Tegan Jephcott | Animation

Class 3 - Week 5 - Walkthrough: Animating Physicality

2012-02-06T23:57:00.001Z

This was another work-flow walk-through, with a little peppering of ideas to make your shot have more life and physicality ;)

Mainly what I learnt is that I need to speed up my workflow, start using keyboard shortcuts and set up my own hotkeys. David told us that a lot last class, to work more efficiently, reduce your clicking about time... But I still haven't sorted that out yet. I'm resisting it just like I resisted the graph editor. But I'll get there!

Anyway, here's my blocking. I had tonnes of feedback this week as I actually managed to get my PR's up. I'll show you what I started with, and then what I handed in... It's changed a fair bit!

Original blocking:

Hand-in blocking:

Class 3 - Week 4 - Locomotion

2012-01-29T20:32:00.000Z

This weeks lecture was mainly to do with balance, and how our bodies will always try to stay balanced over a centre point. If we pick up a heavy object, that weight becomes part of our own and we readjust our balance to compensate.

Here's my final assignment, and the planning stages for the next.

Class 3 - Week 3 - Advanced Arcs and Path of Action

2012-01-22T19:35:00.000Z

Had to redo my shot again.

Went from stepped to splined in a week.

Got referred to student care for extra help.

Had a special q&a with Sandy Christensen this week. Good q&a!

Eventually watched the lecture!

Here's my stuff.

See ya next week!

Class 3 - Week 2 - Walkthrough - Blocking to Final

2012-01-11T21:15:00.000Z

Okay, so I received my critique, and my first shot idea got a little bit... rejected. Too much running, bit dull for audience, bit dull for me to animate.

SO! I ran with one that my mentor gave, and here is the video reference I shot for it and my thumbnails.

And now, for the blocking!

Our lecture was about working in spline in copied pairs, essentially. I don't understand it. Luckily, my mentor told us to stay in stepped mode for as long as possible, so I'm happy ;)

Laters!

Class 3 - Week 1 - An Introduction to Staging and Composition

2012-01-07T21:34:00.002Z

Hello again!

Christmas break is over, and I'm now in Class 3. My mentor this term is Jay Davis, and I've picked the AnimJam option for my assignments this term. So this time, my shots are going to link together!

The lecture this week was with Carlos Baena on staging and composition. Lots of learning that I made notes on, because it's what I will forget! But pretty useful for composing shots, better get remembering this stuff!

Anyway, planning for the animjam began this week, my theme is:

Stewie's Holiday!

Here's my planning, complete with lunatic video ref. We had to costume pick for Stewie, and plan our first shot, along with the ideas for the next two shots.

I've modelled a hat (flowerpot), a passport, and some flipflops (under instruction from Karoly, who also kindly made me Stewie's suitcase). Getting some digital tutors on the go, feel like I should probably learn a little about this modelling lark...

Sarah, I hope you enjoy this ;)

Bye!

Class 2 - Week 12 - END OF CLASS 2!

2011-12-12T15:05:00.000Z

It's the end of Class 2 this week! Time for the progress reel!

I er, messed up a little bit of the placement of the title cards. I thought I'd fixed it, just saw I hadn't!

Class 2 - Week 11 - Adding the Final 10%

2011-12-11T19:18:00.001Z

So we had a lecture with Kenny Roy, who is awesome, about polishing your work.

Always keep to the intention of the scene. Remember that, or you'll get lost with trying to add and add and add, and you'll lose what it is you intended to do. Wise words.

So, I hope that my shot has stayed true! (I've got some plans for it, but not for this assignment. We'll see!)

And with the music...

Class 2 - Week 10 - Walkthrough a Shot

2011-12-05T00:09:00.001Z

So we had a great walkthrough lecture from Rick O'Connor, on how he approaches a shot. Also watched a video from Jason Ryan from iAnimate. Lots of wonderful information!

This week was the first week of polish on our shot. So I spent Monday - Friday polishing my shot, without deleting any keys. Got to Sunday (and some brilliant help from a very patient man) and was convinced to clear out all the useless gumpf from my graph editor. A process which terrifies me. So I ended up with a polish pass that looks a little worse than the week before - kinda like when you tidy your room, and it ends up messier before it gets better... That's how I feel about this.

Anyway.

Class 2 - Week 9 - Timing and Spacing

2011-11-27T19:37:00.001Z

All I can think about this week is how much I hate constraints. And splines. My shot has lost all it's punch and I can't quite figure out how to fix it. Maybe I just need to adjust the timing. I've asked my mentor, hopefully he'll have some ideas.

