Odds and ends: January 2013

Jan 29, 2013

Ani 51B

January 28

To stand out, make something your own.

Don't excuse your work. Take a critique and grow.

Review:

Opening files
Always open Maya first and then either the .ma or .mb file. Don't drag and drop files onto Maya and don't open files first.

Preferences
Checking preferences, you always close Maya first.
Mac: Users/Student/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/Maya/2012x64/prefs
PC:C:\Documents and Settings\Student\My Documents\Maya\2012-x64\prefs
On Macs, the library is hidden under Finder > Go. Reveal it by holding options.
Rename prefs before adding your own so that there is no copying over.

Open the program first and then right click on the program's icon in the dock. Options. Keep in dock.

In the bottom right, the icon of a calender with scratches is the settings.

In the status line, you can set which type to be clickable.

Free floating menus are better for animation in that the pop ups will not scale your viewing window and ruin your acetate data collection.

Double clicking on the range slide selects all of it.

Under Display, Grid needs to be checked in order to show grid..

0 = off
1 = on

Inverting a light's value can force it to shine darkness.

To lock a camera, in the channel box, select the values you want to lock, right-click, and lock selected.

Jason Schleifer created the squash and strech ball as well as Gollum

January 30 Homework

Richard Williams 1 - 34

Preston Blair's How to Animate Film Cartoons

Ken Harris, master animator at Warner Bros

Jerky/bumpy animation seems only to be able to hold the audience for twenty five minutes.

Believable things have weight and muscles.

Art Babbitt, Grim Natwick, Emery Hawkins

Animation is just doing a lot of simple things - one at a time!

Concentrate on performance and not the technicalities.

Ub Iwerks

Learn perspective, then the human figure, both nude and clothed, and surround it with proper setting.

Know the figure well enough so that you can concentrate on the particular person - on the difference - why this person is different from somebody else.

Your drawing is strong because you're depicting why this is different from something else.

Learn to draw. You can always do the animation stuff later.

Look to inspiration.

How to Cheat in Maya 2012 3 - 35

www.howtocheatinmaya.com

Squash and stretch gives characters a sense of flexibility and life.

Can be combined with anticipation to make a character "wind-up" for an action in a visually interesting way.

Anticipation prepares the character and the audience for an action.

Moving the character a small amount in the opposite direction.
We are accustomed to tracking fast moving objects by taking a cur from its anticipation, and then looking ahead of the object in the opposite direction. We can make it so that the audience is always looking at the part of the screen that we want them to.
If we see a character really wind-up for an action, it is clear that the character has planned the action well in advance. If it moves without warning, the motion comes across as unplanned. You may want that for characters who simply react to the world.

Staging involves framing the camera in a way to best capture the action. How it best communicate the motion, the character arc, the story.

Adjusting the camera, making tweaks to the layout, and finding just the right balance in the composition improves the staging.
When block is finished, generally the major staging decisions are decided. Staging isn't over though.
Where is the audience's eye going to be looking at every moment of the shot? Lighting, effects, and editing will hone in audience's focus.

Straight ahead animating should be used when the action is very mechanical. The ability to perceive the motion as your frame through the animation in slow motion is far greater than trying to imagine what pose the highly mechanical movement is going to hit.

Pose to pose should be used for creating character performances. The key poses are going to tell the story so in order to be sure that you arrive at these golden moments, you should pose them out and time them as necessary.

Overlap is when an object lages behind the main action. FLUIDITY.

Follow through is when an action overshoots or goes past the end pose. WEIGHT.

Slow in/out

Not every action should slow in and out. The contact of a ball on the ground.

Arcs

Linear paths are robotic.
Check arcs from all angles, but most importantly from your camera view.

Secondary Action

There is no amount that is too much. We're constantly multitasking.

Timing

Pauses in between actions can have more powerful messages than the actions themselves.

