Cristin McKee - Musings of a Character Animator

Customizing Maya for Animation

2011-12-02T22:49:00.005-05:00

So I just got a new computer, and with some feature animation under my belt at a couple studios now, I decided to take a couple days to customize Maya for the most comfy animation workflow I could . I spent some time searching around for plugins that would give me the animation tool flexibility I found in the studios I had worked at. I am very happy to say that Maya is so much better now! :)

Here's what I did...

==================================================================

-Make key ticks bigger in timeline
To make the keys bigger click animation preferences on bottom right, go to time slider, and adjust "key tick size"

-Hide UI elements you don't use to get more screen real estate

-Preferences>Interface>hide extra menu nonsense you don't need

-Windows>Settings/Pref>Color Settings>Animation
I made the Current time bright pink so it doesn't match the x channel color, and I made the z channel a brighter blue so it stands out better on the dark gray background

-I'm still trying to figure out how to make keys and curves bigger/thicker in the graph editor for easier clicking and ease on the eyes. Any ideas?

===================================================================
PLUGINS

-Install tweenmachine
http://www.justinanimator.com/mel-tweenMachine.php

-Install autotangent
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/animation/c/autotangent

-I have the Animation Mentor shelf installed to get a grease pencil and arc tracker. I recommend seeking out alternatives to these for sure!

-Graph Editor Redux
(pain to install but so VERY very worth it! I can't imagine animating without it)
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/animation/c/graph-editor-redux--3/feature_requests

==============================================================
SHELF BUTTONS

-Grease Pencil
-Ghosting (GhostObject) - this is already on the animation shelf so there is an icon for it
-No Ghosting (UnghostObject) - already on the animation shelf so there is an icon
-Motion Trail (CreateMotionTrail) - already on the animation shelf so there is an icon
-Arc Tracker
-Show/Hide Curves - I got this script from Animation Mentor
-----------------------------
$currentPanel = `getPanel -withFocus`;
string $panelType = `getPanel -to $currentPanel`; if ($panelType == "modelPanel") {
modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves ( !`modelEditor -q -nurbsCurves $currentPanel` ) $currentPanel;
};

-----------------------------
-TweenMachine (tweenMachine;)
-AutoTangent (source "autoTangent.mel"; autoTangent();)
-Reset controls to default (see below)
-Reset controls rotate to default (see below)
-Change rotate mode (object or world) (see below)
-Change translate mode (object or world) (see below)

=================================================================

HOTKEYS
(I use a heavily ergo keyboard so some of the nontraditional keys are in weird places, hence some of my odd key choices.)

n - Play (togglePlayback)
h - weighted tangents (keyTangent -edit -weightedTangents true;)
j - free tangents (keyTangent -weightLock off;)
k - break tangents (keyTangent -lock off;)
l - autotangent
` - previousKey
\ - nextKey

g - Reset control to default position - - source http://polygonspixelsandpaint.tumblr.com/post/5275228290

The second line of the script is removed and replaced with asterisks because it doesn't post correctly.
Visit the source link and copy the second line which he posted as a jpg to avoid this problem.
--------------------------------
string $mySelection[] = `ls -sl`;
*******************************
{
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateZ") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateX") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateY") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".translateZ") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".translateX") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".translateY") 0;
}

t - Reset control to default rotation - source http://polygonspixelsandpaint.tumblr.com/post/5275228290
The second line of the script is replaced with asterisks, use the replaced line from above here too
--------------------------------
string $mySelection[] = `ls -sl`;
***************************
{
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateZ") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateX") 0;
setAttr ($mySelection[$n] + ".rotateY") 0;
}

m - change rotate mode (local / world) - source http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-949144.html
--------------------------------
if (`manipRotateContext -q -mode Rotate` != 2)
{
manipRotateContext -e -mode 2 Rotate;
}
else
{
manipRotateContext -e -mode 0 Rotate;
}

/ - change move mode (local / world) - source http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-949144.html
--------------------------------
if (`manipMoveContext -q -mode Move` != 2)
{
manipMoveContext -e -mode 2 Move;
}
else
{
manipMoveContext -e -mode 0 Move;
}

On getting your posing just right

2011-07-30T18:37:00.004-04:00

I was asked about how to really get your posing right so once you start animating you aren't totally lost. That isn't really the question, which was more vague... but here is my also vague answer. ;)

-------------------

Tough question! I'll see what I can do.

First, the disclaimer, everyone tends to find a worklow that works best for them so one approach isn't best for everybody.

Shoot video reference. Even if you don't end up using it, it helps you explore your ideas and can be a lifesaver if you are having a particular problem with some body mechanics. It always give you something to refer back to when you need help. Some people use it for body mechanics, I personally use it for acting. But definitely most people shoot reference in this industry. Just remember to shoot your reference authentically. If your character is standing, stand up! If your character has a heavy prop, find a heavy prop. Don't act cartoony even if it's a cartoony shot. You're looking for realism so you can caricature it later.

Pay attention to every single control and axis. It's hard to get things right if you miss some important controls. But if you do some rough blocking and then go control by control, axis by axis (mainly on the spine, head, and wrists for axis by axis), second by second, and pay attention to what everything should be doing to improve your rough posing. Start with the base, butt, upper spine, and work your way out to the limbs and face so you don't waste time compensating for big changes.

Take this approach to analyzing your video reference too. Limb by limb, axis by axis. And then improve on your video reference as only an animator can. :)

It doesn't have to be perfect in blocking. You want to strive for perfection to avoid problems down the line, but it will not be perfect as you will learn as you progress through the shot. Probably every pro animator, when they spline their shot, experiences a brief twinge of panic because the timing and body mechanics are suddenly not quite working as they envisioned. Most animators hate this step. Save a playblast of your blocking so you can always refer back to the timing and posing you had there. On the plus side, once you spline or start refining, suddenly new possibilities will open up about how to improve the motion and the blocking that you couldn't see in the earlier limited version of your shot. Have fun and be creative with it. :)

Get feedback from others as much as you can. They'll see things you missed. Professional animators sometimes have to show their work every day to a supervisor, sometimes twice a day. I'm working on a shot right now where almost every single pose has been changed due to supervisor feedback. It's way better because of it. Obviously you have to do all the hard work, but the work you do can inspire someone else to give you inspiring feedback.

There's an awesome video online of Glen Keane drawing over the poses for the CG blocking in Tangled that is pretty amazing. Even Disney's best and brightest need to explore their way to a better shot. http://vimeo.com/23652565 - the Glen Keane bit is somewhere in the middle of that video.

Cristin

DINOSAUR!

2010-07-28T19:47:00.003-04:00

And here's the heavy character I'm working on. A dinosaur! Feedback is much appreciated as I polish this sucker up. Thanks!

