Friday, December 26, 2008
Animation Test 7: Walk Cycle 2
Fixed the slide distances to be accurate so that if I was going to animate this on a background pan, it would not strobe. This also means animated on 1s and added the even number inbetweens.
Like my previous animation, my shortcomings on figure drawing were getting to me because I had to keep acting out the motion instead of just grabbing references from the good ol' mental library. Oh well, with practice this will hopefully get better.
As for animation thus far, it's pretty good.
Rather frustrating at times and the video editing is kinda of boring (since I'm not adding any sweeteners like music or the ilk), but getting that end result is something great. In all this my greatest fear was finding out I didn't like animation. In fact, the silver lining in me not being able to afford Ringling was I could try out animation and get a feel for what it may entail and may not. So far, I've gotten a taste (albeit on my own) and...I like it.
Got a subscription to Animation Magazine, I'm also getting my own copies (as opposed to the library's) of Animator's Survival Kit, Cartoon Animation, The Illusion of Life, The Animator's Workbook, and Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators - Thank you Santa.
The South Beach Animation Festival is also on the Horizon and according to the recent flyer sent out John Canemaker will be a guest of honor. For anyone who doesn't know who he is, he's probably one of the most well known animation historians out there. I know him mostly for that as well as writing many of the books I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while now like Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the art of Animation and Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards. He's also written several other Animation Books that are just gold in their knowledge and wisdom. He's also and Academy Award winner and has several works at MoMA.
Haha...man, reading some of the comments on Amazon makes me realize how much I don't know about animation and animation history, argh.
Like my previous animation, my shortcomings on figure drawing were getting to me because I had to keep acting out the motion instead of just grabbing references from the good ol' mental library. Oh well, with practice this will hopefully get better.
As for animation thus far, it's pretty good.
Rather frustrating at times and the video editing is kinda of boring (since I'm not adding any sweeteners like music or the ilk), but getting that end result is something great. In all this my greatest fear was finding out I didn't like animation. In fact, the silver lining in me not being able to afford Ringling was I could try out animation and get a feel for what it may entail and may not. So far, I've gotten a taste (albeit on my own) and...I like it.
Got a subscription to Animation Magazine, I'm also getting my own copies (as opposed to the library's) of Animator's Survival Kit, Cartoon Animation, The Illusion of Life, The Animator's Workbook, and Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators - Thank you Santa.
The South Beach Animation Festival is also on the Horizon and according to the recent flyer sent out John Canemaker will be a guest of honor. For anyone who doesn't know who he is, he's probably one of the most well known animation historians out there. I know him mostly for that as well as writing many of the books I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while now like Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the art of Animation and Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards. He's also written several other Animation Books that are just gold in their knowledge and wisdom. He's also and Academy Award winner and has several works at MoMA.
Haha...man, reading some of the comments on Amazon makes me realize how much I don't know about animation and animation history, argh.
Animation Test 5: Step Walk
For some reason, the fact I was animating on a small slip of paper slipped my mind. So instead of him walking a long distance, I had him move back and forth.
Animation Test 4: Head turns and eye leads.
Didn't think this was going to turn out well, but didn't render as bad as I imagined.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Lightbox: Part Deux
So my original lightbox started to die out on me. I had run out of funds, so I couldn't buy even a cheap lightbox ($40), so I had to make one yet again.
This time though I went a bit bigger, and am using AC power. I came to the conclusion that, for my uses, building a lighbox on batteries was dumb. The portability was awesome, but...alas, useless.
Materials:
Cardboard box
12v output powercord from an old scanner
Big piece of class, 9.5x15.
Soldering Equipment (wire, iron, etc.)
12v halogen lamp
On/off switch
Aluminum!
Spray Glue
Like the previous box, I glued the aluminum to the cardboard so, ideally, the light reflects off of this. This time I had spray glue, so it was easier and less messy.
I cut the hole for the glass to be placed on and lined it with electrical tape for some friction. I also poked ventilation holes since that bulb gets EXTREMELY hot. As for the bulb itself, I placed it this time around away from a cradle and just fixed a stand for it out of electrical tape. I was afraid to place it in an aluminum cradle for fire hazard reasons.
In fact, as soon as I can I'm going to get a real lightbox. This one scares the hell out of me. I'm using a scanner power cord that's pretty old, and not only that, but I made it myself, so I'm not sure how good the soldering was nor if I should have added any resistance to it.
Overall, it does its job, so it'll have to do until I get some funds for a proper lightbox. I never bought one before since I really wasn't animating, but now that I am, I should.
Needless to say, I animate with a bucket full of water next to me, just-in-case.
This things is uber bright, had to put it in the back since I would eventually go blind if I left it right under the workspace.
Yes, that is the spine from a 3-ring binder. I was going to use it as a pegbar, incase I wanted to start animating bigger, but...I just realized the curvature of the ring will make animations that slowly go up, then down, then up again, etc.
That my friends, is AC power, thanks to the Wizard of Menlo Park.
