Another class completed

Its break time! A time to relax from study after a term full of acting in animation. Yesterday was the last day on AM Fall Term 2008 and I think I am already missing AM for the holidays.
After the pantomime assignment in this term we had to animate a dialog. Since this was an introduction to dialog, we were not supposed to animate the facial controls and so it showed how it is challenging to show the acting and emotions through the whole body even without facial expressions. Only the jaw and eyes could be animated, so I wanted to take full advantage of it to push the emotion displayed through his body.

Here is the shot. Please Note that it is still a work in progress. In the next term I will be working on the facial controls and lip-sync and make it final. The "final" in the video below indicates the final assignment for the term.



Ah! Acting is SO difficult even though you know its not a theater stage that you are presenting it on. I like to see how we unknowingly do some things in front of the camera which we might not have imagined if we were bringing it all only from our memory or imagination. This is the video reference I settled on before going into animating it.



I hope to get the best out of this shot once Class 4 starts, for now its break time ! :)
- Chai'

For Sock's Sake

This is a Animated short made with stop-motion by exchange students of Le Gobelins (France) and CalArts. The story is fun and it is amazing how anything can be made into a character ! This film is an example of how the story can be understood without any dialog but just sounds. Even watching it without the sound is still very readable. One of the students of Gobelins went over to Pixar after this film.

Gym & Body Mechanics

I recently joined a gym after a quite some years. Getting fit was my my reason of joining in like for most of us. I am enjoying it, but at the same time I realised I had joined a class of studying body mechanics for free along with it ! :)



If you keep your eyes open to what all action is happening around, you will understand how the weight, balance, muscle contraction, relaxation and a lot more things that happen in our body. There are mirrors all around, so you can see how your body behaves when you do some physical activity like pulling, pushing, lifting, holding, stretching and so much more.
Even observing without the mirrors in a great way to understand how parts of your body are affected when you do some activity. This way I am gathering a lot of raw information in my brain, which some day might come out in my animation, hopefully making it more believable and interesting.

So, if you fellow Animators are thinking about having some exercise, go join some gym :)

BOLT

My current mentor Mike Belzer has recently finished working Disney's new movie 'Bolt' coming out this Month. This is a story of a dog 'Bolt' who is the star of a kick-ass TV show in which he plays a dog with super human dog abilities. What happens when he gets lost in the real world thinking he is really a 'Super' ?

I saw the trailers and the chase sequence that is released is mind-blowing. Its so well crafted and created that it leaves anyone who watches it in a sense of amazement.

Click here for the trailers in iPod to HD resolution.

Pixar's UP Trailer

The Trailer for Pixar's UPcoming movie "UP" directed by Pete Docter is now online



No doubt, this will be an amazing story. The characters seem fun. Observe the 'Mr. Fredrikson' (the old man) character design. Its so squarish - the hands, the head. Seems a little different from the designs we have generally seen in recent Pixar movies.
Now hoping this one releases in India very soon after the US release.

Pantomime

Last few weeks I have been working on this Pantomime test at AM. For this assignment we have to plan a shot with clear change of beats in the animation, also being pantomime, all the acting has to be conveyed through actions and the body.
I enjoyed doing this one a lot right from the planning and video reference to the final polish.
Here is my final test -




Now over to some Dialog Animation :)

Pencil - 2d animation software

Aloha to the citizens of the internet kingdom !
This is something I have wanted to write about from quite some time. I came across this software called "Pencil" which is open source and is designed for artists to create 2d animation. The best thing is that it is free.
Unlike other proprietary software, this one is very simple to use. Only the time-line editing can take a little while to understand. You can have a camera layer, vector and bitmap layers. Some advantages other than that its free are that its very light and fast to use. You can export flash/swf files and even Quicktime .mov files if you are using a Mac. Their website has a good User Manual which can get you started and also a forum to discuss stuff.It is available for Windows and Mac OS X.
I had tried using it in class 1 for some simple planning and again used it for planning my pantomime assignment at AM this class3. Planning an animation in 2d before getting into Maya, can be very useful and can save a lot of time correcting timing and poses. I'll upload the 2d animatic (nothing amazing - simple stick-figure drawings) I did alongwith the final assignment which I will submit this week.

Give it a try and you might like it as well.
Heres a link to the Pencil website: http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=Download

Class 3 : "Intro to Acting" starts

Hey everyone,
This post is coming quite a bit late. I started with class3 a month back and I love all the stuff is going on. If I had to write all the things that I learnt in this past month, I would complete a full notebook with it. Acting in animation is one of the most difficult things to understand, it being different from acting in live action. Animator has to not only act but keep in mind that the physics, the body mechanics are working right, the acting choices are perfect, it is free of cliches and so on. It is said that an animator's job is more difficult than that of a stage actor. Since I know little about stage acting, I dont know all the difficulties that a stage actor has to face, but am beginning to understand the thought process. An actor has to understand the scene, his character, the moment, the surroundings, clarity, acting choices, expression, voice and the characters around. But he never has to worry about the physics, the movement and balance of the body because its natural being a human being. Here is the challenge a character animator has to face. He has to do all that an actor has to do, plus the fact that he has to make the audience believe that its not a drawing or an image but a real character - alive !

