Hah, well I tried anyway. Hard making that box walk. Oh well, better luck next time.
Animator's Trials - Deadline May 27th
CornFielD
#63
yea its difficult I am not so much in to animation so for me you did quite well! I just said my first impressions… you already have something to improve… so… go for it!
digones
#64
greetings!
Well, okay, here’s another trial… this time I’ve tried to make a “sad walking” (sorry, bouncing)… 
I know it’s a little too shot, but since I had to make it fit in 100 frames, the orange guy jumps only 3 times. I kinda gave up about making the orange to literally walk, cause it sounded a little strange for a cube, so I decided to make it bouncing… anyway… it’s here to be criticized.
oh, another thing, I’m not an experienced animator, actually I just made a couple of walkcycles and this is the first time I’m doing something really “moving” from one place to another, so excuse any newby mistakes here, okay?
sad bouncing (quicktime with soreson 3 - 500kb)
cheers!!
Robert_Diaz
#65
Here is my first of the several animation tests I need to do. I’ve been busy so I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time I as I’ve wanted to. I was thinking about tweaking something, but I figured I’d put what I have out there now for your opinions. So please let me know what you think.
dubi
#66
I made an antropomorphus animation with deformaring.
I believe that it would be the best skill to animation a primitive form
Test was one of box bouncing happy!
[bouncing happy - (MOV 531 kb)](http://www.dubi.com.br/forum/bouncinghappy.mov)
diogo dubiella
Robert_Diaz
#67
Well, I had some free time tonight so I punched out a quick sad “walk”. I was considering whether to make the character actually hop. After thinking about it I thought the point would be better shown by not having the character hop because hoping denotes some energy. And when your sad you sulk so thats why I decided not to have him hop. Crits and comments welcome and wanted. Now I’ll get started on the next test animation.
[Sad "walk" Angle](http://home.comcast.net/%7Erobertdiaz45/Vids/sad_walk_angle.mov)
[Sad "walk" Side](http://home.comcast.net/%7Erobertdiaz45/Vids/sad_walk_side.mov)
EDIT:
I created a slightly different version of the same sad walk for your consideration. I also rendered the angled view so you can see shadows and get a better sense of the walk.
[Sad "walk" Angle Ver. 2](http://home.comcast.net/%7Erobertdiaz45/Vids/sad_walk_angle_ver2.mov)
[Sad "walk" Side Ver. 2](http://home.comcast.net/%7Erobertdiaz45/Vids/sad_walk_side_ver2.mov)
Kirt
#70
I’ll be reviewing these this weekend and giving everyone who’s submitted something some feedback for improvements. Also, we have about a week before we start animating. Everyone happy with the rigs so far? Better get in there and offer crits and constructive feedback ASAP.
I don’t have a 3D app to work with, so I’m leaving it up to the animators to pick the rigs and models that they want to work with. Let me know final decisions before next Friday the 27th.
Robert_Diaz
#71
Cool, I’ll get to finishing up the animation tests for your consideration. With regards to the rigs there isn’t much to choose from yet. I’m about to post in the rigging thread to see whats going on.
dubi
#72
ok! Kirt, also I will get to finish the tests !! 
More one animation!
Pursuing (MOV 2,27 mb)
diogo dubiella
Kirt
#74
OK … I think I viewed all of the available test so far. Everyone has done a good job but there are always going to be nit-picking details from me. Sorry, I’m overly critical to a degree. Hopefully, we can make some of these better. Here’s where we’re at:
derbyqsalano - Really nice character in all of your clips. Happy is happy, sad is sad and the two interact clips are very charming. I would have prefered to see a walk instead of a hop for the sad clip. Maybe if you have time you could give that one another try? I don’t like how his back concaves when he’s slumped over either. Any way to add a blend shape or something to keep his form from deflating?
Other than that … your work is really nice. I’ll have Theresa assign you some of the challenging scenes. Great job! 
digones - There’s a little turn of the head in your happy clip and a droop of the head in your sad clip. Unfortunately, aside from those indications I’m not getting much emotion from these two performances. The hops are really linear as well. Try adjusting your curves so that there is a bit of a delay at the apex of the jump and some anticipation prior to the jump. Just like a bouncing ball, the speed is greatest at the launch and prior to the landing. I just don’t see that there is a variation at all.
diogo dubiella - Bouncing box showed wonderful energy and the transformation at the end works great. Can you transform him into a cylindar? That’s what we’ll need for the short. Your happy bounce was a little to jello-ish. Squash and stretch is great, but the drawback is that it’s hard to maintain the basic shape of the character between these frames. I’m afraid that your example here shows how the characters “at rest” shape becomes unknown when too much squash and stretch is applied. Try to keep his basic form more. The pursuing clip, on the other hand, was just golden. I love the characters and the red sphere reads perfectly. Reverse the roles though … our star is the cube, not the sphere. I want to see if you can make the cube character react the same way.
