New Practice Test

We had a week off of AM, so I took this opportunity to do a simple practice shot. Just a jump, purely mechanical. I wanted to accomplish a few goals with this:

1. See how quickly I can work a shot through polish

2. Try new methods for animation controls.

a. IK spine

b. Follow enabled on both head and shoulders

c. Block in plateaued splines instead of stepped

3. Achieve a better subtle settle

4. Keep the body loose

The settling and having a stiff body was probably my weakness last session. I went in and tried to apply as much of the advice I'd gotten from my mentors. For the stiffness, the IK spine really helps me with that, as well as using some nice squashing and stretching on the body. Before now, I hadn't touched the translate controls on the IK spine, shoulders, or head; but this time I decided to try them out. I liked the results. Anyways, here is the shot. I worked on it for about 3 days.

Comments

Walkcycle

Well before Lost, I completed my 2nd go at a basical walk cycle. It's missing some in-betweens but I just wanted to get those steps down first before I tried anything else. It's in the gallery. But here it is anyways. [caption id="attachment_56" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Walkcycle #2"] [/caption] Based off the guide from the Animator's Survival Kit.

Jedi Stewie

Remember that pose I promised a while back? Just did it today, enjoy.

Review: How To Train Your Dragon

Awesome. Just awesome. Dreamworks has definitely taken a big step forward with How To Train Your Dragon. Everything on it was way beyond anything I've ever seen come out of Dreamworks. All the technical stuff seems a lot further along, in terms of hair, skin, textures, and effects. The animation was amazing. Toothless (the dragon) was especially really beautifully done. I find it hard to discuss that without going too nerdy on you so I'll just leave it at that. But most importantly, the humor works, and it had a great story. The characters were very well executed and you really felt for everyone. I couldn't have hoped for a better movie. Watch out Pixar.

Frame by Frame

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