On/Off switch scrapped from old lightbox. Ventilation holes, -check.
This time though I went a bit bigger, and am using AC power. I came to the conclusion that, for my uses, building a lighbox on batteries was dumb. The portability was awesome, but...alas, useless.
Materials:
Cardboard box
12v output powercord from an old scanner
Big piece of class, 9.5x15.
Soldering Equipment (wire, iron, etc.)
12v halogen lamp
On/off switch
Aluminum!
Spray Glue
Like the previous box, I glued the aluminum to the cardboard so, ideally, the light reflects off of this. This time I had spray glue, so it was easier and less messy.
I cut the hole for the glass to be placed on and lined it with electrical tape for some friction. I also poked ventilation holes since that bulb gets EXTREMELY hot. As for the bulb itself, I placed it this time around away from a cradle and just fixed a stand for it out of electrical tape. I was afraid to place it in an aluminum cradle for fire hazard reasons.
In fact, as soon as I can I'm going to get a real lightbox. This one scares the hell out of me. I'm using a scanner power cord that's pretty old, and not only that, but I made it myself, so I'm not sure how good the soldering was nor if I should have added any resistance to it.
Overall, it does its job, so it'll have to do until I get some funds for a proper lightbox. I never bought one before since I really wasn't animating, but now that I am, I should.
Needless to say, I animate with a bucket full of water next to me, just-in-case.
This things is uber bright, had to put it in the back since I would eventually go blind if I left it right under the workspace.
Yes, that is the spine from a 3-ring binder. I was going to use it as a pegbar, incase I wanted to start animating bigger, but...I just realized the curvature of the ring will make animations that slowly go up, then down, then up again, etc.
That my friends, is AC power, thanks to the Wizard of Menlo Park.
On/Off switch scrapped from old lightbox. Ventilation holes, -check.If anyone knows of any dangers, physically as in, involving physics, do tell. Maybe I can add something? some sort of component?
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Slicing
Last Project for my photoshop class:
Design a homepage for a band using slices. Give the main content at least a 10 second animation. Also create four banners for the band's tour campaign, these must have at least 3 to 4 seconds of animation:
Actual website created in photoshop using slices. Wish I had a host so that if anyone actually read this, could actually go around clicking. My animation is simply a rolling banner at the top with the pictures of the band. Wanted to avoid something too flashy, so I just made a banner at the top. I had originally put in 500 frames to tween, but my computer absolutely refused to process that kind of information. So I just set it to 50 and all was well, just a bit laggy, but for this purpose, it did what it had to do.
The idea with the middle thing is so one could play the music. Dredg is pretty lax about this kind of stuff, so I wouldn't doubt they would allow people to play their music on their site, so I went with that idea. Also wanted to stay true to the vibe of Dredg, if you've never heard their stuff:
http://www.last.fm/music/dredg/_/Bug+Eyes
They have a very rustic, acoustical natural, yet progressive sound about them. I wanted to convey that somehow, so I went with rather earthly tones and got the green off their "Catch Without Arms" album, put in some nice hard edges and classic matte buttons to give it a clean look which I thought exemplified this band.
Everything here was designed by me (obviously), except for the logo and dredg albums. Did the buttons, pattern at the back, as well as the layout, text, etc.
Leaderboard banner, has animation like the rest of these do, but blogger doesn't accept animated gifs, unless you go through a host like photobucket. Incase something happens to my photobucket, I'd like all my info to be here and not get those dreaded "this image has been moved or deleted", so I uploaded final jpeg images.
Medium Rectangle
Rectangle
Wide Skyscraper
Design a homepage for a band using slices. Give the main content at least a 10 second animation. Also create four banners for the band's tour campaign, these must have at least 3 to 4 seconds of animation:
Actual website created in photoshop using slices. Wish I had a host so that if anyone actually read this, could actually go around clicking. My animation is simply a rolling banner at the top with the pictures of the band. Wanted to avoid something too flashy, so I just made a banner at the top. I had originally put in 500 frames to tween, but my computer absolutely refused to process that kind of information. So I just set it to 50 and all was well, just a bit laggy, but for this purpose, it did what it had to do.The idea with the middle thing is so one could play the music. Dredg is pretty lax about this kind of stuff, so I wouldn't doubt they would allow people to play their music on their site, so I went with that idea. Also wanted to stay true to the vibe of Dredg, if you've never heard their stuff:
http://www.last.fm/music/dredg/_/Bug+Eyes
They have a very rustic, acoustical natural, yet progressive sound about them. I wanted to convey that somehow, so I went with rather earthly tones and got the green off their "Catch Without Arms" album, put in some nice hard edges and classic matte buttons to give it a clean look which I thought exemplified this band.
Everything here was designed by me (obviously), except for the logo and dredg albums. Did the buttons, pattern at the back, as well as the layout, text, etc.
