Term 2 - Class 12 [ END of Class TWO ]

After All the Fun,Sleep Less night and Having Fun on Google Hangout.. haha.. Term Two is Finally Over!!  It was an Awesome learning experience with Jon Collins. 
This Week I also Got A few Notes from My Mentor abt on wht Areas He thinks I should work more on to  Improve Myself...

Areas of strength: Anuj was an awesome presence in class this year! He was an all around great student, in both his animation work and his involvement in our weekly Q n A's. He was consistantly one of the few students to actually bring questions to ask every week. Animation wise, i really like the stylized approach Anuj has to his animation. His posing is very strong, and he really looked to push the contrast in his timing and spacing. His planning for each assignment was above and beyond the base requirements, with really nicely executed thumbnails, and sometimes even 2 D animations to flcuh out his idea. His blocking was always very clear and concise, and the level of work completion for each step of the animation process was always nice and refined, culminating in nicely polished animation.

Areas of improvement: The things Anuj did well this term far exceed the number of things he really needs to focus on improving, but here are a few specific things to try and refine. Squash and stretch - At times, Anuj went a little overboard with how often and how much he was stretching limbs. Remember Anuj, we want to feel squash and stretch, not see it. This is especially evident in his work when watching IK legs that slowly continue to grow for 6 plus frames after locking out. Moving holds - Really look to increase the naturalistic feeling of your moving holds so the character doesn't freeze or robotically continue moving when in a moving hold. Also, be conscienscous of how you are easing into and out of all your poses Anuj, at times there were hard hits and sudden starts to your moves. Overlap - Although there were definitely times when you used overlap, look for instances to loosen up your torso transitions a bit more by increasing the amount of overlap you layer in as you move up from the root. Polish - Although your level of polish is already really good for class 2 Anuj, you're good enough to start really plotting and nailing every single little detail and arc, so start using that arc tracker as much as possible!      

This week the Lecture was a Review of all the Lecture we had Till now.. its Like a Short Version of all the Lecture we had in this Term...It was  Very helpful.. To review at once again before We move on to the Next Level of Animation.. :P lol..

For this weeks Assignment.. We had to Compile all our assignments Till now and Make Our Progress Reel... 

Class 2 - Week 11 ( Final 10 % )

In this Lecture Kenny Roy Showed Us a Student Shot labelled Final and Then Added A Extra Layer Of Polish on it, subtle anticipation, smooth arks.. etc

The Best That I Like In this Lecture Was. .

- We Should Always Step away from the shot for a while then come back with a fresh eye. Working On the Shot again and Again continuously  will make U get Used to it.. U will Stop Seeing ur Mistakes..  Going out For a Fresh Eyes and Then Cmg Back Will Really Help u too See all ur Mistakes. .

- Every Day When U first Start Working On ur Shot In the Morning.. Instead Of Just Starting to Work On it Directly We Could First Watch Our Shot And Note Down All the thing that We See and wanted to changed then start Working on the Shot..

- Always Observe the Center of Gravity Of ur Character.. and Sometimes It better to  Hide the legs & work on the body/waist first, then go back to the legs.

- Trying to Avoid  Twinning of feet or arms (in timing & posing )

And then For my Assignment This Week we had Submit the Final pass of our Shot.. I made Those Changes that My mentor Suggested me Last Week..  and I think It Helped my Shot Lot..  He Liked this.. but There Still A Few More Changes That I was Suggsted..  Still  need To Work in..

Class 2 - Week 10

In this Week We had another Walk-though A shot By Rick O’Connor In Which He Should His Method of Animating. How he Would


- Plan,
- Record Video Reference,
- Study Video Reference ( This was the Part That I really Loved in this Lecture, He Showed Us How He would Select the Main Poses From his Reference and then Exaggerated ) ,
- Draw Thumnails,
- Blocking ,
- FEEDBACK  ( Imp Step ) ,
- and then Making those Changes after Getting the Feedback..


and For This Weeks Asssignment I had to Refine my SHot and Submit It..   Here's wht I submited.. .

