Technical Difficulties...Please stand by.

Hey Everyone,
Sorry about not having another post up this past week yet. There were some technical difficulties with the Animation Mentor website this week, so I wasn't able to get my critique from my mentor. Usually, I like to get the critique, make the fixes, then post it on my blog for all of you to see. I am wanting to showcase my best possible work on this blog, because of course...I am hoping that the right set of eyes will see my work and offer me a job down the road.

Yow know what, I just got a thought...I will put up my planning for the animation I want to post in the near future. We had 120 frames (5 seconds) to bounce the little ball with a tail a minimum of 3 times. So....I bounced 2 of them a total of about 16 times. Yeah I got carried...and loved every minute of creating it. I can't wait to post it on here because its my best one yet. So please...stand by.

Thank you.

Sorry Mr. Clown...

Hello everyone! Well...I think I am officially losing my mind because now I am "bopping" clowns on the head. Yesterday I animated for 14 hours on this current weeks assignment...which you will see next week.

Well, what you see above is from last when we learned overlapping action. The pendulum has 4 separate joint rotations in it that allows us to create the overlapping action. It has to be just the right amount too, so its believable and has weight. The whole clown thing was something I added to just to make it more entertaining, and difficult. I can not take credit for the little eyes on the pendulum. That would be my sister Cara's idea. It was a good one.

Its was another fun week and my mentor Paul, was really pleased with my work again. He said he is happy to see me being creative with my assignments because it makes it more challenging to animate. He also mentioned its a good thing to have the drive to want to be creative.

I don't know how to not work hard at animating. Because to me...its not work at all.

Thank you.

Squash'n and a Stretch'n

Hello! Heres my assignment for last week when we learned the fundamental of squash and stretch. You can see the squash when the ball bumps into something, and the stretch as it approaches a surface. The amount of squash and stretch should be equivalent to how much energy the ball has, and also what the ball is made of. "Is it a soccer ball?" or "Is is a water balloon possibly?." See how complicated it can get?! Its all these little factors that you have to think about that are the reasons why I love animating so much. Squash and stretch definitely added a new level of difficulty to animating this week, and its only going to get tougher...and I just can't wait!

I saw that 'U' shaped ramp that the ball goes through and thought "its a hammock!". So tossed lazy Stu in there. My mentor Paul, got a good chuckle out of that.

We also had to do another pose this week that portrayed "devastation." So once again I browsed the internet for devastation photos to see what kind of things people do when they are devastated. I also read the definition of it, and found words like collapsed, destroyed, and overwhelmed. These really helped me find an idea to portray it. Then I got all crazy and made it look fancy with a table, chair, and a couple of letters. I am thankful to have a few extra skills to do those sorts of things to help with the presentation of my work. I learned all that at this great little place called Cal State Fullerton. :)

Overall, I had another really strong week. My mentor was really happy with what I turned in. :) So I don't think I have to tell you that I am smiling from ear to ear...but I think I just did. :)

Thank you.

Timing in animation.

Hey Good Peoples! Sorry I didn't post this up sooner. I have had a really busy week with my animation, and helping out my Mom and Dad on the farm a little too.

Last week we learned all about timing, and how it can be used to show different weights in objects. So thats exactly what we had to do, bounce a heavy ball, and a light ball. I added the green organic shapes to increase the level difficulty for an extra challenge. It definitely challenged me more, but I am happy with the way it turned out...and so was my mentor. He did have me tweak a couple little things but nothing too major. So what you see is my final result. Eventually when our assignments are 2, 3, or even 4 weeks long I will post rough versions of it each week instead of you just seeing the final result all the time. That way you can follow me through the planning all the way to the end.

One thing that I am really finding helpful from our assignments is that they give us limits to how many frames our animation can be. Right now they allow us 60-120 frames, and theres 24 frames in one second....so my animations so far as you can see have been 5 seconds long. The number in the lower right is a frame counter in case you were wondering. If we go over 120 frames...it will affect our grade in anegative way for that assignment. So it has been forcing me to think more about timing when I am first planning it out on paper. For example: for this ball bounce above, I drew up a plan, and then started creating it in the computer...but thats when I realized it was going to need more then 120 frames to complete. So i had to make new plans and then ask myself "Can this happen in under 120 frames?" I felt that it could, so I went ahead with it on the computer...and it worked! It took me two tries again this week, but I wasn't as far off. The whole purpose of them giving us limits is to teach us industry standards. When the director says a shot should be 80 frames....you better end up with something very close to that. If you think about it...they have to do that or else movies would be 5 hours long if there weren't limits. Makes sense right?!

Alright...well thats enough reading for you...if you made it to the end. I hope I didn't put you too sleep. Sometimes I might babble on about certain things...but I am just having so much fun with this. I appreciate your interest and support. Everybody's!

So, this week we are learning all about the important fundamental of squash and stretch. But how about I save the explanation of that when I have some visuals for you next week :)

Thank you.