Ran across a solid workflow vid tut from Ryan Hobbiebrunken
Threw a spotlight on the fact that while I may theoretically have all the knowledge I need to how to animate and workflow and everything, theory and practice are very different things and I can't walk the walk that I can talk. So I'm going to try and do more super quick animation excercises, short like his 30 frames, and get over the akwardness I have in hopes of getting my skill level up to where I can work on the subtle stuff. Because currently I have the same problem I had while I was in AM, that basically I can't build a strong foundation to work upon, so there's really no point in putting on the crown molding if the walls not straight yet. Frustrating, but only way to the other side is through it.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
11secondclub May critique
Kevin Koch my previous mentor 11secondClub May Critique
another explanation on that confusing line from Richard Williams:
when you look at some of the classic animation by some of the best animators, often when you really look closely the lipsynch isn't very good. And nobody really notices or cares, because they hit the main accents well, and more importantly they progress the action well, there's something interesting going on, they're hitting the accents with the head or the body or the hand and the character is going somewhere, doing something. Nobody watches the muppets and says "wait a minute, Kermit didn't hit a good R shape" It's just flap flap flap, you believe it because the character is doing something, is going somewhere with the scene, the action is progressing in the scene.
what is your character doing? physically with their bodies, and mentally what are they thinking plotting worrying about?
virtually all large vocal accents are on vowels.
old school animation masters would do a lot of walk and talks, and before they would start animating they would mark out where their big vocal accent lands, and time their walk so that the vocal accent would come right after the down of the walk so from the follow thru on the jaw they could justify an even Larger open mouth
another explanation on that confusing line from Richard Williams:
when you look at some of the classic animation by some of the best animators, often when you really look closely the lipsynch isn't very good. And nobody really notices or cares, because they hit the main accents well, and more importantly they progress the action well, there's something interesting going on, they're hitting the accents with the head or the body or the hand and the character is going somewhere, doing something. Nobody watches the muppets and says "wait a minute, Kermit didn't hit a good R shape" It's just flap flap flap, you believe it because the character is doing something, is going somewhere with the scene, the action is progressing in the scene.
what is your character doing? physically with their bodies, and mentally what are they thinking plotting worrying about?
virtually all large vocal accents are on vowels.
old school animation masters would do a lot of walk and talks, and before they would start animating they would mark out where their big vocal accent lands, and time their walk so that the vocal accent would come right after the down of the walk so from the follow thru on the jaw they could justify an even Larger open mouth
Friday, June 20, 2008
pick walking set up simpler
use shape parenting to make your control curves pickwalkable
it's a mel command: parent
that uses these flags: -relative -shape
and these arguements: name of shape node to transplant, and name of joint you want to transplant onto
make sure you get the top node, not just the translate node (below the shape node)
(nurbsCircleShape2 is our control curve top node)
so now when you select the nurb circle you select the actual joint so you can pick walk,but the curves are put in the wrong spot, if you scale the curve you'll actually be scaling the joint, so you need to do it from component mode and move the verts
viola pretty simple
it's a mel command: parent
that uses these flags: -relative -shape
and these arguements: name of shape node to transplant, and name of joint you want to transplant onto
make sure you get the top node, not just the translate node (below the shape node)
parent -relative -shape nurbsCircleShape2 joint2;
(nurbsCircleShape2 is our control curve top node)
so now when you select the nurb circle you select the actual joint so you can pick walk,but the curves are put in the wrong spot, if you scale the curve you'll actually be scaling the joint, so you need to do it from component mode and move the verts
viola pretty simple
Monday, June 16, 2008
portal
interview with the makers over at GamaSutra
EW: We hoped to do that. We had this theory that games tell two stories. There's the "story story" which is the cutscenes and the dialogue, and the "gameplay story" which is the story that's described by the actions you take in the game world. The theory was that the closer you could bring those two stories together, the more satisfying the game would be.
I spent years and years reviewing games, and that's something that always bothered me in games, where the delta between the two stories was real high. I promised myself someday that if I ever got the chance, I'd try to make a game where that delta was almost zero. It was a conscious decision that we wanted to try and keep that world.
KS: It takes you out of the experience, really. You're doing one thing, then all of a sudden the story is telling you, "No, no. You actually did this other thing." "But no, I just did the... all right, fine. You're right, then." I agree with Erik that the closer the gameplay interacts with the story, the more impact it has with players.
they also talked about the fact that they were playtesting as soon as possible, so they didn't make a big finished thing and then playtested, they platested the second they could without any polish, which helped them focus on fun, instead of working on it forever and hoping it winds up fun
EW: We hoped to do that. We had this theory that games tell two stories. There's the "story story" which is the cutscenes and the dialogue, and the "gameplay story" which is the story that's described by the actions you take in the game world. The theory was that the closer you could bring those two stories together, the more satisfying the game would be.
I spent years and years reviewing games, and that's something that always bothered me in games, where the delta between the two stories was real high. I promised myself someday that if I ever got the chance, I'd try to make a game where that delta was almost zero. It was a conscious decision that we wanted to try and keep that world.
KS: It takes you out of the experience, really. You're doing one thing, then all of a sudden the story is telling you, "No, no. You actually did this other thing." "But no, I just did the... all right, fine. You're right, then." I agree with Erik that the closer the gameplay interacts with the story, the more impact it has with players.
they also talked about the fact that they were playtesting as soon as possible, so they didn't make a big finished thing and then playtested, they platested the second they could without any polish, which helped them focus on fun, instead of working on it forever and hoping it winds up fun
revealing character
I keep taking note of this same idea, and everytime I run across it I feel compelled to write it down again.
anyway, this time from Jean-Denis Haas blogging about Lost
"Long story short, present the character with a conflict and show the audience the choices he/she/it makes in order to deal with that situation. Those choices will reveal their true character (and make your shot much more interesting)."
he's talking about a girl who's painting her toenails after the airplane crashes, and how that choice of secondary action says a lot about who she is
anyway, this time from Jean-Denis Haas blogging about Lost
"Long story short, present the character with a conflict and show the audience the choices he/she/it makes in order to deal with that situation. Those choices will reveal their true character (and make your shot much more interesting)."
he's talking about a girl who's painting her toenails after the airplane crashes, and how that choice of secondary action says a lot about who she is
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