Modeling, Animation, Stuff and Stuff

Ok I think this is going to be a shortish blog again.

In this modeling session I learnt how to put "joints" onto a 3D model and I had to apply these techniques onto a pair of simple skeletal hands I created like so.

Over all it was a relatively simple and intuitive process and now I can make 3D models that can be animated. Yay!

Anyway a bit of animation mumbo jumbo now. Over the Christmas holiday I came across an elephant animation rig and decided to animate it. There were two elephants in the scene. A mother and her calf but half way through the process the face of the calf collapsed and I had to stop....I think I may have some how deleted something important. I would have rendered what I've been able to do so far and put it on the blog but something weired is happening with the rendering option in Maya at the moment so I'll just ad some screen shots.

So many Nubes Curvs!

Nawwwww.

And those are the elephants. Anyway I'm also working on another little animation project of my own...again...but on top of that next week I'll be doing some hand drawn animation for a third year project and I'm referring to the traditional kind. Not flash. Eeep!

The Box

Hay I'm finally doing a blog about modeling.

Ok there's one thing I've discovered and that is I don't like modeling. I prefer to make them move. Seriously I don't think there's anything wrong with modeling (some people can do absolutely amazing stuff!) but I just don't find any enjoyment in it.

Anyway today I learnt about how textures can be applied to a three dimensional object in Maya. I learnt about the texture mapping and how to layer it onto an object.

The cereal box was originally blank then I applied the textures. The texture map is to the right.

This is the completed thing. An old school serial box! Yeah baby!

Talking Chalking

I'm starting to feel a little more confident in my abilities in drawing the human form. My sense for human anatomy is still terrible but it's better than it was.

In my last life drawing session I had to attempt to draw a life model on black paper with  white chalk so I had to consider how the lighting could express form instead of just drawing the main outline and then adding the shading.

This one is ok...ish but there is room for improvement.

Ok I'll admit that I'm actually kinda happy with this one but there are definitely things there that aren't quite right.

So basically I've just got to keep practicing as always. Anyway that's all for now dudes.

More on the Computer

Ok there's some After Effects stuff on this blog and a piece of Flash animation.

After Effects first. The task was to do a ten to twelve second piece which started and ended with a specific image. I think I've got a better understanding of how the program works (though every so often I find myself trying to use Maya key bored short cuts on it.) I don't feel quite as embarrassed to show this as I did with my last After Effects piece. As this little short had to begin and end with the same image I decided to sequence it in such a way that it could run in a loop.

Ooogle




My Flash work is a talking butch bulldog with the manly name Lola. The task was to make her (it is meant to be a her) mouth move in sync with speech. The range of mouth positions was limited. Important consonants such as n were missing.

I found I could compensate by using other positions such as using the "r" position for a "d" as the teeth were bared and the "e" position for an "a". Lola also had quite a distinct accent and uses elongated "aaaayys" ans "esssssss". I had to consider such things when animating. There's no point selecting an "o" position if the character says such a vowel as "au".
I feel that over all the timing is more or less ok (but not fantastic) though I do feel that I ended up creating too much movement.

Apparently next time we get to draw our own characters and lip sync them. Yay!


Lola Lip Sync




So that's Lola. Any thoughts and feed back would be much appreciated as always.

After Effects

Ok this is a short blog for a small piece of work.

First assignment on After Effects and its nothing special. Some cheese rebounding off a hasty rat. (Oh and a bit of trivia-mice hate cheese but rats loooove it!)



The motion of the rebound is to slow to portray the "bounce". That's all this time. Really nothing special. Pfffft!

Squirrely

More animation.

Just spent an morning and an evening on this short character animation-a rodent called Squirrely. I wanted to practice facial expression and general body language. I chose this rig because this wee dude is charismatic and the rig is wonderfully intuitive. Check it out.

Sqirrely


Well that's squirrely. Any thoughts and feed back would be really appreciated.
And that's all for today.

Drawing again

Yep. More drawing talk.

I've spent some of my holiday practicing a few character sketches for a third year project and also doing some of my own thing. Not so long ago I had another drawing rant and displayed a drawing "work in progress." This thang down here.

And then I...er...finished it.

Ok I will admit that I'm pleased with how it turned out. It was a biro pic so if I made a mistake I couldn't rub it our or easily undo it on some digital program with an easy click of the mouse and I really thought I was gonna mess it up hence I put the work in progress in an earlier blog. Anyway it's done, so I can breath again.

Well thats that. Hay I just did a blog with almost no ranting! Huzzah!