Ball With Personality - Ethan Dean

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x6Q996uT8E&feature=youtu.be

Allen: Animation Exercise splining

Here's my animation test that I've been in the process of splining...

Personality Ball Pass 1 - Paige

 

Here is my first pass, it's still stepped. Thanks for your help Alan!

3rd Pass

Ollie Johnson said.....

Read these because they are awesome:

1. Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions.

2. Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes.

3. If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression.

4. What is the character thinking?

5. It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting. Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter and walks away.

OR

A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out.

6. When drawing dialogue, go for phrasing. (Simplify the dialogue into pictures of the dominating vowel and consonant sounds, especially in fast dialogue.

7. Lift the body attitude 4 frames before dialogue modulation (but use identical timing on mouth as on X sheet).

8. Change of expression and major dialogue sounds are a point of interest. Do them, if at all possible, within a pose. If the head moves too much you won’t see the changes. 9. Don’t move anything unless it’s for a purpose.

10. Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean.

11. Don’t be careless.

12. Everything has a function. Don’t draw without knowing why. 13. Let the body attitude echo the facial.

14. Get the best picture in your drawing by thumbnails and exploring all avenues.

15. Analyze a character in a specific pose for the best areas to show stretch and squash. Keep these areas simple.

16. Picture in your head what it is you’re drawing.

17. Think in terms of drawing the whole character, not just the head or eyes, etc. Keep a balanced relation of one part of the drawing to the other.

18. Stage for most effective drawing.

19. Draw a profile of the drawing you’re working on every once in a while. A profile is easier on which to show the proper proportions of the face.

20. Usually the break in the eyebrow relates to the highpoint of the eye.

21. The eye is pulled by the eyebrow muscles.

22. Get a plastic quality in face — cheeks, mouth and eyes.

23. Attain a flow thru the body rhythm in your drawing.

24. Simple animated shapes.

25. The audience has a difficult time reading the first 6-8 frames in a scene.

26. Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it?

27. Don’t animate for the sake of animation but think what the character is thinking and what the scene needs to fit into the sequence.

28. Actions can be eliminated and staging "cheated" if it simplifies the picture you are trying to show and is not disturbing to the audience.

29. Spend half your time planning your scene and the other half animating.

30. How to animate a scene of a four-legged character acting and walking: Work out the acting patterns first with the stretch and squash in the body, neck and head; then go back in and animate the legs. Finally, adjust the up and down motion on the body according to the legs.

Bowling ball second pass.

AmaniKhaderBouncingBallRedo

A Bowling Ball

A Basketball

Here is the basketball...

A Ping Pong ball

So sorry this is late...this took me really long to do. Really, really long. But now I know how to work the graph editor. Kind of.
I'm working on the basketball and bowling ball right now.

Allen: exercise

Hey guys, this is my progress on the exercise I'm working on... 

Ball Bounce Pass 2

Ball Bounces Final - Paige

So hopefully these are getting closer.  Sorry this is late, bad planning on my part. :/ 

Thanks for your feedback! 

Ball Bounce (final) - Meehea

Thanks for your help, Allen! :)

BallBounce_AmaniKhader

weighted bounce

sorry this is late!

Bouncing balls - Markham Carroll

Animation Exercise

Balls of varying weights

To get more familiar with the exaggerated/cartoony-ish style of animation that we'll see in Owned, I started this animation test on the side so that I can prepare for March 15th! yeah!  It's my first blocking pass.

Ball Bounces (1st pass) - Paige

Sorry these are so small.

Ball Bounce (First Pass) - Meehea

Jeff Reference - Mr. Incredible

Ethan Dean - Ball Bounce - First Pass

Jeff Reference - Toy Story 2

Great reference all around.  Great poses, timing, good hand acting.

Jeff Reference - Shrek

I wanted to find a clip of Hal from Megamind as well, but couldn't really find a good one.

Reference - Monster House Arcade

I know this movie is a bit uncanny, but I really like the dancing movement at the beginning.

 -Paige

Beginner Pitfall

Hey guys, here's a page from the Animator's Survival Kit.  It talks about how we tend to over animate and over complicate our shots.  I wish I knew this a few months ago.

Great Tutorials on working with Splines

http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines1.htm

http://www.navone.org/HTML/Tutorial_Splines2.htm
-Make sure you check out the part where he talks about workflow on the 2nd or 3rd page...

Animation Exercises

I know a lot of you guys are already really good and proficient animating in maya, but going back to the basics and doing exercises like this help loads!

Ball Bounces with Varying Weights
-3 balls of 3 different weights. A bowling ball, a basketball, and a ping pong ball
-Solid first pass of it by wednesday Feb 13th.