The Lectures this term have been focusing on acting and are simply great. I have a new Mentor - Mike Belzer. He is an amazing animator and the fact that he has been an animator for really long, he started with stop-motion animation and worked on Nightmare before Christmas. The last 10 years or so he has been at Disney Studios and he has recently finished work on Disney's latest animation feature, Bolt. I am very lucky to have such an experienced animator to help me through this acting class. The first day of class3 when I got to know Mike is my mentor, I was extremely happy to know I have a really amazing animator to look at my work and tear it apart ! Here is a link to an excerpt from the meet-the-pro QnA at cg-char website where Mike answered some questions.

I'll write about my new assignment this term soon.

Hi, I m a Mac

and I was a PC


A change of topic. Recently I got a new 20” iMac 2.66Ghz and this post is my thought about how its changing the way I use my computer.

I have studied computer science in college and have used different Operating Systems. I first started using DOS and Windows 3.1 on a 286 PC when I was a kid, drawing in paint-brush and taking its printouts on a noisy dot-matrix printer. Since then I have used all consumer (non-server) versions of Windows till Vista SP1. In college I started using Linux, namely Fedora and RedHat and also used Fedora for all CS assignments. None of the OS and their different versions was a nice experience . I always felt Windows more comfortable to use over Linux. But I hadn’t seen Mac OS X yet.

I got a chance to try it out a couple of months ago. Last 3 months I was taking a look at the Mac side of computers, read a little about it, saw some how to videos on you-tube and I was blown away by the sheer simplicity, the efficiency of the OS and the Design. It dint take more than 5 days to get familiar with it and it soon made me feel at home. I hadnt ever seen before seen a computer boot within 40 seconds and completely ready to use.

Also, the hardware design is a world apart. Its so slick and solid. Gosh! I miss all the wires, bulky hardware and clutter :D Now with the iMac that sits on my desk, I totally can relate to the “Hi I am a Mac, I am a PC” ads. Of course those are sometimes exaggerated, but yes, close to reality. I am still awe-struck with it. How hadnt I seen anything like this ever before ?!

Its not that I hate Windows, I have XP installed through boot camp. But its there just in case there is a need to run some windows based program on that rare occaison.

I think if you hasn’t seen or used one, I would say do yourself a favor by trying it out and if you like it, free yourself from the hard-ships of “maintaining” the computer.

Cheers !

Siggraph event on Procedural Animation

Last Sunday I attended a seminar in my city which was a part of the events being held as a part of Siggraph Asia. This was organized by CGTantra, Asifa India and some other companies and organisations related to the Computer Graphics Industry.

Actually this was a first time I attended any CG event. The topic for the talk was ‘procedural animation’ which is way different than key-frame animation that we as character animators do. Here the focus is more on how to get most out of the computer and using it to simulate particles, crowds among other special effects. The Lecture was a more casual one with the speaker Craig “Xray” halperin sharing his experience in the industry interleaved with some technical know how about the subject. There was a small demo of ‘Houdini’, a 3d software which provides this feature. It was a little technical, but he made sure that he kept it simple for anyone and everyone to understand. It was nice to get an insight into some things that are used to make the movies we love to watch on the Big Screen.

Craig has worked on some popular movies like Titanic, T2-3D,Armageddon, Hollow Man, Xmen 2 and a lot more. Recently he had worked on Kung Fu Panda at Dreamworks and now is at Image Movers Digital. Craig or Xray as he is called, told us his early days when he started at Digital Domain and got a foot in the door. He walked through his different stints in the industry and shared what he learned along the way. He kept the whole talk really light and interesting.

Normally we don’t get to see what happens behind the scenes and when we watch a movie don’t even realize that how all the magic was done. Making those crowd animations is so crazy. I had never thought that the crowd in the movie Titanic on the docks before the ship leaves might be computer generated.

After the seminar, I showed my recent progress reel to Chand, who is a co-founder of CGTantra. Then Craig too watched it and both of them gave some valuable critiques on my work. Incidentally when I mentioned that last term I was mentored by Joe, Craig was surprised, “Joe Mandia? I know him ! Tell him you met Xray”. Whoa! I was so shocked to meet someone who had worked with my mentor here in Pune.

Here is Craig’s post on his blog about the event: http://blog.agentxray.com/2008/09/28/day-8-pune-india/ He also has a photo of the event and more from his recent visit to India and South-East Asian countries.

Overall this was a fun Seminar and I am looking forward to more such gatherings.

Class2 Progress Reel

Hi everyone,
Here is my completed class2 Progress Reel. It contains all the work in reverse chronological order of assignments and has both – class2 & class1 work.

Thanks to Joe, my mentor who’s guidance and critiques helped me improve a HUGE amount in the past term. A Big thank you also to all my AM peers and peer buddies who gave valuable feedback and comments

C.

Click To Play

Workflow so far

As I said in my previous post, the previous class at AM helped me tremendously understand the process of going from planning to final polish. I still feel that I have to try out a lot of more things and work a lot on understanding refining and polishing.For now, this method worked for me. I based this on my mentor Joe Mandia's workflow.

I generally start with a little brainstorming of my ideas for the shot. I like to draw them onto paper as quickly as possible to get down the idea that flashed in my head as soon as possible. This lets me experiment with what all can I do. Now that I have a rough concept, I start with shooting a video reference on the lines of my drawings. As I act it out, I take time in between recordings to check how its looking in the camera. Accordingly I make changes and record a final video. Now I get it onto the computer and then study it and try to understand what all things are happening. Then I make thumbnail drawings of important stages. These thumbnail drawings help me to block out the shot.