Leaderboard banner, has animation like the rest of these do, but blogger doesn't accept animated gifs, unless you go through a host like photobucket. Incase something happens to my photobucket, I'd like all my info to be here and not get those dreaded "this image has been moved or deleted", so I uploaded final jpeg images.
Medium Rectangle
Rectangle
Wide SkyscraperFriday, December 19, 2008
Animation study
Well, since my college doesn't really offer an animation class (what we now have should really be called Maya 1), guess I'll have to do it on my own.
I got the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams coming in from the library which I will buy soon, as well as the Illusion of Life (better late than never) by the late Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. I thought I already had it (Animator's Survival Kit), but...I don't. I do now have a book by Tony White that's pretty good though.
Having some troubles with getting the timing right. Heeding advice from the good people at conceptart.org, think I'm going to look more into dope sheets. I saw them once being used mainly for music and lip syncs, but guess they're used for more than that.
This animation, according to my calculations, runs on 4s, yes fours. Which is why it's sooo laggy. At the time I thought it was ok though, but guess it's not. If I add a velocity envelope or do anything to make the whole thing faster, I mess up the animation, even more severly. So, again, heeding some advice, I need more in betweens as well as getting off the legal pad and onto white paper.
Not too sure about getting on white paper, it's sooo expensive. So is legalpad though. Was considering doing this on flash, aniboom, pencil and those other animation programs, but I want to do traditional and get a feel at how these big companies used to do it.
A fix on this is coming soon, hopefully with this new animation club I'm starting at school, more of these will get done. Also working on buying a recorder to get my own stock sfx, looking for a good and cheap way to record ambient sounds (hot shoe?), as well as the small things. We will see...
Anyway, enjoy?
I got the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams coming in from the library which I will buy soon, as well as the Illusion of Life (better late than never) by the late Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. I thought I already had it (Animator's Survival Kit), but...I don't. I do now have a book by Tony White that's pretty good though.
Having some troubles with getting the timing right. Heeding advice from the good people at conceptart.org, think I'm going to look more into dope sheets. I saw them once being used mainly for music and lip syncs, but guess they're used for more than that.
This animation, according to my calculations, runs on 4s, yes fours. Which is why it's sooo laggy. At the time I thought it was ok though, but guess it's not. If I add a velocity envelope or do anything to make the whole thing faster, I mess up the animation, even more severly. So, again, heeding some advice, I need more in betweens as well as getting off the legal pad and onto white paper.
Not too sure about getting on white paper, it's sooo expensive. So is legalpad though. Was considering doing this on flash, aniboom, pencil and those other animation programs, but I want to do traditional and get a feel at how these big companies used to do it.
A fix on this is coming soon, hopefully with this new animation club I'm starting at school, more of these will get done. Also working on buying a recorder to get my own stock sfx, looking for a good and cheap way to record ambient sounds (hot shoe?), as well as the small things. We will see...
Anyway, enjoy?
Sketchbook Dump
Trying to do a sketch a day with some support from conceptart.org's forums, so...I guess daily updates from now on:
Rendered in photoshop, practicing rendering. For some reason, I get this cob-web effect going afer too much messing around with it. Think I have to be more decisive with my "planes".
My rottie, not done yet, but will probably move on.
Me as a kid, will probably update later.
Feet!
Leaving the illustration stuff for later, need more foundations.
Man, this is sooo bad, added it for shits and giggles. Done, in photoshop, probably my...3rd thing ever done on a wacom.
Painting, must start with the burnt umber first of course.
Painting study
Less abstract renderings
Pencil-fied, such strong muscles!
Never drawn a horse before, so studies are in order.
Rendered in photoshop, practicing rendering. For some reason, I get this cob-web effect going afer too much messing around with it. Think I have to be more decisive with my "planes".
My rottie, not done yet, but will probably move on.
Me as a kid, will probably update later.
Feet!
Leaving the illustration stuff for later, need more foundations.
Man, this is sooo bad, added it for shits and giggles. Done, in photoshop, probably my...3rd thing ever done on a wacom.
Painting, must start with the burnt umber first of course.
Painting study
Less abstract renderings
Pencil-fied, such strong muscles!
Never drawn a horse before, so studies are in order.Sunday, December 14, 2008
Product Design
Argh.Things I have learned from this project:
1.Save constantly
2.When you save, don't overwrite, rename
3.Never save PDF first, then AI
4.Make sure to save before converting anything to a symbol...ANYTHING
5.Quick sketches suck for vectorizing
6.Always lock your reference picture
Needless to say, I'm glad I'm done with this. So many problems even though my layers were all great, (which did not even matter since symbols messed it all up). Oh, and that at the top is supposed to be its engine. I was also thinking of going back and adding gradients to it, to make it look realistic, but thanks to my negligence, I can't without going through repetitive steps that never had to be *not bitter*.
Anyway, assignment:
Vectorize a product of your choosing. Then make a quick sketch of a specific part of the product to zoom in on and vectorize that with a bubble at the top.
That's it for this semester, cataloging is complete. Next semester, Maya!!!
Here's the original pic:
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