Progresion to Class 2 recommended

Okay this should have been posted last Friday, but I was having a break away from the computer.
one last thing I had to do in my last week was to gather all my work and submit as a progress reel.
Although its a cut & paste but It gave me an idea of how much I did improve in the last 3 months.

here's my Class1 progress reel



As for the Class assessment from my mentor:
My last assignment was great, a breakthrough, the personality walk really shines, the CG pose has a nice sense of graphic design,good sketches,the poses are getting stronger,
Great improvement in just one term,
I need to work more on my first assignments, specially the overlap(Tailor), sometimes my animations could be choppy, so I need to work more on the timing, spacing, overlap, and arcs in class 2.

It was a great term, great learning experience, looking forward to start Class 2 on Jan 4th

Assignment 10

The last graded assignment for Class one, I can't believe how fast the class went by...
Here's the "Balance" Pose sketches and 3D pose




And the final personality walk, or the happy walk animation bellow plus some revisions on past assignments

Week 11: In-depth look at the hips

This week lecture is all about the hips, the hips movement, angle and position of the hips vs. balance, how much its important in making our animations more believable.

For the assignment Its to finish the personality walk, polishing and refining. And another pose requested for Stu, this time its to communicate "Balance".

here's some revision on the happy walk, I had to exaggerate it more as most of my fellow students and my mentor noted.

Assignment 9

Personality walk and Exhaustion pose assignment submission

Week 10: Introduction to Walks with character

2 more weeks for class one...
This week lecture was about walks with personality, really nice references and a variety of walks.
Carlos is so funny when acting out the walks, the fact that I myself have to act out some walks for this week assignment...too much stuff to try out and experiment with a walk, playing with age, sex, weight, mood & emotion gives a different personality walk, then comes the challenging part, to exaggerate the walk.

This week animation assignment is on two sessions, this week is blocking the walk cycle in stepped mode. And the other part of the assignment is to create a " EXHAUSTED " pose

So far I started with a happy go lucky walk attached bellow

Week 9:Exaggeration and Weight

This should have been posted last week
As for the lecture It was as interesting as all past lectures so far, they really put an effort in gathering it in such an entertaining way...

It was all about exaggerating poses,weight & timing.
Those are three main factors that add life to your animation, we have to exaggerate but not too much, while copying real life reference to CG, you lose some realism in the process for which we have to exaggerate our animation more than what happens in real life.

And for the assignment we have to continue work on smoothing the vanilla walk, splining the walk. Also we have to sketch another pose for Stu that communicates "CONCERNED"

Here's my final submision

Assignment 7

Here's update on the vanilla walk and the Strength pose

Week 8: Introduction to Walks

Another late blog update,
This week's lecture is about walks, pretty cool stuff...
The video lecture mostly covers basics of walk cycles, Keys, Extremes & Breakdowns,video references on different walks,interesting lecture...as usual
Finally I get to apply what I've read in the Animator's Survival Kit, I've always wanted to do that

This week we unlock a new character "Ballie"
This week animation assignment is a two session assignment. This session I will block out the shot and next session I will complete the animation. Stepped mode for this week.
Add to that another pose for Stu is requested, Strength pose or physical strength

I started with some sketches for Stu's pose and the Vanilla walk blocking
I need to work on the rotation of the hip, and decrease the Ups and downs, too much for a vanilla walk.

Here's assignment 7 work in progress

Assignment 6: Tailor

The tailor assignment so far is the hardest one, I usually submit my assignment on Saturday night and enjoy my Sunday... but I didn't sleep last night to finish this up, and when I thought I was done, I found out that the contact should have been on 2 frames, I tried fixing that but instead got more problems!!! so I had to submit this one.

My eyes got used to the animation and couldn't notice that, until I had a break away from the computer, and another thing that maybe it should have been slower, I'm waiting for my mentor's critique and students feedback to see what they will say about it

Yazan hit me with a critique, my eyes still need more training

Week 7: Arcs and Path of Action

This week's lecture all about Arcs & path of action, very interesting video reference, tips from animators on that topic, and last but not least the common tip to follow your arcs with drawing o your computer screen, with dry/erase markers of course not sharp-e.

Having interesting Arcs can push a Good Animation to a great one.

As for this week's assignment, We have two new characters; Tailor & 1-leg. Its like playing a video game the more you advance in class you unlock new characters.

We have an option to either animate the "1-leg" character doing one single jump, landing, and then coming to a settle, or animate tailor with a minimum of 3 bounces, showcasing the overlapping action of the tail.