Animating a Heavy Character

2010-07-26T20:09:00.003-04:00

I've been animating a big 'ol dinosaur lately and here are some tips I've picked up along the way before and during this test:

Animating a heavy character -

-Big up and down as the legs absorb all that weight

-Ease a lot on downs, Spend more time down than up, it's harder for the weight to go up, and once it's up there, it really wants to come down!

-The feet stay on ground as long as possible before stepping: peel up slowly keeping that weight support as long as possible, and then quickly throw themselves forward, hitting that ground with hurried force to catch all that weight as soon as they can

-Super exaggerated overlap from all that heavy weight dragging behind what the body is doing, again, lots of ease when dragging down and spend as little time as possible when up, without looking too snappy.

-Overweight people seem to have a tendency to throw their arms forward to try to gain momentum. They don't bend very much, so they're kind of stiff, but the arms will work more to try to move all that bulk.

-If you have toes, show really clear toe spread and toe straighten as the foot takes the weight. You can fake this "foot spreading" with shoes by translating the foot up very slightly, rotating the whole foot down very slightly, and rotating the toe up accordingly, so it stays above the ground. It's very subtle but it's way more effective than just freezing the foot to the ground. As the weight transfers to the other foot, you can reverse this action with a quick copy/paste. Voila!

Just Keep Swimming

2010-07-13T20:17:00.002-04:00

I wrote the following email to a friend recently who was worried about staying motivated and not giving up on animating. I think it's advice that I'd like to remind myself to listen to as well, so I'll post it here too.

The best I can say is that you aren't alone. I've given up on being an animator a few times, once after working at a studio for years. Sometimes you just don't think you are cut out to animate. But you are cut out to do whatever you are really dedicated to doing.

If you are having trouble on something big, try smaller exercises. I read on someone's blog once that they would do little exercises where the only point was to do one principle of animation and get that one principle working really well on super simple characters. Doing lots of different little tests can be better than spending 2 months on one thing. You learn faster and don't get sick of it.

If you have animation in progress right now that is hanging you up, and the motivation just isn't there... maybe pick a principle you think you're worst at and obsess over that one goal for a day. Get that principle right. Focusing on one thing can take away the pressure of all the rest of it and help you find fun ways to explore that principle that you perhaps never would have thought of otherwise.

The hard thing about being an animator is that even if you are really good, you still think you're bad. Cause it's hard. And you're always thinking, oh no, this next shot is way too hard, I can't do it. But that's a good thing, because then you try harder and do better and people watch it and are like holyshitthatsawesome. Let yourself enjoy the awesome work that you've created, revel in it, and then move on.

Good luck!

Cristin

Dragon Flight Cycle

2010-01-12T21:10:00.005-05:00

I've been ramping up for doing a big dragon test. Yes, sadly that means my short is on hold. But it's something I've always wanted to do and I do want some creature work on my reel. To that end, here's a flight cycle I'm working on. Next will come a walk cycle, and finally a little story that I can really have fun with! I'm very excited about it.

This guy was purchased from Turbosquid, rigged with Anzovin's The Setup machine, and then I used the rig to adjust his proportions. I wanted much more massive forearms so he can use them to walk in the mini short. And also the wings were waaay too small for anything. They're still too small for feasibility but hey it's a giant flying lizard! Magic! Ponies! Unicorns! Yay!

Networking is my Friend

2009-08-25T18:09:00.004-04:00

Man, it's hard to believe that Animation Mentor is over and I'm out in the real world now!

I'm learning more and more that one of the most important parts of the school is the amazing networking opportunities. I've applied to only twelve studios (because honestly no one is really hiring animators right now) and of those twelve studios, the only ones I've heard a peep from are the few where I have friends trying to help me get in. It's all about who you know and I am so thankful that I put in the extra effort to make friends at the school and make a good impression on people. We like to work with the people we like. :)

Meanwhile, I suppose this is no longer an Animation Mentor blog... perhaps it's time to make it a blog about my short in progress! Ah, updates on that coming very soon.

Request for feedback on my reel

2009-07-26T17:57:00.007-04:00

A former mentor made me realize that I really need some professional work on my demo reel in order to stand out. I recall that I got a much stronger initial reaction at the job fair at Siggraph three years ago, when they saw professional work all over my shot breakdown, than I did at the more recent animation mentor job fair, with just AM stuff listed.

I'm not sure how much that matters when the work on your demo reel is good, but I really don't want to shoot myself in the foot with first impressions.

So I've quickly put together a new reel, trying to ease in some professional shots. They are likely the weakest stuff on there and the reel is running a bit long now. Could you guys please let me know what you might cut, either from the professional or Animation Mentor work? Thanks so much!

View Better Quality HERE or see below:

I've completed Animation Mentor!

2009-06-17T16:37:00.005-04:00

I'm free! I finally finished AM so now I have the time to get back to real life, catch up on a few good books, pursue my love of hiking and photography, and muse about animation here for the 1 or 2 people who possibly read my blog. ;)

I know most people talk about how sad they are to be finishing AM but, honestly, that's not how I'm feeling. I'm absolutely thrilled to have my life back and to have a much greater understanding of animation (and greater reel) to show for myself. I'll also still have access to all my AM friends on the alumni site, facebook, and linked in, so really not much is changing besides the workload.

I'll still be working hard to finish up my reel and my short, but on a much more relaxed schedule. With that, I'll leave you with my progress reel and a promise to see (those of you who are going) you guys at graduation and Siggraph!

Note: This is not a demo reel. Just a summary of my best AM shots in order, followed by my unfinished short film. There's a much bigger quality one in my Facebook videos.

I Heart History

2009-03-05T15:34:00.004-05:00

Bear with me for a moment as I prattle on about history; not animation or story, just history. Because for some reason, I've always loved history, all the myriad of facts and the fascinating stories. Ah, and there's my answer, which I just today stumbled upon.

The past is just chock full of fascinating stories. And the best part, is that only the best and most fascinating stories survived the test of time, and they're all true! Well, of course that can be debated, but for this purpose lets steer clear of the religious and mythological and possibly biased slants.

I get quite a chill to read about these people and their lives, and to know that it's real! Our fictional stories certainly feel real, but there's a magic to think about how truly genuine the historical ones are. Lewis and Clark climbed the great divide in the American West, expecting to see the Pacific ocean on the other side, ending more than a year of travel. But they were met only with a horizon of mountains and a further vast expanse of continent to cross. What a crushing defeat for these explorers. What a cliffhanger for a storyteller. This happens so often in story, that it could possibly be considered cliche. But those were real people there in that time and place, they experienced it. It's bigger than a story.

Later on, they emerge, starving and exhausted from weeks in the mountains, and stumble upon an Indian camp. The Indians are resolving to kill them, when someone suddenly realizes that Sacajawea is a distant relation, and the explorers are offered food instead of death. Certainly a coincidence fit for a novel.

