Week 7

This week we continue our quest of overlapping action. But now, we move ahead of the mechanical-ness of "pendulum" and move toward a more "living" character, enter "Tailor". "Tailor" is a cute little guy, basically a ball with a squirrel-like tail attached. We were supposed to build upon the knowledge of last week and implement it into something new. This was definitely difficult. I never knew how complicated the movement of a squirrel's tail was. All of this changing the tail shape from "C" curve to "S" curve to reverse "C" curve was pretty complicated. The first attempt at it, my timing was way too fast. The tail looked all jittery and frantic, like he drank a gallon of coffee beforehand, not a smooth, waving pass as he moved around. After some refining, his tail has finally calmed down a little and looks sorta normal, but still might need some further tweaking in the future.

Week 6

Week 6, mid-term already! This week we're looking at overlapping action and drag. This is the individual breaking of joints and offsetting them in time so that it looks like and secondary action follows through once the primary force has stopped. To capitalize this point, we got a simple character, a block with an attached "chain" which was named "pendulum". Basically, when the block comes to a stop, the chain continues to swing with the residual force of the block. I must admit this was some hard stuff to grasp. My first attempt looked pretty garbage and took some much needed advising on how to salvage it. I guess I'll stop trying to explain and just show.

Week 5

Oh! Now things get interesting...! This week, we are supposed to add "life" to the ball and give it some squash and stretch. This new, improved ball is to be then placed through an obstacle course, living up to its new found squishiness while still keeping the consistency of about a normal soccer ball.

Also, we were to pose another STU character, this time a pose depicting DEVASTATION. Once again, I turn to sketches for planning and Maya for execution.

Week 4

So now that we have gone through a normal ball, it is time to move on to the two extremes. This week, we are to animate two different ball types, a heavy and a light ball. These must be convincing as to what weight they are and also maybe have some creativity thrown into the mix. Thus ensued an initial idea and then more thrown on top of it. Again, first on paper, then to Maya.

Week 3

Now we start getting into animation! This week, we were just to animate a simple bouncing ball, no squash or stretch, and have it the consistency of about a basketball or soccer ball. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong. There is a lot more than you think about when considering the type of material it is, it determines the spacing and timing as well as height of each bounce. It needs to be carefully planned out in sketches so that it can, hopefully, easily translate into the computer.

Also, we were to pose out another STU character, but this time it needed to communicate EXCITEMENT, starting with sketches and then bringing it into Maya.

Each went through some rounds of revisions so hopefully they achieve its highest potential.

Week 2

This weeks assignment was to just get our feet wet and pose out our character STU in what ever manner that we see fit. We had to practice drawing from observing live-action and any other pose that may be of interest. I went with a Kung-Fu type stance, it looked neat.

Animation Overhaul

Welcome to my animation journey as I venture through the exciting world of AnimationMentor. I am currently midway through my first class and am loving it. I will try to post up all my older work and have it be up-to-date with my current work, and maybe even a few random blabs or stuff I find interesting. With that said, happy trails and viewings.

-Justin