Class 2 - Week 8 - Arcs and Path of Action

2011-11-19T00:03:00.001Z

Every movement creates an arc, unless you're a robot.

Here's the blocking of my shot!

Class 2 - Week 7 - Advanced Posing: Force

2011-11-13T18:04:00.001Z

This week our lecture was with Wayne Gilbert, who has made a great book called Simplified Planning for Animation that I should really pay some more attention to, about showing force in our poses - internal and external. For example, someone jumping, the mechanics of the jump are external forces, gravity, muscle, etc, but the landing of the jump - putting the legs out to take the weight of the body - implies internal force, a degree of thinking. Wayne explained it really well and I took many notes.

Our assignment was to polish our shots from the previous 2 weeks, and also to plan our new shot (and last one of the term!) I picked a dance from Hello Dolly, as seen in Wall-E. I had a lot of ideas for which dance to pick, and very nearly chose the one from Clerks 2, but I went with this one. It's happy =D

Um, also, video reference was involved... Have fun.

There are some mysterious head things in here I can't find the source of. Waaaahhhhhh.

Oh yeah! We get Stewie with arms! =O

Class 2 - Week 6 - Blocking to Final

2011-11-08T16:28:00.000Z

Our lecture last week was another walkthrough from blocking to final. All very helpful to see the steps different people go through. This lecture had a lot more stages than blocking, blocking +, refining and polishing. A LOT more.

So here's my blocking +. I actually handed this in on Friday last week but didn't get a chance to get to the blog. David has given me my critique and was suitably happy with it, which is nice =) Got some changed to make - more up and down in the hips to really sell the sneakyness as well as keeping sneaky stewie's eyes on window stu for longer, and to alter some of the movements of the other two guys too.

Last week on this shot! Got planning for the next shot to do - and last shot of class 2! Time goes so very quickly on AM.

Class 2 - Week 5 - Balance and Weight

2011-10-27T18:59:00.000+01:00

WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? Posting before the week is up?!

Yes. Yes I am.

Because I feel my blocking is pretty much there. Check it out, I've had so much fun blocking it this week! But next week there will be tears. Spline-induced tears.

Anyways, our lecture was about balance and weight this week. I learnt that a body is only ever off balance when in locomotion. A body has to be off balance before it can move. If you are standing, perfectly balanced, it is nearly impossible to move. You have to shift your weight and therefore your balance, to free up a leg, for example, to move it forward. Pretty important stuff. I've been checking my characters plumbline like crazy this week. And to stop moving, you use your weight to act against the locomotion. And that's when we get C's and reversed C's. Hoh yeah.

OH YEAH! We got No-Armed Stewie! NEW CHARACTER, YAAAAY!

I feel good this week.

Class 2 - Week 4 - Walkthrough: Blocking to Final

2011-10-23T20:36:00.000+01:00

Our lecture this week was another workflow walk-through, concentrating a little more on the first splining pass and how to attack that beast of a task. Still not in full comprehension of how these things work, I feel like I just open it up and play with it, rather than skillfully tweaking and deleting tangents as needed - like a kitten and a ball of wool... There is a need here to refine my working process, I reckon!

Anyway, take a look at my final pass at this shot. Ah, polishing... another beast yet to tame. Planning and blocking, ace, splining and polishing... Needs some work!

As well as finishing this shot, we had to plan our next one from the new pick-list, another 3/4 week affair. Shot some reference, max frame length of scene 200 frames 8 seconds. The average take of mine was 35 seconds... much too long so involved re-timing with frames stolen from my footage... which leads me to believe I must get a little (read: much more) adventurous with my timing. There are a bunch of students who have got a great feel for snappy and slower movements, so I'm going to go and see what it is they do and try and apply it.

Anyway, this is what I've got at the moment, but the timing will definitely change. Need some more contrast in my life! BUT! We get to use Stewie for this shot! Complete with head and torso! (and no arms!)

Adios!

Class 2 - Week 3 - InDepth Look at Hips

2011-10-18T18:45:00.000+01:00

Hello! As it says, week 3 our lecture was about the hips. Hips are pretty important for getting convincing weight in a character. Plus, like many things, there doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule for them. If pressure is on one leg, that hip should go up, but if you're raising the other leg... That hip will rise up. Could easily get you all in a tizzy. Anywho, here is my first pass at splining this shot. Yay. All my timing from my blocking got ballsed up and I had to adjust it quiiiiite a bit ;)

Class 2 - Week 2 - Blocking to Final

2011-10-10T09:34:00.000+01:00

For week 2 our assignment was to put our planning for out shot into blocking. I tweaked mine just a little - mainly that it is a gap Ballie is now stepping over, instead of awkwardly getting over a puddle. It made more sense, to me anyway. Also, the timing has been altered a fair amount - I think movement wise it is very similar, but where in time has changed.

