Sunday, September 27, 2009

method

I'm a few key's away from having the whole first act blocked out. It totals to about a minute of animation.

Up until now Ive been animating in a hybrid method between 'straight ahead' and 'pose to pose'. I would block the whole scene and then go back and move the keys around of the different limbs etc to create the necessary overlap and follow through. But for this project I'm approaching the animation in a more devolved way as it will. I'm trying to key my poses to a more traditional style of animation. 2D animation requires that all follow through and overlap animation be drawn into the key and breakdown poses. They don't have the luxury to go back and move keys around to create overlap...and why should you? It only creates a mess of keys on your timeline while if you keep it simple will get you the same or better results.

So on lovestruck Ive animated with all this in mind.. I will probably still have to move keys around a bit but the more I do it the easier it would become to think in that way. going back to the roots is what its all about.

Here are a few screen grabs to see the characters out of their T poses..and looking a bit more alive.

Best,
Colus




Saturday, September 12, 2009

im alive!

My dear friends, ive been horrible with the updates.. no, I havent fizzled out and left the project. Yes, im still very much busy with lovestruck. I guess the last few weeks were filled with so many little tweaks and roughs that i felt that it wasnt big enough news to post but that defeats the purpose of this blog so ill be better i promise. The big challenge for me is to give you information without giving away everything. That way it will be a surprise for you aswell! I still have to work out the balance of that aspect but ill get there.

Where im at:
Since ive last updated on this blog I have gone back to the storyboard and revised it even more. I sent the storyboard out for a professional opinion and after a few tweaks it feels smooth as a baby's bottom.

Next I worked extensively on sets just to give me a basic layout of the whole world.

I did an animatic but tried not to get stuck going in too much in detail so I kept it very basic.

Then I finished the body and facial rigs of Wesley and Rebecca. I got 'the setup machine' for the body rig and 'the face machine' for the facial rig. Dont get me wrong, I love rigging, it was one of my primary job descriptions for a long while but in this project where time is such a big constraint I have to look at good solutions to get me to the animation stage quicker. I must recommend this package to you if youre in a bind for time a want a pretty decent rig very quick. As youll read in the next paragraph Im in blocking stage of animating so ill let you know once ive starting refining the animation how these rigs hold up. At the moment im very happy with what the rigs are doing and letting me do. Check the site out HERE to read about the rigging tools.

And finally im happy to say ive started animating 2 weeks ago. Its going slowly because of the limited time I have but im enjoying it a lot and its coming along, Im currently on the blocking stage and the method im going to do is to take a scene and block the whole thing from begin to end with camera cuts and all. That way I can see the flow between the cuts and basic timing on the actions. As for the whole story ive devided it up in the 3 acts and going to treat them as 3 seperate chunks. Its so much work that it gives me a brain freeze if I even try to think of it in a whole so this way its better. Im thinking of treating the 3 chunks as 3 shorts for instance ill animate, render and get a whole act out before moving on to the next. That way I can use say act 1 as a teaser for the film and drum up some interest. I will let you know if I decide to go this route.

And then lastly ive gotten a domain for the film so that when im done I can put the film, making of and the countless awards ;) on there.. www.lovestruckfilm.com
not much there yet but ill keep you updated.

Enough typing, I need to get back animating!
Oh if youre in San Diego, look for a place named 'java jones'. such a nice little coffee lounge, ill be animating here every saturday so if you want to come say hi, just pop in!

Best.
Colus