🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
todays bird
h
roma★
Mike Driver
blake kathryn
Cosimo Galluzzi
Sweet Seals For You, Always
No title available
will byers stan first human second
NASA
occasionally subtle
Origami Around
titsay
EXPECTATIONS
noise dept.
No title available
YOU ARE THE REASON
shark vs the universe
d e v o n
seen from United States
seen from Croatia
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Israel
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Jordan
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Belarus
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
@tompaxtonmasters
I modelled my phone in 3D as we need it as a prop for the film for the creature to interact with. I started on the normal maps for some of the buttons but now Kieran's taken it over so I can get on with some rigging.
This is actually my second iteration of the model, the first one I did in nurbs for the smooth edges but when we changed it to polygons the model got messed up so I started again.
Spent today up at Ninewells Hospital. Rebecca asked Kieran and myself to help her film some motion capture collection for her project. It was fun trying to ensure we got good footage that communicated all the information it needed to whilst also trying to bring some arty cinematography to the picture. The process was also pretty interesting to observe.
Here's a super rough animation test I did for our film. It's kind of an experiment in animation, but mostly it's just because I wanted to do some 2D animation. Dunno if it'll be that useful perse because the final film will have no 2D in it, but it was a lot of fun. I've missed doing 2D.
Helped out John H today with some reference filming for the kind of rotoscoped part of his personal project. Didn't do much bar walk around with a decorator's suit on but it was an interesting use of a morning.
The final product! This was a huge group effort and I'm really proud of everyone and the work they did on this. I now present, MSc Animation and Visualisation Going Live project 2014: Concerning Dragons.
I jammed some credits together for the going live project using After Effects. It was good fun to do something a little different. Final film will be going up soon!
Here is a playblast of some eagle fight animation I did for the very start of the film. I'm only animating up until the eagle passes over the big tree, at which point Lilly will take over for the transformation section.
Finished my animation of the dragon in shot 3. Have a cheeky wee playblast. Spent about a week on this.
After a bit of tweaking I managed to warp the Morpheus rig I was talking about earlier into this hideous monstrosity. It should be useful to get a sense of how the creature might move at least though.
Dragon rig - Part 7 Claw. The claw controller is rotatable for posing and also has two extra attributes that allow you to curve the little fingers for grasping things. I used set driven keys for it.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig - Part 6 The Wing. The wing has rotation controllers at the shoulder, elbow and wrist. The one at the wrist also allows the wing sections to stretch out or fold over each other, and can give a nice curve along the spines, all of which I set up in the connection editor. The spine bit for the inside section has an aim controller in case things get a bit messy when you're posing the rest of the wing, and I used a bunch of constraints to set up an extra bone that causes the the inner section to fold neatly and automatically as you pose it. Pretty pleased with that bit, although it doesn't always work perfectly.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig - Part 5 The Feet. The feet have an IK rig in them in the lower half, allowing you to place them where you like without too much fuss. The hip swivels separately which adds more control there. There are also two set driven key type extra attributes, one to make a grabbing motion and one that will allow a bit of squash for when the dragon lands from flight.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig -Part 4 The Head. I put in an IK FX switch for the head. This means that in FK mode the head can be positioned using controllers along the neck, or in IK mode the head will stay more or less where you put it even if the body control is moving, which is good for that sort of bird like movement.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig -Part 3 Body. That big box allows you to move the body up and down and tilt it without moving the feet or the head if it's in IK mode. Good for up and down movement in flight cycles and stuff.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig - Part 2 The Spine. The wee squares allow for a bit of control over the curve of the spine. Not for anything too major but good for little subtleties.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
Dragon rig -Part 1. Here are the controllers for the tail. The circular ones run the whole length of the tail and allow each section to be posed individually. Or if you want one big even curve the square controller rotates them all at once using set driven keys.
This is the first rigging I've ever done. It took me a while and it's not perfect by any definition of the word, but I actually kind of enjoyed it...
I See a Little Silhouetto of a Man
After thinking some more about silhouettes and all the stuff I was writing about in the last post I went today and read up a bit about silhouette in Walt Stanchfield's book, Drawn to Life.
Walt Stanchfield joined Disney in the late 40s and worked as a character animator all through the golden age of Disney. In the 70s he worked with Eric Larson in creating a training program for up and coming Disney animators and in 2009 those lectures were compiled into a book: Drawn to Life.
I include that context because I feel it's important to know that Stanchfield worked entirely in 2D, having even written his lectures before 3D animation came into any prevalence.
Stanchfield has a few things to say about the importance of silhouette. He says that we don't animate lines, but shapes. The shapes change, the line (i.e. the marks made by our pencil) is merely used to define those shapes on the page.
He then goes on to talk about the importance of that line in creating the most convincing and persuasive shape (or silhouette). The line leads the eye, guiding what part of the image we focus on and giving direction to our action. Not only that, but to create the most persuasive shapes, he says that we must actively vary our lines. Put short lines next to long lines, curved lines next to straight lines and so on.
Stanchfield's wisdom here is incredibly useful for me. However, the lines he is talking about don't exist in 3D animation. We still animate shapes but instead of being defined by a drawn line they are formed by modelled geometry and rigs and weight painting. We can position our character in any pose we like but but the outline of our shape is no longer under our control.
How then can I regain that kind of control in my own animation? I don't know yet but I have three ideas.
I think that to some extent, the fact that we are using quite a simple, graphic character design will lend itself better to creating strong outlines than if our design was more realistic.
I also feel that the simple fact that I am now aware of this issue in the first place will help. If I don't know what's causing the problem then I can't try and avoid it, but now I do.
Probably most important is the rigging process. Through rigging for the going live project I've learned a lot of cool techniques that I think I can use to give me some control over my "outline".
But at the moment we're still in preproduction, so I suppose all this remains to be seen once our model and things are done. Still, any progress is something!