Expression Change example for "Les Popettes" program at Squeeze Studio Animation

Expression Change exercise done at Squeeze studio animation for "Les Popettes" program.

I showed the different ways to go from a pose to pose blocking into a polishing final pass.. favoring this 3 poses and expressions according to the 2D rough planning.

2D Rough blocking breakdown:

G = Golden Pose (Story Poses)
BK = Breakdown (as important as the Golden poses to determinate timing, spacing, drag, weight and volume from one pose to another)
K = Key (Important Inbetween to favor and add more consistency to the BK and G poses)
I = Inbetween (simple spacing between two keys, keeping clean arcs in shape and spacing.)

I hope it helps! :)

Daniel.

QUICKITME: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pxnsjxl8gtox0m9/Facial_animation_Test_02

Gangnam Style 1 Billion views Animation Tribute!

My Animation tribute to the most-viewed YouTube video of all time!! "Fernutz Style" 

Gangnam Style 1 Billion views Animation Tribute

—  animated at (Squeeze Studio Animation).

Toy Buzzer FAIL! :P

Finally finished this small animation test, trying out Norman's power in Maya... so far so good.. great controls ;)

I found this audio clip that was very 'animatable' and easy to understand in terms of emotion and message for its only 4 - 6 seconds... the subtext was too obvious and hard for me to come up with something somewhat original.... so I asked for ideas on how I could deliver this audio clip in a way that I could play basically in one pose (cuz too short ammount of time to move around the character), and easy to read the situation from the first couple of frames.... so thanks to Simon Girard (a friend from work) and his very original and unusual ideas.... he came up with this Toy-Buzzer Fail thingy.. I loved it and tried to take the juice out of it! :)

http://www.danimating.com/buzzer_fail.mov (right click & save target as..)

Now.. I know what you are all thinking.. I thought that too... but NO!... the situation is that he was in the bathroom.. and forgot to take the buzzer off his hand before doing the number one! ... there you go.. a more friendly interpretation ;P... and Where is the bathroom environment?? well I suck in Maya so it was hard for me to model all that stuff... hehehe.

It was fun to go back and animate in Maya after a full time job in 3dsmax.. I had some problems and missed some 3dsmax tools that I depend on nowadays.... but sometimes is not bad to go back and animate 'old school/rotation/translation/scale' :)

Animation Progression Clip:

Basically another layering aproach.. started animating the beats and accents of the shot applying movement to only the body parts that were important.. and then layering where the forces were coming from for those movements... kinda a backwards layering method aproach for the body :P

for the face I make sure i don't go too layer-ish.. so I work in stepped mode (pose to pose) for the facial expressions and mouth shapes that i consider important and i want the audience to read... and start to break it down from there..

so here it is! :)

Thanx for reading and I hope you guys like it!

Bale rant Animation process: 'Animation'

ANIMATION PROCESS BLOCKING AND ANIMATION


BLOCKING:

I wanted to start testing how far and how well the layering method would work on this one… so I decided to work only on about 40-50 frames and try to finish it up… at the same time I was experimenting on the settings… rendering quality… so I could think and try to imagine how it would look as a final product or final “drawings” for the whole shot. Here are the examples:

When I started to go further on the lipsync, I realized that I couldn’t push as much the mouth shapes with this technique… so I started a clean slate in the lipsync and with the help of Flipbook and Jason Ryan’s lipsync webinar I had this done in about 30 minutes:

I think it looked waaaay better than the versions before… so I went back to my shot and polished this up until I have something I was happy with:

At the end after having this 40-50 frames “done” in the layering method… it took a lot of brain power and concentration to really see what I was animating and not getting distracted for the rest… I realized that I could get a bit lost in the performance on the whole clip and my acting pattern could suffer because of this… so I decided to have a complete rough blocking of the main idea of the shot:

The rest of the process was similar to the many pose to pose or layering tutorials on the web, so I just had my important key poses and expressions down and started working in small chunks until the end… and of course after switching from stepped to flat splines, I went back to the layering method… working my way up from the root to the face :)

After a few notes I got from friends and animators, I changed a few things and this is what I can call “the final version”:

Well… that’s all I can say about my animation process on this shot.. it was pretty fun and challenging for me to present it to the spline doctors, and I want to thank all of them and all my friends for the kind feedback! :)

I hope this was helpful.

Bale rant Animation process: 'Planning' - 2/2

PLANNING PART 2 (FINAL)

VIDEO REFERENCE:

After sketching for a few days and trying to act out how the character would behave and perform, I had a clear “road map” of the overall acting… so that’s the time when I decided to shoot some video reference at home.

