WHY AM I BEING INVESTIGATED

I have finished class 1 at animation mentor, which means I am currently 1/6 done with the program, which is a pretty cool feeling. All in all its a really great program with a lot of focus in making connections in the industry, which I’m finding out more and more is one of the most important things you can do.

So, next Monday already the next term starts. I’m really excited to get into more advanced animation stuff, so it should be a good experience. And I intend to put even more time and energy into the program this time around as well! Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, here’s the reel:

Animation Mentor: Class 1 Progress Reel from Alex Harms on Vimeo.

So, here’s what I’ve been doing the last 2 weeks in Animation Mentor! First, we have the walk cycle that they gave us two weeks to work on. Week 1 was strictly blocking, while this past week was more timing and clean up work. I learned that walks like this are called vanilla walks, because they are pretty boring and have really no defining characteristics:

Animation Mentor: Class 1 Week 9 Vanilla walk from Alex Harms on Vimeo.

And next here is some sketches I did. First is for physical strength, which I had to kind of rush out, and the second is concerned:

And then finally, some posed and rendered images showing both physical strength and concerned, respectively

Talk to again soon!

This was the first animated short that I ever did. I made it in November 2006 for my introduction to animation class. I hope you enjoy it, it was a lot of fun to make:

Anticipation Vs. No Anticipation from Alex Harms on Vimeo.

Last night immediately after class, I went to CTI and animated until 10pm. Then I went back to my apartment and pretty much went right to bed. Woke up, ran to class which ended at noon, then came straight back to CTI, ready to animate again. All day. Tonight and tomorrow will probably be the same. I have absolutely no plans this weekend other than animating.

I do like animation, but I don’t love it this much. I enjoy drawing and making stories much more.

Keep with it Keep with it Keep with it.

Edit: Copyright 1968? Hmm, determined or not, that cat must be long dead. That’s kind of a downer…

So I’ve been told recently that my main weakness in animation is the following 3 things, all of which also happen to be incredible important principles of good animation:

1. TRACKING
2. movement change-1 frame transition
3. I’m too slow

The easiest of these for me to go through quick and fix up is the speed one. It won’t be too bad for me to go through a few key points and just speed it up a bit. There is especially one shot where I try to make the character jump and it just look terrible. It’s really all about timing.

As for tracking, this is really all about watching the hips and make sure the motion, as a whole, look not only smooth and fluid, but also pleasing to the eye. It’s another issue related to speed, in a small part. For example, I have many parts in my movie where the character is moving from point A to point B. If he is accelerating to point B, then he needs to move towards it faster and faster. But my character will occasionally move at a constant rate, which is boring or he will vary his speed, which ends up looking weird. The same with the reverse if he is decelerating. On top of that, it’s very important to have this movement look nice. The easiest way to do this is have him move in nice smooth arcs, so I’m trying to use a LOT of circular movements out of him. And indeed, it does look better.

Finally number 2, this one frame transition business. When the character changes a movement, does something different, or make any kind of change at all, the very first movement is the absolutely most important. It’s the one split second the audience is given to be aware that something new is happening, and even though they will never see this one frame, they will feel it. The clearest example I can give of this is that I have a scene where the runner is attached to a pair of stilts which fall to the ground, causing the stilts to bend kind of like a catapult. The runner reaches towards the ground but in the end is only rocketed backwards into the sky. So in that one shot, there are two main movements: Reaching for the ground and being rocketed back. He’s off in the horizon in about 6 frames so I don’t have a lot of time to give a great impression of what’s happening. So, I’m going to test out one frame in between the two movement where his body is rocketed backwards, but his head and arms remain in their same position, causing a mighty painful stretch. After one or two frames of this, I’ll have his head and arms leave as well. It should make things a little more impactfull and hopefully even get a laugh.

I’m not sure if this stuff is advanced animation or still basic, but there are about a million things you have to keep in mind while animating. It’s tough. Really tough. Even if you see the perfect animation in your head, translating that to a piece of paper or your computer screen is one of the most difficult things out there.

Well, not that I’ve reviewed these 3 things in my head, I shall return to animating!

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while! Busy weekend I guess. Friday I went to a Cubs game with a bunch of friends at is was a lot of fun. It’s amazing how incredibly popular Fukudome is. There were headbands and T-shirts everywhere. It was quite amazing. Afterwards I saw Speed Racer which was about as good as I thought it would be. It was fun to watch, I did get bored on more than a few occasions, but overall it wasn’t terrible. It barely made $20 million this weekend, so the WB is pretty screwed. I guess the CEO might even get fired.

So, right now, my contact is rolling around in my left eyeball so looking at things is a little awkward but I will do my best to continue typing.

I’m back in the animation lab tonight. I promised my adviser I’d have all animation done on my short by tomorrow, and I’m not quite gonna make that, but it’s gonna be close. It’s coming along nicely though, here’s a video of about what the final rendered character will look like:

The hair will be fixed, but if that’s what the final render (background included) will look like, I’m pretty excited to see the finished movie. Hopefully within a week we’ll have at least one completed shot rendered out. It sucks that this weekend is my birthday and I’m going to need the whole time to perfect animation as best I can. Oh well. I should have better final character renders tonight, so lets upload those then.

I have a ‘job’ at the animation lab in the computer building of my school. The idea is that I sit up here and help out people with their assignments and stuff. Like I think I’m supposed to periodically get up and walk around, asking if anyone needs any assistance or anything like that. I totally don’t though. I usually spend this time working on my short animation. That short is a whole another story in itself though. Maybe I’ll make another post about that tonight.

ANYWAYS, the animation lab here just got a new Wacom Cintiq tablet monitor and man is it ever sexy. Every time I work here I quickly go to hog it. I don’t ever use the tablet feature, I only use it as a double monitor, but it’s still awesome. He look, here it is now!

This picture is courtesy of the DePaul gaming development website.

Anyways, I really should be working on my project. There is a total of 39 shots to animate and I have a crap pass done on all but about 3 or 4, which I intend to do tonight. Right when I finish writing this blog post, which I’m currently using as a form of procrastination. Here’s a screen shot of the character. That background’s not done yet. If it was I’d be in trouble:

Tim, my roommate and guy in charge of lighting/texturing/rendering is working on getting me a rendered shot now, he told me he’d have by Wednesday, so I’m expecting it around next winter. I am actually quite excited to see how it turns out.

Also, Iron Man made over 100 million dollars opening weekend. 84% of people who saw this movie gave it an A. 96% gave it an A or B. Wow, this thing is gonna be huge. Wait, it already is. I wonder if it’ll hit a billion…it did rock. Hard. Short sentences.

EDIT: Of course, they’re already talking Iron Man sequels. There are apparently now actually 4 in talks. That’s right, a total of 5 Iron Man movies. lol.