Assignment 5

Late updates for last week assignment,
Its been a hectic week at work, have been working since last Tues, and my next day off is this coming Fri... & One of the Night shift Job side effects is "Major Sleeping Disorder...
Here's my last week assignment wip & final submission

Wip


Final

Week 6: Overlapping Action

Alright!! Halfway through the class, & yeah Obama won the elections...

Late post this week, unfortunately no days off at work,& I'm trying to work on my assignment for this week, not that hard one, but still not that much time to put on this one.

For this week's assignment I have to animate a pendulum starting from a stopped position, then have it come to a rest with overlapping action on the pendulum.

here's my first trials, finally I successfully installed the AM menu for maya, really helpful stuff

Assignment 4 Submission

I spent the Halloween night partying with Maya 2008 unlimited, STU, and the bouncing ball.That's the price for working full time and purchasing dream in character animation.

Finally no more maya ple stamps all over the work, I had bought Maya 2008 2 weeks ago, but haven't opened the box so that I can return it and get the 2009, unfortunately there's no perpetual licenses for 2009, which means I have to buy it again after 14 months while the course is 18... So 2008 will do.

Here's my week 5 assignment last updates, now waiting for todays new lecture and assignment.

Assignment 4 WIP

The Sketches















Half way through class1, I wish I was a full time student, there's so much to learn!!!
So far I'm doing fine...
The devastation pose needs more tweaking and I'm not sure if this one will make it to the final submission.
I myself like pose 7 & 1 , no reference for my sketches, mmm Its hard to have a pure devastation pose. I think its associated with either anger or exhaustion...most of the time

Also there's my planning for the ball animation. I haven't tried if it works yet, I only started with a couple of keys.
more updates soon

Week 5: Anticipation and Squash and Stretch

WOW!!! Week 5 already!

This week's lecture is about Anticipation, Squash & Stretch one of the most basic and important foundations in animation, I'm just about to watch the lecture presented by Shawn Kelly...

As for this week assignment, we have to animate a bouncing ball going through an Obstacle Course. And to mainly use the principle of Squash and Stretch as the ball moves through the obstacle course. The weight of the ball as it bounces should maintain the timing of a basketball/soccer ball as it moves through the Obstacle Course, and then come to a stop.

That is the animation part, but still we have to doo a series of thumbnail drawings showing planning process for your Obstacle Course assignment. Also to sketch different methods of a human character communicating DEVASTATION. Finally to create a single 3D pose with Stu that communicates devastation.

And Here's the final submission of Assignment 3,

Assignment 3 WIP

Test 1


Test 2




Here's the second bouncing balls assignment, one light ball and a heavy ball
and I also attached the graph editor curves.

light ball
heavy ball
I just keep tweaking and tweaking with the curves, maybe in the end I'll have a perfect bounce
Bonq.....Bonq....Bonq...

Week 4: Intro to Timing

Alright, Week 3 is over... Another lecture & another assignment.

As for the lecture Its mostly about Timing and Spacing, basically what animation is all about.
Although it seems an easy task to animate a bouncing ball, but believe me Its not as easy as it looks...
Timing and spacing is crucial here, and one mistake turns all your efforts to a bad looking animation. Maybe not bad but not as good as it should be.

here's the bouncing ball assignment that I submitted yesterday



I had some comments about the animation from the AM community, mistakes which I didn't notice before, and I'm working on it to submit with the next assignment revision section.
I have to fix issues in the ease ins & outs, ball rotation at the end... A couple of tweaks in the graph editor.

As for the new assignment, there's no pose for Stu this week, we're going to concentrate on the bouncing ball, this time weight will play a big role in the animation. We have to animate both a light ball (soccer, beach ball) and a heavy ball (bowling, cannon ball) that bounce then come to a stop in the same shot. Plus the thumbnail drawings showing the planning process for the assignment.

Assignment 2 WIP

Here's the first Excited STU Pose, I'm still working on other excitement pose, and right now I'm redoing the bouncing ball. Feedback from my mentor, Yazan, and more AM student comments on my workspace, I realized what I need to fix.

Bouncing Ball Animation WIP

Here's my first Bouncing ball, I need to add some rotation

Week 3: Planning & Blocking Methods - Assignment 2 WIP

For Stu's excitement pose I have to pick one of the sketches, and I might pick one of 22-24.




As for animating a bouncing ball, I took a video shoot reference for a soccer ball bouncing on hard surface floor, Analyzed the movement of the ball and marked down the main contacts/extremes in relationship with time in frames.