Animation with a moustache

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

Category: Education

Animschool interview Josh Carey 0

Animation / Education

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Animschool interview Josh Carey

If you want to know a little bit more about those crazy cartoony Looney Tunes short films Reel FX has been producing since last year, head out to the AnimSchool blog!

They just interviewed Reel FX Rigging Department supervisor Josh Carey and the article is pretty informative regarding their pipeline and the kind of R&D they do. I had never imagined anyone would create a “data mining” tool to evaluate controls usage and I think it is a great idea for a TD to see which ones are the most used.

There are also so useful tips for aspiring TD so check it out!

AnimSchool interview Josh Carey

Related posts:
Daffy’s Rhapsody
Josh Carey, VES rigging submission
ReelFX Looney Tunes theatrical shorts online
Ray Chase showreel

A day in the production of La Luna 0

Animation / Education

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A day in the production of La Luna


Pixar’s story artist Enrico Cassarosa wrote a nice series of article where we follow him for a day, during the production of his short film “La Luna”.

One thing that surprised me was to see Mudbox being used at Pixar. I thought they were still using that stylus and digital arm we have seen in the past but it looks like they have now fully embraced digital modeling and chosen a tool that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. No Zbrush nonsense here. I wonder if they also use 3d coat or Topogun.

The series of articles starts from the following post and you can access the next ones by clicking on the link above the posts to the right, “9am off to work” being next.

A day in the production of La Luna

While we are at it, you can also have a look at that nice 30 minutes interview with Enrico

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olxTcA18lXo#![/youtube]

Related post:
Enrico Cassarosa

Food for thoughts 5

Animation / Education

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Food for thoughts

Doing some research for my shortfilm, I went through the first twenty of the 49 Wile E Coyote and Road Runner short films and it saddens me to say….. I didn’t break one laugh.

The worst is that those were all directed by animation legend Chuck Jones, a man that is wildly accepted as one of the funniest men in the animation industry.

Despite the great Carl Stalling soundtrack, gorgeous stylized Maurice Noble backgrounds, the crazy animation, brush work and comedic timing, nothing helped. I might have smiled few times to how Chuck Jones played with our expectation on the final gag but I didn’t find anything worthy of a laugh.

The Wile E. Coyote series came out at the end of the 1950s and was probably really funny at that time but I feel that the humor didn’t age well.

Would this be due to the fact that, he … invented it all? So many variations have been seen for the past 50 years that maybe we have now become desensitized to the original material?

If you want to do the same test you are in luck, Youtube user CoyoteAndRoadRunner uploaded pretty much all the shortfilms, by chronological order, to his channel .

While watching the shorts, one thing struck me…. For some reasons, Youtube kept suggesting the viewing of a series of candid/hidden camera gags and I eventually did.

Man, I didn’t expect what would follow.

After only watching one video, I was in stitches.

“Just for Laughs Gags” is an hilarious Canadian secret camera show using all the comedic elements of cartoony pantomime. The gags are beautifully set up, staged and acted by a cast of very likable characters. Even with the inevitable “background laughs” muted, it is impossible to resist laughing hysterically.

For comparison, here is a selection of Chuck Jones directed “Wile E. Coyote” short films followed by “Just for laughs gags”. See what you respond the most to. Maybe you will differ from me but if not, we need to rethink what constitutes comedy in animation.

Coyote and RoadRunner – Gee Whiz-z-z-z (05.05.1956)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_xJmvk9utA[/youtube]

Coyote and RoadRunner – Chariots of Fur (21.12.1994)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0nrLIcdOdE[/youtube]

Infinite Ice Cream
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsGplFM6Ue4[/youtube]

Honking At Hookers
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEos0ej9CEY[/youtube]

Worker Stuck In Ceiling
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdlaZQyVxxM[/youtube]

Mall metal detector
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-pPusCToyY[/youtube]

Stretcher In Water Prank
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX6SLDCIJzA[/youtube]

Related posts:
Reel FX Looney Tunes shorts online
Josh Carey VFS rigging submission

3d Modeling portfolio 4

Education / Modeling / Portfolio

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3d Modeling portfolio

Since animation work is pretty scarce at the moment I have decided to put all my modeling work together just so I can apply to 3d modeling positions.

