Gentle's Animation learning thread

#1

Heya,

I’m now learning character animation. Altough I use C4D since about 4 years, I’ve never experienced animation, so I will learn it during the next few months.
I’m now working with the C4D Demo, so I use Camtasia to capture the in-Editor-Playing, this is the reason why some videos lag a bit.

Here are my results so far… I began about a month ago.
This threadstart is a translated collection of my posts in German forums, but I will continue to post my progress in new posts.
Partly animations, partly drawings or images or… yeah, you got it :smiley:

The basic scene.

Bouncing Balls
Bounce1.mov
Bounce2.mov
Bounce3.mov
Bounce4.mov
Bounce5.mov
Bounce6.mov
Bounce6-1.mov

My stretch n squash rig - the text says something like “the vector is triggering squash and stretch, it scales the Y-axis proportionally and the X-/Z-axis improportionally, and it can rotate on his own, so for rotating the deformation, you don’t have to rotate the ball itself.”

Ballrig-what-it-can

Anti-stress-ball-Bouncing-Ball
Tennis-Bouncing-Ball
Hob ball-Bouncing-Ball
Tabletennis-Bouncing-Ball
Beachball-Bouncing…Ball

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/video.php?vid=FOOTAGE Tennisball-Holz.mov

My “list” :wink:

Overpainting from grannys times (R.I.P. wrist)

Gentle

#2

Anti-stress-ball boing
Beachball boom
Hop ball bang

Bouncing Balls with pen:

Simple character (not another Teen … AM-puppet)

The last ****ing beachball :smiley:
Interaction between Tennis- and beachball
Wippe-wappe

Editor:

… F-Curves…

From scratch to animation (click image)

uuuh under surface
seee-saaaw

…get out of MY ****ING HOUSE!

Gentle

#3

Continuing with some poses:

  Wooow I was tired today!
  Just one animation and five poses. Hehe:D
  
  
  This bouncing ball was first constructed in my living room and then I used the reference material for doing it in 3D. By the way - that are all animation/cinematography books from the Vienna library.
  
  [[img]http://www.gentle.tk/anim/prev.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Flummi-Holz_Buecherstapel.mov)
  
  Posing in the garden:
  [img]http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Posen1.jpg[/img]
  
  
  
  I created the poses with the standard-MOCCA-Rig.
  click on images for bigger version.
  
  
  [[img]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1826/ausheckeruw2.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Aushecker.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1851/monsterrh0.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Monster.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8471/tuerstehermc4.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Tuersteher.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4454/karatevl3.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Karate.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6923/hosenscheissersd0.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Hosenbrunzer.jpg)
  
  
  ... and more poses :D
  
  For this day, altough I just got up at one o'clock, I was pretty productive .
  
  
  First a who-finds-the-mistake from a footage-video. Look at the moment of pose change ;)
  [Footage-Video](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/FOOTAGE%20Schuechtern-Selbstbewusst.mov)
  
  
  
  These Characters I will put in pose tomorrow:
  
  [Brav-Video](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/FOOTAGE%20A_ganz_a_Brava.mov)
#4

And these poses were made today, based on the C4D-Rig.

  Please, get into a hemicircle.. ;)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1409/gruppe3rf6.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Gruppe3.jpg)
  
  
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9089/listigerlurchwp2.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Listiger_Lurch.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/3753/schmollenku1.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Schmollen.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/43/selbstbewusstfg5.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Selbstbewusst.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4850/ertapptrb2.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Ertappt.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6028/ignorantuo8.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Ignorant.jpg)
  
  [[img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1272/fataaalts5.jpg[/img]](http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Fataaal.jpg)
#5

Some drawing from yesterday night:

   [img]http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Zeichnung3.jpg[/img]
   
   [img]http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Zeichnung4.jpg[/img]
   
   The next week will be a pure reading/drawing-week, I'll keep you up-to-date.
   
   ----For about one week, I'm reading as many books about cinematograohy and film design as possible-----
   
   
   The first book I read yesterday:
    
    "Screencraft: Cinematography" by Peter Ettedgui.
    ISBN: 3 499 605515

A very interesting book about the careers and lives of the most important camera-men in the last eighty years. They themselves describe how they got their jobs, first at advertising and documentary films, lateron they came to movies for the cinemas. I think the most important message was: Good camera work is camera work you don’t recognize.