One of the most important founders of radio absolutely loved to climb things and be high up in the air. He built his own radio tower in his yard and loved to climb it. Years later, in New York City, he would climb atop the NBC building, performing ridiculous balancing acts. Even climbing to the top of the tower on the building, high above the city. Nobody wrote this character. He created himself. Imagine what he would think of the modern world, and all the wonderful things to climb.

I got both of these stories from Ken Burns documentaries, and I can't wait to find out what other fantastical stories I could learn from history, perhaps to pop up in my own work or characters.

Ok, you can go back to animation now. :)

Dialogue Shot #2 - Cinderelly

2009-02-16T10:56:00.004-05:00

Just finished up my second dialogue piece as well. I'm not quite as happy with it but perhaps that's just because it got off to a rocky start, as I'm not getting much criticism from fellow animators. Amusingly, non animators seem to like this one a lot more than the other one. Boggles my mind. If you have some critique, please please do chime in!

Update & New Animation

2009-02-15T10:16:00.003-05:00

So what have I been up to, eh? Well I quit my animation job of FIVE years about 2 months ago. That's actually probably a long time to stay at one studio, now that I think of it. I also took a term off AM. That's right, directly from over a year of absolutely no free time and into nothing BUT. I still don't think I've managed to utilize that time as well as I'd like, but isn't that always the way? Not to mention, I live in the freezer of the country and my favorite free time pasttime...? ...going outside! Alas. I guess I should've thought this thing through a little more. ;)

Anyway, I've been working on fixing up some assignments from AM, planning and gathering reference for my short, and getting in some much needed R&R. Though I am very much looking forward to going back to my last term at AM next month!!!

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is my first dialogue piece from AM, completely finished:

Animation Quotes

2009-02-14T18:50:00.004-05:00

Well hello there Mr Blog. Yes, my blog is a mister because that's how I roll.

I would promise to post more often, but I'm gonna guess that is the absolute most cliché blog promise in the world.

For now, I would just like to plug this wonderful book I just read.

John Canemaker wrote a book over a decade ago, on the Nine Old Men that is just a wonderful must read for aspiring animators. even if you aren't a crazy aspiring animation historian like I am, you can get a lot out of it. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"[Ward] Kimball studied all the performing arts, including ballet. Once he proved to his doubting daughter Kelly (then a preteen studying dance) that he knew all the classical ballet foot positions. "He did everything perfect," she discovered with amazement. "He had his body right, he had his arms right. I realized this is a man who watched ballet and he really is what he says you have to be as an animator. You just have to know everything!"

"If you're going to spend two days on the scene, you ought to spend the first day with your arms folded staring at a blank piece of paper. Because until you can visualize the thing and know exactly what you're going to do with it, you can't draw it."
-- Ham Luske

Every drawing in your scene has to be acting. For example, Laurence Olivier, wouldn't just have acting on poses -- he moves between them. His thought processes are working between poses, and his acting is continued through every frame of film. That's the way you have to do it. So many guys will just use the extreme poses to show their acting and that isn't correct.
-- Fred Moore

The whole thing with creativity is that there's something new to do out there. Why not give it a try?
-- Marc Davis

Next time I'll give a much delayed update on my life.

That's all. Enjoy!

Demo Reel 2008!

2008-08-20T10:25:00.002-04:00

Oh! I completely forgot to share my new demo reel!

http://www.cristinmckee.net/cristinMcKee_2008.mov

Expect me to cut half of the body mechanics and replace it with two more dialog shots in the next few months.

I used this reel to apply for a temp position at Blue Sky. But I think I may have applied too late. Oh well, I'll try again in a few months with a MUCH better reel. :)

Cristin

Burning Out

2008-08-05T08:55:00.004-04:00

One thing I've been wondering about lately is how one can work in a creative field and constantly be pouring creative energy in their work day after day, and not get drained out?

Now, I'm not saying this due to any sort of recent personal experience. Sure, I've been burned out in the past a couple of times for short periods of time (and once for a very long time before I figured out this animation thing) but I'm doing just dandy now.

I sort of feel like you must pour out that energy and then you recoup it by enjoying what you created. Permit yourself to brag a bit (in your head, of course) and soak in the aura of the great work you created. Cause you are really trying and it's better than the last thing you animated, right? ;)

*ahem* Well, we all slack every once in a while but you can still find something to be proud of.

If you're working on something fulfilling, either high quality or great storytelling, then that's AWESOME and probably keeps those inspiring juices flowing. If you're not, than you probably need some outside inspiration, like fun exercise (if you're like me and like to go galavanting up big mountains), or watching great films/animation, or creating your own art, for you and you alone, or whatever inspires you.

If you keep your free time mind happy, it flows right on into work. If you don't... well that makes everything a bit of a bummer. And I bet many of my fellow employees by day and fulltime students by night know that feeling! Don't forget to have fun, eh? How can you animate people if you never see them? :)

Have fun!

Cristin

Animating Sincerity

2008-08-03T15:21:00.005-04:00

I'm having some trouble getting started on my new dialogue shot so I'll just take this opportunity to ruminate on the last one. ;)

For my first dialogue shot, I chose to try something really emotional and subtle, something challenging. The odd thing is, this is what I always find easiest to animate. While most people seem scared to animate "sincere" shots, I'm terrified of big broad acting and comedic stuff.

The reason emotional shots don't seem as difficult to me is because I can analyze it and break it down more easily. For this past shot, the dialogue is as follows:

"I play mother to everybody. Take everybody's troubles on my shoulders. Helps salve my conscience. Hmph.... (long pause and breath) Don't ever hurt a person, Matt."

I wrote all of this dialogue down and started analyzing it. Not for the lip sync, no, but for the meaning, for what's REALLY going on in this shot.

I don't usually write an internal monologue, that doesn't help me very much. Though here and there, I may insert a strong thought as a sentence. I start by writing what I think the character is feeling and break it down roughly by phrases or more likely by sentence. So in this shot, for instance, I decided that she starts "kind of annoyed and accepting, becomes more thoughtful and a bit wistful, gets a bit amused and mocking of herself, and then she feels very vulnerable and a bit sad." Very easily broken up into those four sentences.

My next step was to break down these phrases/emotions more visibly. Whether they feel open, closed, aggressive, retreating, big, small. And where I feel there might be a big change. For instance, I described her final change as "melting" into a more vulnerable person. Since I had decided this was a closed pose, I thought a nice way to represent that would be to have her comforting herself by touching her hands together in a barrier in front of her to shut out the world.

And you can see earlier in the shot that in the first line she's a little open, then she closes off a little, bringing her hands in to fidget as the gets a bit thoughtful, and then she snaps herself out of it with that big open declaration before giving in to how she really feels.

So, you see, with analysis like that, I find it less difficult to act out the shot (don't get me wrong, it's still hard!) and get something really genuine, if not a bit calculated.

