Gentle's Animation learning thread

#42

A new book review:

“Künstliche Welten”
by Rolf Giesen and Claudia Meglin
ISBN: 3203841142

First I didn’t want to read it, I thougfht it would be rubbish. Kris Staber accidentally saw it and told me it was a classic. I couldn’t resist to have a look, or read the whole book…
In general, it consits of articles by people from the industry, a historical listing olf special effects and a big list of people in the SFX-industry.

So what is it about? In general you could say, about special effects, from their beginning to about the year 2000. On Amazon, you can get it for 149€, what is WAY too much. It’s a good book and I really recommend it, but definately not for such a price.

Many special effects-people from the good old times talk about their experiences, the problems in industry, and abou the needed passion - just those film members who work longer and harder than needed, will get on the top.

It was funny to read about their “old” model works, to e.g. make realistic spaceships. As a 3D-artist you think “what the hell, 3D is cheaper!” - but I learnt one thing: 3D is nice, but not always the best - most effective - solution. Today, many films still use models, perspective betrayal and “real” tricks. Matte paintings at “these times” were painted on glass and lightened, when they needed static backgrounds. If the backgrounds had to be moving, they took the background footage and backprojected it on a kind of screen which was then the acting background.
At these times they needed to make multiple exposures to e.g. produce glow-“passes”.
A very interesting book that gives you a backstage view of all kinds of SFX and especially away from your computer screen - the chapters that are about computer animation, are a nice anecdote, the most recent story is about Lara Croft :wink:

I think it’s very important for a VFX-Artist to know about the “old” techniques, to get much more flexibility in his work.

That’s not enough, life drawing session and the character sheet of the concierge!
If you wonder about the paper, I lost my old sketchbook, so I got some new sheets.








Gentle

#43

Today, I can only show you blocking videos. For the first, I used footage, for the second one I had no possibility to film that (what?! You don’t have a 16 feet monstertruck-tyre?!)

Everything is blocked, just the wheel uses a smooth animation, without that I wouldn’t be able to manage animating that.

Oh, and I fell for that head… at least drawing him again, again and again :smiley:

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legjump7block.mov

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Oneleg_Radblock.mov

Gentle

#44

Woha, the polishing phase is more difficult than I thought :wink:

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legjump7.mov

Gentle

#45

Weekend - my mind is free and full of rubbish :smiley:

First, I updated both animations a bit:
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legjump7.mov

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Leg_Rad1.mov

Aaaand I started a little study this evening. It will still take a long time until I’ll approach facial animation, but I want to find out, which part of the face is most responsible for emotions - Eyes, Mout, Nose, Eyebrows?

My concept is the following: I photographed my borther and vice versa in the five main emotions - aggression, joy, grief, lust and grief. With these photos I’ll make an emotion board, each part of the face attached to a neutral face pose. You’ll see it tomorrow, now I’m too tired :slight_smile:

Gentle

PS: the reference video for the stair-jumping, feat. my little brother:
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/FOOTAGE Oneleg Treppe.mov

#46

Here we go…:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=4754860

#47

One week in Italy, Torino… I surfed for the first time a couch and was attending the VIEW Conference. I’ll definately write a review about all the speeches from Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony Imageworks and Co. :slight_smile:

I had my sketchbook with me, so I couldn’t resist to draw a bit around and finally do my first complete character design.
(in the last pictures, you can see impressions of the waiting room at Blogna centrale, about 3:00 AM :D)








Gentle

#48

Acting course from this sunday/monday:

… and I have to say, it was so damn awesome. We did a lot of new stuff…!!

SGK: Clap circle, this time we had to “feel” when we are getting an impulse. Then a new exercise, standing in a circle, and one person has “it”, with whcih he or she can push another person out of the circle and take their place, while the pushed out person has got “it”. IT#s kind of a magnetic push-thing.
And then came the burner… one person has to stand still somewehere in the room, another person standing opposite to her, and then running through this guy, as if not recognizing the person. It was very hard to just run through another person, because you have to meet hardly with the breast. Awesome thing, it needs so much self-control.

EBT: Passing on energy, penguin walk, the SSSSSSHH!, bending-knees-exercise, and sreaming at each other.

SPKA: this was the perfect preproduction for learning walkcycles: First we tried to stand upright and relaxed with our upper body while walking, then we tried to act as if…:

-barefoot going trough sand
-barefoot going on tiny stingy stones
-going with skiing boots
-going upwards/downwards a hill/mountain
-full of love walking through fresh 5 cm snow
-walking through 50cm deep snowfield
-going barefoot on a too hot ground
-balancing at a small path along a cliff

and much much more, for about one and a half hours.

It was soo funny to watch people doing certain things especially exaggerated/realistically, like going on high-heels: Killer!
For walkcycles and variations it’s just genious because you watch your own movements with such a focused perception… like miming a steep mountain-wandering just with socks in a room with a flat wooden floor… hehe!

