31 August 2009

3D Planet

Today I planned to carry on with animating Tom the Monster but I didn't feel up to it and earlier on in the day I found a nice looking tutorial to make a 3D Planet on secondpicture.com. So I decided to have a go at that instead and here is the result...



It was a very clear tutorial and I enjoyed using and learning more about maps, especially displacement, composite, gradient, bump and opacity. It also let me use the SuperSampler for the first time!

What do you think?

Update: 01/09/09
Made this video, not pleased with it but it took 15hrs (!!!) to render so I might as well post it for now. Please watch it in HQ.


Music: John Martyn - Bless The Weather

Avatar and Mo-Cap or Animation??

This film looks fantastic I am really looking forward to it...



I just got back from Keith Lango's blog and read an interesting post about the differences between motion capture and animation. It's quite a long post so here's quick a snip from what I really liked...

"I eagerly await the day when mo-cap technology gets so good that animators won't be stuck wiping the poo from the data or twiddling the performance because the director can't keep his hands off it and trust his actors. I say get the tech good enough to let the live actors do their job. It'll be a good day for actors and it'll be a great day for animators because then we'll finally be left with only one option- do what animation alone is great at doing. The impossible, the fantastic, the wonderful, the exaggerated, the un-mocapable. When mo-cap tech gets so good that you don't need to shoot video reference of yourself and then copy it to get a scene, but the directors can just get the actors to act (which is often what they'd prefer if given the choice), then we'll finally be done with this nonsense that says that the final arbiter of good animation is how closely the motion can hew to live action. Will there be fewer jobs for 'animators' once the tech gets that transparent and good? Yeah, probably. Will the jobs that exist for animators be more interesting and rewarding? I like to think they will be. Because then we'll be animating and doing the impossible and not cleaning up after somebody else's performance."

29 August 2009

MotionBuilder 2009

After heeding advice from Andy Love, I decided to get started in MotionBuilder to help me with my animation. So far i'm off to a good start. It's not very complicated and quite user friendly... only wish I was using it with a bigger screen instead of my 14.5" laptop!

Here is an animation I loaded through the tutorial...


Pretty hawt huh? :)

and here is the same animation with a bit of editing I made right at the end. Only a small bit of difference as I didn't want to waste anytime with something more complicated and just show that I'm capable of editing an animation in the software...



Music: Pat Metheny - Homecoming

28 August 2009

Tom the Monster and his new world

To make sure I don't forget everything in 3ds Max (as I have been using Maya a little bit more this summer) I decided to design a new character.

I didn't want to create someone or something with a complexity that would give me a hard time animating (which I am thinking of doing in MotionBuilder, so he is pretty much a blob with legs and long arms.
His name is Tom the Monster (for short) and his full name is Tom Jeffredavichrisamickyle IV.
This is what he looks like at the moment...


So I started making him this morning but after a while (as usual) my mind wondered, I got distracted by the internet and started watching George Carlin videos on youtube! After this, and a quick bite to eat I decided I wanted to make a world for him, following an escalight.com tutorial and this is what it turned out to be...




Music: The Beatles - Drive My Car

Update: 29/08/09
Tom is almost alive!


Music: Jim Hall - All Across The City

25 August 2009

Research project title change

On the dog and bone and holy grail a lot today to try and get started with this dissertation. I have decided now to change my title for the Research Project from (see below) to...

BRINGING AN INANIMATE OBJECT TO LIFE

So far my sources include:
Stop-motion
The perfect video I could have hoped to find
Homer Simpson's 25 Favourite Inanimate Objects
and an eBook called Character Animation in 3D

23 August 2009

3rd Year Research Project Proposal

The idea of forming my own dissertation question has been plaguing my mind for a couple of months now so I felt like it was time to get things down in words to see if it will help.

Mulling over the questions of what I find interesting in animation - because this is vital if I am to research into it during the next year (it needs to keep me focused and interested throughout) - I am now thinking about using this title:

ANIMATION AS A FORM OF COMMUNICATING A MESSAGE THROUGH FILM, TELEVISION AND THE INTERNET WITHOUT THE USE OF ANY DIALOG

My points of research at the moment are:
Early animations by artists such as Winsor McCay, Walt Disney

To look at new animations in film such as Someone by Magali Barbe

(more to follow)

I bought a fantastic book recently from The Works (reduced from £20 to £7.99!!) called ANIMATION ART and will be using it a lot for research and references.


Music: Fripp & Eno - Tripoli 202

22 August 2009

Time Lapse

I recently discovered that my laptop has iMovie 6 which gives me the capability to make time lapse videos.

As I took my laptop with me on my recent trip abroad I decided to experiment and record one night to see what would happen. Here is the result...


The music I used is Shakti with John Mclaughlin - Isis. If you like it, please buy the album


Music: The Beta Band - Monolith

06 August 2009

Update (before I go on holiday)

Have had quite a productive week...

I got the train to London on Monday to meet with Elliot and go to see Waiting For Godot at the Haymarket Theatre on the following day. So on Monday we had the entire day to venture round London. We went to the British Museum and Buckingham Palace.





In the evening we went to the Short & Sweet film evening down on Brick Lane. They played 8 films. The first short film was called Bitch by Dom Bridges. It was really funny and I enjoyed it a lot.




Another film I really enjoyed was Dix by BIF Pictures. I noticed in the credits that The Mill did the animation! Great work...



After the film showing we went to Ain't Nothin' But... a lovely little blues bar near Carnaby Street and saw Pete G and the Magni Tones (not to be mistaken for Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac)!

So on Tuesday morning we went to the Haymarket Theatre to get our tickets for Waiting For Godot. We were there at 10.30am sharp to get hold of the limited tickets they release everyday for £10 (with restricted view). But when we got there, we were told that people had been queuing and waiting in sleeping bags outside the theatre from 4am!!

Not to let that bother us I called Smoke & Mirrors to try and have a look in the studio. They agreed and I arranged to meet someone there and be shown around that afternoon. S&M run a huge post-pro operation and have a great network and team of artists to make that process happen with ease.
They have made; Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother, 118 118 Who You Gonna Call, Vision Express Eye Exam and many more.

Soon I will be organising my course (Multimedia:Vitural Environment) to go on a trip down to London to look in Smoke & Mirrors, The Mill and another 3D studio.

Since coming back home I have discovered that my laptop (Macbook Pro) has the capability to record time-lapse videos. I will be posting my experiments soon.

Tomorrow i'm on an early flight out of the country for 10 days. Will post all the things I got up to then.
Bye for now! :)


Music: Rachel's - Water From The Same Source

02 August 2009

Robot Arm Solves Rubik's Cube



I wanted to combine a new piece of animation with an old (robot arm). Took me a good few hours to do today because I kept messing up with the lighting and textures! Was good practice though. I have learnt from the mistakes and I think my process of working will be better next time I do something similar.
Anyway i'm happy with the result but can see a few places that need improving on. The sound is just something I tried to find which was 23 seconds long and it's Bude by King Crimson.

Comments and thoughts are welcome please!

01 August 2009

Battle For Terra

The latest Sci-Fi movie; Battle For Terra will be available from 22nd September this year. It looks really good from the trailer. I don't think there has been a very good Sci-Fi movie for a long time and there is a possibility that this is breaking the barrier for 3D films so it could make its mark. David Cross is in this too, so there might even be some comedy! :) Here is the trailer for the new movie...



And here is the short film on which the movie has been based on...


To be kept up to date on the movie click HERE

Thoughts and comments are very welcome.


Music: Stephane Grappelli - Anything Goes