But on a more fun shot, I get a little lost. I find it harder to pick any one approach. Oh well, I guess I have plenty of time to figure it out. ;)

Hope you enjoyed my rant. Til next time!

Cristin

Blank Canvas

2008-07-28T12:07:00.002-04:00

Hi! I still exist! Just having trouble balancing work and school lately. Everything got a little thrown off because I moved recently and then started working extra hours to meet new expenses so life has been a bit hectic.

Anyway, I'm posting this message to "un-blank" this here canvas and hopefully inspire myself to post again with a real post quite soon. ;)

Optimism

2008-04-29T12:55:00.004-04:00

I'm really inspired by this post on Bobby's blog today.
http://bobbyboom.blogspot.com/

I used to consider myself a very optimistic person, seizing opportunities for fun and adventure and trying to look on the bright side of things. I sort of got in a slump for some reason. Maybe it was years working on blah projects and getting bitter about it instead of DOING something. AM is helping a lot, but as Bobby says, it's a mindset you have to really try to be in, and I'm gonna find my way back there darnit. :)

AM - Week 302

2008-04-07T22:04:00.006-04:00

While I'm trying to figure out how the heck to wrangle my complex next assignment into a simpler one (that really is always my problem isn't it?), I've finally finished polishing off my shots from last term to submit to the showcase!

I'm not really sure anything is good enough. I think my animation quality is good enough, but the presentation is off somehow. Either in my ideas or the timing or the pacing, they just don't sing as well as showcase submissions seem to. Oh well, I'm still light years better than I was just a few months ago so I really can't complain!

In class 2, between the lectures and Brian's (my mentor) wonderful insight on how to do the polishing details on a shot, I think I've finally broken through that wall of "good enough" and I'm climbing those stairs again towards feature animation. :)

More details later, for now, Progress Reel 2!!!

Internet... presence... shrinking...

2008-04-03T13:13:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the lazy. I'm gonna start updating this again. Starting with this post to make me feel like I'm really a blogger and thus must continue! Really... seriously... yeah...

2008-01-10T21:35:00.001-05:00

Alas, I have been a naughty blogger. Well, to round out the end of last term, here is my progress reel for the entire term:

I spent the final week of term, aggressively fixing and rendering most of my animations, particularly the squirrel one.

As for now, I'm well into the first week of my second term at AM! I am actually quite drunk right now. But let me explain. For my assignment, I have decided to animate a drunk character doing a 180 degree turn. So, of course, I just had to get drunk. Unfortunately, I'm Irish and I ran out of alcohol before I got very drunk ;) but it was enough to get me more into the mood for the part. And it surprisingly helped a lot. The stuff I acted out before getting drunk isn't nearly convincing enough.

It's been a fun night. I don't think I've been drunk in like a year. Cheers!

Exhausted! - Week 110

2007-12-09T16:54:00.000-05:00

No, not me silly.

Stu! He's just so tired of being pushed around into these lame poses.

Poor little guy.

This is how it makes him feel:

He's so exhausted, he's stuck in stepped curves. He'll be splined next week so don't you worry.

Meanwhile, here's my revision of last week's Vanilla (normal) Walk:

Concerned Pose

2007-12-04T19:29:00.000-05:00

This is the concerned pose I went with for week 109. I'm keeping it super simple because Doug told us he strongly dislikes the use of props. We have to sell the pose without a crutch. It's funny cause other mentors encourage telling a story with the pose and props. I think Doug makes sense but it would've been nice to know earlier. Oh, yeah, I got another B. ;)

It's rushed so it's not very creative or really "concerned" enough. I spent most of my time on the walk. If I have time I'll do a revision and choose the top left one which Doug liked best. He explained that he views "concerned" as an outward expression rather than inward. He makes a darn good point.
My internet is slow right now so I'll post the walk later.

Strength - Rar!

2007-11-26T20:41:00.000-05:00

Latest and greatest on the strength pose:

I got a B. Meh. I GUESS I could exaggerate it more but I kind of liked not going too cartoony with it.

Week 108 - Strength

2007-11-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

Guess what??! I got an A! Yeah, yeah, it's not about the grade. Believe me, I know that. But I feel like I made a real breakthrough. I worked EXTREMELY hard on that squirrel animation and reached a point at which I was trying to nail every detail. This is something that I get trained out of doing at work so it's really hard to focus and get there with AM. Doug liked that I studied a lot of squirrel reference and felt that I had done well in capturing some squirrel mannerisms. He also had some interesting critique that I'll try to apply Friday or Saturday in a revision if I have time.

I'm doing everything I can to take care of my wrists. I replaced my work desk AND keyboard (Kinesis is my hero!), I'm icing a few times a day, constantly on ibuprofen, wearing all sorts of wrist sleeves, using a rest break program (break minder). Though I did discover that the much vaunted carpal tunnel remedy of wearing wrist braces is just plain HORRIBLE for me. So I guess I probably don't have carpal tunnel. At least I figured that one out and stopped doing further damage. I'm ever so slowly getting better. It could be faster, but then again it could be getting worse and it's not!

This is a really stressful week for me. I have a big Friday deadline at work for, unfortunately, a British company. What's Thanksgiving, eh? I have two AM asssignments, and of course Thanksgiving. That really isn't THAT much but it's enough to have me wanting to chew my nails.

Anyway, he's my strength pose for this week as it currently stands. I kind of rushed this so I'm a little unsure if the bottom right guy looks like he's in a "strength pose" vs actually looking like he's pulling on something, if you know what I mean. The top left guy may be a little too cheesy. I might do another one with him actually pulling really hard in the opposite direction.

While I'm posting poses, here's one I missed from way back in week 3: EXCITEMENT. Doug Wasn't super thrilled with it. I like to think he just hates girly poses though cause they don't feel natural to him. ;) But, no, he's probably right. The hands are too jumbled. They should probably be reaching or something. I can't remember what he said about the legs. I'll have to rewatch the critique at some point to do a revision. This earned a C, btw, as did the sketches.

Tailor ze Squirrel (week 7!)

2007-11-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

(posting this a few days after writing due to video issues)

Wow, time sure does fly. We're starting week 8 today! I'm gonna keep my typing to a minimum here cause, uh oh, guess what? wrist pain!!! Aieee! That's no good.

I'm really happy with the direction of my last assignment. I tried very hard to make very squirrel-like acting and motion on tailor, a character consisting of a ball with a tail.

The initial goal was to have two squirrels. One is tentatively hopping and pausing and twitching as squirrels do. The other comes barreling in, startles the other one, obliviously continues and spins around and jumps up to a ridge where it tumbles out of view.
Unfortunately... wrist pain. Yeah. So I did the tail on the first little guy. And it was really really hard. I had to do it frame by frame to really get the right result out of the tail. Trying to get a nice subtle wave action through the tail while still keeping the tail looking light and squirrelly. It's taking little hopes so I couldn't paint broad strokes with the keyframes. Naw, it's all painstaking and tiny. But I worked really hard and I think it's really close. Not perfect, but a nice move in the right direction, where I'm focusing harder on doing my best work.

