Animation with a moustache

The animation with a .... je ne sais quoi!

Author: Olivier Ladeuix

Things change, new opportunities arise 4

Education / Miscellaneous

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Things change, new opportunities arise

I was reading some articles this morning and realised few things.

Five years ago, a successful game career involved joining a big corporation like Microsoft, EA, Sony.
Five years ago 2d animation was dead.

With the current recession, gaining full time employment at a major studio is pretty unlikely nowadays. At best, most of them prefer to stick with contract workers as the market doesn’t allow a long term strategy at the moment but on the other hand, thousands of independent game developers are producing XBLA and smartphones games and applications, creating hundreds of jobs for senior and even fresh graduates in the field of, 2d animation, UI and concept art.

As recalled in that ex Rare employees interview, if it wasn’t possible to make games for less than $10 millions and a team of 70 and upwards in the past, things have changed. Even the tools are now available and affordable making it possible for anyone to make their own independent games. What an exciting time!

Most of those companies will soon grow to become the next leaders or get bought by the former ones hoping to get their glory back.

Not all big corporations are taking the back seat though, Microsoft with XBLA was probably the first one to create an independent game developer ecosystem and empower creative artists and programmers. Without XBLA, Behemoth’s “Castle Crashers” would have probably never known the success it received. How many people had heard of Alien Hominid before Castle Crashers?

An other thing I wanted to mention today is a very interesting move by Valve and Jagex. With the release of Team Fortress 2 for free to the public, I was wondering how the company could still pay for their servers but their strategy seems to be paying off as they recently announced a hefty profit for items creators.

But what is in for the very independent artist?

Well check out this article featuring legendary Bay Raitt. Ok there is nothing groundbreaking like his work on Gollum but one sentence at the very end of the article raised my interest for Team Fortress 2.

Making of a Skull hat.

“If this was a community-made item, the money from item sales would get split between Valve and the item maker!”

As much as I love the art style I don’t have time to play the game. Creating items for it could however become a source of revenue for the most successful artists. Imagine if your item became viral as Bay’s hat probably became?

Unemployed 3d artist? Make CG hats! 😉

Interesting read:
This is what the Transformers MMO will look like
Why the Next Game From Braid’s Creator is Skipping Consoles the comments are funny as usual
Steam Workshop

Related posts:
Jason Schleifer interview – Speaking of Animation

“Paper fox” 0

Animation

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“Paper fox”

Paper fox

Check out that cool project from one of my australian subscribers, Jeremy Kool. Jeremy is looking for funding for “Paper fox”, an interactive short film with a very non CG look.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/28337832[/vimeo]

You can also follow “Paper fox” on Jeremy’s blog

http://thepaperfox.blogspot.com/

This is looking really nice. There has been several project in that style lately but I can’t get enough of it.

Also check out that fun TV show teaser that emerged on the internet half a year ago. A really nice show in a similar origami/cut out style with a pop-out twist: “Quick Quack Duck”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voc_qlaFyMA[/youtube]

“This is what you need”, blocking 2

Animation / Education

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“This is what you need”, blocking

Here is the blocking for my “This is what you need” shot. I also shot some new video reference footage for Anakin as the previous video wasn’t very strong or interesting.

I am incorporating Blender more and more to my workflow as it has some amazing tools really suited to the Animation pipeline. Here I am able to write some notes on the video reference to single out some elements of interest. Other people like Jeff Gabor would edit their video reference in Premiere but I find it simpler and cheaper to use the Grease Pencil keys in Blender’s Dope Sheet editor.

New video reference, no sound (yep I am a cartoon but you knew that already):

Blocking:

The box at the beginning is a placeholder for the boxed Darth Vader outfit. I might add 12 frames at the very beginning it just so the first cut doesn’t come so early. I ran out of time and didn’t manage to fully flesh out Anakin or even the facial poses but with the help of the video reference, I think we know exactly what I am aiming for.

Related posts:
“This is what you need”, planning
“This is what you need’, gathering references
Blender
Jeff Gabor webcast recording online

Sergio Pablos – Frame by frame interview 1

Animation

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Sergio Pablos – Frame by frame interview

Christian Dan Bejarano from the great “Arte y Animacion” blog just informed me about a recent 11 minutes interview they recorded with Sergio Pablos.

It is a very refreshing interview where Sergio explains what triggered his leaving from Disney. He talks about how animation is perceived in Spain vs the USA and how much of a challenge it can be to set up your own studio but as long as you take action, show persistence and learn from your mistakes, you should be able to reach your goals and Sergio Pablos with his involvement in Despicable Me, Titeuf, Rio and other secret projects is definitely proving this.

