Finished 2D walk cycle

Wahaaay I have finally finished my 2D walk cycle woop woop! It has taken me five go's to get it looking like my own walk, and I must admit I turned into a very angry Emily at times during this week! It was really hard to make the frames took realistic because my own walk is really fast (due to my short little leggies.)
I tried drawing out lots of in between frames to make the walk smoother, but in the end it just looked too slow and sluggish. In the end I only drew out 8 finished frames, and when I put them through the line tester the speed seemed more accurate. I then inked out the outline of my animation so that the features of the figure looked like my own and finally made it into a small movie on the line tester. I am pretty pleased with the outcome of my 2D this week for once, although I could have added a couple more frames in to make the walk smoother, I do think it looks quite a lot like my own walk. Maybe I have finally improved! (fingers crossed..)

2D walk cycle test

I thought it would probably be a good idea to do a practice test before animating the finished walk cycle, seeing as my last 2D attempt was not particularly successful! I tried to just focus on the movement of the body by using a simple stick figure, so that I wouldn't get too caught up with the detail of the body. To start with, I took a while just studying the small clip of my walk so that I could map out the key positions, then afterwards I added in a few extra poses to make the walk look smoother. The finished result admittedly isn't great because at one point the walk 'jumps' back, where I should have added an extra frame. But compared to my 2D walk last week it has improved considerably!

My walk in 3D

I really should be more dedicated to my poor blog.. I expect it has been feeling a tad bit neglected recently.. sorry blog. Over the past couple of weeks we have been given the task to animate our own walks in both 3D and 2D.. as soon as I heard this I panicked once again!
After my rather disastrous attempt at producing a walk cycle last week, I admit that I was a little nervous at this weeks assignment.. but i guess practice makes perfect!
To make the tasks a bit easier for us to map out in our heads, we were given the opportunity to film ourselves walking. At first we had to just film ourselves walking normally, then we had to act out an example of a 'silly' walk which depicted a specific emotion. I tried to express a sluggish lazy walk, but I'm afraid it just looked like a monkey walk.. never mind.
This week I focused on getting the 3D finished because that was one I was dreading the most. It was quite demoralising because even though I spent quite a long time on it and tried a few attempts it still doesn't look right. My own walk is really fast so it was really difficult to make it look natural. Also I am considerably 'plumper' than the rig that we were given so the walk looks quite strange! But even though my Maya clip doesn't look particularly spectacular, I am actually quite proud of it.. about 3 weeks ago I was struggling to make a ball bounce on Maya, so animating a person seemed almost impossible! Here is the finished walk cycle in 3D.. please don't laugh too much..

oops its been ages!

oh dear, i have just realised how long it has been the last time i updated my blog.. i swear my memory is getting worse and worse! we have been away for a week to attend the Bradford Animation Festival which was AMAAAZING!!! we saw so many inspiring films which included a wide variety of different styles of animation. It was really useful to see because it has given me lots of ideas about the kind of animation that i want to go into, in particular stop motion (the stop motion films stood out to me the most during the festival.)
This week, we have been given the task to animate a walk cycle in both 2D and 3D... quite a step up from mr cubie! i have done a first attempt at the 2d one but i am not happy with it, the character looks like he has a very bad limp! i really struggled with planning out the different stages of the walk, and i found it difficult to visualize it in my head. in fact i have found most of our projects a real struggle :S i don't know how i am going to cope with the 3D task this week! here is my first attempt at the walk cycle:

Whiteboard Stop- Frame

Our group were given the opportunity to have a go at some experimental animation. Laurence and I decided to use the whiteboard to brainstorm ideas for the product, and settled on the idea of a girl being robbed of her balloon. We used a mixture of hand drawn techniques and human intervention to make a small clip. We were relatively pleased with the outcome of the stills, but the finished result plays back too fast due to problems with the software. Below is the finished film:

