Tron: Uprising

Have you had your Daft Punk / Tron fill yet? If not, here you go. Tron Uprising is an animated series that will air in the Summer of 2010 on Disney XD. The animation looks like a combination of CG and "tradigital" artwork and animation, be sure to check it out.

Animated Team and Sport Intros

In my animation classes, I advise my students to keep their animations clean and simple. Ambition however, tells us otherwise, leading us into taking on projects that are too large or complex.

A good assignment to help practice simplicity, is to animate an already existing design assembling, holding it for two seconds, then fading out or disassembling.

This will give you plenty of practice of the basics: materials, lighting, shot composition, and timing. Here are some examples centered around sports times.





Okay - These are more complex, still fun to watch, but still keeping the same idea of "assembling". If you like how these look, be sure get a grasp on Cinema 4D, After Effects, and Premiere.

So You Want to Work in the Video Game Industry

A sarcastic view of what its like working in the video game industry that many of us found interesting and funny (perhaps because of how truthful this is). Regardless of how tough something appears to be, stay passionate and keep moving, its only bad if you stop, but be realistic as well.

Be sure to read some of the Youtube comments following this video here >>

"Can anyone tell me where the Mountain Dew dispenser is at? They told me it was here, but I don't see it." - Little Robot Guy

Sean, thanks for sharing. This was funny.

Black Swan: VFX Reel

Saw this movie finally, and thought it was great - had me guessing all the way till the end. Lots of the visual effects are subtle, but they really add to overall look and feel of the movie.

Thought of You: Ryan Woodward

This animated piece by Ryan Woodward is beautiful, elegant and sophisticated. This was a personal project for him and his process can be viewed on his website here >>

Lifedrawing is a passion of mine, so seeing this done with conte crayon, gesture lines and clear poses, animated in this way is very inspiring.

He also posted a cool "Making Of" featurette on Vimeo for us to learn about the process by which this is done. Nice work Ryan! You got a lot of fans here who appreciate what you created. Keep up the good work.

Randolf

Thought of You - Behind the Scenes Preview - ROUGH CUT from Cambell Christensen on Vimeo.

Japan Tsunami 2011

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is perhaps one of the worst things I have ever witnessed...that's right up there with 911. The shear magnitude of waves that large wiping off and carrying buildings away is astounding. I've been obsessed with finding footage of the destruction and so I posted these videos here because they capture some of the best views of the event.

Our hearts go out to all of the families and survivors of the tsunami and earthquake.

If you are compelled, are looking for a way to give and want to help, you can text donate 10 dollars to the Red Cross. To learn more about it, please click the link below.

Text RedCross to 90999 >>

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dance Central: In Game Cinematic

Finally got a hold of the XBox 360 Kinect with the kids to play Dance Central by Harmonix. The game is pretty darn fun, not to mention its also a great workout. I'm a big fan of the songlist with songs by Lady Gaga, Bel Biv Devoe and Cascada.

The ingame cinematic was pretty cool, and features a hip urban 2D animated style. Welp looks like a have a new label for this blog "ingame cinematics"

Visit the Harmonix website here >>

Animation Breakdown: 11 Sec. Club Entry

Marcus Tee is an animator coming from Malaysia. We are happy that he posted his animation process in this entry to the 11 Second Club Animation Contest. Pay close attention to how he's breaking everything down, like his key poses, timing, then breaking down the movement to his extremes and refinement. His process is below, its pretty nice, simple and easy to follow.

1. Rough Thumbs (Posing and Preplanning)
2. Key Poses - General Blockin (Stepped)
3. Extremes - Anticipation and followthrough keyframes
4. In Betweening - 1st round of refinement (Spline)
5. Hand and wrist animation
6. Face and Lip Sync Animation
7. Polishing (Curve Smoothing)
8. Tie Animation (2ndary Motion and Overlapping Animation)

Be sure to check out his site here >>

And of course his demo reel...

