Monday 25 October 2010

Lip Sync

I wanted to test out the Blake rigs lip sync capabilities so I used the first few seconds of the 11 second club sound bite "It's like a predator"



I also used a Dope sheet which turned out better than I thought, I have a feeling I will be using these a lot more often, though I had to add a slight delay in when the mouth moves just to make it look right.

Blake Rig

I liked the look of the blake rig so i decided to have a play with it, nothing major, just wanted to know how good it was, I reaaly like the face animation and the customization you can get out of one character but I preffer the g_male's body rig.

Life Drawing

Some drawings with charcoal, they range from 10 second poses to 10 minute ones, because of the charcoal some of the pictures have smudged.





Thursday 21 October 2010

Experimental Animation Ideas

just searching through youtube and found this nifty piece of animation. Drops of coloured ink into water i think.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Walk Cycle

Here is my walk cycle with the G_male rig. I'm pleased with the results even though from the side view it looks like one foot doesn't touch the floor, even though I checked it with a plane, and also it jumps a little where I have looped it. But overall a cast improvement from my last walk cycle.

Monday 11 October 2010

Heavy Lift



I tried to get the basic principles down, such as the anticipation and struggle. But I think it needs more frames for the lift to emphasis the 'rolling' of the box onto the chest. I also realised I cant draw in Flash.

Saturday 9 October 2010

Diamond Ring



Over the summer I wanted to produce a realistic animation, or as close to as possible. So I started looking into photos of products in magazines, and decided to model a diamond. Since I couldn't find any models of a diamond online I had to make my own following a pattern I found online. The major problem with the diamond was getting the right material. After scouring forums I was told the best thing to try would be a Phong materials and set the IOR to 2.417 which is of a diamond, then to play with the properties. After a play about I had a material that was sufficient of a diamond, but on its own was kinda dull. So I started to model rings to go with the rings, they started simple and got more complex as time went on. I started with these two rings.



I used mia_materials presets of chrome and copper.





I used bounce cards to reflect in the chrome, however i was reading the blogs of Zap.
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/10/making-better-metal-with-miamaterial.html
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/01/tricks-and-tips-for-miamaterial.html
and he used a HDR environment to achieve a much more fufilling reflection. Below is he ring spinning, more for personal use to know how the bounce cards look it the reflections.

Computer Advert

During summer I wanted familiarise myself with Maya, so I set myself a project of modelling my computer then setting up camera sweeps etc, then take the video into after effects and add 'advert' like text to the footage. The reason I chose to do a computer was to get use to box modelling and extruding faces, Moving vertexs and using the edge loop tool. I liked making footage that looked almost real, even though i know the computer build didn't cross the realms of the uncanny valley or anything. Any way heres the final "advert". I had problems rendering so the resolution and FPS isn't top notch.

Thursday 7 October 2010

Second Year.

So its the start of a completely new year at University. We've been told about some really interesting and exciting projects that we will have to complete. From experimental projects to being drafted by third years. For the experimental project i'd like to try a techinque that i say in an animation by BLU called MUTO



One idea was to use charcole and draw shadows behind people, then have those shadows dance to the music that we will be set. However these are all just starting ideas at the moment. There were animation from the years above that involved paper cut outs that are layered. I'll try and find a video of where they got there idea from.

As a small side project i want to combine line drawing with stop motion, by drawing paper aeroplane the n have it fly towards the "screen" and then stop motion the paper into forming a paper plane. Its kinda hard to explain, and also if possible i would like perhaps have a green paper plane so that i could use after effects and motion onto the plane its self, ie words or video footage.

Finished Formation Project.

I've been completely side-tracked and forgot to upload the final fly formation title sequence. So here it is.