Sunday, January 23, 2011

AM Class 1 - Week 3

So week 3 has come and gone at Animation Mentor, and I must say it was a pretty cool week. Our lecture was all about planning and blocking a shot and the various ways to do so. I've realized (although it seems obvious now) that a ridiculous amount of planning is required for each shot. Planning allows you to refine and explore different acting choices, key poses, timing, beats, and a whole slew of things that we won't touch on until later. I think that the lack of serious planning has probably been one of my biggest hindrances in my animation. I think Shawn Kelly said that if you really plan your shot well and you've thumbnailed everything out, then all your work on the computer will be much easier since you'll already have all your keys and breakdowns on paper. You won't have to make anything up as you go along, and your poses will be kickass.

So our assignment this week was to plan out a bouncing basketball and the animate the bouncing ball. We also had to draw a bunch of different poses that conveyed excitement, and then pose our Stu rig in that pose.

I have to admit that the animation of the ball bounce took me a lot longer than I originally expected. After first attempt I got a few comments that it looked a little more like a ping pong ball because the bounces were too high, and also that there were too many bounces. So I went ahead and made the necessary changes and I think it worked out well.

The excitement poses were also somewhat difficult to come up with because it was hard not to be completely cliche. I think at least half of the ones I drew were, but I think I found a good one in the end. I'll find out during my eCritique.

So here's the planning for the bouncing ball.



And here's the Animation.



Here are my sketches for the pose.



Here's the pose in all 3 dimensions ladies and gentlemen.


Oh, and I was able to do a revision of last weeks pose, so here's what I came up with after my mentor's advice.

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