   Have fun,
   Gentle
#6

This is the book I finished today:

“Screencraft: Production Design & Art Direction” by Peter Ettedgui.
ISBN: 3 499 60663 1

The book is - again - about the most famous artists of this screencraft and their personal views.
A production designer is basically very similar to a concept artist, but has way more power, as he defines the basic style of the movie. His functions are first to translate the screenplay into visual language, sketches, models and so on. He directs the construction of the sets and plans the locations.
The term “Production Designer” was invented by David O. Selznick, producer of "Gone with the Wind " and was a honour to the extraordinary work of William Cameron Menzies, who controlled the whole film style by detailed storyboards which must be strictly adhered to.
From there on, many techniques were invented and given forth by teaching assistants.
A production designer is also responsible for using the budget carefully considered. It is important to design a set for the audience, all the suurounding that’s not visible in the movie is less important.
Production designers have always to work with tricks, and always to be aware of the fact that the counting factor shouldn’t be the own ego or taste but the correct and best execution of the screenplay’s vibe.
In these belongings, production designers often tend to construct a set based on the character’s personality and the emotional mood of the scene.

Gentle

#7

Just finished the next book:

“The Art of the Matrix” Larry & Andy Wachowski et al.
ISBN: 3 933 731 356

This book was really amazing for me, and is a compilation of these contents:
-B/W complete storyboard by Steve Skroce, about 200 pages in size.
-colored storyboard-parts by Tani Kunitake and Collin Grant
-concept art by Geof Darrow
-the original screenplay Andy und Larry Wachowski
-production memos by director’s assistant Phil Oosterhouse

Not because Matrix is my favourite movie, but because I coluld learn so much out of this book, I really swallowed it. It’s a 480-page A4 book, full of pictures and concepts.
The Wachowski brothers first showed their screenplay to the investors to get some money for comic and concept artists. So they hired Steve Skroce who drew the storyboard in complete comic-style. They always kept communicating, and so he drew a rough version, teh brothers overpainted some parts and he finished it.
The Geof Darrow joined them, and I have to admit that I’ve never ever - even not on cgtalk - seen such a crazy artist. His concepts of the inner architectur of the Nebukadnezzar ist so astonishingly detailed, I couldn’t believe it… (these concepts are on douple pages you can unfold)
I’ve never read a screenplay before, so I was very thrilled to read this one and had some grins when I realized that they even mentioned the erm’s in the dialogues :wink:
The coloured sketches are really vivid and cool to look at. The thing I liked most was that Geof, Steve and Tani wrote some comments to pictures of the storyboard, so I could l,ook behind this huge preproduction process and felt like part of this small team.
Exciting, visually amazing and indeed in the changing room. I really liked it.

To complete this insight, I gonna watch the movie this evening.

Some pen-leg-cooperations in the metro from yesterday evening :wink:

Gentle

#8

Oh my goosh gentle! I am so impressed how well organized on your own! U really are an inspiration honestly :slight_smile: I too constantly read and devote time to projects but being as dedicated and committed as you is really awesome.

I don’t really have time to view all your clips but the animation is pretty good and its really cool that your reading so much and taking photo references. Bravo brother!

Well Ill keep checking this thread. Would love to see you get better the you already are. Keep up this pace and your gonna be amazing I bet.

Cheers!

#9

Thank you :slight_smile:

The next book seems to take more time, so I will post it these days.
On my way going out yesterday I sketched a bit around :slight_smile:

The bear and rabbit were drawn by a drunken guy I met in the nightline, after finishing them he shouted SAMBA! and tumbled out of the bus :wink:

By the way, the next week I’m going to set my focus on drawing, so I’ll draw 10-12 hours a day and meet with a 2D-Animation-drawing-student in downtown :slight_smile:

Gentle

#10

Oh my… That’s just odd that you haven’t gotten any more replies here. (first time I read the thread myself, though :shrug: ) and I gotta say its really nice to see all things going on here. I’ll definitly keep an eye or two on this thread, very inspiring due to the big amount of variations :thumbsup:

Erik

#11

Thank you, Erik! :slight_smile:

Today I used the day pretty well, 10 hours of Starbucks-sitting, full of drawing, reading and sleeping.

