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!