My lesson of this month: Importance of cleanup!

Cleanup is really an improtant step of animation. No matter how good your blocking is. If you don't cleanup your animation. It'll look like crap. In the book Thinking Animation, Mike Murphy said: "When I go in and do the nitty-gritty cleanup work, typically it takes 20 percent of my time to get to the point when it's cleanup time. Then the other 80 percent of my time is cleaning up."

In my last animation, my blocking was not that bad (of course it wasn't great!). But due to some lack of time, I didn't concentrate much on cleanup and I didn't clean up my animation the way I usually do. I went too fast (I had to!). The end result is CRAP!

So guys and gals, let this be a lesson to you. When you animate a scene, don't skip the cleanup phase! Its really an important step!

-A

I'm done and it looks like crap!

Okay I'm done with this. And guess what I've got... its a piece of SHIT!!!! Yeah!! My cute little shitty creation!! This is NOT going into my reel! I just hate it.... I wish I had more time to work on it. I couldn't even clean up properly. I don't like the feel, I don't like the mechanics... it has that ugly, poppy pose to pose look and I hate that! I don't like the rendering, I don't know why the hell these stupid spotlights lights are blinking. Some sort of rendering problem I guess. I don't know why, but there is nothing here which I like.

But there is something which I've learned while making this crap. Don't ever animate a scene if you don't have enough time for it. Usually this kinda 10 second animation requires 1 full month time. I had to speed up, and it became painful for me. I was simply chasing my tail!! Now in my near and dear future, I'll never chase my tail. And I'll animate if and only if I've got enough time for it. No time, no animation. I was simply hurting myself, and you can see the end result. A BIG crap!
Now I shall take some rest and then I'll start with something else...I don't know what, I don't wanna think right now. But this time I won't repeat my mistakes! I'm sure the results will be a lot better next time! I can do a lot better than this. So, this is not going into my reel. I just don't wanna look at it.

Still working.....polishing

I'm still working on my strut competition animation. I'm working hard to polish it. However, I'm afraid I might not be able to polish hogan, but I'll try my best. I really wish I had more time to work on this scene. I know that I could've done much better. Right now, I'm kinda struggling to get rid of that puppet look and "pose to pose" look. I said "struggling", because working this fast really hurts me! Well, I know that this will help me later on. Now I believe that, I'll be able to make better animations in less time. I'm kinda improving and customizing my work flow and I believe that its very similar to Keith's work flow. He is a real genius, and his work flow helps me a lot!!
I'm also learning how to mix straight ahead into pose to pose animation to get rid of that "pose to pose" look. I like working pose to pose but I don't like that puppet look in my animation.

Whenever I animate something, first I watch Keith Lango's VTS and watch him animating. This helps me to kinda get into that "Keith-ey mode". And by watching an experienced pro animate, really helps me get into that mode...and I produce less crappy animation. Aaaaaah! I wish my animation looked even half as good as Keith's! I'm working hard to get there! I know its not that easy....hehheh!

Stay tuned for the final update.

-A

still working.....strut animation (WIP)

I wish I had more time for this animation. I'm not at all happy with the output. I don't think that five days or one week is enough for this kind of animation. I had to work too fast, and it was not a pleasant experience. Too bad, I started late... Its my fault! Oh well, here's an update....(sob!)

Update blocking (pr brkdwn) WIP

Hey guys!

Today I made some major changes in my storytelling poses. Thanks to my friend Alex for his helpful suggestions. I believe it looks much better now. Though, I just have a week in my hand to finish up with this scene, I'm kinda experimenting with my stuff....I'm playing with it and having fun. Because I'm quite confident that I should spend more time thinking and experimenting animation and it won't take much time to flesh it out and clean up my scene. Stay tuned!

Fortune (first pass blocking) WIP - 1

I'm quite happy that StrutYourReel has finally started a competition very much like the 10 second club! Two or three days back I downloaded the sound file of this month, and started planning. Yesterday, I took a reference video, and made some horrible looking thumbnails, which I certainly don't wanna show! Today I started blocking, and now I think I'm done with my key drawings and primary breakdowns. I still have to work hard on the arcs...I'll deal with secondary breakdowns tomorrow. Right now, this is just an initial stage blocking. I still have to work on Hogan (the secondary character), but I'll do that in the last stage of my primary character blocking. Stay tuned!

........Finally!........its rendered!!..........

Okay guys!

At last! I'm done with this Sergio test animation. I was facing some technical problem with my system. I don't know why, but I couldn't batch-render my scene! aaarghhhh.....Sometime life really sux!! I think I'll fix it in a couple of days. Thanks to my beautiful buddy for rendering out my crappy animation. Poor girl couldn't do anything on her computer for two hours! wow!!...heheh....
Soon I'll be back with a Hogan test animation!! So, stay tuned....

-A

another update....(testing Sergio) WIP...

Okay guys and gals!

Here's another update of my Sergio test animation. Here's the link---> Sergio Test animation

I hope it looks a little bit better!
-A

PAP fun!

I was really tired of working and selecting those NURBS controls and tweaking them all day to produce 2 seconds of animation. Today I wanted to stay away from Maya and all its complexities. I wanted to draw and animate. Here's something I doodled on PAP (plastic animation paper).

an update....(testing Sergio) WIP...

Here's an update of my Sergio animation!

http://www.amritd.com/MyVideos/WIP/christmas_timed.mov

Thanks to my buddy Alex for helping me with his feedbacks.

later,
-A

happy new year! (2007)

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!
I hope this year will bring me my dream career as an animator! I'm working hard, and it will pay sooner or later. Let's see! I'm trying my best to become one of the best in this craft called animation, and I'll do anything to get to the top! I may fail a hundred times, but I will get there on the "101th" try! I really believe that. God may give me pain or happiness, whatever it is, but both of them will be for my own good. So, I'm ready to face this new year!! :)

God bless you all, and may this year bring happiness and joy to everyone!!
-A