I also ran an arc tracker on the whole thing and really carefully tweaked those paths of action.
Hopefully I can do the second tail before the end of term!

2007-11-06T01:01:00.001-05:00

Sorry about the lack of updates on the Animation Mentor front. I've obviously been busy. Doug has been kicking my ass and I think I'm finally living up to the challenge. Here's my latest and greatest... DEVASTATION

I'm a little unsure about that arm, it sort of weakens the strong emotion even if it improves the silhouette... but two mentors have stopped by and given me super positive critiques so I'll wait and see what Doug says. From the looks of my classroom page, he's actually doing the critiques right now.
Excitingly, I got a response from Bobby Beck. I messaged him a few days ago bubbling with enthusiasm for the site and letting him know that my work is allready improving at the studio, and that seemed to really make him happy. So much so that he went and critiqued my pose and really liked it! It's such a relief to hear after my last two poses.

Anyway, here are the sketches and my bouncing ball assignment:

Amazing HUGE video reference archive

2007-11-06T00:58:00.000-05:00

I just discovered this and know I'll be coming back here frequently. There are thousands of videos here of animals, people, etc, doing all sorts of things. Amazing reference for animation and certainly many other applications as well:

http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com

My Music Monster

2007-10-17T19:52:00.000-04:00

You require more fun things to watch. Here's something I animated at work like six months ago. I only had a few days to do it so it's not perfect, but it was fun! There are way more where this comes from, but this is the only one they sent us rendered, and I don't think I should put up playblast material here until I'm sure the commercial has been aired.

AM showcase

2007-10-16T11:27:00.000-04:00

The latest Animation Mentor Showcase (Fall 2007) was recently released and it's jaw dropping inspiring. Check it out:

Perhaps someday I'll get in there. ;)

Look for my next assignment soon! Bouncing balls and excitement, whee!

Class 102 - Take two

2007-10-15T22:13:00.001-04:00

Woog, reality check. Doug wasn't super happy with my work. I thought I was working hard and leaping excitedly into my work, but I suppose my standards have diminished in the work force. :P

Apparently I was supposed to focus on balance, weight, attitude, etc, but I was mistakenly under the impression we were just supposed to quickly sketch what we saw with no touch up. Anyway, long story short, I was upset, humbled, embarrassed, and quite driven to do better, so here's the revision. Subways are AWESOME for drawing people:

And the pose from a better angle with various old man fixes:

Now he looks more like he's about to push up. The cane is propelling forward and up. The head has a more old man "craning up" thing going on, the right arm is contributing better to this huge effort, and his feet are flat to offer the utmost assistance in standing.

Inspiration - Class 102

2007-10-12T13:27:00.002-04:00

Merely a few months ago, I would see amazing creative animation and feel intimidated or bummed. Why? Because I just couldn't see how I could organize my free time and self direct myself in a way to get that good.

But now I see this stuff and every good idea in their animation, is an idea that I can be inspired by for my own work. Because I have time and motivation (and even a requirement) to do it!!!

I've reorganized my life and am cutting down on work hours to ensure that Animation Mentor comes first.

Anyway, this week's assignment was to go out and sketch people in public. And then put STU in one of the poses you've sketched out. I actually did most of my sketching of the parking lot outside my office window, where all sorts of people are coming and going to the dive bar and mechanic across the way.

I chose a pose of this crochety old guy struggling to get up out of his car. I didn't sketch it super well but I loved the idea. Here were my initial renderings of the pose:

The neat thing is, I've still learned (or re-learned) a great deal about posing from all the comments from other students. At first I was like, whatever, I've got this. But then, like a kick in the head, I realized they were right, and I could do better, and I did. I also showed the shots in sweatbox at work (woot, I get double crits! I have my own Animation Mentor sweatbox folder at work now) and got great tips. AM students were leaning towards pose 1, I think because they've been trained to like arched backs and easily visible everything. But the third pose feels more dynamic and the Anzovin crew agreed with me.

Combined tips:
-Tilt the cane more so the left hand doesn't overlap the body
-Scootch the straight leg over so the other leg can scootch over to get away from the head
-Raise the head slightly to get it away from the right knee

Yay for rambling!

2007-10-04T09:31:00.001-04:00

We had our first Q&A last night!

Let me first explain what the Q&A is...

Animation Mentor is divided into six terms. I'm, of course on my first term. Each term has a certain number of mentors assigned to it, and each of those mentors has their own class to herd, of about 15 people.

My mentor happens to be Doug Sheppeck, who has a really really impressive resume. Go look him up on IMDB. Anyway, once a week, the whole class meets up in a souped up chat room to pepper the mentor with questions via webcam.

We're supposed to meet on Tuesdays at 11 pm, but due to a misunderstanding, Doug didn't show up. Oops. It was still a really fun night and I got to know a little background of my classmates as we were waiting around for 1.5 hours to see if maybe he's still working in New Zealand and got the time zone wrong. (He didn't, and is in fact back at Pixar).

I've stumbled upon a number of "it's a small world" incidents allready with the program. One of my classmates is director of cinematics at Bungie. He did all of the layout for the cinematics on Halo 2, so he did the layout that I then animated!

Another guy in the entering class (not in my classrom) used to work at Cyberlore in Northampton before they went out of business. He found me somehow and he told me that he's moved on to Turbine, also in the area.

One guy just contacted me in a very sweet way. Apparently my training CDs that are sold through Anzovin Studio, were what inspired him to really pursue animation! Nice! What a sweetheart to tell me that.

Anyway, last night we actually had our Q&A. I don't want to say too much because I don't know how much ownership Animation Mentor has over the Q&A materials. But here are some gems:

They work on average about 50 hours a week at Pixar, some more, some less, with some leniency on those with kids.

Doug goes into zombie mode too sometimes on easy shots, and just does autopilot animation. Though of course he says it's not a good idea. This really made me grin.

I asked him about animation rate, adding that sometimes I'm stuck with upwards of 30-40 seconds a week, and that I see Pixar as this magical place where you have time to work on your shots. He gave me some great advice... If a shot really speaks to you, work really fast on all the other stuff and try to get permission to slow down on that one. And he implied that it's a good idea to move on if a studio is really bringing you down with the animation slog... Oh yeah, and they average about 4 seconds a week depending on many factors.

Oh, and get this... Doug knew Chris Perry (my mentor at Hampshire) back at Pixar! From one mentor and on to the next, eh? That's great!

That's all for now. Though there was much much more. Doug likes to ramble. I like this, yes I do.