Blocking out the poses is the first step I do in Maya. This is followed by adding more breakdowns. Blocking helps me figure out the spacing and rough timing. As far as possible I add the overlap, anticipation, follow through in the blocking stage. As I go further, I refine them. I animate the character from the root outwards. I prefer to work in stepped mode till I am sure I have control on important parts of the shot. Then comes the splining and adjusting the inbetweens to what I exactly wanted. In the polish stage, most of the arcs, popping limbs are taken care of.

For now this workflow is working well, still I want to keep experimenting new ways to find the most effecient method for me. Next I want to try out the much talked about Jason Ryan's way of making a flipbook to solve the performance.
C.

Class2 Finished!

I just finished class2 body mechanics and it was a really difficult term. There was so much to learn. The transition from the ballie character into a full body character wasn’t easy. The first time I got stewie with hands I was so overwhelmed by the hands and limbs controls. It took me sometime playing with it to get used to it. The posing practice we had in class1 really came in handy to understand basic posing. We had got to pose the character before but were only restricted with the animation. Animating with the full character was a totally different thing. It’s a lot more fun when you are given a challenge.

The Lectures for this class were jam packed with Very important things one needs to understand thoroughly before even attempting acting in animation. Body Mechanics is all about understanding the physicality of animation. The main focus of the class was to know how the body works, the gravity, balance, physicality of the character. Other important aspects covered in the class were some advanced use of principles of animation that we used in class1. One important thing I had to balance was to not go overboard with the acting and at the same time keeping it interesting. Its really important to focus on the body mechanics since there is plenty of time to study acting in next classes but if the body mechanics is not strong enough, then the acting performance is any way not going to feel convincing to the audience.

My mentor was Joe Mandia. Apart from being as amazing animator, he has been a great mentor. Joe is one awesome guy who just lives animation. He also has some good experience in the industry working on films like IceAge2, OpenSeason, Surfs Up, Chicken Little. Presently he is working in Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) for games animation. Each and every QnA was damn fun. He was always there to share his experiences while studying animation, working in the industry. The rest of the class was no less fun. The class had some really crazy characters. There was so much inspiring stuff being done by my peers, it was great to see such variety of ideas and styles of animating.
Almost every week we had Joe demo some cool stuff for us. He gave out some important tips that are vital to understand the process of animating as well as learning from classic animation examples.

One HUGE thing of animating I understood this term was Workflow. It is essential to have a good workflow so the animation is done within the time-constraints of the studio environment and keeping the process of animating organized. I’ll say more about it in an upcoming post.

This term we had pick-lists to choose assignments of different levels of difficulty. The grading isn’t affected by what assignment you choose but by the quality of the animation that is attained by the student. Since I am a full-time student at AM, I chose to take the difficult assignments. This term I had more fun with the assignments since we have more freedom with the animation idea once we choose the animation idea among the pick list.

For the first assignment, I chose to do a 180* turn on ballie. I did a test where ballie is hit hard with a ball that is thrown at him and then he turns around to take a look at what hit him. My mentor Joe sure had an eye for detail, he could clearly point out things that weren’t working well. This assignment was to be completed over 4 weeks including the video reference and the final refining and polish. Along the way I learnt a lot of things like posing the hips for more interesting attitudes, clarity, weight, adding some moves in the character to make its motion more believable. I had to really work on the timing for ballie’s reaction to the ball’s hit. Its amazing to see how small, subtle things affect the believability of the character.

The next assignment I chose was to do jumping stewie. Now this character we were given had no hands but a full spine, a neck and a head with two small eyes. The absence of hands helped us concentrate on animating the spine and head. It is fun to work with the overlap and reversals in the spine. There is so much to explore in the posing the spine. This time around I thought of doing a small idea, Stewie is standing facing the poles and turns his head around to catch a glimpse of something horrifying. He gets shocked, reacts to what he sees and just sets off jumping from pole to pose keeping his balance and also making sure the thing isn’t catching on to him. This was way tougher than I had thought. The overlaps in the spine, the head, the timing of jumps, the balance of the character is such much to work on. Joe helped me see the problems in the overlap of ideas I had in the animation and to add clarity to some poses.

The final assignment I did for the term was stewie trying to open a sticky door. I had quite a few ideas for this one and spent a lot of time just trying out different ways to stage it and animate it. After a loads of video reference shot and a lot of thumbnails I finalized some reference to jump into the Maya. Wow, this assignment was HUGE for me to understand contrast in timing. I learnt a lot in this one. The timing is so important, it can make it look just awesome or if not done right can be really boring to watch. In short it can make or break a shot. The posing was totally fun stuff. I got to push the poses, though I dint go wild I got it to exaggerate quite a bit. At the end of doing the assignment I felt there is so much to learn about contrast in animation. Contrast in timing and posing can make something stand out. Now I really know where to put my focus on.

In this term I was a peer buddy to some class1 students. A peer buddy is supposed to provide support, help and encouragement to AMers in lower classes. I liked being a peer-buddy and as they say, it really helps strengthen our eye for animation.

Ah! This post got too long. If you reached here, I really appretiate your patience :D After this fantastic term, I am enjoying this week-long break. Its time to relax a bit and get batteries recharged for the next term which is going to be hell of a ride – Introduction to Acting !
WooHoo !

