Hooi Ling has passed to me quite a few Gnomon tutorial dvds.. anyone who wants anyone of them or all of the DVDs, please tell me~
Below is the list of dvds..
- 2D and 3D Fluids: Maya Fluid Effects Fundamentals
- 2D and 3D Fluids: Maya Fluid Effects - Particle Integration
- Modelling The Human Head Disc 1
- Modelling The Human Head Disc 2
- Digital Set 3 : Rendering and Compositing
- Mental Ray - Global Illumination
- - -
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Tale of Despereaux (2008)
Coming this Christmas!~
Inspired by the famous children fairy tale book ; The hero of the story is Despereaux Carlos Tilling, a small mouse with large ears, who falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful human Princess Pea. Despereaux was dubbed unusual by the other mice immediately after his birth because he was born with his eyes open, a rather large pair of ears, and a tiny body. The story goes on with Despereaux becoming a 'hero' and friend with the princess and the king. ( -wikipedia.com)
Visit the official site~ :: http://www.thetaleofdespereauxmovie.com/
Inspired by the famous children fairy tale book ; The hero of the story is Despereaux Carlos Tilling, a small mouse with large ears, who falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful human Princess Pea. Despereaux was dubbed unusual by the other mice immediately after his birth because he was born with his eyes open, a rather large pair of ears, and a tiny body. The story goes on with Despereaux becoming a 'hero' and friend with the princess and the king. ( -wikipedia.com)
Visit the official site~ :: http://www.thetaleofdespereauxmovie.com/
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Working in ILM
How Do You Spend Your Week at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)?
Honestly, it totally depends on what we are working on, and where we are in the production schedule. But I would say that my general statistics would be working around 45-50 hours per week. I get to work around 8:45, and on a typical day go straight to dailies where our work is shown up on the big screen and we all talk about how to make it better. Then it'd be back to my desk to catch up on my email, phone messages, and a couple hours of animating before lunch. Most of the animators eat together every day in our dining area, and we're a very close-knit family. After lunch, it's hardcore animation for me, and I animate until I go home, generally around 8 p.m. or so.
The truth is that I am crazy blessed with this job, and literally get to just sit in a room with most of my closest friends and laugh all day long. We work hard, but we keep the mood light and fun as much as possible.
-Shawn :)
Shawn Kelly,
Honestly, it totally depends on what we are working on, and where we are in the production schedule. But I would say that my general statistics would be working around 45-50 hours per week. I get to work around 8:45, and on a typical day go straight to dailies where our work is shown up on the big screen and we all talk about how to make it better. Then it'd be back to my desk to catch up on my email, phone messages, and a couple hours of animating before lunch. Most of the animators eat together every day in our dining area, and we're a very close-knit family. After lunch, it's hardcore animation for me, and I animate until I go home, generally around 8 p.m. or so.
The truth is that I am crazy blessed with this job, and literally get to just sit in a room with most of my closest friends and laugh all day long. We work hard, but we keep the mood light and fun as much as possible.
-Shawn :)
Shawn Kelly,
co-founder of AnimationMentor.com
and Industrial Light & Magic Animator
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Workflow for Fully Rigged Character
Shawn Kelly, Industrial Light and Magic Animator, and co-founder of AnimationMentor.com, shares how he works with animating a character. Below are his sharing.
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In simpler models, I would key everything together at the same frame so I would not be confused when I tried to move things around. Now I'm working with a character with a mouth, eyes, and full facial rig. Do I key the face controls along with the rest of the body, or do you re-block them on their own pass? What is a normal workflow?
Working with a new character is always intimidating (but exciting, as well, as you get to explore how that new character works, puzzle out new solutions for movement, etc.!), and jumping into your first "fully rigged" character is even scarier than normal.
I work just like the above -- I block in the scene in a "pose-to-pose" way, using my reference and planning as a guide, and saving keys on every body controller as I go. HOWEVER, your question raises a great point that I don't think I've mentioned in the past, and that is the fact that I do NOT save any keys on the face at all during this first pass at blocking. I just ignore the face completely, and in my mind, I imagine what the face will eventually look like.
Even with eye darts or blinks -- all that stuff I save for a completely separate pass. I don't know if that's the "normal workflow" or not, as everyone works in whatever way works best for them, but in my experience, doing any facial work in the first pass of blocking has a decent chance of being a waste of time. The body performance/timing might not be really locked down yet, and the facial emotions and thought-process needs to be very integrated with the acting choices, gestures, and body mechanics. You might as well wait until the body is really nailed down and 90% finished before jumping into any facial stuff, because if you end up having to change the overall body stuff, the facial stuff might all have to be scrapped completely as well. It'll save you a lot of headache in the long run, in my opinion, to hold off on the facial stuff.
Remember, the facial animation is the "icing on the cake," and if the emotions, actions, and ideas aren't communicating through the body language and physical performance, that should be a huge red flag for you that the scene is in trouble. The greatest facial animation in the world is not going to save your scene from poor body mechanics or bad body language...
So yes, in answer to your question, I save the face for last, and by the time I'm keying the facial work, expressions, jaw, and lip-sync - at that point, I'm no longer at all concerned with what frames my initial body-blocking poses and breakdowns were on. This is completely separate, and while it's very important to make sure the face is very related to what's going on in the body, it's very normal for the facial keys to be on completely different frames than the body keys.
Shawn :)
--
--
In simpler models, I would key everything together at the same frame so I would not be confused when I tried to move things around. Now I'm working with a character with a mouth, eyes, and full facial rig. Do I key the face controls along with the rest of the body, or do you re-block them on their own pass? What is a normal workflow?
Working with a new character is always intimidating (but exciting, as well, as you get to explore how that new character works, puzzle out new solutions for movement, etc.!), and jumping into your first "fully rigged" character is even scarier than normal.
I work just like the above -- I block in the scene in a "pose-to-pose" way, using my reference and planning as a guide, and saving keys on every body controller as I go. HOWEVER, your question raises a great point that I don't think I've mentioned in the past, and that is the fact that I do NOT save any keys on the face at all during this first pass at blocking. I just ignore the face completely, and in my mind, I imagine what the face will eventually look like.
Even with eye darts or blinks -- all that stuff I save for a completely separate pass. I don't know if that's the "normal workflow" or not, as everyone works in whatever way works best for them, but in my experience, doing any facial work in the first pass of blocking has a decent chance of being a waste of time. The body performance/timing might not be really locked down yet, and the facial emotions and thought-process needs to be very integrated with the acting choices, gestures, and body mechanics. You might as well wait until the body is really nailed down and 90% finished before jumping into any facial stuff, because if you end up having to change the overall body stuff, the facial stuff might all have to be scrapped completely as well. It'll save you a lot of headache in the long run, in my opinion, to hold off on the facial stuff.
Remember, the facial animation is the "icing on the cake," and if the emotions, actions, and ideas aren't communicating through the body language and physical performance, that should be a huge red flag for you that the scene is in trouble. The greatest facial animation in the world is not going to save your scene from poor body mechanics or bad body language...
So yes, in answer to your question, I save the face for last, and by the time I'm keying the facial work, expressions, jaw, and lip-sync - at that point, I'm no longer at all concerned with what frames my initial body-blocking poses and breakdowns were on. This is completely separate, and while it's very important to make sure the face is very related to what's going on in the body, it's very normal for the facial keys to be on completely different frames than the body keys.
Shawn :)
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