2D Animation.. not great

I am not happy with the result of my 2D animation this week. We were given a similar task to the 3D animation: to make a large Mr Cubey and a smaller Mr Cubey character interact, therefore giving them emotions and personalities. I decided to animate the smaller Mr Cubey jumping forward and bouncing off the larger Mr Cubey. I like the start of the animation because i managed to capture the jump quite well. But I added in exclamation marks and question marks to represent the large Mr Cubey's bemusement as to why the small character just lauched itself towards it. But it didn't really work very well because I didn't draw enough frames, therefore the clip is over in a second and looks pretty rushed. Also the larger Mr Cubey doesn't have any personality, it just stands there looking bland.
We haven't been given a project this week because we are off on a trip to the Bradford Animation Festival next week which I am VERY excited about, it looked amazing!! But next time we are given a 2D project I am going to spend a lot longer on extending the animation and getting the poses in each frame perfect. Here is my finished 2D clip from this week:

Its been a while

I admit I have been very lazy concerning my blog, I havent been on here for ages! I need to keep on top of it so that I don't have to upload everything at once (I'm sure my poor little laptop doesn't appreciate the work load!)
I feel that the last couple of weeks have been more of a success for my 3D work, because I have finally managed to create something on Maya... on my own! Shock horror, I honestly didn't think it would happen after having numerous nervous breakdowns in the studio. We were given the task to animate the Mr Cubey character again, this time we had to combine Mr Cubey and a sphere character by making them interact with one another, therefore giving them personalities.
Admittedly my animation doesn't really make much sense (at one point the sphere starts levitating.. not sure why really) and the timing is all over the place at certain points. Bu overall I am happpy with the outcome because previously i really struggled with getting the object to move in Maya, let alone give it emotions and character! Here is the finished 3D clip:

maya mayhem

i swear to god i really hate maya!!! it makes me very stressed and angry even though i am a very mellow person most of the time. my poor friend dan had to deal with me nearly pulling my hair out and stopped me from hitting the computer screen! he helped me out a lot with this little 3d animation, thank you dan! (i have promised to buy him a tub of ben and jerrys... he is now happy)

Mr cubie 2D animation

i found this one pretty difficult to animate, i think i was trying to hard to make it 'perfect' and was thinking about it too much. but i got there in the end!! :)

I hate maya. It is very very very very very very nasty. And i dont understand it at all :'(

Bouncing ball animation

This week we have had another go at 2D animation, this time we had to make a short clip of a ball bouncing up and down. We had to make sure we captured the 'bouncing' motion of the ball accurately so that the object actually looked like it was making impact with the 'floor'... i got pretty stressed doing this one, the ball keeps changing shape throughout the clip.. ah well i tried my best!!

Wahaaay we have started animating! We were given the task to produce a 2D 12 frame animation, by drawing out a simple circle and make it morph into a different object, then loop the video so it repeats in a flowing motion. I decided to make my circle morph into a sleepy half moon, so I drew out all the frames and then added detail and shading afterwards. I, pretty pleased with the results, although some parts look quite jumpy, but it was really excited to see my drawings come to life

Busy Week!

Phew this week has been pretty busy! I panicked a bit because we had a Maya introduction the other day and it looks so complicated! I guess it will take alot of practise but hopefully I will get to grips with it in the near future!!
On monday we all went to a screening of a few bafta winning animations and they were amaaazing!! There was one stop-motion film called Madame Tutli Putli which scared the living daylights out of me but it was incredibly animated and the character designs and layouts were really unusual.

We had our first history and theory of animation lecture on tuesday, it was really interesting to see all of the thoughts and ideas behind different animators' work and it was inspiring to see how far animation has evolved. We watched a few short animated films, ranging from the classic Disney 'Skeleton Dance' from 1929 and the early Felix the Cat films to a more recent and thought provoking short film by a student where she expressed her emotions about her childhood abuse. So we have been given alot of ideas and theories to think about over the next week! toodle oo for now x

first week in falmouth

Well now, this week has been a mad whirlwind of events, meeting and greeting new people and generally getting settled in falmouth. I love all the people in my block and everyone on the Digital Animation course is amazing, and I cant wait to get stuck into the work!
I must admit I am quite scared of starting the course, because I haven't really had much experience in Animation. I originally applied for Illustration here in Falmouth University, but I was instead offered a place on the Digital Animation course, and I am so glad I said yes because the course looks absolutely fantastic!! I have always been fascinated by the processes and techniques used by Animators, but I admit I don't partically get along well with computors.. could be tricky, but once I get to grips with all of the technology then hopefully I will be able to create some interesting work.. fingers crossed!