Personality Ball
-internal vs external forces
-Ball that has motivation and Character
-Try not to go over 250 frames
-Solid first pass by Wednesday  Feb 27

If you don't have a ball rig, you can use this one:

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/thebouncin-ball

Jeff Reference: Po

Planning Stage

http://animationpodcast.com/archives/2005/05/25/principles-planning/

Clay Kaytis talks about the planning stages of animation:

From time to time between ‘casts (believe me, it’s a lot faster to write than to cut a show) I’ve decided to start posting some animation notes I’ve collected/written for myself over the years. I won’t commit to how often or in-depth this will be, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right?
I’ll start with some notes I put together for a talk I gave about the fundamentals of animation. They may not be the same as someone else’s list, but they are the things I wouldn’t animate without. Rather than just dump them all at once, I’d rather post one at a time and hopefully you’ll have a chance to read through them and add thoughts or ask questions.

Here’s my list of the can’t-do-without Principles of Animation:

Planning
Posing
Squash & Stretch
Anticipation
Timing
Drag & Overlapping Action
Arcs
Secondary Action
Exaggerration

This list isn’t a how-to, and it’s certainly not all-inclusive. It’s more of a “how-I-think-about” these principles.
It’s an outline for a talk, so, as you’ll see, the notes are fairly brief. I’d love to hear what you think about these things, and I’ll try to clarify whenever it’s not totally explained in the outline. Although I’m not posting the clips I showed to illustrate my points, I still think this outline is a worthwhile read. And, of course, I want to learn too, so if you have something to add or take away, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Eventually these principles will all be compiled on one page. For now, here’s…

PLANNING

Ask yourself: "What would I like to see on the screen?"

• Give people their money's worth: "If I were paying good money to see this, what would I expect?"
• Imagine in your mind: "the ideal version of this shot" and aim for that
• Entertainment
  • It's the relationship with the audience that makes entertainment work because:
    • They have an expectation and it's our job to give it to them in an unexpected way
      • Applies to all forms of storytelling and animation is a part of that
      • If you have a shot of someone picking up a box and it's done exactly like you'd expect, there's no entertainment
      • The movie Jaws (or any great movie) is an excellent example of this:
        • As the audience we know there's a shark and the expectation is obvious – the humans will win (at least we hope). Then why is it entertaining and why don't people just walk out before it's over when we know WHAT will happen? Because they want to see HOW it happens. That's the part they can't predict. That's where we have to be creative, surprising, inventive, and original. When's the last time you heard someone say "Oh you've got to see that movie, it's so predictable!" This is how we should approach every aspect of a film – from the story, to the indiviual acts, to the sequence, to the scene, all the way down to the individual shot.
• Three types of reactions according to philosopher Arthur Koestler – HA! HA!, AHA!, & AAH!
  • HA! HA! (humor) we laugh when we unexpectedly see the same thing in two frames of reference (there's "the expected in an unexpected way" again)
    • In it's broadest sense – this is why jokes are funny
    • First frame of reference: “Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas.”
      Second frame of reference: “What he was doing in my pajamas I have no idea.”
  • AHA! (insight, discovery) combining two different things so that the sum is greater than the parts
    • This is why mysteries are so popular – they provide built in insight
  • AAH! (self-transcending) lose yourself in an experience; when you find yourself transported to another frame of existence
    • Some movies get to this point, but not most. These are the moments that have the greatest effect on people.
    • Some animation moments I can think of where I lose myself in the movie:
      • The dwarfs crying in Snow White
      • The Beast's transformation in Beauty and the Beast
      • When the Iron Giant says, "Superman"
      • When Dumbo flies
      • Gollum arguing with himself
      • Mufasa's death in The Lion King
      • Moses discovering the burning bush in Prince of Egypt
      • The chase in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
      • For me, all of Peter Pan
  • To me, every moment should be one of these three
    • If a shot doesn’t accomplish one of these, or at least lead to one, I question whether it is worth anyone’s time.
    • What they all have in common is that they allow the audience to feel smart. This is one of the most powerful tools in making movies, when the audience feels like they've made a connection between two seemingly unrelated ideas. It happens all the time and if the filmmaker has laid in all the clues in a sneaky (not obvious) way, it engages the viewer and keeps them hooked. The audience is actually participating in the film instead of it being hand delivered to them.
• If you can imagine what you want to see, half your work is done
  • Picture it in your head – close your eyes and see the edges of the screen, the set, and what the character is doing. It takes practice, but it's a skill that can be developed.

Thumbnail – they don't have to be works of art, they are just a map

• They are your storytelling poses (key poses of the shot)
• Work out the best poses and, if needed, how to get from one pose to another (breakdowns)

Baby Brent Refererence

Some Jeff Reference: Wall-E humans

First post

The official Owned animation team blog!
Still working out the layout and how this blog is going to be the most effective.
Basically, we'll use this blog to post reference, and also to post any animation exercises or tests we do before we start animating on owned.
Some ideas for reference that Wesley gave me for the Jeff character are: Baby Brent from Cloudy; Clank from Tinker Bell: Secret of the Wings; and  the humans from Wall-E.  Be searching for more reference we can use and post it to the blog!