C.

Quick drawing - dog and his pet !

[ click pic for a larger view ]

Heres a drawing I did today in Photoshop. Maaan, I love this wacom tablet, lets me do whatever I want without all the messiness of colors :)

Class2 - "Body Mechanics" !

This was the first week of my class2 at AM. It was fun to return to school after a short week long break. AM just rolled out its version3 which looks quite the same as the v2.1 site but is so much better under the hood. Its now a lot faster with dynamic loading of page content, more powerful tool to playback video, upload assignments and a lot more!

This class, "Body Mechanics" as it is called, is supposed to be the most difficult one in the entire AM program, because they say that there is two classes worth of information in this single one and its jam packed. So, I am making myself ready to put in all I can and be a sponge for all the information thats in there.

My new mentor for the term is Joe Mandia. He has a lot of experience in the industry and has worked on movies like Chicken Little, Open Season and Surf's Up. He is now working with Sony Online Entertainment as an animator. Joe seems to be a really nice and fun person and at the same time very serious about animation quality. Our class got to know him and each other in the Q&A we had last week.

This week we had to submit our video reference for the first time for the assignment. I chose a "180 degree turn" with ballie to animate. I was happy that I had bought a Sony digital Handycam right in time before the term started. Its a 30 GB HDD Handycam with amazing zoom (40x optical) capability. Filming video reference is totally fun though its difficult to get loose in front of the camera. Another thing I learnt a little was how to edit a video in Adobe Premiere Elements. After a lot of tinkering with the camera and editing software I managed to get the output I desired. Doing thumbnails from the video reference was also an interesting thing to do as this was the first time I studied my own video in so much detail.

The digital video camera -An Animator's Friend ;)
(Pictured is my new Sony Hard-disk Handycam)

I am looking forward to all things to come in this term as its great to start shaping a workflow, which is a key to working and surviving in the animation industry.
Lets see whats in store in coming weeks. I am totally excited !

Starting studying in animation

Hey fellas!
This is a slightly long post I did on one of Orkut forums related to animation. It was about how to start studying animation. I thought I should write it all just to help fellow animation aspirants start studying. I am posting it on this blog to share it with everyone, even outside orkut.

So, heres my post. Please note that this content was posted on a community called "animation aspirants - Indians", so it is in reference to the animation training scenario in India and might not apply to other countries.

Hi everyone,
I felt that theres a need to put all information on how to start in animation. Instead of people starting new thread again and again asking the same question, I thought I could put up all my thoughts here.
Animation is ART. It takes time to learn it. Education in animation is never complete.
Check out possible options for studying. There are schools like NID, IIT Powai, IIT Guwahati that teach animation in India. ou can study by your own too. There are many animators like Victor Navone from Pixar who are self taught. I have some points about how to go about this below.
Learn about other schools, what you need to get there.. AnimationMentor.com, CalArts, Sheridan College, Ringling school . AM is more possible options for us Indians as its easier to get into AM than into CalArts becuase the number of seats are a little more and it turns out less costly.AM was suggested 2 years ago to me by an animator at Prana Studios, one of the best animation studios in India. Students are mentored by real animators from major studios in the US and beyond like Pixar, ILM, Dreamworks, Sony, Weta, Tippet and so many awesome studios! You get professionals to critique your work. They "mentor" us in the real sense of the term. I know its costly, but it pays off in the end. But mind you, it is not that once you get into AM, you will simply emerge out to be animators. Its difficult to keep up to their expectations. Yes, animation is extremely difficult !

Most "academies" and "institues" are places where they teach how to click buttons in softwares. It has been long since people are being cheated without even knowing it. Wake up guys!! Stop from being fooled.
Forget words like "diploma", "degree", "PG", "Engineering in animation", "animation specialist professional". Animation Studios just dont give a damn to what papers called "course certificate" you have. Its only your work thats going to get your foot inside the doors of a big studio. Demo-reel is one of the most important things a student of should focus on. Find out what makes a demo-reel stellar and different than others.

Dont get caught up into institutions promising to make you into animators by learning software! Dont get carried away by people telling you learning software is animation. They'll mostly teach you modelling,rigging n Not the Real art of animation.SOFTWARE IS JUST A TOOL just as Pencil is a tool. You have a pencil in your hands since you were a child. But not everyone who can hold or scribble with a pencil is an animator. In the very same way, not everyone who can use Maya or Flash or 3ds Max is an animator. Get into Animation only if you are really Passionate about it!
Watch a lot of animated movies ! Understand the motion, dynamics, acting. Also watch all types of movies, dont restrict yourself to animated ones. Get these books "The animator's Survival Kit - Richard Williams" and "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation". Study those books, Read them, dont just flip through looking at beautiful pictures, Dont copy from those books. Get a pencil and start sketching.. go out.. a nearby park, a Cafe and observe people and their movements, behaviour. Start making flip books.
Get a webcam and shoot images of each of ur drawings and make videos and check how it looks. Draw, Draw and Draw ! Search the internet for articles.
Watch a lot of movies - live action as well as animated. Watch movies more meaningful than staple bollywood masala flicks.
If you want to learn software to complement your animation skills, you can just buy tutorial dvds from digital tutors (http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php?cat=51) and learn from it. Each dvd will cost you some $46. You get to choose which specific topics in the software to study. In the end it turns out a lot cheaper and even LOT MORE useful.