Our lecture was about taking a shot from blocking to the final polish stage, but using an approach similar to a traditional animator. Which I like! This weeks lecture is an in-depth look at hips, which is going to be sooooo useful.

Anyway, here's my blocking. (should I start putting these through vimeo? - I'm sure blogger deleted that word...)

See ya in a week!

Class 1 Week 12/Class 2 Week 1 - Clarity in Blocking

2011-10-04T20:56:00.002+01:00

Ahoy hoy, back again for some more AM.

The first class of AM has been amazing. I think one of the things I definitely learnt was never take what you think you know for granted - I thought I knew how to make a ball bounce, and I was wrong ;) It has been a huuuuuge learning curve (of which I am still participating) and a very enjoyable one. I don't really know what to tell you, unless you're thinking of taking AM, in which case - do it! If what you want to do is really learn character animation from the ground up, go for it.

Blah blah over, here's my progress reel for class 1!

------------------

Class 2!
Psychology of Body Mechanics

This class my mentor is David Tart, which is awesome. My new class is pretty great too! Week 1 we had to shoot some video reference for a four week shot (weeks 1-4 we'll be working on the shot) from a pick list, and then thumbnail it with our timings. I chose to do the big step to the side, to see if I could really nail it and then try my hand at something more complex for week 5. We've had our critiques from week 1 and a note from David, saying we all seem to have the same problem... we're trying to put too much into the shot, and he doesn't know us, so he doesn't know if we will pull it off. What he wants to see is the mechanics of the movement really nailed, which I did wonder after I submitted my idea... So I'm toning down what you will see next and making it more about the step, with a little bit of antic, as in my critique David suggested that there is probably too much happening in the allotted time.

Anywhos... here's my reference and my planning... Enjoy some dodgy "acting" ;)

I used good old monkey jam to work out my timing of this one! And we were also asked to jot down what we felt happening when we were acting our shots. Thems me notes!

Class 1 Week 11 - Walthrough Spline Editing Part 2

2011-09-14T16:55:00.001+01:00

I have a love hate relationship with the graph editor. Even though Chad tends to key everything, and that's a perfectly fine way to animate and the way I understand the most... I still want to use the graph editor how I should! So at the moment my technique is a little mixed up, but I'm learning.

Anywho, here is the last assignment (other than compiling our progress reel for the class, which is week 12s assignment!) The refined 3/4 view of my walk, and a pose that shows balance. I kinda missed an essential part of the assignment that says the pose was meant to be balanced with most of the weight on one leg, which I didn't find out until I had left to go to Cornwall for the weekend without my laptop... Chad liked the idea anyway. I also know how I can go about the same idea with that feeling of balance in it, and I will be revising my work during break week.

I'll come back later with my progress reel, and my final thoughts on the first class of AM. But here is the general idea: it has been great!

Class 1 Week 10 - Introduction to walks with character

2011-09-07T18:25:00.000+01:00

It's nearly over. I'm currently working on my last assignment - which is the refining of week 10's assignment, splining it and changing the view from side (which I will put up here in just a moment) to a 3/4 view. Also we had to pose out Stu, showing exhaustion. I've had my critique this week, Chad liked the pose and said the walk is looking nice, but with a lot of helpful advice to improve it. Check it out below.

(I'm currently splining this now, but I continued blocking it out after I handed this in, because I hate that damn graph! Here's the blocking for what I'm working on. Probably very small differences!)

The spline version may well be up tomorrow, as I'm off for the weekend with no internet. Eep.

Anyway, this is my pose!

Come back soon for my last hand-in of class 1!

Class 1 Week 9 - Exaggeration and Weight

2011-08-28T19:59:00.001+01:00

In ten minutes from me writing this, it'll be week 10 of AM - only 2 more weeks until the first term is over! It's gone by so quickly! In 3 weeks it'll be the beginning of class 2, with a new mentor and a new class... And a new bunch of class 1 students! We're not the newbies anymore!

Our lecture was about exaggeration and showing weight this week, with Shawn Kelly. Great lecture!

