To get used to doing the video standardization for AM I decided to combine all of the stuff I worked on this past week. Below are the results. Hard to believe I taught myself all of this stuff in less than a week.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Getting ready for classes! Part 2
So after doing the bouncing ball yesterday I feel I have a pretty good grasp on the concepts and editing the graph. Today I decided to step it up a notch and I made a basic obstacle course, and I mean basic lol, to play around in. Here is the first pass results.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29412741/Bouncing_Ball_Obstacle_v1.avi
I'm a dropbox noob so any suggestions on how to get the video to show up in my post are greatly appreciated.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29412741/Bouncing_Ball_Obstacle_v1.avi
Getting ready for classes!
In preparation of classes starting next week I figured I should start hitting Maya heavily again. Since the majority of class 1 is fundamental stuff I started working on bouncing balls. Below is the result.
And here is what the graph looks like.
And here is what the graph looks like.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
52 Acting Notes for Animators from Ed Hooks
1. Scenes begin in the middle, not the beginning.
2. A character should be "doing" something 100 percent of the time.
3. A character enters a scene for a reason, and he exits for a reason.
4. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.
5. A gesture need not be an illustration of the spoken word.
6. Audiences empathize with emotion. The key to good animation
is in empathy.
7. Comedy is drama heightened, oxygenated.
8. An action pursues a longer term objective. (Smile at the girl
because you want to date her.)
9. Short term memory causes eyes to glance upward. 1. Scenes begin in the middle, not the beginning.
2. A character should be "doing" something 100 percent of the time.
3. A character enters a scene for a reason, and he exits for a reason.
4. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.
5. A gesture need not be an illustration of the spoken word.
6. Audiences empathize with emotion. The key to good animation
is in empathy.
7. Comedy is drama heightened, oxygenated.
8. An action pursues a longer term objective. (Smile at the girl
because you want to date her.)
9. Short term memory causes eyes to glance upward.
10. Long term memory causes eyes to glance downward, into the soul.
11. The human sense of sight is many times more powerful than the
sense of hearing.
12. Humans act to survive. Find the survival mechanism in your character.
13. Play an action until something happens to make you play a
different one.
14. A scene is a negotiation.
15. "Actors are athletes of the heart" - Artonin Artaud
16. Anxiety is a high or heady power center; confidence is a low
power center.
17. Emotions are automatic value responses.
18. Characters that make steady eye contact for more than a few
seconds are either going to fight or make love.
19. The human smile says, "I won't hurt you."
20. Never underestimate the audience.
21. When you animate, you are saying to the audience, "I
understand this." When the audience applauds, laughs or cries, it is
saying, "I see what you mean."
22. Actors lead; audiences follow.
23. Background characters can be defined with shadow movement - a
jiggling knee, a charcter's mouth moving when he reads the paper,
biting fingernails and so on.
24. "The Iron Giant" is an animation classic. Every animator
should study it, like visiting Mecca.
25. We see things before we hear them; we hear things before we
touch them; we touch things before we smell them; we smell things
before we taste them.
26. A villain is a regular person that has a fatal flaw.
27. A hero is a regular person that has to rise to extreme
heights to overcome an extraordinary obstacle.
28. The "beats" in a scene or script are better perceived as
"beads" in a necklace. One bead leads to the next to the next and so
on. Put the beads together, and you have a story.
29. The purpose of (character) movement is destination.
30. Acting has almost nothing to do with words.
31. Commercials convey almost zero actual information. They are
about emotion.
32. Humans and other animals negotiate status continually.
33. To energize a scene, convert the character's "wants" to "needs."
34. Theatrical reality isn't the same thing as regular reality.
35. Acting is reacting.
36. Animators are not mimes. Mime is a specialized art.
37. A key ingredient of empathy is distance.
38. Old people stoop because their bodies ache.
39. A drunk character tries to counteract the effects of the alcohol.
40. To show that a character is hot, have him try to get cool.
41. To show that a character is cold, have him try to get warm.
42. An "adrenaline" moment is one the character will remember
when he turns eighty and looks back on his life. The best movies
include plenty of adrenaline moments. (Re-read #24)
43. A character analysis is like a character biography.
44. When a character is faced with a choice, be specific. Avoid
ambivalence.
45. Allow your characters to be affected by the atmosphere in a
location, the "feeling" it projects. (A car wreck has an atmosphere;
a church has an atmosphere; a marriage bed has an atmosphere.)
46. Yelling is a weak acting choice.
47. We speak of memory in general terms, but it is referenced in
specific mental images.
48. A character that is listening to another is actually
preparing to speak.
49. The camera tends to follow the character's gaze.
50. A scene should have conflict, otherwise known as an obstacle.
51. Trick for suggesting villainy: tilt head forward; eyes peer
upward, exposing whites in lower portion of eyeball.
52. Character "personality" is actually character "behavior."10. Long term memory causes eyes to glance downward, into the soul.
