Normy the Super robot!

Meet my new robot character.. Normy the Super Dooper Robot! I'll animate him soon! ;)

Finally done!

Finally!! I'm done with my 11 second club acting shot. I really had fun doing it! wweeeeeeee!!!! Well, I wish I had more time for this, about 15 more days or at least 10! For this shot, I had to create about 0.7 seconds of acting based animation per day. Which is kinda fast. As far as I know, Pixar creates about 0.3 seconds of animation per day (thats what I've been told!), and I consider that a standard. I had about 14 days in hand and I spent about 4 days on planning and drawing and the rest on my animation. I had fun doing it, as I really had to PUSH myself hard at the end and speed up everything to meet the deadline, which I consider is a good exercise and it really helps you increase your overall animating speed, and build up your confidence. This was indeed my first full blown acting shot! I've learned a lot doing this, and I hope that I create much better stuff next time! This is just a start.... ;) heh!
Oh yes, I'll show you my animation very soon. So, stay tuned....

-A

Animating and fixing graph

Hey everyone!

I'm working on an animation for the new 11 second club. And right now, I'm in "linear tangents cleanup" pass. This is the pass where I work on my eases and add subtle actions. So this is really not that easy and takes a lot of time. Hopefully today, I'll be able to finish this pass and convert my tangents into spline. However, before I do that, I make sure that everything is working perfectly in linear. If something doesn't work in linear, I don't even think of converting into splines. First, I fix everything in linear ( I mean EVERYTHING!! Every attribute of every single control, which takes part in my animation), so when I turn into splines, the computer doesn't give a lot of stupid surprises. So, thats what I'm up to right now. I've got about 5 days in hand and I'm planning to devote about 2 days on facial animation and lip sync. Yeah, I don't have much time! Let's see if I'll be able to finish it or not.

Sorry people, this time I can't show you my blocking as I don't wanna get any biased votes. Oh yeah!! I can show you my my ugly spaghetti box or my graph editor. Yep!! This is how ugly it is right now and I'm trying to clean it up and its about 85% done!! YEY!!!! Thank god!

Enjoy the EXTREME UGLINESS!

-A

Milt Walk Cycle

Yep! Right now, I'm working on my acting shot. Today, I wanted to do something else so I made this cartoony walk cycle just for a change and to have fun. I hope you like it. heh....
Oh yeah, I still have to finish that "And Bamm" animation. Huh! So much to do! Don't worry, I won't take too long. You know, I'm quite fast! right?....heh!

Well, here's walk...



Model used : Milt

AN UPDATE: I've updated the walk cycle and fixed a couple of major issues with its toes. Thanks to a good friend for pointing them out. I've fixed its hands and feet/toes, and now I think it looks a lot better. :)

(LAST) UPDATE # 2: I took my good friend, DJ's points into consideration and fixed my walk cycle. Thanks to DJ! I know, its not perfect. And now, I can't devote anymore time for this. Its done!

THE FINAL UPDATE (yep, this is final!) : I looked at my walk animation for about 20 minutes and asked a few other people to compare my new walk cycle and the old one, and they said that they find the previous one better. I think I too, like the previous one more. Since there is no such thing as a right or wrong walk, and its all a matter of preference or taste, and that straight spine doesn't bother me at all, since its a matter of character. I don't have to bend it forward if it doesn't look good on the character or on that type of walk. So, I'm getting back to my old walk cycle. :)

-A

Acting shot in progress...

Hey everyone!

I'm working on an acting scene right now. Sorry, can't tell you what it is! I'll post it here (only if it looks really cool) when I'm done with it. Okay, you know what? I'm making it for the new 11 second club (ssshhhh.....!! Don't tell this to anyone!), and I'm struggling to find some time for it.
For the past 3 days, I've been planning it in my head and on paper and watching my video reference (in that, I look like a big dumbass). Today, I finally fired up Maya and made my key drawings/poses in 3D. Now tomorrow what I'll do is, I'll roughly sync my storytelling poses with the sound file to see if it works and I'll show it to some of my talented friends to get their feedback. I haven't done the breakdowns yet. I've noticed that whenever I make cool looking breakdowns, I tend to fall in love with my key drawings and breakdowns. And I don't like any crits! Thats bad, and it shouldn't be like this. So this time, I'll keep things simple so that I can change anything, anytime.