BUT remember, this is only for understanding the software which is just a pencil and paper for an animator.
If you really wanna study animation and not remain jobless or work in some dingy institute, dont put importance on the software. S/W is totally secondary.

Now is the time !!
The Internet is here at your finger-tips, make use of it.
Go to youtube, search for demoreels of animators.
Check out blogs of animators.
Visit carlosbaena.com, www.navone.org , www.synchrolux.com , all of them have a lot of valuable stuff to read. Search for more stuff such blogs.
Check out JasonRyanAnimation.com for Video Tutorials (paid).
Go to http://www.animationmentor.com/tipsandtricks/signup.html and get yourself the e-book. It is n amazingly helpful book.
Join free online forums like www.cgchar-animation.com , CGTantra if you want to discuss animation and learn more from upcoming animators.
Many will point that most of the resources are paid. Yes, nothing comes for free, almost. Except for some blogs and articles on the internet a lot is paid stuff. Well, you should be grateful that so many people are ready to open their knowledge to us ! If they arent paid for their efforts, they would stop doing it and the art form would neve reach us !
YouTube is a great thing happened to our world. There are so many videos for reference, so many clips and documentaries to study from. We are lucky to have such a source just a click away.

Its time to change the animation training/learning scene around us guys. It will change only with us. If you want to learn the art badly, go for it.
Dedicate yoursef 100% to it and remember to have fun all the way.

Good Luck ! :)

If you want to take at the original topic I started on the orkut community, here it is.. http://www.orkut.co.in/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=17738106&tid=5208531587475126042

Kung Fu Panda and Legendary Animation !

Kung Fu Panda !!
This latest movie from Dreamworks Animation is a hell of a ride ! The animation will blow you away. You actually feel the agility of the fighters and the weight of the beloved panda Po. The fight scenes are so full of strength and action, you just get hooked to it. The story is not something very different, the trailers give much of it away. But still, the movie is a must watch !

The opening sequence of the movie in 2d was done by James Baxter Animation. This sequence alongwith the music that accompanies it, sets the pace for the movie and makes sure your eyes stay glued to the screen for rest of the movie. The end titles in 2d were done by a collaboration with Shine studios and James Baxter Animation.
Here are a few clips out of the start and end titles sequences of the movie at kevin Koch's blog.
http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=242
http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=240
If you havnt yet seen it, you are missing out a lot of good animation treat for your eyes ;) I would love to see an entire movie animated like that :D
Now I am going to frame by frame through this piece of animation gold !

Class One - the last week

Its one month since my last post. Last four weeks I was too busy animating that I really couldnt find time to update this space. We had to do two walks over two weeks each. One Vanilla walk (plain everyday walk) and one personality walk. Choosing a personality walk was one tiring thing for me. I had so many ideas to go for. I did a Moon-walk first but later kept it aside to go for a happy playful walk as the moon-walk would be a dance and less of a personality.

My mentor Jalil liked the final assignment and he said he dint have anything to point-out. This was the best moment of my term at AM. In week12 we also get personal feedback from our mentor about whats our strengths and areas of improvement. Jalil said that he was happy with my way of working as well as the understanding of principles. I started the class with some problems in understanding weight, but soon overcame it in some weeks.

Two of the biggest things I learnt from him are 1. Depicting weight in animation and 2. Treating every frame of animation as a drawing. Its amazing how he went through the animation assignments frame-by-frame. I really mean it -- frame - by - frame ! Even a slight posing problem, pop in motion, timing issues, nothing can go past him. This detailed critiquing helped me a lot. Its surprising how personalized crits from such experienced people can help one understand so much.

All of the term my class had a lot of fun! Its great how we get to know our mentor so well. Jalil is an insanely awesome guy ! He had a quiz for every week's Q&A for us. It was a superb way of learning and discussing. The winner of the Quiz who had most points at the end of the term would get a T-shirt from a movie production thats finished at the studio where he works, Weta Digital, NZ. Guess who won it ? Me !! So, I'll be awaiting the Tee as a souvenir of class1 :)

Heres my progress Reel for class1



This term has been so awesome! In some weeks of starting the term, we got a chance to talk to Shawn Kelly, ILM animator and co-founder of AM. It was So cool to be able to talk to him personally !

Now we gonna have a break for a week and then jump into class2 for some more action :)

Horton Q&A !

Last week was a big opportunity for me to interact with Mike Walling, who is an animator who worked on Horton Hears a Who. On May 13th we had a special Horton &Q&A. That too, at 2:30 am after midnight ! How was I gonna miss it? No way! :D
I woke up early and joined the Q&A and maaan the server was so slow. That was very natural, because this session was open for everyone from class1 to class3. Everyone was jumping into the Q&A. It was a crazy time with all the video lag. Thankfully, the audio was working quite well.

All students were very enthusiastic and got all our questions answered. I got to asked about how did they think of the character Katie and whats that "aaaah" expression all about ?? :D
They said that Katie was one of the little characters in the forest. While story-boarding, the "aaah" expression was put in as a gag. They werent really sure how well it will work, but whoa! It became Soo popular, Katie has got her own videos on YouTube. About the expression, even they were confused about what it exactly meant. It was something wierd .. like a mix of happiness, excitement. Katie was animated by BlueSky animator Jason Martinsen whos also a mentor at AM.