~Cristin

First Impressions of AM

2007-10-04T08:51:00.000-04:00

Animation Mentor is everything I expected it to be and more. There's just a huge pool of resources, excellent teaching standards, and multitudes of happy inspired students clambering to critique and be critiqued and basically obsessed with networking.

My whole mood has changed. I'M happier. I don't have to do all my animation in a boring slog at work. I'll have guidance and encouragement and really harsh critiques. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be f****ing great!

The initial euphoria is wearing off a little. I'm a little scared. I am not going to have any free time for 18 months. This is it. Buckle down and pony up. My relationships are going to suffer. My skill will go up, but will my Anzovin work suffer too? Will I be happy staying at Anzovin for almost two more years? I love that place but I was ready to move on last year, and I'm STILL here. But nowhere else will I have the freedom to work less than 50 hours a week. Heck, I have the freedom to work less than 40 or less than 30 if I beg enough.

Thanks for reading!

~Cristin

Back to School

2007-09-26T11:49:00.000-04:00

Hey, remember me?

Recognize this?

Uh oh! You know what that means... yes, she's gone and done it.

I signed the next eighteen months of my life away and I couldn't be happier. This blog is about to start getting updates again, in the form of a journal of my work as I improve in Animation Mentor. Class starts Monday so expect something soon after. :)

Improving

2006-06-26T12:17:00.000-04:00

Allright, no more Mrs. lazy animator. I've decided to make a serious effort to get out of this "I have a job and therefore will improve by default" rut I've fallen into. I got my rejection letter from Pixar a few days ago. And while it was, of course, not unexpected that Pixar would reject me, it caused me to realize that I wouldn't have accepted me either based on my reel.

I have since trundled over to animation mentor and watched their reel, as well as a number of shorts on the web, and this terrifying realization is building in the back of my head that I'm falling behind and I need to catch up. One ray of hope is the Continuing Education program that Animation Mentor is starting up. That really took me by surprise and is something I'll be taking advantage of as soon as it's available. But that's still the lazy approach I think, waiting for someone to teach me what I need to know.

So I'm also going to start some intensive study of the really impressive stuff that's out there and I'm going to force myself to draw. Lots and lots of drawing. I took some drawing courses in college but not enough. I always saw it as something I would get to eventually but after I took all those storytelling, animation, and filmmaking courses. But now it's three years after college and I still haven't made many inroads into improving my drawing skills. That is going to change now.
~Cristin

welcome to disney world

2006-04-11T12:08:00.000-04:00

This is only somewhat related to animation and not at all related to the internship stories I've been going on about, but for some reason my last trip to Disney World popped into my head this morning as I was driving into work. Particularly, I was thinking of a very very un-Disney-like event that occured just as we arrived for our first day at the park.

I was with two friends of mine who had never been to either of the Disney Parks so we were taking our time and looking around as we entered the park, while most patrons rushed off towards their favorite rides. As we passed the big pond around Mark Sawyer island we suddenly heard a strange noise. Upon approaching the fence we saw a duck swimming around in the water and making a huge quacking racket. It seemed to be pursuing something and then swimming around in circles frantically. We eventually realized that it was quacking at a large heron standing at the edge of the island. We realized this just in time to see the large bird tilt it's head back and swallow a duckling. The whole scene snapped into place with the mother duck harrying the calm heron from a safe distance, and a small crowd of ducklings milling around cheeping piteously out in the water.

Welcome to Disney World! Fortunately, surprisingly there were no kids around. We, meanwhile, were a bit traumatized for a few minutes.

Don't worry kids. Huey, Duey and Luey actually have NO natural predators. Those ducks were, um, animatronic.

Would you consider yourself an artist?

2006-04-10T18:15:00.000-04:00

Faith Hubley never asked me much about myself. No personal questions aside from the usual "how are you?." I have no idea what Emily told her but I have the feeling that Faith didn't even know if I was interested in animation at all. I'm pretty sure I heard her remarking negatively about computer animation once and I was glad that she didn't seem to know. It's no surprise that she would have issue with digital animation considering her "computer" was a remarkably old electric typewriter *thing* that you could put disks into and type on a 2x4" screen, and she refused to upgrade.

Anyway, one day she completely took me by surprise with the question "would you consider yourself an artist?" It wasn't, "what are you studying? "what do you want to do with your life?" or your typical sort of questioning of an intern. Just that.

It took me by surprise because it was the most directly personal thing she had ever asked me and she never came close afterwards. She was looking at me expectantly and warmly and with a glint of curiosity in her eyes. She was obviously genuinely interested in my answer.

I hesitated for a moment and probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights. This is FAITH HUBLEY. She wants to know if I'm an artist. *panics*

"Well, I'm not sure. I don't think so. But I'd really like to be."

I don't know what she saw in that answer but she was obviously amused and happy with it because she smiled knowingly and warmly as if she knew something I didn't, and walked away. That is my strongest memory of Faith Hubley.

faith hubley

2006-04-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

So I had the great opportunity to intern with Faith Hubley about 4 years ago in her impressively located penthouse apartment by central park. Surprisingly, I didn't even seek out this internship. It basically just fell into my lap. I was interning for her daughter at the time, Emily Hubley, in Maplewood New Jersey. Emily is a Hampshire alumn like myself and she likes to take on Hampshire students.

When Emily and I were working out the details of the internship she asked "how would you like to intern for my mom in NYC as well?" Now, I'm ashamed to admit this but I'm pretty sure I had NO IDEA who her mom was. Or at least I had some minor idea because one of my professor's was a close friend of Faith's so I'd seen a couple of her films but I didn't realize just what a big deal she was. So I said yes because who am I to pass up on an opportunity to get two jobs on my resume for the price of one. :P Yes, that was my reasoning. *sigh*

So the big kick in the head came when I walked into her apartment for the first time and right there on display in her living room were ***FOUR*** yes, four academy awards. Right about then I started to feel way over my head. Now, keep in mind I am not a traditional animator. And at this point in my life I was a really crappy animator and artist. And here I was expecting to be useful to this huge prescence of a woman. I was terrified. I was also very very painfully shy at this point in my life. I'm still shy but not nearly as bad. So Faith was terrifying. Let me explain.

Faith was very friendly and outgoing and very strong willed. She was also very expectant. You did things her way or she'd be very put out. If you bothered her at the wrong time she let you know. If you didn't do something right, you better damn well go do it right as fast as you possibly can. She had a rule that if her door was closed, STAY OUT. Ask her assistant if you can come in but don't bother her while she's working. It threw her off and she had to start over on whatever she was working on.

One time I really needed to ask her how to do something and her assistant said it was OK to go in. I approached Faith and she started freaking out. Get out get out! I have to start over now! You should've asked to come in!

I fled the scene as quickly as possible and fought back tears in the living room. She came out soon after and apologized for being "rude." She seemed rather eccentric in this way, snarling tiger at one moment and understanding motherly figure the next.

