flux » APT

Bee Chase, scene one

Sunny — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:26:00 +0000

He loves flowers. Too bad he’s terrified of bees.

Another cartoon animation exercise. The focus of this one was to come up with a simple story and animate it to a musical beat. It started as an assignment during my last APT session with Keith Lango. Big thanks to him for the assignment, and for the insightful feedback!

I’m loving this animation “style” and the freedom it brings. Being able to work in a rough, loose manner without fretting over tiny details is really liberating. I’ve actually started to like the little imperfections and the roughness, as long as they fit with the energy of the moment.

As always, C+C welcome.

Steppin’ up

Sunny — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:38:00 +0000

Here it is! The cartoon test I’ve been finishing up. I did most of the animation during my last APT session with Keith, and then tweaked it afterwards. I also wanted to try a loose, rough style of rendering and backgrounds, to go with the animation style.

Nothing ground-breaking here in terms of animation, but doing this stuff in CG takes work. You’re constantly finding ways to work around the inherent stiffness in the software tools.

Painting the backgrounds was a lot of fun. They’re heavily influenced by the golden age cartoons, of course. And if you’ve seen the recent trio of cartoon paintings I posted(here, here and here), you’ll spot all three of them in the background of this piece. Yes, that was the plan from the beginning. Although making those paintings was great fun in itself.

Enjoy!

Jumpin’ flour sacks

Sunny — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:41:00 +0000

This was the second — and definitely more fun — part of my APT 5 class. I wanted to try my hand at classic cartoon animation. The good stuff! Keith had me animate two flour sack exercises, and rather than struggle with a flour sack rig in Maya, I went ahead and drew them out in Flipbook. Both the animations are timed to a 12-frame beat, at 24 fps.

Two points!

Sunny — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:03:00 +0000

So I finally finished cleaning up the animations I made during Keith’s APT 5 session. It’s been a while since I finished that session, I know, but I first had to deal with all the things I had pushed back during the APT, and get them out of the way.

This is my attempt at a subtle dialog/acting piece. Keith threw me a challenge with this two-character staging suggestion, and I couldn’t pass it up! This was a great learning opportunity, but by the time I got to clean-up I was asking myself “Why am I animating this? Wouldn’t it be better off as live action?”

With that thought, here’s the clip:

Flour Sack Blocking #1

Sunny — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:25:00 +0000

Here’s my Flipbook blocking for a flour sack exercise Keith assigned me for session 5 of the APT. The drawings (scribbles?) are really rough, but I’m hoping the action is clear enough.

C+C welcome!

Spanky cleanup

Sunny — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:13:00 +0000

Woohoo! It’s been an intense but amazing four weeks of animating, in Keith’s APT program. I needed someone to push me and guide me, give me honest, expert feedback. And I got that and more. The man is an Animation Buddha!

Here’s the “Spanky” scene, all cleaned up. Like any shot, it’s never really done, I’m just calling it done at this point. Comments most welcome!

UPDATE (9.18.08): Replaced the playblast with the final render.

Spanky blocking

Sunny — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Here’s the second scene I’ve been blocking for Keith’s A:PT. I surprised myself with this one, as I don’t normally come up with such poses. These just popped into my head while listening to the audio over and over again. Of course, they’ve been revised and tidied up thanks to Keith’s critiques, though this scene hasn’t changed as much as the spree scene.

The point is, if I’d tried acting this scene out, I’d probably have ended up with something much flatter and less interesting. I guess I was lucky to have a rare moment of inspiration this time.

Next, I have to animate the lipsync and then clean it all up.

UPDATE(9.18.08): Replaced the WIP with the final blocking, with lipsync done. Everything’s still on stepped keys in this one.

Blocking Spree

Sunny — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Here’s one of two scenes I’ve been blocking as part of my A:PT class with Keith Lango. This one is my shot at some broad cartoony action. It’s come a long way since my first pass, and I’ve already learned quite a bit from this exercise. I still have to block in the lipsync, and then begin cleaning up the animation.

Enjoy!

As always, C+C welcome.