the Cookie Crumbles

...or that's how the cardboard box falls over in the kitchen.

Reference footage of pushing a tall object thanks to my friend, Tim. : )

Moom Evolution

We started with the lower half of the Moom. For the most part, I am satisfied with what I've animated. I am slightly perturbed by how quickly the legs are slamming down, but I can't seem to slow them down or make the step as sharp. Also, the hands jiggle a little bit because I didn't realize you could just key the hips and not have to blindly select everything to make the body bounce. Besides that, the walk looks fairly nice. : ) Onto the arms!

Left arm. Movement is super awkward, but further polishing eventually fixed that. I just wanted to have something down so I could get to the final polishing. Besides, it's easier to tweak when both are swinging so the naturalness is easier to observe.

Eyyy, both arms. Movement still awkward, since I copypasted the frames from the left arm onto the right arm. Now for a shoulder wiggle!

From the front, al~lright.

FINAL POLISHING WOOHOO.

I like it. Any other comments on how to further polish are welcome. : )

My Moom Walks!

Time to celebrate! I'll put up a giant post showing my progress over the past couple of weeks. In one moment.

More detailed production schedule

Hey look at that, more information:

Here's the shot information Eifion sent to me: 

shot 01 = 232 (116) 

shot 02 = 61 (~30)

shot 03 = 52 (26)

shot 04 = 67 (~33)

shot 05 = 114 (57)

shot 06 = 140 (70) [claimed by Alison]

shot 07 = 85 (~42)

shot 08 = 99 (~49) [claimed by Alison]

shot 09 = 198 (99)

shot 10 = 173 (~86)

shot 11 = 315 (~157)

credits = 135 (~67)

Oh, and for the lucky soul doing shot 11, if you work at the minimum capacity I laid out, it's actually gonna take you about 18 days.

Working on the Production Schedule

This is what the pre-production schedule looked like:

Working on the production schedule. I don't have the time notes at this time, so the production schedule will be more detailed at a later date, but this is the information I have so far:

• There are 71 seconds in the animatic. Using that as a control timeframe, we need to put out 17.75 seconds per week (or 213 frames per week). If we work on a 4 days per week work schedule (Mon, Tue, Thurs, and Friday), then we as a group (because everyone will be animating) will only have to put out ~9 frames per day. 
• Obviously this will fluctuate a little since I'll be assigning specific shots to each animator. I can do the math on individual animators once I have those assigned.

This is the shot information so far (I used the storyboard Alison sent out, so that's what I mean by "thumbnails"):

Thumbnails 1-4 = Shot 1

Thumbnails 5-6 = Shot 2

Thumbnail 7 = Shot 3

Thumbnails 8-9 = Shot 4

Thumbnails 10-11 = Shot 5

Thumbnails 12-13 = Shot 6

Thumbnails 14-15 = Shot 7

Thumbnails 16-17 = Shot 8

Thumbnails 18-19 = Shot 9

Thumbnails 20-25 = Shot 10

Thumbnails 26-30 = Shot 11

Credits (or "Shot 12") to be added in digitally.

(Credits can go to either Farideh or Eifion)

Now, some of these are considerably shorter than the others. You guys can pick and choose the shots, if you want, but whoever gets the shorter scenes will be doubling up. I suggest the animators amongst us with the most skill take on shots 10 and 11 since they are the most in depth (as well as the longest). The animators who volunteer for 10 and 11 will not be required to take on any other scenes if they do not wish to.

Hey look, a production schedule:

I know it's not terribly impressive at the moment, but once I have the time notes, I'll be able to accurately pinpoint when each scene should be done. If we follow this schedule in it's absolute form, we should have no worries about getting this thing done on time. Also, this allows for there to be two weeks editing time before printing the DVD. The two week grace period allows for Nathan, Farideh, and Eifion to edit and add sound to their hearts' content, the rest of the group to fix anything that needs fixing, AND we should have time to make some nifty cover art and arrange all of our data together before handing the project in after the break.

ENJOY.

Lt. G

Combined post: Layout & Character Designs

Hey look, something for the group blogger, whee.

We decided on Monday that the purely ink wash was the best choice for the background for the rough, textured, imperfect look of the medium, so I painted up a test texture so everyone could see what it would look like without all the furniture on it.

And here's what it looks like with the furniture on the background:

Tell me if anyone has any suggestions about the design. I figured leaving the drawers black would be better since you could see the designs Eifion came up with.

Moving on, here are all the sketches leading up to the final design of our character:

And lastly, the turnaround:

Enjoy. : ) 

Transfer Initiated

I should probably put up the posts I put on the group blog here as well, huh?

Yeah, I'll get on that.

-busy bee-

Slide!!

IT FINALLY WORKS.

LOVE ME.

Also, lesson 3 shenanigans:

And "Billy the Ball Wants Play Boy Bunnies":

We All Scream!

Just so everyone knows, Alison and I booked the recording studio for Tuesday afternoon, 1 to 3PM. Make sure to have your creepy switched on, we'll be recording screams and whispers! : D

<3,
Grace

Hey look, I can CG with the big kids now.

We learned to animate things in SoftImage a few weeks ago, and this was the lesson piece. Simple enough for anyone who is decent at AfterEffects or Adobe Flash since the basic principles were the same.

Then we got our homework.

I feel like this was Jon's secret way of telling us, "Go outside~... Enjoy the sun while it's there!"

Haha, anyway, this did help me figure on thing out. It's near impossible to use this software correctly without a mouse. (Which I now have one, yay.) Beyond that, it was again fairly straightforward. I also tried to give the objects a bit more of a realistic feel with little rollbacks and realistic timings (slow pull back on the hammer with a quick attack). Hopefully that came across.

The slide homework, however, needs more than a little work. The timings all weird and the angle is impossible to work with. Now that I have a mouse, however, I should be able to fix this easily. Wish me luck! I'll post the finished product here as soon as possible.

SoftImage is being funny.

It won't let me export anything in a Quicktime format or anything for that matter.

I'll probably upload the initial video that we did in class.

Free software, man. Sheesh.

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head Comic

Experiments in SoftImage. Enjoy.

Testing! Testing!

Houston, we have lift-off.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Just downloaded an app so I can blog on the go.

Now I have no excuse to not blog to this quite frequently.

I'm going to be held to that aren't I.

Set Sail!

Alrighty, this is all done up. Time to get this thing rolling.

Don't hesitate to comment on anything I post.

Anything.