The A.S.K. Challenge

Winter session is over!

Jean-Seb. — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:38:17 +0000

I had an extra week to work on my final project and it is now done. I can start working on my animation again.

I had an interesting winter session at university. I had a senior animator as a teacher and I tried to gather as much information as I could. He was a good teacher, but this wasn’t an animation course… Oh well.

Tomorrow I’ll do a walk cycle, just to get back into it.

On hold until April 22nd

Jean-Seb. — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 02:38:24 +0000

Things are on hold until I finish my winter session at university. I also started working at a local video game business. I have some adjustments to make to my schedule, a very important project to finish and 2 exams in two weeks.

There will be some changes here also. Since I don’t think this was beneficial at all, I reduced the animations to around 90, top. They’re going to be complete animations based on the different principles found into the Animator’s Survival Kit. No more quick and pointless animations divided into “phases”. They looked painfully ugly anyway.

Here’s how it’s mainly going to be: a planning stage (which will include the key poses), a blocking stage (maybe more than one) and a refinement stage (again, maybe more than one).

I’ll see you on April 22nd.

Bouncing soccer ball

Jean-Seb. — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:38:39 +0000

I think I got an idea where I’ll be heading with this Animator’s Survival Kit experiment. The way it’s going right now isn’t leading to anything even remotely interesting, so I’ll have to change my approach.

More later…

For now, a bouncing soccer ball.

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 3 hours

Here’s another take.. No, I’m not tired of these

Jean-Seb. — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:31:46 +0000

I did another take, a real quick one with a new Biped rigged character. I did not model it: I simply skinned it. His name: Flatface.

It looks bad, but I had an interesting critique today from a senior animator and I’m happy about that. Although I feel like I’m not getting anywhere with my animation sometimes, I know what I have to put more effort in.

One thing I’ve noticed is not to stick to the Animator’s Survival Kit’s timings too much… They’re often not exactly applicable to 3d animation, or need more refining altogether. I’ve also noticed Richard Williams is not using the exact same timings in his book and in his Animated DVDs.

here’s what I did today…

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 2 hours

Here’s a squash and stretch bouncing ball.. Just for fun

Jean-Seb. — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:06:49 +0000

I did this in class, took me about 15 minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Full body take

Jean-Seb. — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:04:49 +0000

I’m not convinced my takes look good. Here’s a full body one, look a bit better, but still..

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 2 hours

Simple takes, upper body

Jean-Seb. — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:08:51 +0000

yes, this again. I’m doing something else tomorrow! I wanted to try these takes on the upper body. It would probably give better results in context of a bigger animation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 1 hour 30 minutes

Simple takes, recap

Jean-Seb. — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:13:21 +0000

Disney and Warner type timings, from the front and the side. Next up is full body…

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 1 hour 30 minutes

More on “takes”…

Jean-Seb. — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:44:33 +0000

Here’s one with a Warner type timing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

and here’s the Disney timing with a ball, just for fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 3 hours for both

Basic up and down take (disney-type timing)

Jean-Seb. — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:49:13 +0000

This is from yesterday.

Click here to view the embedded video.

time: around 1 hour and 30 minutes