During the last night I printed the reference images, which are all row-images (iI dunno the term, when you have a motion multiple times per second captured and composed).
So I had them beside me while drawing the motions (or in case of the snowboard image, I drew the whole image like it was printed)
The wallflip and some other drawings are out-of-my-head.

The model overpainting was like an enlightment - I was NEVER ever able to draw women, no way, they all got masculine or androgyne, but never female. And after overpainting Naomi Campbell I tried it and it worked! BAM!
I’m really proud of the lying woman, she’s without any reference and … yeah :smiley:

The row-image reference:
http://blv-nachwuchs.ch/nwkader/sprung/Tests/2007/RB%20Thomas%2020.01.07.pdf
http://www.blv-nachwuchs.ch/nwkader/wurf/Speer/technik-muster.jpg
http://www.gymfacts.ch/custom/help/help.php3?typ=1&hs=112
http://www.swiss-hurdling.ch/file/Sprintanalyse_Lauf.pdf
http://images.digicamfotos.de/media/214/big-air-graz.jpg
http://www.snowboard-italia.com/foto-snowboard/sfondi-snowboard/foto-snowboard-1-1024-768.jpg

Models out of the newspaperwith overpaint:


drawings from today:




Greets,
Gentle

#12

Wow, got some good stuff going on there :slight_smile: Love seeing the progression and thought processes. Inspiring stuff indeed! I been pretty lazy past couple of weeks, but this threads given me a bit of a jolt to get back to doing some of my own work again. Definitely gonna check back occasionally.

Keep up the work!

#13

I will, Neill, I will! :slight_smile:

Today was another coincident… I was thinking about buying the Playboy for drawing references, when an advertisement appeared right beside a newsstore. So I bought a very cheap woman lifestyle magazine, tore out all the useless pages and overpainted about 10-20 models, just a few examples scanned.
I haven’t drawn as much as yesterday but tried some new things and on one sheet there’s my first sofcore-pen-porn :smiley:
(those who like leather boots and hankerchieds, mail me, I’ll scan it in a billion DPI).
I’ve also read quite a bit, so I think tomorrow there’ll be a new review :slight_smile:

Have fun at viewing.






Gentle

#14

The drawings from today, as usual fromn about 9:30am until 8:00pm. This time we were four people (during the afternoon). tomorrow will be the l,ast drawing day for this week.
I dunno yet what to do the next week because I have still five books to read and … humm, yes.
Yesterday I was struggling enormously with drawing hands, so I chose to draw many today :slight_smile:
The first sheet of paper took me a long time, from morning to noon, because I drew so many little figurettes on this one sheet :wink:
On the left side of it there’s a little step by step “tutorial” of how I construct the little “animations”.
There was another problem - not knowing ANYTHING about animal Proportions or anatomy, so you can see many erased lines at the horse - I didn’t know in which direction their knees are bending :wink:

(click image for bigger version)


Gentle

#15

Today I borrowd two anatomy books by Gottfried Bammes, one about human, one about animal anatomy. They’re interesting but there’s no real tutorial oder well-prepared advice in them, they’re a kind of reference books.

The nude images were done with photo reference and very quick, so I didn’t use my eraser on purpose to get more feeling for the drawn line.
The policewoman was done with a photo reference from the newspaper :smiley:




Gentle

#16

The show must go on :wink:
I was on a seminar for the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Abroad (AHMS), so I didn’t have much time - but enough to print some nude pictures (or partly nude) and draw some of them on the train.
Because I don’t take a nude studies course yet, I have to do something similar.

Page two are only men, so I was a bit motiveless :smiley:



Gentle

#17

A bit too late, but today’s okay too :smiley:
I decided to make another drawing week, so here’s Day one of it :wink:

yesterday…:



Gentle

#18

Yesterday I visited a nude drawing session, I participated for two times a 2-hour-course. It was greeeeeeat and I really recommend everybody on the whole earth to have a look at such a course!










#19 






  Gentle
#20

Starbucks, Starbucks - and me, full-time-chatotic idiot, forgot the reference pics, so I drew right out of the head (wow, what a Germanism) :wink:

AOnpage two you see two persons from a well-known film, especially the little one is perfectly drawn.


Gentle