After Effectz

This turned out to be probably my favorite Tuesday of the course so far, I couldn't really say why, I've never really been interested in after effects and the things that we created weren't anything that I'd looked forward to creating, but I just felt as if the course was moving in a very positive direction and had a very pleasant day.

We started off with some warm-ups in Photoshop, which led up to some simple After Effects tasks which, whilst being quite simple to perform, gave me the sense that I was learning things which would be really valuable to me and all without having to labour over it too much. It seems like everyone is now a little more attuned to how we are meant to be working in these sessions on the computers, which I think helps with the overall attitude of the class, or maybe it was just the fact that we were given documents with the tutorials on them, rather than being talked through every step (Something which I was really grateful for after the Maya sessions). This was all topped off with the tutor being very cheery and helpful, completing a very light and pleasant day's work.

Flash Workshop #1

I've always been aware of Flash and it's uses in animating as i'm online 79.3% of the time and Flash seems to be very popular with the online community as a quick and easy way to create animations in your home, but I've never really been a fan of it. Apart from a very small percentage of Flash animations, i've never really enjoyed the style. Mainly because of the overuse of the pen (i think?) tool, and the way in which it seemingly ignores the stroke that you've just drawn and decides to make it look however it pleases. Due to this I never really bothered to use it at all, and didn't really look forward to the session. However, to my surprise I found the session to be much more enjoyable than i'd previously expected.

After a reasonably short and sweet introduction to the program by Andy, we were pretty much left to our own devices. At this stage with my previous mindset towards flash I may have just nipped off home, but I found myself getting caught up in the program and made a little animation of a winged man falling off a cliff, which I don't think I saved or I would've uploaded it. The session's changed my outlook on Flash as a program, and I'll happily use it in the future for my animating needs.

Maya Stuff!

I was really pleased to be getting into working onto computers finally, not that I didn't enjoy working in 2D but just for the fact that It was a newer and more exciting medium. Over the summer I decided to download the free version of Maya to give it a whirl, and managed to make one temple structure by following an online tutorial and then kind of deserted it again. Nevertheless, that allowed me to get through the tutorial we had on Tuesday quite easily as I had learned the basics by myself already. Basics definitely means basics though, (Forget you Cherie with your fancy bowl of stuff on a table next to your chair :P) at some points I still got myself a little confused, and without messing around over the summer I could see myself getting quite lost, like a few did. As Rosie mentioned in her blog I did think that the room layout is less than brilliant for this kind of thing, as our tutor (What was his name again?) had trouble reaching everyone with his voice. Richard did well helping the stragglers though.

I really look forward to continuing this type of work, even if the project we've been given is one of the strangest I've ever received (Drawing random chairs anyone?). Hopefully it'll get me a little more fluid in Maya, at least to the point where I can continue to create things and improve by myself. Digital 3D (more specifically the modeling of characters and such) is one of the areas where I can see myself specialising in, as it allows for some really intricate, laboured work, something that I've been craving for since we joined the course.


My experience in Maya in it's entirety.

Character interaction.

This seemed like a really fun animation to try out, making the expressionless characters interact quite explicitly sounded like quite a challenge and something I thought I may be able to do well with. I already found myself doing things quite differently just because of my experience with the last animation, such as only sketching down the items in the picture that are moving. Why waste time sketching things for no reason? I can just do that at the end with my black pencil. I was really grateful not having to sketch a stupid door every frame, too. I think I've improved very slightly with my timing since the last animation too, at least I've learned some things like with jumping to show the highest point rather than just imply it... If you follow.

Okay just fucked my blog up because of bad html that was actually faces, so this paragraph died.

EDIT: Today I finished the animation. Well, all but going over it in black pencil, and i'm quite pleased with the result. The fluidity is much better than my previous piece, and I think the characters interact reasonably well. I ended up cutting out a large piece of the animation which I would've liked to have put in because I thought it would be too time-consuming (and I was right) but apart from that pretty large hitch, everything went pretty well. I would have liked to have spent longer on it, but i've learned from the experience and next time i'll do it properly.

Angry Man.

This angry man was the first animation that I made on the course that required me to put a lot of effort into (Missed the jumping man, whoops). I enjoyed the challenge, trying to make all the actions that the character performed to have some sort of anger contained in them, but I found myself battling with the tedium more than the technical aspect towards the end. I think I probably spend too long and put too much effort into each drawing. When we were shown everyones animations together it seemed that the line quality and anything else that I tend to obsess over slightly is almost completely invisible in the final work, but still I find it really difficult to loosen up and go without. I'm still more of an illustrator than an animation for sure.

I thought my final outcome was okay, not brilliant. I really need more experience in the timing of the actions, and to learn some of the secrets of animating. Along with pushing my concentration span as well. The animation would have benefited greatly if i had just tested it every once in a while, but as time got on i just wanted to get it done. With my next animation i'll definitely test it as I go, I can't expect to get it right the first time. Not yet at least.

Will try to get my animation up in this space when I can.