Animation with a moustache

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

Author: Olivier Ladeuix

Josh Burton’s Morphy rig 3

Animation / Education

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Josh Burton’s Morphy rig

Animation Mentor students got a very sweet surprise this summer with the release of Bishop 2.0 but if you are not part of those privileged animators don’t despair! Squirrely Rig’s creator, Josh Burton, is working on a very very promising character, Morphy, Josh Burton’s morpheus rig.

If you have never heard about it, let me embed some very impressive videos that will certainly make your mouth salivate!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14077119[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14165154[/vimeo]

This is seriously impressive I must say and it is amazing how much the rigs keeps its appeal despite the crazy amount of transformation.

I did a very quick test as a tribute to my friends who just wrapped Megamind and I am very pleased with what I was able to achieve in only few minutes.

Great job Josh!


Related post:
Animation Mentor 2010 showcase

World orient Head and shoulders 7

Animation / Education

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World orient Head and shoulders

Nope, that’s not an advert for cosmetics, I just wanted to draw people to two great rig features I can’t live without nowadays: World orient Head and shoulders.

To tell you everything, I also use a complete world orient spine but I will post about this an other time.

In the past I didn’t mind spending countless hours redoing my animation while in polish or even counter-animating things but after few years of production experience, I have adopted some new workflows that are necessary in that type of environments.

Being able to layer finer levels of polish on every part of the body (spine included) at a very late stage, without destroying a head or arm motion is such a helper.

Word orient attributes (Align on the abAutorig) have now become my best friends and if you still don’t know what they are, let me show you an example using Norman

The good thing about that feature is that the curves always make sense in my graph editor. Everything is completely independent from any hierarchy.


With Josh Burton’s Morpheus rig, you would need to set the m_neck_IK__anim parent attribute to m_neck_FK_Cntrl and Follow to all_anim

 

 

Related posts:

World space head
Megamind third trailer 0

Animation

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Megamind third trailer

so Metroman wasn’t dead? ohhhhh, Dreamworks is playing with us!!! 😉

The new Megamind trailer just came out and looking really sweet!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOGoyNEIJQw[/youtube]

Michael the Turtle 2

Animation

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Michael the Turtle

Before I got into the industry, I was religiously attending every single Autodesk roadshow and in 2006, got to see “Michael the Turtle”, a highly paced music video by french commercial studio “Chez Eddy”, featuring a wacky cartoony turtle, animated in a very Warner brother kind of way, few years before Chicken Little and Madagascar hit the cinemas.

I had been trying to find that video for a long time and eventually found it today on the ….. on the “Chez Eddy” website 😉

The animation might be a bit too much for some but I still love the character and set design, lighting, compositing and the broad animation style. Here it is!

Related post:
Kaelou

abAutorig part I Pyro tutorial 16

Animation / Education

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abAutorig part I Pyro tutorial

If some of you are still struggling to use Supercrumbly’s awesome abAutorig auto-rigging script, or have no clue on how to rig/skin, here is something for you!

The video is real time and has now, me, commenting on the different steps involved. If you double click on the video this will sent you to Vimeo where you can save the Quicktime file in HD!

Let me know what you think!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14722424[/vimeo]






Related post:
abAutorig Part II and III, Pyro tutorial

Animation Mentor 2010 showcase 0

Animation / Animation Mentor / Friends

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Animation Mentor 2010 showcase

Well it’s out! Some really really nice work from my fellow graduates and ex coworkers.

http://www.animationmentor.com/showcase2010/

Some of them have already landed top animation jobs and others will very soon.

And while we are at it, let me introduce you Bishop 2.0, the latest version of my favourite Animation Mentor rig. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet but this looks very promising and I have to mention that my friend the awesome Keith Ribbons helped out with the facial rigging.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WT7_F5wsQk[/youtube]

Related post:
Dan Carey “Shower Power” short film

Kaeloo 5

Animation

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Kaeloo

Few years ago, Supinfocom alumni and “Making of” french co-director, Rémy Chapotot, released the trailer for a crazy cartoony TV series produced by Cube Creative, Kaelou.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/12422185[/vimeo]

It took a bit of time but the 52×7 TV series finally got produced between french Blue Spirit and Belgium Sinematik and the series finally aired on french cable TV this summer. I tried to get on board last year but they were already fully staffed and my experience with Character Studio was way too limited.  (it is rendered in Vray by the way)

Here are few short videos that are getting me really excited and upset I didn’t work on it 😉

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/11648356[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/14002633[/vimeo]

a bit more reading and behind the scenes here:

http://www.qualia-international.com/works/animation/kaelou/index.html

Looking at the links he is featuring on his blog I understand immediately why his work looks so appealing to me, I have the same influences!

http://remichapotot.blogspot.com/

And here the Vimeo version of his graduate shortfilm
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/12994244[/vimeo]

abAutorig Part II and III, Pyro tutorial 6

Education

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abAutorig Part II and III, Pyro tutorial

[I am adding part 1 in here to centralize the 3 parts]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14722424[/vimeo]

This is Part II, IIIa and IIIb.

Tutorial Part II
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14514357[/vimeo]
Part IIIa
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14524954[/vimeo]

Part IIIb
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14896996[/vimeo]

Related posts:
abAutorig Part I, Pyro tutorial
abAutorig overview, how to create a rig in 5 minutes
Autorig tutorial preparation work III

Composition 101 0

Animation / Education

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Composition 101

In the next few days I will be adding some content to that post but in the meantime, check out those two great illustrations on how to direct your audience and compose your “pictures” for a better readability.

Disney/Pixar - Cars

Disney/Pixar - Cars

Disney/Pixar - Incredibles

Disney/Pixar - Incredibles

iAnimate, Jason Ryan interview 4

Animation

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iAnimate, Jason Ryan interview

A school were all the teachers are full time animators working at Dreamworks. Live instructor critique. Sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it?

Speaking of Animation just posted an interview with iAnimate creator Jason Ryan.

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/08/podcast-jason-ryan/

If I were to study animation nowadays, I wouldn’t know where to go! It will take a long time before iAnimate’s community reaches Animation Mentor’s size but the facts that all the mentors come from one of the top feature animation studio and are all still employed is definitely a big plus. Also, people with experience can already start in the advance classes without having to start from the very basics.

Rig wise, I am not keen on the Boris rig at all but I have heard that a top rigger would provide iAnimate with a much more interesting one and it is also possible to use a rig like Norman.

Related posts:
Stretchy rig or broken bishop
The downfall of traditional animation
Who is Jason Ryan?