Exaggeration

Find the idea in your scene and figure out the best way to exaggerate the message.
Your workflow must create animation that has minimal keys, therefore making it easy to change the animation later on.

Appeal

Boo twinning.

Workflow

Step-by-step process you employ to create a shot from start to finish.
Toned canvas. Large shadow forms.
Color relationships

Warmer or cooler?
Lighter or darker?
Color tendency? Hue?

Exaggerate poses because as you continue, they will be watered-down.
Body movements before facial.
Are my poses as dynamic as I originally planned? Is there still contrast in the animation in pose, timing, and composition?

January 30

Don't Caps Lock.

Number by double digits.

Windows use AVI. Mac use qt.MOV

Shift to select a number of frames. Two arrows should appear in the center. Moving that should move the selected frames.

Feb 4

A shows all in graph editor.

Flower icon constrains.

You can stack curves under view.

View > Infinity. Curves > Post-infinity

Ctrl Alt adjusts the graph editor.

K MMB Drag on time slider: Listens to audio

K LMB: Sees visuals

In the channel input boxes, plugging in "* = #" will multiply the previous value by whatever the input value is. / will work the same for division.

Feb 6 Homework

How to cheat in Maya

8
Staging involves framing the camera in a way to best capture the action.

If you're not a strong drawer, then perhaps you rely more on photo or video reference to give you cues to begin your work.
Will I be able to hit all of the poses that I like, or are the poses going to have to be changed to work when the character is in motion? Adjust the camera, make tweaks to the layout.
Where is the audience's eye going to be looking at every moment of the shot?

Ch 2

As the curve travels to the right, frames are ticking by. As the curve raises and lowers, it's an increase or decrease in the value. If the curve changes direction, the object it represents will change direction.
If a curve's direction is mainly horizontal, the value is not changing much. If the direction over the range is predominantly vertical, a larger change in value is happening and the movement will be large. If a curve is perfectly horizontal, there is no change.

Using the template tangent types tend to make the motion look very "CG"and uninteresting.

Weighted tangents have differing lengths which depend on the distance in value between the keyframes.

Handles Pros/Keys Cons

Curves less cluttered with fewer keys
Powerful curve-shaping options
Curves scale in time more accurately
Good for subtle spacing adjustments
Create sharp angles with fewer keys.
Not very dense with keys and easier to make changes to.

Handles Cons/Keys Pros

Exact. Value isn't affected by adjacent keys.
Complete control. Any shape possible.
Clearly readable in editor.
Simple to work with. Not complex.
Easy to edit.
Using handles and adjusting adjacent keys can affect spacing.
Some shapes are not possible.
Too few keys tend to feel floaty.
More difficult for other animators to edit.
Less control over larger spacing areas.

Spline techniques

Have spline technique
Only have what keys are necessary.
Curve shapes between two keys that are one frame apart can cause motion blur problems.

TV visual effects and commercial VFX work is typically done at the same type of studio.

May take on a few shots of small budget movies as well.
Variety of projects.
Demo reel will have different visuals and easier to transition to both games and feature if you have the TALENT.
Projects are shorter. 1-3 months. Constantly updating reel, making contacts, and lining up next job.
Animator should learn rigging, lighting, and modeling in that order.
Ultimate job for most animators, is feature film.

Ch 3

If a circle comes up while editing, it just means you have the select tool Q active and you need to select another tool.

Curves > Spreadsheet See data as spreadsheet.

Edit > Select Unsnapped. Edit > Snap Moves any keys off of frames to nearest whole number frame.

Selecting a channel in the graph editor. Curves > Mute Channel.

View > Display Normalized. See curves in the same range.

Hold I. Insert Keys.

Hold RMB > Swap Buffer. View > Show Buffer Curves
Right Click Menu. Snap Buffer will snap the buffer to the current version of the curve.

Ch 4

Timeline is the interface element. It allows for scrubbing, copying and pasting keys, reordering keys, setting tangent types, and playblasting.