I feel like I really missed out on a great opportunity to get to know her better if I hadn't been so shy. Faith really just radiated the fact that she was a remarkable person. She's one of the few people I've ever met who so obviously fit the bill of someone who SHOULD be successful because that's just the sort of person she was. It just made sense that that was how she would end up.

I have a couple other stories but I'll save those for next time.

Anyway, My menial jobs included recording and typing up her page counts/exposure sheets/scene charts (I still have these actually) for Northern Ice, Golden Sun, wiping eraser dust off her drawings (seriously ;) ), making some calls, making runs around the city to the post office and bank, etc..., organizing her personal photo albums (with such images as her hanging out with Robin Williams and his wife), organizing her file cabinets for many of her old films (I didn't realize what a treat it was to see this stuff at the time :P ), and running downstairs to check her mail.

internships

2006-03-24T01:38:00.000-05:00

I'd like to start posting a series of stories about internships I've experienced before getting hired at Anzovin. Most are pretty straightforward but I have some neat stories to share about interning for Faith Hubley, and also with her daughter Emily Hubley. I'll hopefully get to that this weekend.

Meanwhile, Anzovin is going well. I feel as if I'm slacking off too much though. Working so hard for such a long time has made me feel kind of lazy in my approach to work. I really need to shake that. Today I only got in a good couple hours of worktime. Which really is pathetic when you think about it. It's all about attitude. I only had a couple of hours to go to work on Monday (as I was going on vacation) and because I *had* to, I animated from scratch, a shot that I had been futzing around with for a few days the previous week. And it turned out MUCH better. I also had video reference to work with at this point which can also help remarkably. It's all about attention to detail and choosing interesting details to pay attention to. ;) Tomorrow I promise to focus entirely on animation and spend very little time on the internet. In fact, the goal of this blog entry is to prevent me from writing it tomorrow during the workday. ;)
~Cristin

what's next?

2006-03-11T23:48:00.000-05:00

I've found myself with a scary little trend going on in projects lately... Each of the past three projects I've worked on required more work in less time at higher quality than the previous project. Again, this had nothing to do with Anzovin Studio requirements... it was all client dictated.

We've worked on three very time intensive projects at the studio lately. The first, which I can name, was Stolen Smells, a short bit we made for the Behind The Lions show on PBS. (See Image) It was a first for the studio in that it was TV quality animation. We've been doing DTVs and game cutscenes which require much higher quality and therefore a slower rate of animation. We needed to animate about 20-30 seconds a week (each animator) at a low character animation quality. I'm proud to say that the animation supervisor chose me to set the animation style of the film. So I went out and studied a couple of shows: Spongebob, and the Fairly Oddparents. I was really drawn in by the animation on Spongebob which was much higher quality than I expected, so I ended up focusing just on that. They use a great combination of limited animation that *doesn't ignore* the principles of animation. In fact, they quite succesfully stick very strongly to the principles in order to make the limits work. I ended up coming up with a style that was very very similar to Spongebob (so sue me I only had a week to do this ;) ). It relied almost entirely on bounces in the upper body to keep the character alive. The characters would sort of bounce out their dialogue and bounce between major poses. We even got to play around with still holds in 3D because of the 2D render style which ended up working rather nicely and also saved a lot of time on animation. But again, this limited style only worked because we all made sure to stick to the principles of overlap, ease, squash & stretch, follow through, etc, etc...

That should be on TV sometime in the Spring I think. I'll be sure to post a link to it as soon as it's allowed.

Anyway, after that project was the one you've seen me mention here in "30 seconds O fun" and "twitch" where I had to animate about 20-30 seconds a week at near feature quality. At the time I thought things couldn't possibly get any more challenging...

Until the very next project. ;) Last Wedsnesday I was given a 28 second sound clip. The deadline was yesterday! That's 10 days including the weekend in the middle although I didn't work nearly as much over the weekend as I should have. It wasn't too bad until the crunch near the end when I had to do 20 seconds of lip synch (it's a nonstop dialogue shot) in one day. Oh well, alls well that ends well. And I finally got to sleep last night. ;) I can't say the same for the poor render watchers. I'm actually very proud of how it came out, regardless, and I'll probably be fixing the animation in the future since I feel it has a lot of potential and we can re-render it in house. I should be able to post it soon as it's screening at E3 this coming week. I'll look into that.

This time I promise not to expect something easier to come along next. *looks warily around*
~Cristin

Prolific Pixar

2006-03-09T10:26:00.000-05:00

So the following statement was posted in a 'favorite movies' thread on an *ahem* (world of warcraft) *ahem* forum that I often read...

"any of the movies made by pixar... Ice age, finding nemo, monsters inc, lilo n stitch... etc"

Ice Age isn't too surprising. It *is* a CG film. But Lilo? Aiee! Geeks these days!

I suppose I should be amused that Pixar creates excellent traditionally animated films in their spare time.
~Cristin

thoughts on different methods of animating

2006-03-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

I've been having this discussion with a former animation professor of mine about 3 different methods of approaching a shot: layered approach, blocking approach, and extreme blocking approach (for lack of a better name). I thought I'd post that here since I learned a bit in writing it in terms of analyzing my approach. I've put some comments in [brackets] to clarify stuff that was just assumed in the email...

Someday I'll write this out with examples and better detail to make it a much easier to follow tutorial.

LAYERING
[This is the easiest method and best for beginners, though as you get more experienced, you'll find it takes much longer and is less effective than blocking.]

This is what I assume you teach your students, particularly the beginners. Where you animate the base bone throughout the shot first, in I'm guessing a straight-ahead manner. [So you animate a 7 second dialogue shot with just the base body bone bouncing around first.] And then layer in different body parts. [So the head is involved next, and then the arms are layered in, for instance.]

I always use this for walks and runs though I wouldn't be surprised if some people block out walks and runs. But damn, that'd be hard. For most acting and some action shots I stick to the blocking method.

[The problem with a layered approach is that it doesn't allow you to see if your poses are working until you're done. Because the poses aren't there until you're done. The director also can't really critique your work until it's almost done, prompting a lot of possible re-animation and wasted time. It's a handy method for walks and runs though because it simplifies these very complicated actions into something much easier to grasp.]

