Music for Showreel

The point of music within the showreel is to try and draw the viewer in, but not take the attention away from what is happening in the performance. For this i have looked up several soothing and modern songs which could give my work some life :)

Mario Galaxy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2kxFCQ_mQ&feature=related

This song is quiet upbeat if i wanted a happy fast paced showreel. I think that under the reight conditions, this song could be used incredibly effectivly

Skyward Sword:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaLOMAW_jzo&feature=related

This music is quite slow but upbeat. This makes a good back track for a showreel. It isnt incredibly overpowering but has a nice happy beat to it which draws in the viewer!

Banjo Kazooie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXoaTcf_3vo

This music is really simplistic and happy. It would fit an animation showreel perfectly. Its not to distracting, just a couple of instruments with an upbeat melody


Mario 64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4TOM5Mitps

This one is really happy. I think that you need a certain showreel for this to fit with though. It would have to be used with more silent animations i think because it is a tiny bit distracting but good none the less


Little Big planet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SRVtE7iibY&feature=related

This one is very soothing and chilled. It is very similar to many backing tracks that people use in thier showreels online. So this may be a safe choice


Out of all of the above i am going to use the music featured in little big planet. It fits almost perfectly for the upbeat music of an animation showreel but it doesnt dominant the reel. I will most likely use this for my final showreel as well as the block out one in which i am creating! :)

Showreel Practice 1

Here is what i am going to put in my showreel. This is just the random clips with no annotations, or music. Just a rough block out :)

Planning of Showreel

For the sake of the showreel blockout i am using other peoples work that i cna find online to create it, and once more work is finished i can just slot my work over the top of the timed scenes.

I have been researching the kind of scenes that i want to create and have found scenes similar to what my final pieces will look like from various videos. Below is links and the scenes i will be using :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcZhdzWgAyM

For this i will be using the run and jump animation cycles and the scene with the teddy bear to show that i can understand how an inanimate object would be able to move.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8xk3klCiI&feature=related

I love the introduction to this showreel! it is amazing! its eyecatching, interesting and also demonstrates an understanding of animation. It would be perfect to create a showreel with this intro!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bklPD7U9XIw

i will use this for an example of a push and pull. The reason i like this, is because they have used both a push and pull in the same little scene and its been created incredibly well! This is what i aim my push and pull to be like (I will probably use this as my first point of reference)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzaOVkijAQA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzEX8zYuxK8&feature=related

These iare what i want my walk cycles to look like. I like how they show three seperate perspectives, so that you can really see how the walk cycle works. It also demonstrates a human and other type of animation which shows more knowledge and understanding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTQSY0fTIOY

I love the starwars fake light sabre scene in this! its perfect for something i want to create. Its quite complex, well timed and shows incredibly good knowledge of anatomy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9G6t4yaLt4&feature=related

This final one i like the scene at the start because it shows good lip syncing and good camera angels. I want to show this so i can demonstrate a wide variety of skills so i am more attractive to prospective employers!

Planning of showreel

I am beginning to plan out my show reel by finding clips on youtube etc. that link with what will be in my own show reel. This week dave said to choose videos as he will be giving us a tutorial on the after effects program so we can begin to put together our show reels.

I want mine to include:

• Push and Pull animations
• Walk cycle
• Lip Sync
• 2 x 11 second animations
• (possible jump animation)

These are what phil told me would make a decent animation showreel so these are the things that i am creating in advanced modelling and animation :)

Course improvements

This week we had a discussion about ways in which we could improve the course. We were told that if we had any ideas in ways in which we could improve it then we should post them in the blog. I had a couple of thoughts

• There was very little animation taught throughout the course. I think that this should be taught incredibly early as the course is modelling and animation and i feel that they should be balanced where at the moment modelling is a much bigger priority than animation.

• Better teaching of introduction to 3.D modelling. I was mostly self taught because the standard of the module was so incredibly poor. As a result i think there is still alot about maya i don't know or understand

• Proffesional studies should be alot more focused on preparing us for the industry

• A stronger communication for drawing and visualisation and the games industry, e.g setting tasks which could be incorperated into the games industry like perspectivly drawing a deathmatch environment rather than random buildings etc.

• Less Blogging and journals. This course has made me despise blogging and journal creation! i feel that creating journals is a little pointless as the model or end result is going to be visible with the hand in. Maybe a 2 page report about the model creation on what you found easy/hard and how you developed them instead of a tedious step by step guide with screengrabs etc.

•  2D Digital techniques should include photoshop teaching ie. painting over final renders etc. which we were never taught! 

Life Drawing Practice

Here are a couple of practice life drawings i have created to try and get more used to body language and anatomy. They where all about 10 min sketches

Future Technologies

This week we were asked to create a blog entry about how we think future technologies can benefit the field in which we want to progress in. For me this is animation.

I think that the main thing that will progress will obviously be the technology. Recently there is becoming more and more motion capture technology being used within animation, but this has pros and cons. The pros being that it can create a more natural looking animation and can appear more fluid but the cons are that you must rely on an actor and if they can’t perform then it looks rubbish and it’s a lot more difficult to animate non humanoid characters i.e. dogs/cats etc. I think that the future for animation will defiantly involved motion capture, maybe even being able to create movement from animals etc. however I think the biggest thing will be the technology available. Models are becoming more and more realistic and soon, animation shorts and movies will benefit from this with insanely high definition models, so close to human actors that you can barely tell the difference.