The Q&A dint last long as usual mentor Q&As do as they had class4 to 6 to talk to. But that was one memorable experience I will never forget : )

Session 107

This week was CRAZY !! This was the mother of all assignments till now. It had everything we learnt since class1 started. We had to make sure everything - timing, spacing, anticipation, stretch and squash, overlap worked together right in this work. I got my hands on the cute tailor. As this assignment has so much going on, its really difficult to make sure everything works right. This was the most challenging assignment of all till date.
What a time to screw things up. I put in 1 day of planning and came up with a really lame and boring shot. I uploaded it for my peers to see and most were disappointed. One of my friends gave a really genuine suggestion and told how that assignment wasnt really working. I tried to be brave and just scrapped it and started from scratch afresh. I did a new plan and went ahead with it with a fresh approach. It did work well ! :)
This is what I had planned for..


This is the final work I turned in.


In between the week, I got my eCritique for last week's pendulum animation from Jalil. Wow, I was so happy to see that he liked it and I got an impressive grade! Getting overlap into work is one of the most difficult things in animation and I had just done it quite well!! WooHoo! :D

Some digital splash

Today I did a sketch/render in Photoshop on my wacom tablet. Its first time I put it to use for some sketching. Here it is.

"IronMan"

Heavy Metal

Ok, confused about the title?


By heavy metal, I mean IRONMAN ! I got a chance to watch it last week. IRONMAN is one of the best super-hero movies, though I would rate Spider-man 1 and 2 more just because its been my favorite comic book since childhood. I havent read much of IronMan comics, but was keen on watching it because of great reviews it got and the VFX.

This movie has everything to be a super super-hero movie.. great visual effects, animation and cool acting performance by Robert Downey Jr. The VFX are fantastic.. ILM keeps coming up with ground-breaking stuff, still I feel Transformers was an even better treat. I would recommend to anyone into kick-ass action flicks.
Stan-Lee the maker of the ironman comics also makes the mandatory appearance though really small, as he does in movies on his characters just the way he has to appear in every Spider-man movie !

The main thing that makes this movie different is the story.. the way its staged. All the events happen in today's world. It has all the things that make you identify with today's situation about war and terrorism and arms race. The way they have approached the topic of how we are destructing ourselves for our short term benefits is great. The movie has not only action, futuristic technology, audis, glitz but some heart to it. This story definitely dares to be different.I just love the way the movie ends.. making it so much different than other superhero movies ! Go watch it if you havent yet.

Session 106 .. Overlap and FK pain

What an exhaustive week !
This week we had to study overlap. I thought I knew what that principle is.. but I was So wrong !! There is lot more to it than meets the eye. Its really difficult to attain it and make it believable.

Now, I had this crazy Pendulum rig from AM which we had to animate. This time we got a picklist of two levels of difficulty for animation. I chose the more difficult one and tried to be creative. I thought of showing some figure 8 curves on the pendulum's motion.
Believing that it was easy to get it was really insane. I had under-estimated the challenge!
Heres the plan I had..

Isnt it cool ? Yeah, there was a surprise ahead for me..

Now after I was done getting really cool figure 8 curves on the general motion of the pendulum, I found something was making all the motion look haywire. After a lot of fooling around with the rig, I found that the rig was in FK and not IK ! I had to modify the rig or do it in FK. Doing it in FK was going to be a lot of pain .. but after talking to some peers and AM support I got to know that the Rig was purposely setup that way to get us used to animate with FKs.
Maaaan, counter-animating a FK setup can be such a pain ! I spent all of my week making the rig what I wanted to do and not what the computer wanted to do.

Heres the goody.. all done and ready to be pulled apart at my Mentor's e-Critique..



So I learnt many new things this week at AM..
1. OVERLAP !!
2. Counter-animating in FK
3. NEVER under-estimate any kind of assignment. You never know how it can be demanding.

Now I think I know what more to expect on this Crazy ride to being an animator.. Its definately is going to get even tougher..

I heard a "who" !

I got to watch Horton hear a Who , the weekday after it was released here in India. It was a movie I was waiting for because it was from BlueSky Animation Studios, the people who made Ice Age 1&2 ! Also another reason to add on top was that over 20 of graduates and past students of AnimationMentor have worked on the movie.



Horton is definitely a must watch movie. The animation is mind-blowing, the story is very humble, the composition and production design is beautiful and Amazing acting performances by animators !
Its a story of Horton, an elephant who one day finds a clover with a tiny li'l speck on it. He believes there are people on it as the speck makes sounds. Indeed, the speck has a world on its own full of creatures called "who"s who are a happy-go-lucky kind of people. With his perspective of "A persons a person, no matter how small", Horton sets out to save the world on the speck from the authoritative Kangaroo and other wild from the jungle of Nool.

Horton's acting is great ! The way he wraps, curls, stretches his ears to make funny hats and punk caps adds the fun to the main performance. No one will miss Katie the li'l yellow furry sheep-like creature in Horton's class. Whenever shes happy she does some crazy expression saying "Aaaaaaah" which cracks me up every time I watched her do it :D

I just love some of the scenes .. the one when Horton is searching for "the" clover in a sea of pink clovers, then the end scene is great too when the camera trucks out to show that even our world could be a tiny li'l speck in someone else's world reinforcing the thought that "A persons a person, no matter how small". So True !

