New Pixo Jr. Rig (Version 2)

Hey guys! Meet Pixo Jr. 2! He’s a joint project by animators Amrit R. Derhgawen and Alex Crouch. Inspired by Pixar’s Luxo, Pixo will help animators practice animation principles, such as timing, weight, spacing, phrasing, and overlapping. Pixo’s simple, so you can do basic animations without being distracted by a whole lot of gadgets and gizmos that get in the way.
Click here or on the image to download Pixo Jr. 2 FREE rig from HighEnd3d!

Improvements in version 2:

The improvements are the following:

Combined separate head translate and head rotate controls into a single translation/rotation control, renamed it "HeadCTRL"

Combined separate base translate and head rotate controls into a single translation/rotation control, renamed it "BaseCTRL"

Eliminated the arrow thing above the lamp control and made a Hide/Show switch on the main character control

Entire rig is now scalable from the main character control


Hope you like it! Many thanks to my great friend Alex Crouch! He is responsible for all the rigging stuff! Thanks for the update and keeping Pixo Jr. alive, Alex.

ENJOY!

-A

A New Tutorial?

UPDATE!!

Hi folks! Here's an update. This one looks a lot better now. Its not one hundred percent perfect in 2D, but I've tried my best to show the idea here. The spine isn't working the way it should be. I think that the CG one will a lot better. Anyhow, I hope you like it! Thanks a lot to Jason Ryan, for sparing his time and helping me so much. Thanks Jason! You don't know how much this means to me. I can never ever do all this without your help!

I hope I'll be back with my tutorial soon... so hang on everyone!

Hey everyone!

How about a new tutorial? Well, a good news...I'm planning to write a new tutorial for you all. I'll take a simple action shot and tell you everything about my thought process, and discuss how I take my ideas from my mind to 2D drawings and finally to Maya.
I'll share all my thumbnail drawings, FlipBook X-Sheet images, etc. And also, there will be a screen capture of me working inside Maya, making the poses, scrubbing around, etc. This tutorial will not be Maya based, and I'll try my best to stay away from discussing any of the technical stuff like handling graph editor, f-curve polishing and stuff. This will not be like my previous Animomania WorkFlow Tutorial where I've tried to discuss almost every technical thing! It'll be all about how I THINK before approaching a simple action shot... where a guy throws a ball.... the ball hits someone in the head (not in the camera view), the first guy goes..."Oh GOD! Lets get outta here!" and turns around and run away.
Here's the 2D version...

Indeed, I'll approach my animation in Jason Ryan's fashion. I'm a big fan of him and his workflow and I can't keep myself from following it.

Right now I'm kinda busy working on a pantomime (non cartoony) acting animation, and I hope I get some time to write this tut as soon as possible. So guys, hold your breath for a new Christmas surprise!

Aaarrrghh, I'm still waiting for Jason's tutorials to be released. There's a one month delay due to some unexpected technical issues and I hope it gets resolved soon. Thanks a lot to Jason for helping me out whenever I need help and sharing his super cool and inspiring animations. Maybe someday, I'll be able to animate half as good as him.

-A

The "Mingi" Pose

She is my cute little cousin, Mingi! She wants me to play! hehe...

Off to Rishikesh...

I'm currently visiting Rishikesh and I'll be off the grid till
November 13th.
I really need this to recharge my animation batteries! :)

Loving life,

-Amrit

Underground Halloween Party

Here's what I've been working on for some time. Now I'm going 100% (I guess!) on Jason Ryan's workflow. And I'm loving it. WOOOOOT!
A few people have asked me (via email).... "Hey ya sucker! Why don't you ever try on subtle acting animations??"
Well... good question! But please, hold on guys.... please.... hold on!! I promise you that I'll show you some really solid acting (subtle realism based and cartoony) animations. I'm not gonna hurry up right now. I know that Jason Ryan will cover these topics in his course. And then, I'll get plenty of time to work on them.
Well for now, check out this new animation!

Thanks to Jason for critiquing this animation. His comments are like gold for people like me. When I talk to him, I soon realize....."aah! I've so much to learn... I'm just a baby!" hehe.... Its really great. And he never fails to encourage. This really helps me push my work even harder! Some of his encouraging words are......

Hey Amrit, this is great. Your timing is beautiful.....very appealing and your 2D is very well thought out. Well done.......J

You're work has a lot of spark, I really appreciate that you push everything so much.....J

Man, you would have rocked on Alvin and the Chipmonks!

Cool! I never expected this kind of appreciation!! I know, I'm still a crappy animator... but, Jason said all this to encourage me and to push me even further. Thanks a lot to Jason for everything. Now I can hardly wait for his new tutorials! I'm so excited right now, that I'm almost jumping like a mad scientist! Emm...errr.... wait a minute! Was that a nonsense? Umm..maybe!

Well, here's the animation (after Jason's comment). Click to play...

This could be the final version. However, I may update this if needed. :) I hope you like it!


EDIT: Finally, ! I got the green signal from Jason. So, this is final! YAY!!

This is how my anim looked before Jason's comment...(Not so good!)

Cheers!
-A