Also I would like to see some more motion capture software available. Maybe a portable motion capture lab will be created so that animation can be created everywhere and not just in a designated space. With the way in which technology is enhancing, I can easily see this happening within the next 5-10 years and with the un-announced graphical capabilities of the new xbox, playstation and Nintendo hardware which are said to be able to render incredibly life-like models and animations it could be coming sooner than we think!

Analysis of work

This week we where told to analyse an old piece of work and identify ways in which we could have improved it. I choose my first peice of animation for the first year intro to animation module:

Seeing as this was my first animation, its not bad. Its still quiet robotic. I think that i should have focused alot more on referencing the body language for the characters. The chesire cat i remember being quiet a challenge because of his odd movements. I think that the lip syncing was very good as thats what i spent most of my time on trying to get it as close to real speech as possible. I think that i could do a much better job of the character movement if i recreated this now. The character of alice could have been alot more fluid as she looks particularly stiff. I was unaware of free-flow movement up until this point, the fact that people move even when they are standing still!

In summary, it is abit of a mess and needs to be alot smoother. Also my next animation will develop alot on this piece and i will experiement using different cameras as this is just shown from a single angle which is a little dull to watch!

Here are some prop drawings that i had created for a drawing a visualisation prop design module. I think that they are ok drawings. I think that i should have taken them into photoshop and played around with them a little bit more to really give them some good detail. The detailing has always been quiet a big issue and i think that if i could learn how to use photoshop alot more effectivly then i could create a much high standard of drawing.

For the sake of the prop design module, it probably would have been alot better to have designed the drawings showing alot of the lines which make the shape (much like in Maya which i found the most useful) so that i could create similar props along the lines of the shapes that i had drawn.

Presentation

Here are screen shots of the presentation that i gave in class to demonstrate the difference between good and bad show reel techniques:

Good and Bad Show Reels

This week we where asked to find an example of a bad show reel and an example of a good showreel. I searched for animation show reels as the majority of the class where looking at environment/prop design show reels : -

This is diabolical....The modelling is bad, the music is completely irrelevant and the animations are horrific. The background is incredibly off putting and has no signficance to the animations. The animation themselves are badly assembeled, very unrealistic and not referenced, and there are short random clips at the end of the sequence....This is basically everything that you should not do in a show reel, however i did find it incredibly humerous to watch at how terrible it actual was!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9G6t4yaLt4&feature=related


I liked this show reel. The backgrounds where subtle so you could focus on the animations. He had chosen some of his best work and used different camera shots to make it interesting. His work in general was very clean and well created. There was relaxing music which seemed to go with the animations throughout the showreel and it supplied a good demonstration of his skill and knowledge. I think to improve it, he could have used more models for the rigs in each scene as there was only three demonstrated in several clips. He could have also tried creating his own rig and used that to animate which would have looked appealing to potential employers.

Blog Entry 1 - Future Plans

I have had a problem since i began the course as to what direction i wanted to follow. I knew that i wanted to be part of the games industry but i never knew what my strengths where.

My Primary Job preference would most likely be an animator. Its one of the parts of the course that i excell at and the part that i enjoy the most. I researched the specification for animating jobs within the games industry and found several..


Senior 3D Animator
Permanent
Midlands, UK

You will be responsible for the creation of a diverse set of animations; including delivering on the animation and rigging needs of photo realistic characters, creatures and props. We require an experienced, enthusiastic individual with a strong eye for detail and a fundamental understanding of the game development process. As a senior member of the team, you will be expected to take ownership in this area and work closely with artists to help streamline the character creation pipeline, as well as identifying risks and opportunities for improvement.
You should have:

• Have worked on a minimum of 2 games in animator and senior animator positions
• Expertise in creation of animation for AAA titles, including: facial animation, rigging, skinning & working with mocap data and keyframe animation (minimum 2 title required)
• Creative animation skills including knowledge of the technical aspects
• A strong understanding of human anatomy
• Practical knowledge of 3DsMax and Motion Builder
• Practical knowledge of an animation middle-ware package
• The right to work on a permanent basis in the UK

Here is an example of one of the jobs. Usually, a running theme for most of the jobs is experience within the industry and an understanding of human anatomy. Quite a few of these jobs also required life drawing skills from a moderate to high level.

I have a moderate understanding of animation so to improve myself and make myself more attractive to potential employers i think that practice is key. Throughout the course of this year i intend to focus alot more on developing my technical knowledge and understanding of the animation process. I also want to build up my life drawing skills so that i can involve a couple of these into my portfolio as it is a good skill to have in the industry as it will also help me to understand anatomy

As an animator i will also have to work closer with character artists and i want to learn how to be a skilled rigger. I researched rigging on the internet and found hundreds of jobs avaliable for riggers. I feel that if i can increase my rigging ability than i have a much easier way of grabbinga foothold in the industry so this year i am going to do some more advanced tutorials on rigging techniques to hone my skills.