Sessions 105 and 104

WoW ! I just cannot believe how time flies when you do the thing you love to do the most. Its already more than a month since starting the class and I already feel I have learned a lot from my time at AM than I did learn on my own in last 6 months.

I just completed my week 5 assignment yesterday. We had to animate a ball bouncing through an obstacle course. The main objective was to study anticipation and Squash-n-Stretch. At the same time the ball should do all the things it did in previous assignments.
The moment I saw the assignment, I went crazy because this was the first time we could show more creativity in the animation while following the setup that AM gave. Many times students move around the obstacle course to create different paths. I did not move any part of the obstacle just to put myself in a habit of working in specific layout settings.
We also had to submit a sketch poses of "devastation" and pose our beloved 'Stu' Rig in one of the sketched poses.
This week was the most packed one with me spending most of my day into animating the assignment. This was hell lot tough than compared to what I had thought.

I cannot stress enough the AM community is giving me. I get continuous detailed feedback on my work from campus mentors, peers and peer-buddies. This makes me go out and give out suggestions on my friends' works. This sharing of ideas is just great !

Here goes the result..



And here goes the pose "devastated"


Last week was a mix of things. I got a bad grade from my Mentor. He pointed out the major problem in last week's assignment. I had forced the ball to stop at point B. I should have let it bounce the way it would naturally do. But this made me push even farther and came up with a good assignment for that week. I also turned in the revision for bouncing ball assignment.
The assignment we had was animation of two bouncing balls.. yes two ! Each with a different weight. I did a ping-pong ball and an iron ball. I worked really hard on that and guess what ? My mentor liked it and also gave out a good grade ! Yay!
Here is last week's (session 104) assignment..



Here is the revision to Session 103 assignment..





See you soon with something more interesting ..
Adios !
CnL.

End of a Golden Era

The great Disney animator and last of the Disney's "Nine Old men", Ollie Johnston passed away this week on 14th April at an age of 95. He is know for his work on many feature films from Pinocchio (1940) to The Rescuers (1977) . He is specially know for his amazing animation work for virtually bringing characters to life through amazing acting through animation. His characters show a lot of thought.
Here is a tribute to Ollie Johnston from Brad Bird, the director of Oscar Winning Ratatouille and Incredibles. link

Ollie Johnston along with his fellow animator Frank Thomas set out to do the most comprehensive book on the history of Disney animation which discussed all the animation techniques and brings to life the golden era of discovery of the "12 principles of animation". This book, "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" is regarded as the bible for animation by the animators the world over!

Ollie Johnston (sitting) with Frank Thomas, the
writers of "The Illusion of Life" at Disney Studios.
image from: CartoonBrew

May Ollie Johnston rest in peace.I am very sure he'll be alive forever through the characters he has brought to life!

Wacom is here ! :)

At last I got my hands on the Wacom Graphics Tablet.. one word to describe it.. "Precise". Its a BIG 12x9 (A4 sized) Intuos3 with 1K levels of pressure sensitivity, so when you draw, it creates strokes like a brush. So, now I can draw in Photoshop with the Stylus just like pencil or a brush on paper. No mice now. I've read people say that though it takes time to get used to, the Wacom is a marvel and you eventually end up throwing away the mouse in the drawer :)
Here it the mighty Wacom :D ..

Sessions 103 and 102

Amazing two weeks gone!

This week we did our first animation. And what better assignment to start with than the famous bouncing ball. Oh boy! I had never thought that making a bouncing ball can be so simple (I am kidding ;) ) Its way TOUGHER than I had thought. I have previously tried a bouncing ball on paper, but all of those times it would come from the left of the page and leave from the right with just 2 bounces and never came to a standstill. Now here was the challange.. Make the ball bounce like a basketball / soccer ball does! That too in a restricted frame limit.
I started with all necessary planning on paper and then into Maya. I had a really exhausting time wrestling with Splines in the graph editor. But by the next day I got used to it and it became a lot easier. AM peerBuddies and peers are such a huge help. I kept on posting everyday on the Public Review (PR) and got amazing feedback and that too lightning fast. Lots of issues I had overlooked started staring at me in the face after those helpful crits. I cannot thank AM more for creating such a powerful community :)
The other assignment was to sketch poses of people in "excited" emotional state. Then, pose the AM rig(model) "Stu" according to one of your favorite poses. Just hit the upload button for the assignment.. now will wait for the Critique..




Last week we dint have much of work to do. We had to go out to public places like park, cafes.. to sketch people in different poses. Its always been fun to do it.. now we had to take one of the pose sketched and pose the AM Rig "Stu" accordingly in Maya. I got to play around with it for long. This is So Cool ! Its like going back to childhood days and playing with those Gi.Joe figurines. hehe. Last week was my first ever e-Critique from my mentor Jalil.. It was AMAZING! A Pro animator critiquing my work in so much detail ! Got to learn a lot from the crit about posing, weight and balance so much more than I did in last 6 months.
Here it is.. Session 102

So, bbye for now.. Catch up next week for more bounces.. :)