BLOCKING
[This is the method that seems to be used by most professional animators, including myself. The key thing is that this is the fastest method for those working at studios where you don't have as much time as a place like Pixar, to work on your shot]

You have a 7 second dialogue shot. In your acting, the character maybe hits 3-4 major poses to hit the major acting points. And then a bunch of smaller subtler poses like settling out of a major pose or hitting a similar smaller pose like bringing your hands up before bringing them down and out. So you put in all those poses using stepped keys. And you pay attention to every body part in every pose. Nothing is forgotten. This way you're forced to keep everything alive in an intelligent way. If you don't, the blocking won't read as well and won't be as 'alive.' (Now you go get director approval and do some fixing/refining). Next, I'll also tend to put in a small amount of inbetweens and I always put in the holds now too. It can get kind of tricky to put in holds when your motion is stepped because you can only see they're there in the keyframes in the graph editor and not in the motion itself. I recommend putting all the holds in in one sitting, once all the poses are set in stone. Otherwise it can get really confusing. Then you spline the whole thing and get a semi-floaty mess, probably with a lot of spline overshoot that needs fixing. But if you had put in the holds it doesn't look half bad, especially after fixing the overshoot stuff. And you've very quickly done most of the work allready AND gotten director approval on it.

CRAZY OH MY GOD EVERY FRAME BLOCKING (this really needs a title)
[This is the method that seems to be catching on a lot at Pixar, and likely at other studios working on high quality feature animation. It involves taking blocking to the extreme by blocking the inbetweens to the point that you have stepped keys on almost every frame or every other frame.]

Do the same as in blocking, but don't spline it. And include some settle in every hold (on EVERY body part), instead of just making it a flat line hold. Go through each pose and act it out over and over, finding what each body part does subtly, and including it as a piece of inbetween blocking.

So far, it seems like the only way to make this work is to still have each pose occur all on the same frame. Let's say you want to do some subtle inbetween motion of what an arm is doing. So you block that in. Then there's some subtle thing you notice the body doing. But it really occurs a couple frames later when you act it out. But if you block that in a couple frames later, your blocking is suddenly hard to read. Because there's a little arm jerk and then a little body jerk and then suddenly the next major pose. So my conclusion so far is that you need to put those inbetweens on the same frame as eachother and overlap them later in the blocking process or when you spline them.

See, this is where it got complicated and difficult. So I'd love to see how someone else does it...

But if you stick with it and spend a lot of time on making it all work with this method, you will be forced to pay attention to details that are probably left out with just a normal blocking approach. And a lot of potential for great animation opens up there, if you can make it work.
~Cristin

twitch

2006-02-17T15:10:00.000-05:00

Through no fault of the studio's we've unfortunately all had to work nonstop for about 3 weeks now. I can't go into details but the situation really isn't in our control, unfortunately. That is, the reason for all this crunch time is through no mismanagement or fault of our own.

At first I was daunted, and then it became kind of fun (as my last blog on the subject noted) but now I (and I'm sure everyone else here) am getting really burnt out. I went from animating 5-10 seconds a day at my peak to right now about 2-3.

It's been a good learning experience of course. I find I'm learning a lot as an animator. But I didn't realize all the side effects it would have. I haven't really excercised in all that time and I haven't really had any free time. For the past couple of days my productivity has been plummeting. I feel kind of dizzy today and my left eyelid won't stop twitching. More detail than you want to know!

I hope we finish soon. Our next project looks to be awesome...
~Cristin

character animation yummies

2006-02-13T21:22:00.000-05:00

I have potentially just stumbled upon the epitomie of awesome. Ok, maybe not, but this is some really really impressive character animation reference material.

Animation Podcast

I may be behind everyone in discovering this, but if you haven't heard of it... it's really great stuff. He interviews a number of talented animators, including Andreas Deja, and gets all sorts of inspiring tidbits, including stories and advice passed on by some of the old Disney guys like Milt Kahl.

I've only had time to listen to Andreas and one of Nik Ranieri's interviews but they are so inspiring. Not even for the animation advice but for the stories about how these guys made it into the business and who they met along the way and what they learned from them. It's also a great way to start learning who did what, which animator animated what and what they think about their own work.

I would like to be able to name more animators and identify styles by watching a scene and guessing who did it. I've allready added a number of Disney flix to my netflix queue to begin watching some of the scenes mentioned in these interviews now that I have even more background to go on. :)
~Cristin

30 seconds of fun!

2006-02-09T19:12:00.000-05:00

This is a bit old, about a year out of date now, but here is the most recent version of my

Demo Reel

It basically includes two direct to videos: GI Joe and Action Man, cut scenes for Halo 2, and some shots from Anzovin's Duel short film. I'll be hopefully updating that at the end of the month.

Watching it recently, I'm surprised by how far I've come in the past year, even though I haven't had much opportunity to spend time improving. Granted, most of that stuff was animated at 10-15 seconds a week. But even since then, aside from the Animate! series, I haven't worked on a project that granted time to perfect the quality of the animation.

I'm beginning to suspect that just *animating a LOT* regardless of the amount of time you're given for a shot, can really improve your animation. Now, I'm not talking about just not caring and rushing through your work. I've been working on this ridiculously fast-paced project for almost a month now where I basically have to animate as fast as possible, regardless of quality. For me, that means I've been animating at a rate of about 25-35 seconds a week, with the amount increasing each week as I get better at it. But I've still been working very carefully and trying to make that animation worth watching.

I really don't see the point of working on something, ESPECIALLY animation, if you're not going to learn something from it and make it as good as you can. When this project started, I was really really bummed about purposely animating junky quality shots because of time constraints. So I tried to approach this project with the goal in the back of my head of doing good AND fast animation. And I've learned a lot. In fact, at this point I'm having fun with it and I've turned it into a contest with myself to animate as much as possible but still keep it as good as I can. Working so quickly has forced me to just animate straight ahead with no blocking and little planning. Which in turn, kind of reduces the stress of coming up with the right acting, and forces me to focus on just making the motion read well.

It has proven to be a very interesting excercise as I've become better and better at quickly creating animation that *works*. Especially in the little subtleties of making a talking head shot read well (I think I've animated about 40 seconds of talking heads so far this month), in quickly blocking a complicated walking or running around shot, or other physical shot. Obviously, none of it is too great, but surprisingly I feel as if I've still improved dramatically on this project from the sheer volume I've had to go through and that it will help me create much better animation when I have the time to apply what I've learned to high quality productions.

As soon as I'm allowed, I'll post the stuff from this game we're working on. Probably not for a few months though. :P

Yikes, long post. I apologize to my nonexistent readers. ;)
~Cristin

Welcome

2006-02-07T10:32:00.001-05:00

Well then, welcome to my new blog. It's absolutely unfindable at the moment so I'm hesitant to try posting anything interesting yet. Oh I will! That is, if you like animation... and reading blogs. I'll be posting random tidbits of animation I've done, animation that I do, and works in progress. Not to mention thoughts on animation and industry events and whatnot.

For starters though, let me make a quick introduction. I'm an animator at a cute lil studio in Western Mass (Anzovin Studio). It was my first animation job out of college and they've managed to trick me into staying by being so darn nice and incredibly talented and fun to work with. The bastards. Someday I will probably move on and become a COG in the wheel of some animation department somewhere. I love it here, but I also want to be surrounded by more animators. Buried in animators. Yes, that sounds good.
~Cristin