Anyway, here is my assignment for this week. The splining pass for our walk cycle, and a new pose showing concern. Difficult difficult. Suffice to say, the splining kicked my butt this week. Hopefully I've ended up with something good and solid and vanilla ;) just gotta wait to see if it passes the Chad test! Had a lot of great help though, AM students are probably the best bunch of students in the world =)

Enough of the talk, here's my walk.

And this is the planning and final shot for Stu showing his concern over bubba Stu.

(I'm away from home this weekend and forgot to scan my sketches before I left, so 'scuse the fingers!)

Onwards! To week 10!

Class 1 Week 8 - Introduction to Walks

2011-08-22T12:07:00.003+01:00

In week 8, we started walk cycles! Our assignment was to begin a vanilla walk cycle, leaving the shot in stepped mode. We also had to pose Stu showing physical strength. Here is my planning and the result of both parts of the assignment.

Vanilla walk:

Physical strength:

This week we are refining our walk and creating a pose that shows concern. Going to be tricky!

Week 1 Class 7 - Spline Editing

2011-08-15T19:21:00.003+01:00

This was a week for us to consolidate all we'd learnt so far and apply it to Tailor. Our lecture was on spline editing, but you can find the same information from Victor Navone here: Splinophilia Part 1. My peer buddy had linked it to me the week before and it is pretty helpful, as I am one of those who fights the graph editor ;)

Anyway, here is my planning and what I finally ended up with:

The tail could have done with a lot more thought during the planning stage, especially around the beginning jumps as he moves backwards, I've got 3 versions of it, none more successful than the last ;) - but I have been given some great feedback from Matt Strangio this week on how to go about it. Also, the squash and stretch is cheated and obviously so - Chad had mentioned cheating it, using a squashed frame rotated, but I haven't quite pulled off the effect. However, there may be a control to move Tailor's tail so I'll be hunting for that to see if I can fix the S&S, or cheat it more effectively!

UPDATE: Got my critique from Chad, got some really helpful feedback (with visual examples! very good for the learning) on how to sort out that tail at the beginning, and interestingly, to add some subtle differences to the tail a little as Tailor bounces through his arcs for some variety - like making a walk-cycle not dull. Ohhh this course is great =D

We're on to vanilla walks this week! Laters!

Class 1 Week 6 - Overlapping Action

2011-08-08T22:31:00.005+01:00

Check it out! This week (last week...) was our introduction to overlapping action, introducing our new rig, the pendulum.

Here's what I did.

Some planning:

My pendulum:

This week our lecture was an introduction to splines, and we get to play with Tailor. See you next week!

Class 1 - Week 5: Obstacle Course and Devastation...

2011-08-03T12:08:00.006+01:00

Sorry this post is late!

My shiny new laptop arrived at the beginning of last week! You don't half feel self-concious sitting on a coach using an obnoxiously large laptop...

This time we had to animate our ball bouncing through one of the obstacle course sets AM provide, and use squash and stretch in this assignment. Here's some planning of mine:

Scuse' the fingers, I was away and had to use the webcam to take pictures =) I went with the bottom option.

Here's the result:

Have had some interesting feedback to consider - mainly regarding the area where the ball bounces in the ramp. Learning is good!

And here are some sketched for the devastation assignment:

And my pose:

The silhouette is on the unclear side around the hands and knees, but otherwise Chad seemed to like it =)

Anyway, I'm off, I've got assignments to do!

Class 1 - Week 4: Ball bounces of different weights.

2011-07-23T22:40:00.005+01:00

This week has been tough. Frustratingly so. I remember being able to do a heavy ball bounce, and a light ball bounce, once upon a time... Drawn. When I got into Maya this week (even after completing a ball bounce last week with very little stress in regards to animating it) it wasn't happening. I'm trying to figure out why. May only be lack of knowledge of applying animation to Maya, but as of yet I haven't sussed the reason out! I've asked Chad (my mentor) this week if he has had similar problems in the past so hopefully I'll have some insight and see what went wrong for me.

This week my critique was that my last bounce felt a bit floaty, and that was to do with the spacing between the contact frame and the frame before and after it - especially the frame after. There was also too much hangtime on some of the latter bounces. The advise was revise it if I would like to, but mainly to apply the advice to my next assignment, which I have tried to do.

Anyway, the assignment was to have two balls bounce in and stop on screen, in the same shot - one heavy and one light. Here's my extensive planning.

And here is the clip - yes, it really is version 17!

This is my revised Stu excited pose. I tried something slightly less cliché and basically it didn't quite convey excitement, which is what I suspected! So, what I have handed in is this:

But I'm not sure if this one below is better - or potentially better!

Ciao!

