I finally decided to go for 3dsmax again for this assignment. Here is my blocking in spline mode so far.

Blog dear blog, sorry for not updating you more often but Animation didn’t go very well lately and I just came back from holidays.

In brief, new mentor: Michelle Meeker (check IMBD). She looks really cool and seem to be a very hands on mentor so this term should kick some butts 😉

Here is my video ref for the new assignment (Gear change)

3am. My mobile phone starts ringing. What was the reason I set up the alarm so early? A guess, just a guess, the guess that we would have a special guest tonight for the 10th session of the frame grabbers.

Missing the one with Victor Navone told me that if on monday morning you receive some thumbnails with the regular videos then it is very likely that the author of them will be discussing the shot with us and if you receive Chicken Little preparation thumbnails then there is a great chance that you are gonna be talking with some freaking awesome animator!!!!!

Bang on! A 3am wake up is really a tough thing especially when you are helping your girlfriend Alicia moving house but I was really curious and I can say it was reallyyyyyyyy worth it!!!

Ladies and gentleman! clay kaytis

You see Animation Podcast? Well the same guy was tonight discussing his shot for the 10th session of the Framegrabbers. Clay happens to be a 2d guy who jumped in the 3d band wagon just like Disney animation supervisor Jason Ryan and Pixar Michael Wong senior animator and to me the 2d guys are just the most inspiring animators on earth.

From the Animation Podcast you can probably realise how much the guy wants to share animation knowledge and at school I was so gratefull to him for giving me an answer that probably took him about 3 hours to write.

Important moments of the Meeting:
45 mins -> about Graph editor
1h05 mins -> about Workflow.

Clay hung out with us for the rest of the session and gave us his view on the second video. “Sylvester Unbalanced” from ‘Gift Wrapped’

I had to go to bed soon after and will check the rest of the framegrabers offline tomorrow or the day after. The third video is from Madagascar, animated probably by PDI Jason Shleifer or my ex mentor Cassidy Curtis: “It’s Friday” from ‘Madagascar’

Olive

Bobby “Boom” Beck was in Paris on monday, too bad I couldn’t make it.

Here is a pic of the French AM team

Ok this is the WIP for this week’s assignment. This pass is only with the copy pairs for feet and hands and I have refined the throw on ones from frame 154 to 180. All the rest is straight from step mode to linear.

Next pass I will add the ball, make sure the hands are looked after (probably a polish pass), check the orientation of the head, do a copy pair on the spine and add more breakdowns.

Here is my new assignment for last week.

This week is second pass of blocking, week after refining, and the one after is final with polishing.

I spent a lot of time on this assignment already but only a bit is showing on the blocking since I have redone it completly. To be honest I have never felt so lost, how much should we put in the blocking? What do you do to avoid rotoscoping?
Hopefully this will be cleared when Robert comments my work.

I am gonna do this assignment in 3dsmax because I haven’t used it for a long time and never for character animation before. I usually claim that Max is a very decent 3d software so I have decided to put money where my mouth is this time. Will I burn my fingers? So far so good except that the rig is a bit different from the AM one. Here I have to animate the pole vector for knees and elbows.

Here is the amazing planning of my friend’s Maciek for his next assignment.

The level of detail he puts on his planning can make you realise how much work is necessary before you actually get to start working in your 3d application. Animation is 50% planning and 50% animating.

Here is the news. Framestore|CFC feature animation is already hiring…. Couldn’t be a worse timing ever. I could always apply for a layout position though!

I just downloaded LowMax rig from my friend Peter Starostin’s website. And really wonder why I bothered so much to learn Maya when Max has already all the tools built in to do animation! No need of any mel script, it is built in.

To track your arcs in Max this is how you do it:

Right click on what you want to track and click trajectory, can it be any simpler? And it is rock solid and doesn’t slow down your computer AT ALL!!!

Ok this is the first time I am gonna use Max to try to do “feature quality” animation work and I have never done it before. Whish me luck! Maybe that I will go back to Maya, maybe not.

I am very very excited and if I succeed I will finally be able to add props, textures and get a great rendering in no time.

Olive

Thanks Peter your rig rocks!

Tonight we had a talk with Philip Hunt from StudioAKA regarding the work of their studio and mainly about how Pitches are handled in London for commercial work. I love StudioAKA work, it is so eclectic, so quirky, so character design led. SO AMAZING!!!! 😉

Have you seen their latest National lottery commercial?

I had thousands of question but only managed to ask one regarding the eternal: all rounder against specialist 3d artist. I didn’t really get his answer to be honest 😉 the only thing that I remember is that he said people should focus on the audience. Sooo… should we be story tellers then? I guess that’s what he meant but can you tell stories by just being a rigger, can you?

My new assignment is about telling a story through an animation though, no lighting or texturing will be involved. I hope that’s what he meant. Being an all rounder to me those days is not possible anymore, 3d packages are getting sooooo complicated. One thing for sure is that I will never be involved in particules effect. Never say never 😉

Time for a quick snack and let’s start my blocking I have to quickly make a decision and decided if I am gonna use Maya this time or 3dsmax, I have to admit that I had enough with Maya. The software is so counter-intuitive that it is not a tool anymore, it has become a burden! With the 6 month experience I have had with it, that should be enough to get me a job requiring Maya now. Provided I have the animation skills though.

Olive