Working on this kinda heavy acting scene makes me tired sometimes. So, I just start doing something else, not for too long though. Sometimes I listen to music, or sometimes I even start working on simple walk cycles or I start playing with different rigs. And sometimes when I get tired of working in 3d, and when I get tired of that Maya UI, I just start drawing/sketching or I make simple 2d animations. That really keeps me alive! hehh....

So this time, I may post here some of those extra work. Stay tuned!

-A

P.S. Sorry, I cannot post any of my acting shot WIPs here. I wanna keep that a secret right now! ;)

Helping out .....

Made this quick little animation test for a friend to help him out with jumps.

The 11 Second Club

Check out the new 11 Second Club! Yep, this one goes to ELEVEN! :)
I still remember the good old days of the late 10 Second Club. Thats where I started my journey to become a character animator... and created some beautifully disgusting animations! No doubt, I learned a lot.

Unfortunately after a few technical problems the 10 second club died. And now, the 10 Second Club is Resting In Peace! Now we have this new 11 second club! Cool! Thanks to Aja Bogdanoff, and her husband Mark for taking all the pain to create this new 11 second club. It is indeed not that easy to maintain and run this kind of club. I hope this one lives forever!
I'm looking forward to participate someday! :)

-A

Victor Navone's thoughts on Ratatouille...

Hi folks!

Check out what animator Victor Navone has to say about their new film Ratatouille. You know, I really can't wait to watch this film in the theaters! Indeed, these movies they make there at Pixar are gifts to the world and especially to us, animators.

-A

And Bamm! - WIP

Hi everyone!
Here's my animation "AndBamm!" just after the linear pass cleanup. Yes, I like to call it "AndBamm!". Aaah! Finally I got some time for this one! I still need to convert it into spline, clean up the whole thing and work more on the ball's overall motion. I'm using this Bloke character for the first time, and I like it!
I tried to make it look like stop motion. I know, I'm not that successful in my attempt. heh.. I just wanted to try something new. Well, here's the preview render of the WIP.... "AndBAMM!!"

After I'm done with this animation, I'll concentrate more on some advanced acting type animations where you'll see some cool camera moves, multiple shots, two person dialog etc. I'm learning more about acting and storytelling now. Learning never stops, huh? Its fun! hehe....

Well for now, I've to clean this up in spline and work more on that ball! Stay tuned.

-A :)

P.S. You can see its 2D planning animation HERE!

Ball Play, PAP

Hi! I'm gonna start one animation. Before I get into 3d, I wanted to plan it out in Plastic Animation Paper. So, here's a rough test animation. Now the problem is... which rig should I use for this kinda animation? I wanted to have a short legged character, so I'm planning to use Bloke (by Jason Baskin). The rig looks pretty good. Though, I'm not too sure about its squash and stretch abilities. I know its quite stretchable, but I wanna stretch the character horizontally. Sadly, I can't do that with any of the free character rigs available. Of course, I can easily create that horizontal squash and stretch effect with my Norman rig. However, I don't wanna use Norman for this type of animation. So I'll just use Bloke! Any suggestions guys?
Anyhoo, here's the rough planning...



Oh yeah! I had to delete my last Harry Potter parody post because some Harry Potter fans (my harry potter loving friends) had problems with that. In the parody movie, Harry Potter really looked like a BIG schmuck. And they didn't like that! It was hurting their feelings. Well, here you go guys! Now you're happy? Common! Its just a parody! And for god's sake, stop worshiping Harry POTHEAD... ummmm.. I mean Potter.. I like Harry Potter too, but I don't worship him! lol....

later,
-A

A ball and a man

Hey guys! I think I'm done with this. I could have cleaned it up more, but I had to wind up my reel. So, this is final.

Cheers!
-A