Session 102, 103

Amazing two weeks gone! This week we did our first animation. And what better assignment to start with than the famous bouncing ball. Oh boy! I had never thought that making a bouncing ball can be so simple (I am kidding ;) ) Its way tougher than I had thought. I have previously tried a bouncing ball on paper, but all of those times it would come from the left of the page and leave from the right with just 2 bounces and never came to a standstill. Now here was the challange.. Make the ball bounce like a basketball / soccer ball does! That too in a restricted frame limit.
I started with all necessary planning on paper and then into Maya. I had a really exhausting time wrestling with Splines in the graph editor. But by the next day I got used to it and it became a lot easier. AM peerBuddies and peers are such a huge help. I kept on posting everyday on the Public Review (PR) and got amazing feedback and that too lightning fast. Lots of issues I had overlooked started staring at me in the face after those helpful crits. I cannot thank AM more for creating such a powerful community :)
The other assignment was to sketch poses of people in "excited" emotional state. Then, pose the AM rig(model) "Stu" according to one of your favorite poses. Just hit the upload button for the assignment.. now will wait for the Critique..



Last week we dint have much of work to do. We had to go out to public places like park, cafes.. to sketch people in different poses. Its always been fun to do it.. now we had to take one of the pose sketched and pose the AM Rig "Stu" accordingly in Maya. I got to play around with it for long. This is So Cool ! Its like going back to childhood days and playing with those Gi.Joe figurines. hehe. Last week was my first ever e-Critique from my mentor Jalil.. It was AMAZING! A Pro animator critiquing my work in so much detail ! Got to learn a lot from the crit about posing, weight and balance so much more than I did in last 6 months.
Here it is.. Session 102

Here I come.. Session101 !

WooHoo ! :)
It was an amazing week, very busy though.. A week I was waiting for quite some time.
Finally it has started. I am in the Spring 2008 term for class1:Basic Foundations at AM!

The week was really packed with a lot of things to do. First thing to suprise me, the very first time I logged into AM, I had more than 10 welcome messages from AM students on my workspace ! The community is sooo cooperative. I took a lot of time to go around and check out the school. I watched the Lecture the next day which was amazingly inspiring and had a lot of working tips about animation.
Then I took all the basic Maya Training which was the best animation focused training I've seen. Man, this place can be soo overwhelming! This week we are supposed to go around and check out different things at AM. AM is a truly global school. My classmates come from Germany, Moscow, Israel, Italy, Dubai, UK, India, Nigeria and Lebanon ! Also I get a chance to talk to students from all over the world ,let it be someone near in Mumbai or say on the other side of the world in California !

Then came the first Q&A ! My mentor for the class is Jalil Sadool. He has worked as an animator on “Chronicles of Narnia”, “Garfield 2”, “Charlotte’s Web”, and “A Night at the Museum”. He is currently an animator at Weta Digital and is working on James Cameron's "Avatar" and A. Adamson’s “Prince Caspian”. The Q&A was great where we did the introduction. We could ask him anything about animation and about the industry. Jalil is amazingly energetic and inspiring. It was So amazing talking to a real animator face to face and we got to talk to him for two hours!


The best thing about the AM and its community is that they are so passionate about the art of animation. You can always go to other's workspaces and comment on their work. They will do the same for you. In animation, feedback and critiques are extremely crucial. AM fosters this sense of community. Everyone out there is always ready to help you out. This is the first time ever that I am completely around people who just love animation! Its great to be able to to talk to some person about animation and movies and comics and drawing without losing his/her interest within first five seconds :D . AM makes me feel at home! Just love AM!

Next week there will be more to come .. My first assignment and some great addition to my workstation I have been waiting for :) ! That was a looong post, next time will keep it short :D

Few hours to go ! :)

The wait is finally come to an end as tonight I'll finally get inside AM :) ! I am super excited about it. I've been waiting a lot of years to find someone to teach me the real art of character animation.. finally I've found it and am now going to absorb as much as I can during my classes at AM to get the best out of me. A couple of days ago I got the Enrollment Agreement signed back from the school with a demo-reel do's and dont's and a couple of AM goodies! I just couldn't stop smiling.
I have been going out and sketching for two weeks now. Hope this practice helps in getting used to posing for animation. Here are some of my sketches.


Last six months I have been reading animation books like The Animator's Survival Kit, The Illusion Of Life : Disney Animation and Timing for animation. I am always searching out for amazing resources on animation on the internet. One of the most awesome resource I've stumbled upon and should be mentioned is The Animation Podcast. The first time I listened to it was an interview with Glen Keane. It was wonderful. Check www.animationpodcast.com for more, the latest podcast being an interview with james Baxter.

I have been trying all the time to get professional's critique for my animation tests I have done over these months. Here is a link to my pencil tests in 2d animation I've tried lately.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSP-9v-eDoE&feature=related
Here is a video of my more recent work..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DmmFAnWE5eE&feature=related Check that out and leave any comments about the videos.

So 12 hours to go until my journey begins ..

Hello world !

Hello World! :)
Last few weeks I have been busy reading blogs of many animators, of students as well Professionals. Its very interesting to read people write about the stuff they are so passionate about. I thought I too can start one.
Maintaining a full website/homepage takes a lot of time. Updating a website with small posts regularly becomes difficult with all the editing that needs to be done. So, thought of starting a blog. Now I can post any new work quickly!

This month end I will be starting AnimationMentor.com the online character animation school. This blog will have all the new stuff i try out and my work in the school.
I hope this blog will be interesting for people with the passion in becoming a character animator some day.

You can call this blog "Making of an animator" ;)

So, keep reading and keep animated! :)