Bishop Scale for Amanda (and whoever!)

Hi! This is how I turned turned AM's Bishop rig into a kid-scaled character. Not shown here is that I also reduced the hand size and foot size controls to 0.8 (under hand and heel respectively - at the bottom) and the fkspinestretch is also set to 0.8 under the body control. It's important to play with the stretch sensitivity and the stretch bias to avoid penetration of the different body parts. I'm not into splining yet but so far so good!

Good luck with this and happy animating kiddies!

Blocking Parts 1 & 2

Blocking blocking blocking. Here are parts 1 and 2 of the film in initial blocking stage. Working on part 3 next week and then onto blocking plus.

PART 1

I've already gotten feedback from Ethan on this and there are definately changes to be made, but I'm pretty happy about it. If I'm only able to work on part of the short in these few weeks then a good number of the shots I'll choose will come from the larger and smaller moments that Flynn has here.


PART 2


The dog animation was a real challenge here, but SO MUCH FUN. I'm wondering what's going to happen when I start working out the inbetweens and the splining though cause his controls aren't exactly intuitive. Every elbow and shoulder has it's own control and the paws tend to get pretty funky if you move them wrong. i have a feeling it might be a case of animating every frame.

Still haven't studied the monkey-dog reference yet, but man does it make me laugh!

Monkey Riding A Dog

Hey! Here's some awsome reference for when Flynn is riding Hobo in the 2nd act of the film. Flynn's a b it heavier than a little monkey, but I really didn't think about the ups and downs all that much. This is really going to come in handy.

Dog Motion Test 2

Another test for the dog motion. This one is without moving the body control. It makes the planning of the motion easier as well as the footfalls but it means animating the root object and having to worry about slipping and timing of the two elements (feet and body). I like the motion much better though and I seem to not be having as many problems with the copenetration of the elbows and knee joints.

In referring back to the Richard Williams stuff I also improved the pelvis movement and the compression and extension of the entire body. The back of the animal is running in a circular motion now. Much better than yesterday. I also feel like I have ALOT more control over what I want to accomplish with the movements. I still don't feel like I've sold the weight at 100% though... I'm hoping to get a bit more study in on this before the blocking.

Dog Motion Test

Here's a motion test I've done on a super simple level to try to understand the movement of the running dog. It's based on Muybridge's Whippet double suspension gallop. That means that the animal is not touching the ground twice within the gait. I'm hoping it'll be suitable for the cowboy/dog scene.

Things to remember about dog/animal motion can be found here.

Here's a 3D test of the same type of gallop done with the standard Animation mentor dog rig.

Happy 2009!

Happy new Year.

January has started well. There's alot of snow about which is definately unusual for Milan.

The house is coming along well though every time we try to fix something I get really frustrated and turn into a very snappy monster. Something I'm not entirely proud of.

I've started my course again after the break and I'm back at work this afternoon. I'm looking forwr a little bit cause with all the holiday's and breaks I've turned into a bit of a couch potato.

If I had any time I'd insert an image of a couch potato here... but I've got to get back to blocking.

Week 1 of Class 6 (11 weeks left at Animation Mentor!!)

Hi y'all and welcome back.

I did a bit of blocking in the break on the first 1/3 of the film but I'm not ready to post anything here just yet cause I'm not hyper-convinced about the posing or that it reads exactly as I want it to. Check back later in the week ands hopefully I'll have an update. Other news on the short is that I've found a composer for an original composition for the soundtrack. His name is Marius Berardinelli and he's full of passion and promise. I'm hoping that working together we can complement eachother on this project.

I had my first Q&A for 2009 this morning at 5:30am. My new mentor is Ethan Hurd. He's been working in animation since '96 and has worked on 2 of my more recent favorite animated films, Surf's Up and Bolt. Sweet. He wasn't too put off by the fact that my short is collosal in length cause I guess he's used to having a few in the class like that and knows that I'm not going to kill myself animating the whole thing in 12 weeks... if it comes to it the rest will be my after school activity from April onwards.

Ethan's blog: http://persistenceofvision.blogspot.com/

It also seems that the graduation is not going to be until the summer months. I'm not sure exactly yet on dates, but everybody is saying that it's looking like we'll be having the ceremony around the time of Siggraph (cool). It might mess up my summer holiday plans and some other things I was banking on for the spring, but there isn't much to be done about it I guess. It makes sense that they don't do a ceremony every 3 months.

That's all for now. gotta go comb out those poses and upload my progress reel to the site so Ethan can have a look at it before the next Q&A.

Finnian & Flynn Work In Progress

I'm working on shortening the entire film while also starting the blocking and completing the scenery and props.

Been reading some fantastic and wonderfully amazing books on production design and styling of the whole film.


Dream Worlds By Hans Bacher
This is a great book on production design. The illustrations and advice are awe inspiring and also just plain inspiring full-stop. Hans Bacher was one of the great Disney production designers in the Golden Nineties.

The Visusl Story by Bruce Block
A real manual of all the hows what's and whys about creating a visual story. This is the dictionary for visual composition.