Class 2 - Week 9 [ Timing and Spacing ]

This Week we had Lecture on Timing and Spacing another IMP Principle from the Principles Of Animation. As it is Said " ITS NOT IMP WHT GOES ON EACH FRAME OF A FILM, ITS THE SPACE BETWEEN THE FRAME THATS IMP " Timing and Spacing are core principles of animation and are concepts that are closely intertwined. Just Playing with the Timing and Spacing of a Ball u can show That Ball is Heavy or Light.

Here is an interesting quote from Timing for Animation, Second Edition p.2-3.


“Timing [and lets add Posing] gives meaning to movement. […] In nature, things do not just move. You can draw a circle and declare it to be anything from a soap bubble to a cannon ball. We the audience will only understand what it is when we see how it moves and interacts with its environment. […] So in animation the movement itself is of secondary importance; the vital factor is how the action expresses the underlying causes of the movement. With inanimate objects these causes may be natural forces, mainly gravity. With living characters the external forces can cause movement, plus the contractions of muscles but, more importantly, there are the underlying will, mood, instincts and so on of the character who is moving.”

TIMING :- 

• Timing is the phrasing of movement—like music.
• Timing is first developed by where you decide to put your key poses.

SPACING :-  how the drawings, or poses, are positioned between the timed keys.  It’s the spacing of your drawings that is going to show acceleration/deceleration.

Richard William's  has Explained Timing and Spacing very Nicely in His book.. For Example..  Timing is when the ball hits the ground, as for Spacing its how you place the in-between frames of the ball arcing through the air.

 

 

 There are a number of elements that influence timing in a shot : Weight, External / Internal Force, Momentum, Animation Style. A great advice would be to never Let Maya make the in-betweens for you.. It will make ur Spacing Even And Boring and Sometime Weight Less.. add Ease in and Outs will ur Spacing Interesting.. Just making Small Changes in the Timing / Spacing  can have a Huge Effect in ur Shot.

There is a Webinar on Animation Mentor Home Page in which  Aaron Hartline and Victor Navone Talks Abt timing and Spacing Very Clearly.. Its a Great Webinar and I would Strongly Recommend to Check it Out..
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/timing-and-spacing-webinar/

ASSIGNMENT : - This Week We Had to Take Our Shot to the Next Level.. I had to Make A lot Of Changes in Shot depending On my mentor's Critique but It Helped A lot.. The Shot is Looking Way Better than Wht it used to be..

Class 2 - Week 8 [ Arc and Path Of Action ]

This Week we had Lecture on Arc and Path of Action another Principle from Animation Principles.. We must Always Make Sure That we a Good  Great Arc in our Shot.. Like its Said Every thing Moves in an arc.. With out arc ur shot Starts too look Jerky , Robotic etc.. Characters RARELY move from point A to B in a straight line there is always An arc in every Motion.. Arcs will add a Great Deal of fluidity, elegance, flow, grace, appeal to ur Shot and U can try to exaggerate it as much as u can to make ur shot Interesting.

Arcs & Path of Action are greatly related, they always go hand in hand with each other..

Every time there is a motion there is a path for that motion, that path is called path of action. The path of action -in most cases- has an arc shape. In animation we need to make that arc smooth & clean to add quality to the shot, bumpy path of action will weaken the animation no mater how good the character posing is.

If you watch any animated Disney movie you will notice that it has a very fluid feel to it, that's all because of smooth arcs & path of action, and that what makes Disney work so remarkable!

Its all about two things: Arcs, and Path of Action.. along with
solid character posing, appeal, Spacing, Timing  etc etc etc of course. lol..hahaha :)
There is plenty of tools in Maya for Ghosting, and showing animation path, or Another I learn't in AM was many animators Use DRY ERASER on the monitor to follow the path of an arc, helps us visualize this path easier or There are a number of software plug ins or scripts (such as Jason Schleifer's "Grease" tool for Maya) that will allow you to draw directly on Maya. I Personal Use a Script Called  " Ghost Man "  and AC3d Tool and Sometime " Arc Tracker " to help me track my arcs.. I Just Keep on jumping between these Tools depending on the Situation cause Sometime These end up to slow Down ur PC..