He also mentions the kind of movies he would really like to make, using the Iron Giant and Ratatouille as examples, but explains that comedies are probably the easiest stories to market and sell. The failure of the beautiful Framestore feature “The Tales of Despereaux” could prove him right actually.

Right, go on, why don’t you listen to the full interview now? It is only 11 minutes but it is packed with great insights by a guy who has been involved with many of the recent successes of the past several years from Tarzan, to Rio…

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/30124469[/vimeo]

While we are at it, here is a link to a previous interview with Sergio Pablos on the Character Design Blogspot http://sergio-pablos-interview.blogspot.com/

Hables espanol? I do!

If some of you also speak spanish, you are in for a treat. Arte y animacion also recorded some podcasts with other talented spaniards currently officiating at Disney and Dreamworks, here are few links for you:

Abraham Meneu modelador en Dreamworks

Daniel Peixe Disney Animator. Daniel is also tutoring at AnimatedBuzz by the way. The website seems to be in shambles right now but here is the link anyway http://www.animatedbuzz.com/

Espanoles en Blue Sky

via: Arte y animacion

Related post:
Pocoyo creator interview
Jeff Gabor webcast recording is online

Take – video reference 2

Acting / Animation / Education / Reference

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Take – video reference

While doing some research for my Character Design workshop I found that great acting moment in the Hammer’s 1960 adaptation of the 1886 Scottish novel where Dr Jekyll’s doctor friend start realising that the character standing before him is none other than his dear fellow.

Ideally we want to find real life references but those are really difficult to find and we usually don’t have a video camera rolling when we experience those moments so that sequence could be a great one to refer to when animating “takes” or when we try to conveying thought process.

Pay attention to how he relaxes the muscles around the eyes when in shock then contracts them with a subtle shift of the head as if to get closer and focus. Also notice the really interesting things he does with his lips, 10 then 12 seconds into it.

Hit the link for a quicktime version as usual and find the full movie below. It is an interesting take on the original story and it features the great Christoper Lee as the doctor’s wife lover. The featured sequence takes place around 1h26 into the movie.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mkemP1TuCw[/youtube]

“This is what you need”, planning 2

Acting / Animation / Education

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“This is what you need”, planning

Here is the follow up to my planning with two animatics and a composited full body video references. This is a quick post as I am pretty tired from a freezing sunday sketchcrawl.

Thumbnails and video references come hand in hand during my planning, I don’t shoot video references without trying out some thumbnails first but I might also go back to my thumbnails after shooting my references.

It is very likely that the acting will call for a specific framing but I also need to think about overall motion/choreography as I want to use the visual space to its full potential but also the set and the props as much as possible to create a specific performance and avoid clichés gesture or twinning. This is what thumbnails allow me to do.

I would actually recommend reading Nick Bruno’s excellent “How I approach my shot” blog post.
http://nickytwoshots.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-i-approach-my-shot.html

A great mistake with that kind of shot would be to have both characters standing up and gesturing for the entire shot as this would have created a really boring performance. I then remembered “Brazil”, a great shot by Jeffrey Engel where the speaker walks past behind the second character and decided to incorporate that. This is something I had seen in Ratatouille a while back and always wanted to use in my work.

I ran out of ideas for the end of the shot then realized that I could just cut to a close up with an over the shoulder shot.

In the video you will also see that I wasn’t too sure what to do with the second guy then decided that he would have his cap on at the beginning of the shot then take it down after Palpatine points at it when saying “hard work” and “disco Santa Claus” as to show that Anaking his ashamed of his situation.

One sequence that might not be clear in the video ref is when Palpatine lifts Anakin and straighten him up on “you need charisma” but the blocking will show that a bit better.

Alright, here are the different elements of my planning, the second animatic was a test to see how the shot would play out with Palpatine being on the other side and ending up leaning on the box. As you can see, I am still pretty unsure about the framing of the first shots, wide shots or medium shots? we will see in blocking.

Related posts:
This is what you need, gathering references

“This is what you need”, gathering references 12

Animation / Education

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“This is what you need”, gathering references

As I was saying yesterday, I have started working on a new shot based on Stars Wars Episode 03 – Revenge of the Sith but I am treating one of the major turning point of the series with a twist. Here is my version of the story, Star Wars fan boys don’t hate me 😉

“Anakin Skywalker left Tatooine years ago and is a college drop out who currently works part time as a Costco business delivery boy to fund a life which is not leading anywhere as he is very remotely interested in pursuing any professional career.

The Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is a very driven man who fuels his very busy schedule and around the clock meetings by drinking Diet Moutain Dew instead of coffee. Coffee upsets his stomach but the kick provided by Mountain Dew and its sweet taste without the sugar intake seem to work wonder for the health-conscious Chancellor and his office has become such a regular delivery address for the young Anakin Skywalker that Palpatine and him have become very good friends. The Emperor has become a bit of a confident and a father figure but Palpatine is getting increasingly tired of Anakin wasting his life and he has today decided to help him out to get a job and is trying to convince the young man to work for him….”