(P.S I may add my revised ball-bounce from last week - watch this space)

Class 1 - Week 3 - Excited!

2011-07-17T18:57:00.009+01:00

This week was about planning & blocking methods - which we had a great lecture on from Bobby Beck - to prepare us for our ball bounce. The assignment was to plan a ball bounce, and the ball had to have the weight of either a basketball, or a football (soccer ball, for anyone who thinks a football is egg-shaped). Also, we had to revise our Stu pose from the previous week following some great critique from Chad, and also sketch people and then pose Stu conveying excitement. However, the challenge was to do it in an unconventional, but readable way. Tricky.

So, the week started out well. I reposed Stu for my revision, I planned my ball bounce and then animated it. I'd done my sketching. Friday I was going to scan all my work in and post it up on the AM site, to get some feedback.

Friday, my computer broke. And I hadn't yet save my AM work onto my external hard-drive. Nor had I uploaded the work I'd done into my assignment. Work lost.

There was hope! Saturday I took my PC into a nice computer shop, they fitted my hard-drive into a hard-drive enclosure and said 'plug and play'. Work saved!

No. The hard-drive, though it runs, isn't running enough. Laptop can't register it as plugged in. Work lost.

Have to re-do two weeks work in one weekend! Yay!

All I'm saying is, plan your work, then when it all goes tits up, at least you definitely know what you're doing. Planning saved my ass!

Anyway, here's my work.

Week 2 Revision
Original Stu (this is the one I finally handed in):

Revised Stu

Chad suggested I pull the camera out, to allow the pose some room to breathe. He also pointed out that the silhouette could use some work, by pulling the arm furthest away, away from the body, and to try and make some space between the arm closest and Stu's legs - the legs were pretty crowded. I was also given some critique from a campus mentor name Ray Ross. He suggested that I pull Stu's shoulders back, and hang the arms behind him, as in the original sketch the weight is much more above the hips. I also tried this out and it looked more like my sketch... But that's on my now busted hard-drive =)

Week 3
Ball bounce: planning

This is my original plan for the bounce. I knew once I got into Maya the spacing and the timing would change significantly, particularly towards the ends, but it gave me a rough feel. I used a reference I found on youtube for the weight of the ball, and analysed how far back the ball bounces from the ground, and how far it travels.

Ball bounce: reference

This is the clip I used as reference for the bounce. It looks quite heavy to me, and not as bouncy as I thought a basketball would be, but I think I'm used to the cheap rubber ones. Also, the bounce only comes back to about half way each time - which could be to do with the fact the ball is bouncing on concrete.

Ball bounce

Not the original, but I would hope more successful for it!

Excited, sketches

Some sports ones, some referenced from happy excited kids =) A few are me trying to figure out what I do when I am excited, but it doesn't read well as a still image.

Stu, excited

This is what I went for! A victorious runner, excited to be at the finish line... We'll see how well it works for people ;)

That's all, folks!

Class 1 - Week 2 - Pose Stu

2011-07-08T21:05:00.004+01:00

...ahahaha.

Anyway, we're in Week 2! The assignment this week was to go out and sketch people in their natural environment, and then develop one of those sketches into a pose on Stu. I got some feedback on the AM site for my sketches, which helped me decide on which sketch to go with.

The sack rig was a free one I got from here.

Let me know what you think!

And Class 1 Begins!

2011-06-28T21:11:00.001+01:00

So we had our first Q&A session today with our mentor - mine is Chad Stewart, you can find his work at Animation Freelance to see where he's been and what he's done. The man has 8 kids! And a mentor! And a freelance animator!

Did a round of introductions, learnt a bit about each other and Chad, good to see everyone in my class - already so used to the American accent that when the Brits popped up it was a surprise - and learn about our grading; Chad gives out A's to work that is of professional, studio quality, B's to exceptional student work, so we were told a C is a good grade for us to achieve. I like the sound of this grading, looking forward to the class work starting though!

No assignment for this week except to introduce ourselves - mission accomplished. Hope we all get A's ;)

Animation Mentor in 18 days!

2011-06-09T09:03:00.000+01:00

Hello all!

Perhaps you have noticed a slight re-jig in my blog - that all my previous posts have disappeared! Well, they haven't. I've simply moved them to another blog page. If you click on the 'Illustration' tab at the top, you will be redirected there where they are all safe and sound =) Unfortunately, though I still have the comments, they don't seem to appear on there. I'll try and sort this out (plus the commenting feature). From now on, all my illustrative works shall be posted to there, an all my AM related work will be posted to the main site here. Just wanted to let you know!

Bye!