PH: Ah, the cork! :wink:
First, we warmed up, then we had to pronounce a special german combination of words with -ig, which has many rules. Then a trendemous funny exercise followed, we had to read the same sentences, but with a cork between our teeth :smiley:
You laugh your ass off if you hear yourself struggeling to say any words with no possibility to close your moth :wink:

AKS: Stretching exercises, e.g. the cobra, where you rest in a mekka-praying-position and then move your torso forward and upwards, letting your back hang through and breathing deeply. Then we did deep breathing and treif to make a tone out of our crumb sound, which is a really resonant, stomach-based tone. Nice!

Gentle

#49

Damn, again prepared something but couldn’t finish it yet.

Soon, I’ll start with walkcycles, so I took many footage videos today. You can look forward to see Gentle in tight pants and a ton of downloadable clips, hopefully, my webspace can take that :smiley:

So you have to wait until tomorrow… :slight_smile:

Gentle

#50

Damn, again prepared something but couldn’t finish it yet.

Soon, I’ll start with walkcycles, so I took many footage videos today. You can look forward to see Gentle in tight pants and a ton of downloadable clips, hopefully, my webspace can take that :smiley:

So you have to wait until tomorrow… :slight_smile:

Gentle

#51

On the one hand I was drawing in Starbucks with Thomas:





On the other hand, I worked over the footage I took yesterday. 60 videos- 10 different walkcycles, 6 different camera positions/angles.

I thought about it for a long time, now I’m sure: there will be a bigger, widened version of this thread, as an ebook.
Don’t worry, I won’t post less content in this thread … there’s just much, much more than what you have seen here :slight_smile:

So … “just” 6 footage videos.
Now I can feel like these tv-series-producers…

“To be continued” :wink:

More on this ebook-thing alteron, I don’t want to make too much worries to it.

this is a quick sketch of how the footage videos are concepted

I marked my legs with duct tape, as a bone-imitation … on really tight pants, which looks a bit weird - have fun :wink:

So here are 6 videos - 6 views of the same sneaking motion.

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_left.mov
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_right.mov
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_front.mov
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_back.mov
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_top_left.mov
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/silent_top_right.mov

Gentle

#52

Ah, I lost my blocked-walkcycle-virginity :smiley:

Actually, I tried the whole day to delay it and delay it, my first walkcycle, but finally I did it.
This is my screen setup:


So, CInema and three views, which are running continually in loop mode. Perfect for finding out the right movement from all perspectives.

Here’s the animation, first blocked if there should be some mistakes. :slight_smile:

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_normal_block.mov

Gentle

#53

I’m not quite sure, if my method was good - I first animated the single body parts on the not-moving character and then animated the master mover to give the character a motion. So the single parts don’t slip on the floor, but is this method useful, or what would be an alternative to move the character?

Suggestions?

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_normal_block1.mov

Gentle

#54

Soooo … what do I have to offer today?

One neutral polishing and one depressed blocking … :slight_smile:

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_normal.mov

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legs_Depressed_block.mov

Gentle

#55

Yesterday worked a little bit on the depressed walk:

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legs_Depressed_block1.mov

Gentle

#56

Smuf!

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Legs_Depressed.mov

Gentle

#57

Acting school…:

SGK: Billiard, space recognition without seeing or hearing anything (or trainer put in the “Roxanne” song from the Moulin Rouge Soundtrack … superb. Really fascinating how we are able to recognize space without our common senses.

EBT: Gorilla walk, penguin run, karate exercise WITH using the liver … man I was feared of my partner, I mean, just punching, okay, but with a really aggressive expression, screaming and moving towards me while punching the punchtargets … whow! Then we did a JuJitsu-like exercise in which you had to push your partner on one shoulder and he tried to stay as soft as possible in his torso so that he just tuned but didn’t have to step back.

SPKA: Stone-throwing with different emotions and intensities, exercising for the final evening.

PH: Reading a wikipedia-piece loudly (about perversion, which is the topic for the final evening), and of course the warming-up training. As soon as I said the text the first time freely, my pronounciation got quite instable. Interesting.

AKS: Really cool lesson. The main topic was the back, so first we did the normal warming-up and stretching, but then we sat in pairs back-to-back and produced some AAAA- and MMMM- sounds… by that I could feel my partner’s vibration and warmth, which was a quite impressive feeling. Then we gathered in a circle (with our backs to the inner side), very tightly together and produced very resonant sounds… this was awesome, you could feel the energy in the room and the resonance between our bodies. Amazing :slight_smile:

Gentle

#58

Hot. The first video is orientated at my footage, the second one shows the exaggerated movement.

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_hot_block.mov

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_hot_block_exaggerate.mov

Gentle

#59

… hot!

http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_hotfin.mov

and again life drawing.










Gentle

#60

im loving your drawings here, im sure youve read it, but if not— read the book the animator’s survival kit by richard williams , and maybe stop staring by jason osipa- survival kit is leans more towards 2d animation, but the concepts apply to 3d as well, and stop staring is all about 3d facial animation, but the concepts can apply to 2d in my opinion- keep up the art!!

#61

Thanks :slight_smile:

No, to my shame I have to confess that I didn’t buy it yet… :smiley:
But I will. Definately.

Here the new polished version:
http://www.gentle.tk/anim/Walkcycle_hot1.mov

Gentle