I picked some of the clips where I found more interesting acting choices and also included a hand reference shot at the end. All this really helped me solve some motion problems in the animation process when I started to struggle with posing or acting patterns… looking at this reference was always inspiring and problem solving for me :)

After watching this reference over and over I came up with a list of parts I liked the most:

-Line: "What the F*** is it with you"? - Clip 4

-Surprise take on Line "No...NO!.." - Clip 2

-Line"The..the F*** are you DOING!? - Clip 1

-Keys pressing and "Gimme a F*** Answer.." - Clip 2 or 4.

TECHNICAL PLANNING (3D SOFTWARE):

For me, this is very important in the planning process for a 3d animator. After I got the planning down for the performance (sketches, thumbnails, animatics, video reference, etc.) I wanted to prepare myself to fight the computer and its restrictions in terms of rig, technicalities, controls, IK/FK choices.. etc etc.

So I made a list of animation/technical choices for this animation shot:

- I wanted to go between subtle and cartoony animation. The shot layout is very close up so I didn’t want too much movement. Trying to concentrate on the facial animation performance… so I decided to start out with the “Layering method” (even though I switched later on to stepped mode blocking “pose to pose”)

- Considering that the character was going to be seated and typing most of the time I decided to go with IK hands in the whole shot.


- I also wanted to try to go clean on the rotations and dealing with only one axis at a time so I could have better control on the rig… I used to animate in local mode for the rotation, but at the end I ended up having influences in the other axis as well… probably the rig… but to go super clean I chose to go with Gimbal-mode rotations for the whole shot.

- For the translation part it was simpler… I just used the regular ones (world and local) for posing and in-between… BUT, I knew that in the polishing part I was going to change to “screen-mode translations” which translates from the flat camera view so you could track your arcs way better.

I will post my Animation process step by step on Sunday... thanx for stopping by and..stay tuned! :P

Bale rant Animation process: 'Planning' - 1/2

PLANNING PART 1

When Spline Doctors presented this challenge I got pumped right away with the audio clip and the idea of being able to have feedback and critique from them… awesome!! so I put some extra hours after work to start thinking on how I would approach this animation challenge…

AUDIO:
I came out with the “swearing at the computer” concept, inspired by the amount of times 3dsmax crashed on me at work and at home… hehehe… so I opened the audio editing software I have (Adobe Audition) and start trying things out with the audio parts that I could find more interesting from the 4 min Bale rant… I also added a kind of “farm-ish” environment background sound, so the cuts of the parts I selected were blended with it.

Considering time for the animation (I didn’t want to do more than 15 seconds) and trying not to pick the same concept or audio of other contestants… this is what I came out with:

( http://www.danimating.com/AUDIO_ANIM_03.wav )

THUMBNAILING AND CONCEPT:

I tried to listen to the edited audio as much as I could at work and at home… and tried to sketch the concept or the situation of the character on the scene… try to find the right pose or inspiring facial expressions, composition, staging of things on the screen, etc etc.

I also did a break down of the audio on paper so I could relate better with attitudes and the character performance through the shot. At this point I had a list of a few questions and answers for myself to make this process easier for me… this are the ones that had a more relevant role on the animation:

Where is the character?

- He is inside of his farm house working on his computer. It’s a nice day around 11am.

What was the character doing before the shot?

- He was working on the computer (typing, browsing, doing taxes, checking or paying bills, etc) and suddenly everything started to slow down (jerky mouse pointer, webpages taking too long to load, the little sand clock appeared for too long on the screen).


What is the character’s personality overall?

- He is an average farmer on his 40’s, grumpy most of the time… tired and stressed for the routine of dealing with a computer which is the object he doesn’t feel the most comfortable with.

Won 2nd place in the Spline Doctors Challenge :)

VIDEO:
(http://www.danimating.com/bale_web_low.mov)

Just wanted to say that I am very happy to have won the 2nd place in the Spline Doctors Challenge... it was very fun to animate the Christian Bale rant... and as a prize I got some Pixar swag that I will be receiving in a couple of weeks.. YAY! :)

you can check the rest of the entries at the spline doctors website: www.splinedoctors.com...

In a couple of days or so I will be posting my animation process on this animation for the people who are interested... so stay tuned!.

Thanx to Andrew Gordon and all the doctors for making this fun contest.. I hope they keep doing this!... :)

Disney Master Classes (WALT STANCHFIELD BOOKS)

Just for a quick update to say that I got the WALT STANCHFIELD BOOKS today!!! :)

I just took a quick look and they look awesome so far.... great resource and inspirational stuff.. I can't wait to read them both!

thanks to my wife Christina who ordered them for me! :P

AM Progress Reel....