Those are props for a long overdue short film, personal work, professional work and character design studies. The work was done in Maya 2009 for the most recent pieces, 3ds Max 5 for the rest.

The Pixar related models are obviously fan art as I have never worked on Ratatouille or Brave. I only did those to get a better understanding of Pixar’s character designs, wireframe edge flow and rigging (articulations).

During a recent visit to French sculptor Bourdelle’s museum in Paris, I was reminded it is how the best artists learnt their art, by copying the masters. Michaelangelo was a great source of inspiration for Bourdelle, Daniel Lopez Munoz is mine.

Download the PDF version if you prefer Olivier_Ladeuix_modeling_2011.pdf or click the pictures below to zoom in.

You will probably find a timelapse video for most pieces in the “Related Posts” section at the end of the post and I would suggest their viewing to anyone wanting to learn about CG modeling and clean edge flow or just to see wireframes.

MacIntosh_v02

Related posts:
Low polygon modeling
Fredericksen house part 02
Long chair modeling timelapse

Ken Fountain “Attitudes and Acting Beats” 2

Acting / Education / Friends

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Ken Fountain “Attitudes and Acting Beats”

Ken Fountain just released “Attitudes and Acting Beats”, a new video tutorial at the incredible price of $10.99.

Judging by the official blurb and teaser, that one is probably more about acting and motion analysis so it should appeal to everyone from beginners to professionals.

If you want to become a good animator, do no hesitate to buy that tutorial. At $10.99, don’t come up with silly ideas and tell me you can’t afford it! Ken Fountain worked on many movies at Dreamworks, graduated from Animation Mentor and is a current teacher at Ianimate so you are getting way more than a 90 minutes video.

I haven’t seen the tutorial yet but seeing all the effort he put into the last one, that one is a must buy.

Here are the official blurb and teaser:

The new video is officially released! Whew. My intent was to be able to focus on some of the specific areas of my process that people had asked me to elaborate on, and hopefully introduce some new ideas as well. So, in that light, this 90-minutes of lecture/demo is devoted entirely to the planning, video analysis and blocking processes, and the tools and concepts I use to execute these phases with consistency, clarity, and hopefully emotional appeal.

This video is heavy on analysis. I get very specific regarding the structures I use to breakdown a performance and turn it in to pose-able emotional moments; like text, context and subtext, a structure I use to really understand my character and their circumstance; and the pillars of my workflow – attitudes, beats and textures – to create the right body language and interesting rhythms I need to engage my audience. I also take the opportunity to go deeper in to the concept of character centers and how that can greatly effect you character’s movement as well as the graphic quality of your shot’s staging. And, as usual, you can watch my approach to staging and posing for a specific shot; one that I will carry through to the next two videos.

Thanks again for all of your input. I hope to be able to address it all over this 3-part series. And keep them relatively affordable (only $10.99!).

Buy it on the JRAwebinar website http://jrawebinar.com/index.php/store.html
and follow Ken Fountain Splatfrog studio on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/splatfrog
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/34578067[/vimeo]

Ianimate 2011 showreel 1

Animation / Education

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Ianimate 2011 showreel

I know I am very late with this but hey, I was really busy for the past few month you know and I still haven’t posted any pictures from CTN 2011! 😉

Ianimate just released their first showreel. Some really nice work is being done there but what else would you expect from a school taught exclusively by Dreamworks animators! If I had to restart my animation schooling I wouldn’t know where to go between all the great schools available those days!

Big up to my AM fellow graduates Joost, Dave and Roberto for making it into the showreel. I recognized a lot of other familiar names!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32697046[/vimeo]

Kyle Balda, walk cycle in10 minutes 0

Education

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Kyle Balda, walk cycle in10 minutes

I am not a fan of walks “on the spot” and in games I never had to make one but Kyle Balda’s workflow seems really effective. No step blocking here, he starts immediately in spline, which technique I am finding, a lot of very fast feature animator tend to favor. Rob Thompson gave us a similar demo at the Animation Collaborative and Rob was originally a 2d animator.