Iliketheska - Really nice jump. Maybe too much wiggle. Everyone seems to be associating this character with a bowl of jello. I don’t really like the jello look. He’s much more solid and has weight. The sad walk is alright. I think I need to get in the rigging thread and see if we can’t correct some issues there. Not bad though with what looks like a pretty simple rig.
Pencil Head - Nice energy and a very happy fellow. 
A little too much of the jello look which I’ve already discussed above. Wish I could offer more critique, but I only found one clip for you and I’ve pretty much covered the same thing above. :hmm:
Robert Diaz - Your happy walk could be pushed a little further I think. It has a very restricted feel to it in comparison to some of the other animator’s tests. It’s not bad, just lacking a little bit of life. I think someone ealier mentioned that it’s better to go too far, then it’s easier to reign back on the extremes. The jump is really nice. Good anticipation, movement and landing (without the jello wobble). This is more what I’m looking for. The sad walk isn’t bad either, but I don’t think we’re getting the movement right. Something that needs fixing in the rigs I suppose.
paperclip
#76
We have determined that we will have the rig finished on friday, you will be able to play with it on saturday and animating begins on wednesday june 1st. The main animators will be Derbyqsalano and diogo dubiella.
Diogo, please turn on the option that allows you to recieve PMs in your User CP.
Have fun!
theresa.
paperclip
#77
http://www.creaturetd.net/ASLS_Orange_Rig.rar
play around with it, mess with it…it’s totally a R&D thing, not near finalized (stuffs not even named right!)
M.E.L posted these few notes:
4 joints for body attached to simple nurbs controls to rotate and pivot the character, these can also be used to translate the character and give it that ‘stretch’
-
6 clusters weighted to the bottom 4 corners of the cube and the top 2 representing hands & feet as well as ears (gives a bit more cartoony feel and can add some exaggerated look).
-
rest is all handled by a BS controller as I call it (blendshape icon above the character that stores all the blendshapes for the given character… easily just blend the cube into it’s shape or pose and voila).
Some Side Notes:
The idea of a squash and stretch system is great, but instead I figured it would be much better suited in the way of a blendshape (there are 2 really rough squash and stretch shapes that I modeled as an example). This saves the animators some hassle and also saves us on time for other things.
As far as other features go…I’d like to spend some time with the animators working out a feasible solution, I know deadlines are tight and we’re not exactly on a full feature time scale here but I still feel a few days to have the rig checked out before stepping into animation would be nice. This just came to me after plotting out the pipe last night, from the rigging to animation phase we’re gonna need that few days of R&D period where the animators test and give feedback on the rig, if they are already animating on it and we change it too much we may just be wasting time and throwing valuable animation time away. Lets get the animators feedback on this and roll from there (Kirt, your feedback as well possibly?)
Animators:
if you guys can let us know the way you prefer to animate i.e. large controls, selection handles, UI windows etc etc then it gives us a better base to start from.
If you guys want any changes, post them in the rigging thread. The R & D phase is the time for you guys to play around with it and see which changes you may make to the rig. Cornfield is going to post some blendshapes later for squash & stretch.
Have fun!
theresa.
paperclip
#78
Here is the tentative ‘cast list’. I decided to group people up, as smaller groups tend to have better communication and achieve more.
Group 1:
Animation:
Derbyqsalano,diogo dubiella, sheepfactory. {These guys will get the juiciest scenes}
—>WyattHarris (textures)
---->CornfielD and Alex York. {lighting}
Group 2:
Animation:
sphere, tharrell, digones.
----->SovereignKnight {textures}
----->Alex York and GumboYaYa. {lighting}
Group 3:
Animation:
SkyZero, zenfull, Robert Diaz.
---->thewave {textures}
---->Rens Heeren {lighting}
[ul]
[li]Each group will get its own section of the screenplay/animatic, which I will divide up further in order to give each individual their own acts to animate.[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]When each animator is finished with their animation, they will get it proofed by Kirt, then give it to the relevant texturer, who will pass it onto the relevant lighter.[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Animation finished files will go into the ‘finished files go here!’, which I will upload. Same for the lighting files. That way we will have 1 set of non-textured and non-lit animation and 1 set of textured, lit animation. This will make it easier to change anything later.[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Finished animated, textured and lighted files will then be given over to the editor. (Yet to be determined)[/li][/ul]
paperclip
#79
Here’s an updated version of the rig. Bear in mind that animation BEGINS on wednesday!!
You must be prepared! PM me and let me know if you’re on or off the project.
paperclip
#80
Animation begins today!
Each group will work on their own and look to each other for inspiration. Please check out the thread I gave each of you in the main short film forum.
Good luck!
theresa.
Kid-Mesh
#81
I really enjoyed reading through this thread…excellent attempt guys…congrats and good luck.