Rango: Clip

Click image or link below to view the clip. We'll probably be watching Rango sometime soon with the kids...I really like what I see so far: Great character animation, lighting, texturing, the overall production looks superb. I think it'll be a good time. Be sure to get out there and watch the movie. Show your support! or Buy the Bluray

Fire it Up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg6YyN3FqqQ >>

You May Now

A clever funny animation about 3D in theatres. The animation is a nice blend between 2D and 3D and was produced by Dan Winn and Daniel Keeble.

Nice. Fire it Up!

ILUVUXDESIGN & Yellow Submarine

If you have ever designed your own website, rearranged your livinging room furniture, or lost sleep over the colors of your fonts on your blog, you are, in the most common way, a User Interface / User Experience Designer. If so, this animation is about you.

Animation Peeps, its not always about slick realistic CG renders, as you'll see here sometimes its more important to get a clear interesting message across. The styling is reminiscent of the The Beatles animations in Yellow Submarine, not sure if the message was ever clear in Yellow Submarine, but it sure was a nice trip.

Fire it Up and Enjoy!

Inception: Best VFX 2011

"Inception" wins the 2011 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. If you haven't seen it, the movie is mindbending, be sure you watch it on Blu Ray or on a large screen. This video showcases some of the inner workings of one of the more memorable shots of the film. The movie is rich visually, and if you are wondering about the story, just do your best to pay attention, you could get lost.

Hello Kitty & Probe Droid Killer

 This was the demo for today's Background & Layout Digital Paint class. In this demo, we learned how to separate our background into different layers for depth illusion, atmospheric perspective (mist), quick techniques for fire, rock texture, silhouette detail and adding glows to objects that are giving off light (HK's heart and eyes).

The illustration turned out better for me when I added the blade gun to Hello Kitty, it made her look badass!

Artbeats: Video Reference Site

Ever need video reference to help you animate a baseball pitch, various animal walks, or people doing various activities, be sure to check out Artbeats.com. They have lots of royalty free video footage to help you with your animations.

Visit Artbeats.com by clicking here >>

To view/download a low rez quicktime file, find and click the link on the right hand column, to download your video.

Happy animating!

Fire it up!

Randolf



Animation Layers in Maya

This video demonstrates setup and basic tools for using animation layers in Maya . It can be quite useful if you wanted to edit an animation, while still maintaining the original keyframes. Think of it like layers in Photoshop. Layers help us add more detail and complexity to a piece, Animation Layers in Maya work in the same way.

Watch the video tutorial on animation layers here >> 

Below are my notes from the video for future reference.

Animation Layers INTRO:
Used to edit animation without making huge changes. This comes in handy when we have to reuse an animation, or if there is a change in the environment. Example shown in video is of a Character jumping over a barrier. Make changes and edits without messing up the animation.

Using Animation Layers: SETUP

1. Turn on animation radio button (top of layer window).
2. Make a new layer after grabbing the control (blue ball icon).
3. Name this layer. You should now have two identical animations on two layers.
4. Make your changes and set a keyframe on your new animation layer.

Adjusting the small details: 

1. Grab foot controls or whatever.
2. Make new animation layer.
3. Move foot
4. Right Click >  add selected to layer, do this to anything you want to be added to this layer.

Fixing: Offset (You will see the entire animation changed. You can offset or merge the layers into one another).

1. Slide the Weight slider at the bottom of layer stack. - OR
2. Click 0 offset key (upper left hand corner of the animation layer stack). Pressing 0
3. blends the layers together.

If you want the original movement and if you want to toggle the visibility of your new animation layer. Grab new layer and press third button from left to turn off new animation and view original.

MERGE LAYERS to composite into one, when you are finished.

Adjusting Curves: In graph editor, "bake" is dense curves, not manageable.
Instead

1. Turn on Merge Layer Options
2. Turn OFF Delete Baked Layers
3. Turn ON Smart Bake
4. Merge

This is cleaner as it maintains key structure.

Reference:

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/animation_layers-1