I need to clarify that I am not addicted to Diet Mountain Dew and I would probably recommend not to drink any Diet sodas or eat anything containing aspartame. Eat five fruits a day instead and drink a large glass of fresh water instead of coffee everytime you crave for caffeine, unless you live next to Philz 😉

Right, back to the shot, make sure you check my previous post in the first place just to situate the sequence in the movie. Here are my references and customisations I applied to the Animation Mentor rig Bishop to sell the story better. I am still missing the Darth Vader outfit but this is not the priority for now. it will come at a later time.

Now what about the audio clip you may wonder, well, once again, I found a great clip in a very unlikely movie which I will not reveal for now. As soon as I heard the clip I immediately saw it as a worthy contender as it contains humour without being 11 seconds club funny and the sound and music in the background contribute to create an ambiance and make it very dramatic. A very cinematographic audio clip for which I could immediately picture the facial expressions of the character.

I then started thinking about a situation that could work with the context and make the clip even more funny and came up with the story above.

I will post my layout and acting ideas in few days once I have those worked out. Here is the audio clip with the facial expressions I came up with in the meantime. The audio is slightly offsync but the acting should be clear enough. Don’t make fun of me I know I am a cartoon 😉

Related post:
Emotional beats, Star Wars Episode 03

Emotional beats – Star Wars Episode 03 4

Acting / Animation / Education

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Emotional beats – Star Wars Episode 03

When looking for great acting I usually refer to boring and austere black and white or pre-1970s movies but once in a while I am amazed to find great performances in contemporary blockbusters or mainstream shows. The “Lost” TV series being my first source of reference at the moment but more on this later.

I am currently working on a shot involving two characters and a story plot based on Star Wars Episode 03 and while looking at the original movie and a specific scene with the Senator Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker, I was amazed at the performance of Scottish actor/theatre director Ian Mc Diarmid. To be fair, a movie featuring a 60+ years old stage trained shakespearean actor is very likely to present some exceptional acting moments. Everything from his body posture to his face and voice are outstanding. Loot at that subtle hand shake on the wider dramatic shot. Hayden Christensen’s acting seems cartoony and, as my friend Richie would say, almost grotesque in comparison 😉

Here is the full keyframable quicktime video sequence between the sly Palpatine and candide Anakin followed by a series of screenshots to highlight the key moments of that very impressive performance where he reaches his goal after a series of tactical advances in the manner of a chess player.

Even without the audio you would be able to witness his emotional beats and get a good feel for his manipulative strategies, shifting between parental, authoritarian, cynical and sheepish attitude. What a little snake! 😉

Notice how much a head rotation, squeezing of the eye lids, contraction of the nasal muscles can affect the expression. It is amazing how much he is able to communicate within the same body posture.

You can also pay attention to the asymmetry of his mouth in 4b and 4c and finish with a good look at that priceless fake smile on 9c that can only be detected by the fact that the eyes muscles don’t get involved in the upward motion.

I would highly suggest you to check out the HD version at the following address:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSy7nvRZ1E8&t=1m08s[/youtube]

I think this could be a nice add-on to the Jeff Gabor interview I featured few days ago. If you don’t have outstanding drawing abilities, there is no way you could work out and plan a similar animated scene in sketches and thumbnails. Using edited video references seems like the best option for subtle acting shots.

Moonshine 2

Drawings

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Moonshine

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/29200097[/vimeo]

DreamWorks first personal art publication, Moonshine, was conceived as an opportunity to highlight the breath of artistic development talent at Dreamworks.

This short documentary gives you a sneak peek into the personal works from the artists.

via Paperwalker

While we are at it, here are some of my latest sketches and a picture of my AnimC classmates hard at work on the Berkeley campus.



Josh Carey, VES rigging submission 7

Animation / Education

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Josh Carey, VES rigging submission

Check this out! ReelFX rigging supervisor Josh Carey (nothing to do with my buddy Dan Carey except that they probably share the same good look) just posted his VES submission showcasing his AWESOME work on the Looney Tunes shortfilms.

I haven’t worked with the rigs so I don’t know how slow they are but they sure give the animators a lot control to achieve that crazy Warner Brother look.

It is finally possible to emulate the 2d cartoony look in CG and this will certainly push the medium to a new level leaving motion capture way behind or at least separating the two in a very dramatic manner.

Josh Carey is also the co-founder of rigging educational forum Rigging Dojo and seeing the tools he provided the animators with I immediately subscribed to their newsletter.

Rigging Dojo

Related posts:
ReelFX Looney Tunes shorts online
Ray Chase showreel