In the following video, Kyle Balda creates a basic walk cycle in 30 minutes! It is good to see how he handles the peel of the heel and the math expressions he uses in the graph editor. I didn’t know the ones he applies in the video but one I use extensively to troubleshoot gimbal locks is the +=360 or -=360

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9N_sIBRWvY[/youtube]

Related post:
Weight shift

Scarecrow model packet 5

Character design / Drawings / Education / Painting / Portfolio

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Scarecrow model packet

Today we had one more amazing Animation Collaborative Character Design class.

This time, Albert and Chris brought Jason Deamer to give us a talk on Model Packeting. According to Al and Chris, Jason is the best artist for that kind of work at Pixar. Jason shared with us some of his Model sheets from Finding Nemo and we also saw some more from Up and the character Muntz in particular.

Here was the assignment I turned.

This is a rough “model packet” for one of the characters from my take on the “Wizard of Oz”. A “Wizard of Oz” that would take place in Siberia.

A model packet is a document that gets handed to the 3d modelers so they can take a design and turn it into a full 3d model. It can range from 5 to 18 pages depending on the complexity of the character or how much direction the modelers need.

There is nothing too complicated for that one but that was still pretty challenging. It is still very rough for the time being, I will post a cleaned up version very soon. Right now the arms and nose are not detailed enough for the modelers to do their job. The eyes also need to be worked out as they wouldn’t communicate eye direction. I will probably go for cartoony eyes like the last drawing.

I hope you like it!

Related posts:
Snowman walk

Eye darts – video reference 0

Acting / Animation / Education

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Eye darts – video reference

I was watching a documentary on the Sherman brothers and found that really good eye dart video reference with two actors only few inches away from each others. It is striking how much the actress’s eyes move around when she is looking successively at the left and right eyes then at the mouth. Also pay attention to the timing of the darts, it is between one and two frames and the eye lid seems to be delayed by one frame at time.

Related posts:
Kids take – video reference
Take – video reference

“This is what you need” v.460 0

Animation / Education

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“This is what you need” v.460

After Aaron Hartline ripped my shot last week I wasn’t too sure what to think anymore. It is very refreshing to hear someone showing you a very different perspective on your shot but it can also be a traumatizing experience if it is summed up by “you have some nice motion here but the story makes no sense“. Aaron suggested that I would change the story entirely as Palapatine “doesn’t have that voice” and Anakin “is blond and not a delivery boy“.

I guess it is like contemporary art, some people are more receptive than others. Some people prefer Picasso’s more figurative paintings when others prefer his cubist period. Some people prefer Jim Carrey’s humour to Larry David’s, I guess it is a question of taste.

Victor Navone didn’t have a problem with it so I will keep pushing and finish the shot with the original idea. Once I have the cloth simulation and the rest of the environment, it should make more sense for the wider audience.

So, here is where I am. A mess! 😉 The rig I am using (very old but really fast Bishop rig) doesn’t have FK/IK Snap or any fancy IK hands space switching so I am supposed to set up a lot of constraints and I am not to willing to go into that Victor is completely happy with the body animation. I was hoping to finish that shot WAY earlier than that but with only one review per week, changes can impact the completion of the shots in a dramatic manner and this is without counting the changes that were finally reverted to the original blocking and video reference and I have had several like this. Lesson learnt, show your video reference at every review! I am actually thinking of putting my video ref on a Nurbs plane actually. This way we can compare immediately the two instead of having to switch all the time which is not very easy with the shot review software we are using at AnimC.

Here is what I have today, it is not really at a presentable state but since I haven’t posted anything for the past 4 or 5 weeks, I felt it was necessary to finally post something. I am not going to pretend I have a feature animation workflow completely nailed, especially with that kind of rig. Also, let’s remember that this is a 17 seconds sequence with one long full body shot, two characters interacting and plenty of constraints. A lot of fun 😉

As you will notice, I have also done a lip sync pass as it is pretty unlikely Victor will ask for dramatic changes and it makes the shot a bit more presentable. Also… I love lip sync and close ups.

I am posting a Youtube version as it was quicker than Vimeo Vimeo version posted but the sound seems to be slightly offset despite uploading a huge uncompressed version.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32694320[/vimeo]

Related posts:
This is what you need video ref 02 and blocking
“This is what you need”, planning
“This is what you need’, gathering references
Lip sync observations