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.