Eleven Rig

Just downloaded the Eleven Rig, and thought I would try it out. Some parts of it move differently to the Mophy rig, as it uses IFK a lot more, but I like it a bit better I think. Just threw in a couple of lights and some polygons to see what it looked like.

Yay, Normal Skin

So this is the almost finished animation for the 11 second club clip for January. I had some difficulty lip syncing to it because the clip is from a Bollywood film, and I would be lying if i claimed lip syncing in another language is easy. The basic principles are the same but without knowing a word i find it difficult to make the right mouth shapes. The rig also didn't have as much you could do with the face in comparison with the face rig Georg gave us last week, so I am thinking of going back and maybe accentuating some of the mouth shapes. I also still want to mess with the lighting and make one of the characters eyebrows move some more. but other than that I think it went well. Looking forward to the day where I learn to model some better backgrounds, though I may go fetch a tutorial now to see if I cant improve. Anyway, the animation:

11 Seconds Of Broken Skin

So I finished my 11 second club animation. I would render it and upload it, but I'm afraid there seems to be something drastically wrong with the characters skin. I will ask Georg about it in tomorrows digital animation lecture, but until then, here is the problem with the animation at the moment:

A Whole 35 Minutes!

 Here are Wednesdays life-drawings. my first time drawing a man which was different. Took me so long to upload because once again I had to acquire somebodies camera. I really need to buy myself one and stop buying instruments instead.

I used charcoal for most of the session, apart from a couple of poses in pencil. We started with 2 minute poses which weren't too bad, I think I'm getting quicker at all those short poses that I hate. Then we had 30 second poses which we had to do using only 3 lines. I overlapped the drawings for this to save paper, so they don't look like much. Then we were given a whole 35 minute pose which was the longest yet I think. I used charcoal and chalk to get a nice tonal drawing which I really enjoyed. Even found some fixative so the drawing survived the trip home! Enjoy:

EEFO!

So yesterday we had to pitch our ideas for animations to EEFO (http://www.eefo.net/) Each group of three had a few minutes worth of presentation to convey their ideas and convince EEFO to choose their Idea. Three are going to be picked to then go on and make full animations, and the winner will be picked from them and used by the company.

They already had 2 characters which we had to use, and the animation has to be suitable for school ages. It also needs to be able to convey its message with and without sound.

Our group decided to have the male character running through a hedge maze being chased by various monsters which represent problems that teenagers sometimes have. The guy gets cornered and the female character bursts through a hedge wall to save him just in time and leads him to the EEFO signpost which directs them out of the maze. Rachel (rachelstarkey.wordpress.com) came up with original idea and we loved it and ran along with it. She also drew up lots of awesome storyboards which I will post up if I ever find them. Elizabeth (http://elisabeth-haukaas.blogspot.com/, http://fuegokid.blogspot.com/), helped iron out some of the problems with the storyline and came up with the idea to have a dull colour scheme and then brighten the colours as the characters leave the maze, also a brilliant idea, couldn't have asked for a better group. We each drew some monsters to represent problems teenagers may have, some being Junk Foo, Smoking and Drugs. and Rachel drew the male character from varying angles.

Blob Monster, representing Junk Food

Drug Spider, representing Drug Use

Smoking Skeleton, representing Smoking Habis, and a test of the male character

More character tests

LIp-Syncing in 3D

Today we were given a 3D head rig, So we could have a quick go at Lip-syncing, So when I got back to the flat, I synced the head to the chorus of a song. Enjoy.

It's ALIVE!!

Had a stop-motion workshop today. Used rather basic armatures, but as we were only learning the basics, they were good enough. Some of the joints were a little bit stiff, and the clothes weren't starched, which makes it incredibly difficult to avoid creating crawl (when the clothes appear to move by themselves, because the folds in the material move when you manipulate the puppet) We just made the models bend over and touch their toes, but you need to think a lot about which joints and the order in which you break the joints (breaking joints is how certain parts of your Bordy start moving before others, for example in  this instant the head bends first, followed by the arms, and then the waist etc.)

Life Drawing in 2012

First life-drawing of 2012 today :] We had a younger female woman this time. There were many short poses, which I find difficult, and we began using watered down ink, which I find very difficult to use, especially with the thick brushes provided. I used pencil and charcoal to attempt the really short thumbnail poses, but I just could draw quick enough. I find small and quick are both difficult for me to manage. We also had to draw for a minute or two while the model moved around in slow fluid movements. I drew the area where she stood first so I could identify where to put her on the paper quicker. It was very odd, and although it ended up looking rather like a mess of scribbles, you could make out figure like shapes. At the end we got to do a 10 minute pose, which was my favourite. I chose charcoal and chalk on mid tone paper, which meant I could finally add in lighter tone and focus on the lighting, which I really enjoy. She was standing in front of the spotlight, creating a nice Rim Light effect which was cool. It went well, though I didn't get her left arm drawn as she slipped towards the end of the pose, which changed the angle when she sat back up, causing a problem. Here's the pictures :

Point Light

Quickly before i drop off to bed, i threw a point light around in my scene to experiment :]

3 Point lighting

Okay now i keep messing up the setting with 3 lights and either severely pixelating the shadows, or just over shooting the light. But its looking kinda better now. This is once again using directional lights, one for the Key light (the brightest one), one for the bounce back, and a third behind the character to create a rim light, which brings out the edge of the character.

2 Point Lighting :]

2 point lighting now, looks much more natural. 2 point lighting is what it sounds like, using two lights, coming from different points. In computer programs, light doesn't bounce like in real life, as the way light works in life is incredibly complex. so to make a light "bounce off something" you need two lights, one for the original one, and a weaker on to create the light that has bounced off. So this is what I have done, once again using directional lights only. Enjoy!

Let there be light...

So, first post of the new year :] Happy 2012 peoples. Had my first lecture of the term today, digital animation, mostly about lighting. So I'm going to get a book from the library and look into I, as I have kinda liked messing with lights since my chiaroscuro project at A2. So I downloaded the Morpheus rig, and threw together a quick pose to attempt one point lighting on. I used a directional light, and made it the only light, and gave it a pretty high intensity, and I'm quite happy with it. More to come :]