Site Description:
AAU Character Animation Class site
Spring '07 Syllabus File:
Class Syllabus
Class Update:
Upcoming Class on Monday
Be prepared and ready for class
Midpoint Class Update
Midterm Grading
New Class in Fall
Freedom!
Fall Class Update and a Rant
To-Do List & Lectures
Class Assignment Week 1
Get your own Website!
Be realistic about your goals!
Quicktime and Codec
How much time do you put into your animation?
Personality
Sign up for the Animation Mentor Newsletter
Walkcycle Presentation
Think outside the box
Audio Clip Guidelines
You need to have a plan
Research and Reference
Did you get your own Website?
Composition - Guide your audience
How to get a foot in the industry as a foreigner
Tools:
frameCounter script
Dry Erase Marker
Custom Hotkey - Nurbs Controller On/Off
Animation Hotkeys
Book Recommendations:
Acting
Filmmaking
Animation
Industry
Animation Techniques, Tools, Notes & Examples
Principles of Animation by John Lasseter
Maya Graph Editor Help
Splines in the Graph Editor by Victor Navone
Blocking out your shot
Spacing & Example of Bouncing Ball Spacing
Bouncing Ball Help
Bouncing Ball Tutorial
Bouncing Ball Examples
Bouncing Ball Examples
Walk Cycle Tutorial
Walk Cycle Examples
Walk & Weight Examples
Misc. Tutorial List (!)
Animation and Story Tips
Workflow Tutorial
Notes on Gesture Drawing for Animation
"Silhouette" Post on Spline Doctors
Why are CG animators so much slower than 2D animators?
Polish Notes by Andrew Gordon
AM Newsletter examples
Sigg Jones
Animation Cliches
Body Language in Animations
Spline Doctors Archive (Summary of their posts til April 24th)
Carlos Baena Interview
Reference of people falling
ev_Critique (lots of animation work)
The Virgin Voyage - Pixar Class Short
Short but sweet
Framing your shot
Flip
Aardman Speaks (lipsync)
Walk Cycle Timelapse
The Power of Pyramids
The11SecondClub
Audience Reaction Ref
Eye Reference Video
"Make a short film!" by Keith Lango
"Carried Away" by Zach. A. Parrish
Industry Examples & Misc. Stuff
Ratatouille Animation Test and here
Purple & Brown
Animation Mentor Showreel
Ratatouille Trailer & here
Batman: Chapter 1 Short
Ratatouille Cooking Featurette & another one + 1 + 1 + 1
Pocoyo - great snappy anim example
Mega Robots Returns
9 min "Ratatouille" preview in HD
Amazing Bouncing Balls
Final "Transformers" Trailer
Starcraft 2 Trailer
Clay CG
Peter & the Wolf
Mortimer & Bracket
Transformers Commercial
Ratatouille Screening
Ratatouille Easter Eggs
Super Cute Extra White Gum Commercial
Pencil Test - Behind the Scenes
Coke Happiness Factory
Surf's Up Siggraph Paper
Crowd Animation
Melvin the Robot
Class Student Work & Critique
Example for individual syllabus
Another Example of an individual Syllabus
Bouncing Ball
Bouncing Ball
Bouncing Balls
Bouncing Balls
Bouncing Balls
Bouncing Balls
Bouncing Ball
Bouncing Balls
Bouncing Ball w/ Character
Ball w/ Character
Ball w/ Character
Ball w/ Character
Ball w/Character and Tail
Bouncing Ball w/Tail
Ball w/Teeth
Ball w/Teeth & Tongue
Tongue test
Ball and Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle
Walk Cycle with Char. Extension
Character Walk
Character Walk
Heavy Object
Weight
Weight
Jump
Jump
Audio Clip
Audio Clip
Solo
Showing posts with label Spring 07 Summary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring 07 Summary. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Class F.A.Q.
As students send me questions I will post the answers here for the rest of the class. Make sure that you check this site daily, as class updates, critiques and lecture (extensions) are being posted here.
Homework - the moment you are done with your clip and you need feedback, post it on your site (or any site that offers hosting), which is the preferred method, or you can send me the clip via email. Make sure you keep the file size small.
Movie Files - they have to be Quicktime, with a frame counter visible (go to this site for frame counter information or download it directly here). To keep the file size small, use the H.264 compression codec as you export your .avi file to quicktime.
- Once you did the playblast in Maya, open that .avi movie in quicktime. Then go to File>Export..., choose Movie to Quicktime Movie, then Options. Under Settings use H.264, Key Frames: Every 100 Frames, Quality around 65. OK all that and save the file. Voilà.
Syllabus - you can choose the assignments outlined on the AAU syllabus or you can make your own syllabus. Think about what you want to do and what area needs improvement. Do you need more practice with cycles? Do that. More acting? Body mechanics? Look at the body of work you have right now. Ask yourself honestly, did I completely master the basics? The conventional order of exercises would be a bouncing ball, then a character walk, jump, weight lift, pantomime, monologue and dialogue. Since a lot of you are graduating in a semester or two, you might have done a few if not all those exercises already. But again, did you master them?