Hey guys... I know it's been a long time since the last post but i promise i will keep it up :P

I just wanted to let you all know that I stopped AM after Class 2 for personal reasons and even if they were only 6 months in campus.. i had a blast there.. learning.. overlearning.. and getting inspired and challenged every day... I also wanted to upload my progress reel... which "almost" got me a gig at Blue Sky... it was a BUMMER that the US work permit only was allowing Canadian Citizens.. and not permanent residents... well... I will be citizen in about 2 months so I won't stop my "feature film" goal! :D

Thanx for watching and reading.

My Last Animation Mentor Assignment

Hello there... this is my last assignment at AM for Class 2 and I really wanted to push it a bit more so I could put it on my reel....

I learnt a lot at Animation Mentor, refining and reviewing my animation principals.. and met a lot of great people and animators... but for economic/full time work and travel reasons I think I won't be able to continue with it..

I had a blast doing this animation of Fern the farmer (character of chevisodes.com) jumping off a diving board... I tried to explore a bit more the Layering method.. and even if it was very messy at the beggining i could manage to set my ideas on it.. (it took a lot of brain power though)... I basically layered the body in stepped mode from the root out (I call this experiment "layering in stepped mode method" hehe) that started animating a cylinder to a close to final level.. and then translating that info to the root of the character.. and start layering the rest out! :) ... very fast and no much to do with the Graph Editor.. but a bit confusing to your eye and to receive critique.

I hope you guys like it... see you around.. as always! :D

Quicktime version here: http://www.danimating.com/3D/FINAL_AM_SOUND06.mov

Soccer Freestyle shot

This is my "jump over a gap" assignment at Animation Mentor.com..

I had so much fun animating this! :) I love soccer and i wanted to study it deeply this time.. it was pretty hard to find the spots were i could push it more and break it down from my video reference (which were freestylers on the web)..

so this is my "final" version of it.. i hope you guys like it! :)

c-ya around!

Soccer Kick Assignment

this is my first assignment for Class 2 at Animation Mentor... I had a lot of fun animating this.. and i am gonna do another "soccer" one for the next assignment also.. i just love soccer!!! heheheany kind of feedback would be cool.. and if you guys are interested here is the progression video of the shot from 2D concept, video reference and blocking stages :)

thanx for watching!

Class 1 Progress Reel..Animation Mentor

Compilation of my work on Class 1 at AnimationMentor.com

thanx for watching!! :D

Personality Walk in perspective.

I picked the beat of one of my favourite shows nowadays "two and a half men" for my assignment of a personality walk at Animation mentor...

i still don't get to comfortable with Maya but somewhat i made this a "decent" animation ready for my mentor's critique :P

c-ya!

Vanilla Walk...

Hi there guys... here I show you my last assignment.. "the vanilla walk"... It was quite of a challenge because I have never done a "vanilla" walk.. when i worked on Tripping the rift i did all "personality" walks for the characters (and i didn't know too much about animation :P )... and now working in games at Beenox it's also personality or character walks..

So this is the first time I do this :) i got great feedback from friends and this is my assignment "final" before the revision by my mentor..

thanx for stopping by! :)

Tailor..

I went for the look of a squirrel in this assignment... I had planned a lot more than this but i have a very harsh deadline at work that didn't let me have the time i needed to do so... so i tried to keep it simple.. :)

I wanted to upload the planning I did with "DviewPaint" (www.ericdlegare.com) and the final result together ... I had a problem with maya.. and i couldn't be able to use the new AM arc track tool... so i had to animate Tailor's tail on 1's :S it was a bit painful and my eyes still hurting... but i think i could call it as 'final' :P

Pendulum exercise..

One of the most important principals of animation "overlap and follow-through"...

I had some trouble to find right arcs ease-in and outs.. and settles on this... probably it will have some critique and i will make it better... but this is what i came up with as a "final" shot :P

Obstacle Course of FUN! :D

I had lots of fun animating this :) got feedback wich helped me a lot!! Thanx guys!!

Bouncing Balls Assignments

First Assignment

I had to rough a bunch of poses and sketches to pick a good one to pose Stu as my first assignment at AM... I picked the pose N'3 from the first page..

I had some trouble of going out and draw people moving cuz it was raining everyday here :S but i got to do some of them... also i had inspiration videos where i could get some of the poses and with help of the internet.. :)