Project and Portfolio III

This class was very stressful this month, mostly because of the full swing of the holiday season and it starting the week of Black Friday. I was very excited to use a different rig and create my own animation this month, although it has a few things that need to be tweaked. I'm happy with the smoothness of translation, and completing this project has given me a greater understanding of the walk cycle. Here is the Link

I think that this class was valuable for helping me in discerning render time, learning the fine points of the walk cycle animation, subtle animation, and adjusting to new rigs and additionally new problems as they arise. It was challenging to say the least and I had many 5 A.M. nights this month. On to the next!

3DA

How time flies! Second portfolio class, and an animation one at that. I had quite a few problems in the beginning with the rig, but through some troubleshooting and communicating with my awesome professor, I handled it. The lesson I learned though, is to always double check the rig before you keyframe. I had a totally different idea for my original animation, but due to a lack of time I had to do something simpler.

The first pass. It has a few breakdowns as well as keys. Looking at the difference in timing compared to my final is amazing. I owe this to the dope sheet in Maya and my new knowledge of it.

The final. I'm pretty happy with it, although it's still not as smooth as I'd like. Of course, my desire to strive for perfection could get in the way of seeing my actual progress. I wish I had more time to add some things to it.

BONUS: Original idea block out. This is where I was having so much trouble with the rig. It was set up differently then the rig from our previous class, and it lead to so much frustration that I had to go with a much simpler idea in order to have something to turn in. Oh well, perhaps I'll be able to experiment with it later, or rather, re-block it with different rig settings. It actually doesn't look bad in this clip, but that's only because for some reason Maya would interpolate it differently depending either on scrub through speed, or some other variable. Needless to say, the Euler filter didn't even help.

I very much enjoyed this class, and I love animating so much I'm switching my major over to computer animation. Through trial and error and determination, I survived and thrived this month. On to the next!

3AM

Words cannot express my excitement for this class. This was the class where all of my childhood dreams got a taste of realization, as dramatic as that sounds. The most difficult part of this for me was utilizing the graph editor, which I still need work with, but I'm getting the hang of it.

The classic bouncing ball. I actually had a much easier time grasping the operation of rigs and keys than I thought, and I feel I got a quicker handle on 3D animation than 2D. This will forever remind me of the importance of the squash and stretch, as well as slow-ins and slow-outs.

In the project titled "Super Smash Ball" we had to give the ball some character, and tell a story with it and the little star. There's always room for improvement, for example, I wish I would've held the arc of the final jump a little longer, but the nuances of the blocks and bounces help me love this.

Blocking for the walk. When I was doing this all I could think "wow, so easy" but the final week had a big surprise for me. I like this block and I think it conveys the action very well. I made many, MANY slight changes in the following week, but I can't complain. That's animation for you.

What had originally been just a walk turned into a snap, which had, in the end, turned into a gun. Yes, a finger snap into a gun. I wasn't happy with the timing of the snap so I added the finger gun after. I wish I would've added a little bit of trigger pulling and shooting towards the end but I ran out of time. I really enjoyed this, and the difference in flow from the blocking to this is phenomenal. Now that I compare the two, I'm amazed at my progress.

 Unfortunately, this class had to come to an end. My excitement with the career path though has only reaffirmed my belief in my choices, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog as the months go by! This next class is another portfolio class where animation is the key. I think what I'll do is post my playblasts to this, that will help.

2DA

The first animation class of my time at Full Sail. This class covered the traditional style of animating. Well, for me, anyway. My tablet decided to stop working half way through the first week. I proceeded to do all of my homework on paper, and scanned everything in page by page. Patience, that it what you need to be animator. But lets get to the work.

First graded animation of week 1. I was thinking of Disney's Bambi when I made this, and I like how it turned out. My only change would be to hold the droplet a little more before it falls off the leaf.

The pendulum for week 2. I decided to take it a step further and give it some character. I've always wanted one of these clocks, so I drew one.

The sit to stand. I edited this one a bit, which was very tedious because of the redrawing, rescanning, re-editing process I had to do to get it where I wanted it to be. But whatever it takes, right?