As you prepare your own syllabus, make sure that you don't take on too much. Give each exercise enough time. The main point though is that you have to go beyond the exercise. Your clip has to stand out not just animation technique wise, but also from an entertainment point of view, the presentation (by that I mean the staging, the composition of the shot, not a fancy render (which helps but is just the icing on the cake)), etc. You need to be creative and avoid the current cliches. How do I know what is cliche? Take a few hours and go through people's reels, sites like the 11secondclub, animation forums, etc. After having seen 200+ clips, you will know what is being overused.
Animation Clips - Focus on making your clip more than just an exercise, give it context. Don't just have a guy lifting a box. Who is that guy (or girl or thing), where is he and why is he lifting this box? Avoid the default model (grey Norman for instance), give it character.
When doing a walk cycle, please have at least a front and side view visible in ONE movie.
When doing a bouncing ball, please use "side" view camera, not perspective, unless it is for more elaborate shots where the composition is telling a story. If you are doing the basic "heavy, medium, light ball" exercise, please have all three balls in one movie. And again, a frame counter should be visible.
Your own Website - get a host as soon as you can. Your site doesn't need to be fancy, just clean and professional. Don't wait, you need an online portfolio ASAP.
Don't have movie files on it which are 100MB. Yes, broadband is nothing new, but still, try to keep the file size small.
Audio Files - before you start with a monologue/dialogue clip, send me or show me at least 5 different ones. Really try to get the audio off a DVD, so that the quality is high. It's okay to find something online, but once you decided on the right clip, get the sound from the DVD because web clips usually are of poor quality.
For full guidelines, read this post.
Maya Setup - set your animation scene to 24fps
Future classes - read this post
Tata
Jean-Denis
Homework - the moment you are done with your clip and you need feedback, post it on your site (or any site that offers hosting), which is the preferred method, or you can send me the clip via email. Make sure you keep the file size small.
Movie Files - they have to be Quicktime, with a frame counter visible (go to this site for frame counter information or download it directly here). To keep the file size small, use the H.264 compression codec as you export your .avi file to quicktime.
- Once you did the playblast in Maya, open that .avi movie in quicktime. Then go to File>Export..., choose Movie to Quicktime Movie, then Options. Under Settings use H.264, Key Frames: Every 100 Frames, Quality around 65. OK all that and save the file. Voilà.
Syllabus - you can choose the assignments outlined on the AAU syllabus or you can make your own syllabus. Think about what you want to do and what area needs improvement. Do you need more practice with cycles? Do that. More acting? Body mechanics? Look at the body of work you have right now. Ask yourself honestly, did I completely master the basics? The conventional order of exercises would be a bouncing ball, then a character walk, jump, weight lift, pantomime, monologue and dialogue. Since a lot of you are graduating in a semester or two, you might have done a few if not all those exercises already. But again, did you master them?
As you prepare your own syllabus, make sure that you don't take on too much. Give each exercise enough time. The main point though is that you have to go beyond the exercise. Your clip has to stand out not just animation technique wise, but also from an entertainment point of view, the presentation (by that I mean the staging, the composition of the shot, not a fancy render (which helps but is just the icing on the cake)), etc. You need to be creative and avoid the current cliches. How do I know what is cliche? Take a few hours and go through people's reels, sites like the 11secondclub, animation forums, etc. After having seen 200+ clips, you will know what is being overused.
Animation Clips - Focus on making your clip more than just an exercise, give it context. Don't just have a guy lifting a box. Who is that guy (or girl or thing), where is he and why is he lifting this box? Avoid the default model (grey Norman for instance), give it character.
When doing a walk cycle, please have at least a front and side view visible in ONE movie.
When doing a bouncing ball, please use "side" view camera, not perspective, unless it is for more elaborate shots where the composition is telling a story. If you are doing the basic "heavy, medium, light ball" exercise, please have all three balls in one movie. And again, a frame counter should be visible.
Your own Website - get a host as soon as you can. Your site doesn't need to be fancy, just clean and professional. Don't wait, you need an online portfolio ASAP.
Don't have movie files on it which are 100MB. Yes, broadband is nothing new, but still, try to keep the file size small.
Audio Files - before you start with a monologue/dialogue clip, send me or show me at least 5 different ones. Really try to get the audio off a DVD, so that the quality is high. It's okay to find something online, but once you decided on the right clip, get the sound from the DVD because web clips usually are of poor quality.
For full guidelines, read this post.
Maya Setup - set your animation scene to 24fps
Future classes - read this post
Tata
Jean-Denis
Site Post Summaries & Archives
You can go to the old site, academyanimation.blogspot.com, and do a search there for more information on top of the Spring, Summer and Fall labels that I have on Spungella.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
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