Dienstag, 20. Dezember 2011

coming home...














ATTENTION: I HAVE A NEW BLOG!
Check out www.mountcg.com where i write down my thoughts and opinions on the industry!

The last two weeks of 2011 im going to stay at home in switzerland.

It is amazing and weird at the same time... amazing because i see all my loved ones... get lots of hugs and just have a good time...
Weird because it doesnt feel like ive been away for 8 months at all... everything is still so familiar... there hasnt much changed (except for the new gas station in dagmersellen and the first out of all my closer buddies who is about to get married and become a daddy)
Its just weird... and also weird to feel that im on a vacation... at home... and that i will leave very soon again...

But it really helps to see my life from a different angle...
While being here and meeting all the people feels amazing, i also notice that the actual life here... and how things go... arent what i want anymore... its part of my past (and its a good and fulfilled past btw) but not my future, and in a couple of moments i found myself frightened what might happen if i cant stay in canada after this year because i definitely dont want to go back...

Well i guess i have to work even harder when i get back...

But for now im just enjoying the off time...
Happy Holidays everyone!

Donnerstag, 8. Dezember 2011

copied pairs

ATTENTION: I HAVE A NEW BLOG!
Check out www.mountcg.com where i write down my thoughts and opinions on the industry!

Yesterday i made an attempt to explain copied pairs to a student at AM... (btw. her name is Dita Lang... keep that name in mind... she will make it big... im sure of that!)
And i thought that concept would be nice to post up here as a base for discussions.
So here is what i wrote to her about how i approach copied pairs:

The main concept and advantage of working that way is probably that you can figure out how trasitions and the timing feel much better than in stepped...

Im doing it this way (this is for an acting shot):
im setting a key pose (nicely fleshed out of course) and put a key on all controls... then i go to the place where the movement should end... do the end pose and set a key on all controls...
lets assume that there is a hold following after that movement... i go and set a key on all controls at the end of that hold but at the START of the following movement without changing anything... so that there are two identical keys... combined with plateau curves, the character shouldnt move AT ALL between these two curves... if he does you probably have some overshoots going on somewhere...
then i go to the end of the following movement and do the next key pose... try to feel out how long this one should be held and set another key without changing anything at the START of the next movement... and so on...
After that you can start filling in the breakdowns but thats coming in a second pass...
What i think is really important to get the concept of copied pairs, is that you have two identical poses at the end of the previous movement and at the start of the next move...

(all this of course also applys to physical shots with one advantage: you can time it out in a later pass... wich means... in the first pass you just put in all your golden poses every fifth (or so) frame without looking at the timing... and in the next pass you time it out...)

If you want to go in later and add a copy of a key... you just select everything again... go to the key you want to copy, right click in the timeline and choose copy... then you go to the frame you want to place it, right click on the timeline and choose paste...
Some rigs get messed up when you copy the keys of ALL controls at once... in that case i usually go in, one frame after the key i want to copy, set a key on everything, go to the graph editor and push the curves back to the same value as the actual keyframe i want to copy, and then you can drag it out to where it belongs...

Im not using many tools or scripts for that... except for two things:
-Tween key... (as soon as you start doing breakdowns!) Gives you such a nice start on your inbetweens... (emphasis on start! you still have to go in and flesh them out! Dont be lazy on those inbetweens! You want to know how the character gets from one golden pose to the next!)
- there is a script done by cameron fielding from dreamworks who allows you to easily figure out your timing...
check it out here: http://fliponline.blogspot.com/2007/04/quick-trick-tap-your-timing.html
Its such a simple script but speeds you up a LOT... and you dont have to go into the dope sheet or graph editor and move keys around...
Just hit select all on your GUI Picker and then use the hotkey you gave it... so simple... so fast... try it! :-)

Another note at the end just to think about... mostly for acting shots i block in stepped to be fully focused on the poses but with copied pairs in my back head... so i put in copied keys even if you cant see they are there when you play in stepped... but you will see it as soon as you turn it into spline (or in my case plateau)

 Thats my personal approach to this... i would really love to hear some comments, suggestions or other peoples approaches!

Montag, 5. Dezember 2011

My Idol...

Carlos is probably my biggest idol...
And here is another reason why...




At the end... when he starts talking about how he continues learning about animation... you can truly feel how much he loves animation just by looking at his eyes...

Pure inspiration!

Freitag, 2. Dezember 2011

and here we go again...















Serkis gave another interview on his performances... and the emotions are cooking high again...

I think he deserves the credit. And they truly are HIS acting choices... in my opinion he deserved an oscar for Gollum... that was just freakin brilliant work! Period! I would be frustrated too, to not getting considered for an oscar just because i played in the wrong movie... 

But he shouldnt play the animators work down as he does... it just seems like he doesnt really understand the process of an animator because hes not really interested in it...

And those people who wrote him hate mail are just jerks!
The animators community is based on accepting everyones opinion and growing together...
And im sure if serkis would take a deeper look in the creative process of us animators he wouldnt say stuff like that.


All that of course is only my humble opinion...