NOTE : -  But arc are not always Required there will be some situation where u don't necessary want to have an action in an Arc..
Assignment:-   This we Had we had to Block our shot.. Here's what I submitted.. The Constrain thing was Driving me Crazy Had to Waste 4-5 hrs try to get it Right.. but To Mike Amos he Suggested me to use ZV-parent Tool.. Helped me a lot

Class 2 Week 7 [ Force ]

This Week we Had a Lecture From Wayne Gilbert..I think This Lecture Was Pretty Awesome... He Talked to us Abt Force how it Works And How we should Always think abt how the Force is Working in Our Shot.. cause Force is wht that Causes Movement..


Animation is not about moving characters from point A to point B, we have to know why we're moving these characters, & we have to think about the force behind the movement because : Nothing Moves Without a Force!!

There are Two types of force:

External Force: like a character puling / pushing, jumping... etc..
Internal Force: tells you that the character is a live and making its own decisions. While animating a certain action we DON'T just keyframe the main poses and let the computer figure out the in-betweens, its up us Animators to direct the sequence of transforming between these poses, How we get from one pose to the other, What body parts are involved in the process, We need to make sure that the entire body of the character IS involved in the movement but each with different level of intensity..


So Force is what part of the body is moving first, and the parts that follows along, its setting up a sequence of energy being released through out the body to make the movement.
Its how we transition our characters from one place to the other, and that involves Lead & Follow, Timing, Path of Action, All the important animation principles that we're learning at AM.
As for Internal Force its what's going in in the character's head displayed through external posing, its the acting, the personality, its the reaction in a certain situation.


A very good advice I got from Wayne Gilbert during the lecture: Animators should always have a reference to work with, analyze the motion in that reference, de-assemble it, study it carefully, then re-assemble it into your animation the way like it.

In this Week We had Polish our Final Shot and the Planning for the Next Assignment.. But Still The Thing That I think is Missing  and I still need to work on In the Shot is The Texture In the Timing..  

and Here's  my Planning...  This One Is Sure Is going to be  a New Experience Never actually Animated a Shot with Hand and With Weight..

Class 2 - Week 6

In this Week we had another Blocking to Final Lecture by Mike Stern On how He Would animate a Shot.. Mike was among the first group that graduated from Animation Mentor, now he is working at DreamWorks as a character animator. Check out his AWESOME Animation Mentor graduation short: Distraxion.
He showed us His Workflow of Animating a Shot.. How he Plans , Blocks, Spline and Solve Problem that Might Occur while Working on a shot.. Its Really Great Great To see How Diff animators animate.. Helps a Lot to Us Develop our Own Workflow..

We got to See How he Would Record Reference.. and and How He would animate a Cartoony Shot For which Recording Could Be or maybe hard\Impossible.. and sometime For shot Like That He said he Would try to Use his Imagination and the animation Fundamentals.. But I think we can Still Try to Find Something a bit Similar to Wht we are going to animate and take a  Little Help From it.. :P .. lol

He Started with Posing minimal Pose that sells The Idea Clearly, time the Shot and then Started to Refine the Poses add more Breakdown etc to Clear up the Idea..Push thing around, Start to think abt the Path of action and How the The poses Work together with Each other.. THE SMARTER YOU ARE WITH THE BREAKDOWNS THE EASIER CLEANUP WOULD BE.. One this That I like that instead of Splining the Entire shot at Once He Break them Down into Section and then Work on them.. Like Just working on the First Step First and and then Move on to the Next step or next action.. I think This Helps In clearing Stuff Easily and Not Getting Overloaded with the entire shot getting Messed up when We first Start to Spline It..  :P

and For the Assignment In this Week we had to Start Refining our Shot.. Here is What I submitted.. .