I can't help but laugh every time I see this now. He's doing such a whimsical, loose, unnatural walk. Like he's strolling through down town on his way to the theater when something catches his eye. Anyhow, maybe I should give this another go in the future.

With 2D in the bag, and my tablet still out and being fixed, this class was great fun to be a part of. I enjoyed every minute of it although tedious. I think that's the rub with traditional art: it's much more time consuming and tedious to complete and fix, and that's why this class has given me even more respect for the older ways, and has also underscored to me their importance.

ART 2

          This compilation is for all of my work in ART 2. I have to say, I enjoyed this class much more than ART 1, probably because it had more assignments that revolved around characters and the human form. That's not to say I'm not thankful for ART 1. But I digress, presented are a few of my pieces from the past four weeks,

These are the line of action poses from week two. These were especially difficult to complete because during week two I was on a vacation, and had to use random people and my boyfriend as models. Like I said, difficult, but still very rewarding and fun. This exercise really helped with learning anticipation and weight, and how to draw it properly.

I'm very proud of my drawing for this. The assignment was to pick a human form to study and redraw. The image I used is from pixelovley.com. I chose it because it was interesting to me in all aspects, and had a nice range of value to attempt. Before this class I wasn't too great at the human form, but now I'm very comfortable with drawing it.

The height and width studies for week four's character concept. The character I thought of is an eighteen year old living in 1945-1946 after being kidnapped by Nazi SS Officers for Project Lebensborn in the 1930's. This was helpful in height referencing and will be good for referencing my future characters.

The turn around for my character. I changed the opacity on the jacket so as to see the underlying clothing, making him easier to model as far as width of body goes. I hope to get some time to model him, because now that I can draw people it's the next step, and it's always been my dream to make my characters come alive.

          This month was crucial to my skill-set as an artist. It really helped in understanding the human form and the steps necessary to create a professional and efficient character design to pass down a pipeline. I still have work to do as far as practicing realism, but I've come a long way from when I started, and I'm excited to learn more.

       

ART 1

 Originally, I was not aware that I had to make a post for this class. Needless to say, it really helped me refresh my drawing skills, and made me realize I'm capable of much more than I thought I was with a pencil and a piece of paper. The following post is a compilation post of the things I did in ART1. Although it's not modeling or game design, I feel the traditional art style is absolutely essential to a successful modeling career. Many studios require skill in the traditional method, and those that do not practice or take the time to learn the skill might find themselves less than desired for the work place. Of course, the only problem with the order of these classes is that first was 3DF, then ART1, then Model Creation. That gap really gave me a rough start in MCR, but it's all about adaptation. Anyway, the pictures.

This is my still life drawing from week three. Before this, in week two, I had experimented with a wacom tablet and originally had it drawn on the computer. Of course, being new with the tablet and not quite sure how to get the full range of value, I had to trace it onto paper and shade it traditionally. I'm actually very happy with how it turned out, and it took me quite a few hours to do. But, I expected this class to be full of late nights, just like the other ones.

We had to draw the principles and elements during our week one. I had to carry around a little sketchbook with me everywhere I went to get the projects done for this week. I was rather surprised with myself when I started drawing texture, and at first I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew. But I stuck with it and it turned out okay. Kind of like school. But anyway, I found that for all of these drawings I was using a mechanical pencil, rather than the set that the school had sent me. It wasn't until the later weeks that I started using the 6B and 2HB pencils to draw and shade my pieces. The things I learned in this class were seemingly small but good for my skill-set as a whole.



            This class, as I said, was kind of badly placed. I wish It was before 3DF so that I could have that right before model creation. Anyhow, It was still a valuable class to have in that it was a refresher for my drawing skills as well as my knowledge in the arts, and it helped me reaffirm my aspirations as a modeler. This class was filled with many late nights, and the classes ahead of me will also be filled with such. I just hope I can find the time to keep this up, so I won't become another victim of a "dead blog". As I get deeper and deeper into the program, the more I learn it's about grit, perseverance, time management, and self motivation. It's not just about skill, but having the confidence to put your work out there and keep going, the struggle might be real sometimes but so is the dream.