Updated the reel

I updated the demo reel. You’ll notice the vault animation looks ever so slightly different.

Scratch that

This is the finished version of the vault animation. It looks a lot different than the second pass-through. After getting some much needed critique from Eric DeCarolis the consensus was that the animation still had a ‘floaty’ feel to it and it needed some serious weight. In the process of trying to get a better sense of weight I ended up really changing up a lot of the motions in the body. Especially the arm which now has a fast pump forward. I also countered the pump of the arm with a slight kick by the right leg.

I think I’m going to call it a wrap on this animation. I gave myself a deadline of Sunday evening and this is what I have. I learned a lot from doing this animation and I know doing this will aid me in future animations.

Here ya go! Hope you like it.

Almost there!

Here’s the second pass-through for the vault jump.

I think all that’s left to do is to start tweaking the graph. I gave myself a deadline of finishing it by tonight. While I don’t think it’s my best work – given the time I don’t think it’s that bad and now I can start working on another animation.

I learned a thing or two in the process of doing this animation. I made the mistake of rotating his Root control in order to get his torso sideways. I’ve realized that that was such a silly thing to do, and it really just ended up causing way more problems than if I had gone about it a different way (just using the Root for translation). In hindsight it seems so obvious. At least I won’t make that mistake again in the future. That’s one of the reasons why I do these personal works.

Anyways…here’s where I am now.

First pass-through

The process of switching from stepped tangents to clamped went better than expected. I can only assume it had to do with the extra care I took in really analyzing the poses and making sure they were all following roughly the same path. I also found myself laying a keyframe every 2 or 3 frames and I found that helped out loads as well. It left little for the computer to have to interpret.

I haven’t done too much in regards to cleaning up the animation after doing the first pass-through. There’s still stuff that needs to be changed and really tightened up. The feet and hand need to be locked into place and I’m also not getting a real sense of weight yet so I’ll have to look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes and take some notes.

I have to say – getting back into animating after a few months hasn’t been all that bad. I’m sure my technique is a little rusty but I still feel pretty comfortable doing this stuff. Like a tattoo, I’ve already started thinking about what to animate next and this thing isn’t even done yet…

TROLOLOLOLOL

So here’s the new stepped version. I have included him running in from off-camera. I haven’t been able to work on it a lot tonight but I made some progress.

Still some issues that need to be ironed out. I think it’s a little slow in some areas. There needs to be more keyframes, too.

I hope I can get some better work done tomorrow.

New animation (F’Realz this time)

I’m working on a new animation to beef up the demo reel. I spent today throwing down some keyframes.

Truth be told I haven’t been animating much lately because of work. But that will be changing cause I have a bit of a deadline to get this thing done by.

3 Cup Monte

Some quick boards

I’m starting a new animation. This one is for the 11 Second Club.

The idea behind the animation is that there’s this very confident, smug guy behind the table and a stereotypical “dumb looking” fella across the table. After he says “watch this” he starts making insane sounds as he moves the cups around quickly. When he finally finishes the guy will simply tip over the cup containing the ball to the astonishment of the cocky guy.

I’d like to use a new rig for this animation. I’ll be spending the next little while looking for something I like and then I’ll start blocking!

Some life drawings

Rest

Slump

Demo Reel

Bam!

Vanguard from Randal Yeoman on Vimeo.