George Quelch - VFX

This is the most recent principle task we had to attempt, it would have taken a very long time to work out the timing for this animation without guidance from our lecturer. The hands and balls are on different cycles, I found it easier to think of them totally separately at first, then match the timings after the cycles were looping properly. Juggling Youtube The hand on the left has a bit of a jump when it goes to catch the next ball which I don't like. Other than that the animation works pretty well, its not that appealing to look at but it definitely works. If this was to be used in a real animation it would have to be changed so the hand cycles look a bit more natural. Instead of trying to make this animation look nice I next plan on attempting the same task in Maya.

I left this task to complete over my Christmas break to give me more time to do it, it was actually easier to figure out than I had anticipated. My workflow in flash was better and faster for this principle, the result still isn't that smooth, consistent drawing is still one of my pitfalls, but this animation works. Front Walk Cycle Youtube

I felt, again, like I learnt a lot during this life drawing session. My main aim for the next session is going to be bring in the spheres and cubes technique, and use it alongside what I learnt in this session. The 3rd life drawing session started with the usual 30 second drawings, I feel like these are getting a bit better now but progress is still slow. One of the techniques we practiced this session was using black chalk in big motions to capture the overall forms of the models body. I don't think this was such a good technique for me, I still need to work on getting proportions right and looking at what I'm drawing. The drawing above was done with my left hand, which I'm not used to using at all. The idea behind it is because you are less coordinated with your other hand you focus more on overall shape and proportions, rather than getting stuck on tiny details that don't matter. This was my 20 minute drawing, instead of doin...

Here is the finished version of the monkey bars swing, I'm pretty pleased with this, apart from the angle of the dismount at the end going slightly to far to the side, I think everything is ok. This took no where near as long as the ball throw animation, although there were no constraints in this that needed to be figured out, it still only took a fraction of the time which is good. I found blending between IK and FK came really easy, I was worried I had forgotten how to do it but it didn't take long to figure out.

Today on the Animation to-do list was practicing FK and IK switching. I decided to go for monkey bars, just because it seemed fun and would mean I could practice switching the arms into IK and the feet into FK. Here is the first version, this is in no way finished, I just wanted to upload some of the process for this task.

One of my tasks was to make the Bony rig pick up an object using constraints. I had to spend a whole lot of time practicing with just a sphere and a cube to really get my head around constraints, but it was definitely worth it. I feel I can confidently use constraints now and that will be really useful for the future. I decided to combine this task with practice on the Tails rig which would help me work on the follow through on the tail. This took a lot of problem solving as I couldn't use the the point constraint we had been practicing, although after some messing around with the sphere and cube I found a setup that did what I needed. This is definitely the piece animation I'm most proud of so far, I still think it isn't perfect, the ball leaves the hand to late in the throw so the arc doesn't look realistic. Some of the timing in the middle is to slow, as well as the movement during the throw. However I'm still really happy with it, it was good ...

This week our task was to animate a character of our choosing jumping onto a diving board and into water. Naturally, I chose a pig. Priscilla The Pig Youtube The main aim of the animation was to get the right reaction from the diving board and the splash from the water. The splash took me a long time to get right, especially working out what looked good for the water on the 3rd and 4th frame of the splash but I think the final result is decent enough. Kicking the pig with the boot wasn't part of the brief but it is entertaining to watch.