Add in subtle amount of figure 8 motions.

Animate > Create Editable Motion Trail

35 - 117 (exclude 96 - 107)

Richard Williams 85 - 100

Jan 25, 2013

Ani 115

January 24

You must have the ability to sell your work. No one else will.

Look for a voice rather than look for a job role. Finding a voice will help you adapt to industry changes.

Student must have trouble with texture of timing and their timing is also too fast.

There is also the problem of inauthenticity/cliches. Students usually use symbolic gestures.

Observe people.

Even if the execution/animation of it isn't authentic, in observing, students will have built a visual library.

Having a large library allows recall of more things.

If you get the details right, people will believe the concepts. Basically, do research.

Films are where the best talent goes.

Have:

Gesture
Volume
Timing
Motion/Arc
Emotion

January 29

Waiting Critique:

Story

Props should help clarify things.
Think of an ending.
Background should add to story.
It's difficult to stage from the back view.
Find the best angle or set-up. Easier to find it with someone else doing the reference so that the artist may direct.
If the audience is arguing over what is happening, they have authority. The artist should not relinquish that. The audience should not have to wonder what the story is.
Worry about story first and then the animation. The class can help with animation. Story is more of a student's choice.
Show it to other people.

Entertainment

The animation should be more interesting than its reference.
Don't choose the easiest thing to animate. Choose the most interesting.

References

Have many. Compositions. Observation notes. Sketches.
Have good presentation of reference. Don't post them upside down and such. Clean up.

Character

Need to show thinking. Use eyes for this.
Additional characters must be animated well or they become a distraction.
Either the eyes/body convey emotions. Bunny/Courtney disagreement.
Character at airport taking a luggage. It was unclear that the bag belonged to her. Show clear relationship between a character and their object.
If an inanimate object can move on its own, they should have full range of human capabilities. Sweating. Lying down. Running.
Who is this character? What are they waiting for? What is the ending?
Don't glue feet to the ground.
To have the audience care about a character, have them do something nice.
Cube heads allows for too much error.

Misc

Have a long shot if needed.
Watch for text kerning. 2 cups of jello in between each letter.
Treat as a job interview.
Don't show a clock to represent time. Cliche.
There is a difference between reacting to a story that moves the audience by having us care about the character and a story that m
Perspective
Put thought into the title.
Have reaction shot be proportionate to the action.
Cycles should not be obviously so.
Remember volume, gesture, simplicity.

January 31

Growing

Stand on the shoulders of those before you.

Time management

Utilize time outside of class to gather feedback on artwork.

Analyzing

Do not be in awe of work. This diminishes the critical eye.
Analyze how a show is composed, the story, how it is told, and the order it is in.
Watch other's artwork with respect. It is rude and unprofessional to laugh at others' creations.

Story

Show history in characters' relationships.
Acting is usually very subtle.
Never let the audience go. Make them believe they are on their own.
Don't have distractions.

Editing

Though we cannot cut out raw footage as commercials can, we can do extra thumbnails to ensure that we have only the necessary scenes.

Character

Straightened tie shows character.
How are you going to establish a character in their action?
Learn how to separate the gag from a character. For the internet speed miniature pony commercial there is only entertainment due to juxtaposition and comparisons to reference but there was more pity for the ponies.
Who is this person before what they were doing.
Follow cliches for truth but build upon it for depth.
The audience roots for the underdog. Because that could be us.
In advanced shots, show where the character is going and what happens if they fail or their obstacles.
Have traits we can identify with. Spidey instead of Superman.
Solid shapes are easier to animate than flat.
Are they courteous? Do they push in crowds? Do they gloat? Do they talk to their horse or do they do what's best? Clydesdale.
Tyler Crotty
Having a mother embrace a dad shows their family isn't broken.
Mom looks at dad and dad looks at mom but they don't do it at the same time. This way we get to see both of their thinking.