2. A character should be "doing" something 100 percent of the time.
3. A character enters a scene for a reason, and he exits for a reason.
4. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.
5. A gesture need not be an illustration of the spoken word.
6. Audiences empathize with emotion. The key to good animation
is in empathy.
7. Comedy is drama heightened, oxygenated.
8. An action pursues a longer term objective. (Smile at the girl
because you want to date her.)
9. Short term memory causes eyes to glance upward. 1. Scenes begin in the middle, not the beginning.
2. A character should be "doing" something 100 percent of the time.
3. A character enters a scene for a reason, and he exits for a reason.
4. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.
5. A gesture need not be an illustration of the spoken word.
6. Audiences empathize with emotion. The key to good animation
is in empathy.
7. Comedy is drama heightened, oxygenated.
8. An action pursues a longer term objective. (Smile at the girl
because you want to date her.)
9. Short term memory causes eyes to glance upward.
10. Long term memory causes eyes to glance downward, into the soul.
11. The human sense of sight is many times more powerful than the
sense of hearing.
12. Humans act to survive. Find the survival mechanism in your character.
13. Play an action until something happens to make you play a
different one.
14. A scene is a negotiation.
15. "Actors are athletes of the heart" - Artonin Artaud
16. Anxiety is a high or heady power center; confidence is a low
power center.
17. Emotions are automatic value responses.
18. Characters that make steady eye contact for more than a few
seconds are either going to fight or make love.
19. The human smile says, "I won't hurt you."
20. Never underestimate the audience.
21. When you animate, you are saying to the audience, "I
understand this." When the audience applauds, laughs or cries, it is
saying, "I see what you mean."
22. Actors lead; audiences follow.
23. Background characters can be defined with shadow movement - a
jiggling knee, a charcter's mouth moving when he reads the paper,
biting fingernails and so on.
24. "The Iron Giant" is an animation classic. Every animator
should study it, like visiting Mecca.
25. We see things before we hear them; we hear things before we
touch them; we touch things before we smell them; we smell things
before we taste them.
26. A villain is a regular person that has a fatal flaw.
27. A hero is a regular person that has to rise to extreme
heights to overcome an extraordinary obstacle.
28. The "beats" in a scene or script are better perceived as
"beads" in a necklace. One bead leads to the next to the next and so
on. Put the beads together, and you have a story.
29. The purpose of (character) movement is destination.
30. Acting has almost nothing to do with words.
31. Commercials convey almost zero actual information. They are
about emotion.
32. Humans and other animals negotiate status continually.
33. To energize a scene, convert the character's "wants" to "needs."
34. Theatrical reality isn't the same thing as regular reality.
35. Acting is reacting.
36. Animators are not mimes. Mime is a specialized art.
37. A key ingredient of empathy is distance.
38. Old people stoop because their bodies ache.
39. A drunk character tries to counteract the effects of the alcohol.
40. To show that a character is hot, have him try to get cool.
41. To show that a character is cold, have him try to get warm.
42. An "adrenaline" moment is one the character will remember
when he turns eighty and looks back on his life. The best movies
include plenty of adrenaline moments. (Re-read #24)
43. A character analysis is like a character biography.
44. When a character is faced with a choice, be specific. Avoid
ambivalence.
45. Allow your characters to be affected by the atmosphere in a
location, the "feeling" it projects. (A car wreck has an atmosphere;
a church has an atmosphere; a marriage bed has an atmosphere.)
46. Yelling is a weak acting choice.
47. We speak of memory in general terms, but it is referenced in
specific mental images.
48. A character that is listening to another is actually
preparing to speak.
49. The camera tends to follow the character's gaze.
50. A scene should have conflict, otherwise known as an obstacle.
51. Trick for suggesting villainy: tilt head forward; eyes peer
upward, exposing whites in lower portion of eyeball.
52. Character "personality" is actually character "behavior."10. Long term memory causes eyes to glance downward, into the soul.
I got approved!!!
So last night as I was getting ready to go to dinner I got a call from Sallie Mae. They're the loan company that I applied to for a loan for Animation Mentor. I don't usually answer the phone but something told me I HAD to take that call. So I answered and when the gentleman said he was from Sallie Mae I felt my heart in my throat and my hands getting all sweaty. He started asking me all these questions about my finances and such and I found myself pacing a path in the carpet. By the end of the phone call I WAS APPROVED FOR MY LOAN!!! I can OFFICIALLY be excited as the funding is in place!!! Everything is falling into place!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Prepped & Ready to Go!
I've watched all of the orientation videos for AM, loaded the AM shelf into Maya, downloaded the ball rig to see if it worked, and have my documentation ready to print. I'm SO ready for classes to begin!!! Only thing I need now is a fan by my computer because lord knows I'm going to have my butt glued to the chair for 10+ hours a day, it's bound to get hot in my little nook!
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