Quickie

The Set up. This is going to work!

Artifacts/Artefacts

Artifact 1: Drawing and design a huge part of Tex Avery's process.
Artifact 2: Modelling the Characters to fit the scene correctly. Technicallly needed to be able to accomplish effects created in 2d design. Ensure complete control over texture and base model before rigging.
Artifact 3: The rigging process. Using Anzovin, pushing the limits of the rig using a step by step frame sequence of Avery's Takes. Design and aesthetics are key to this process.
Artifact 4: Story Boarding. Exploring the techniques and favorite styles of Avery's Story Guys, Heck Allen and Mike Maltese. Maltese being one of the greats who's list of works include Wile E Coyote and Road Runner.
Artifact 5: A short animation piece exploring humor in animation and trying to combine the things learnt from previous Artifacts.

The more successful

So this is Another of my Artefacts, well I've added the two more successful experiments. What I've learnt is that to replicate a take using a 3D model takes a lot of control, and is all about camera angles. A lot of the time spent on this Experiment was going back, re-rigging and adding more extreme Blendshapes, but ultimately I feel it still wasn't enough. Proof is in those experiments that failed as the rig found it almost impossible to contort itself in such away, even with a rig as simple and flexible as the Anzovin Rig. I will be adding another experiment to this list, one where the limbs are more stretched and exaggerated, rather than the face and eyes. That's it, the face, eyes and tongue were the things that needed the most work as that is where the life come from.

See something like the Take above is near on impossible to accomplish without using almost a completely new character, this is literally just down to the facial side of things, the rig is able to be manipulated like that. Yet the face, mainly the jaw becomes twisted and gnarled due to the bend and lack of neck. I will be having another go, pushing the Blend shapes further seeing if that will help. 

This is from the Take I'm currently tweaking at the minute before uploading. It is one of the easier of Avery's Take to replicate due to is mainly being about stretching the limbs and body, although again the jaw is proving to be a bit more difficult. 

Drawings can hide a multitude of sins, 3D cannot.

Walt Peregoy

"Producers want to be the one, and the art directors want to be the one. If any of you here are artists, assert yourself. I mean it…assert yourself. So tell those bastards to get off the pot…Each and every one of you have talent that you don’t even admit to, but take it in your own hands and run with it…Because who you are—your talent—is the most important thing in this world" -Walt Peregoy

Sneak Attack - Client Project

Sneak Attack, this is a short character Animation I did, I emphasize short because I had to speed things up and cut things out to fit it within the time frame allocated. I'm pretty proud of it as I did not have very long to animate it at all. Its a bit clunky in places because of that but next time I'm going to make sure I allocate more time to animating. Also I had three characters to take care of, I did try and minimalize the amount of animation the sheep and farmer had, although it was important that they didn't look lifeless either.
I think the animating process should have at least 2 weeks, that is something I have learnt and could maybe have down with on this project. I also wish I had been able to spend some more time on the facial rigging, but in the story it wasn't overly necessary.

There's only two close up shots and so I made do with what I had. Maybe I'm being too critical on myself considering the time I had and the personal things I've been going through at home, but this is actually the best I could come up with in two weeks, from modelling, to texturing, to rigging, to animating and finally rendering. Talk about sleepless nights, today is the first time I've slept properly and I have spent most of the day asleep, anyway that is not the point. 

Sneak attack is my first steps into Maya, its been a rough ride at some points, wasted days trying to find solutions to ridiculous unexplained problems and great days seeing my characters come to life. Least I know I can animate a decent animation within about 5 days. 

Process

 Thought I'd upload some of the stuff I've been working on. Below is my character process, from designs to modelling and rigging.

Its a bit like Tex Avery meet Shaun the Sheep, well that was the rendering style I was going for. I've learnt a lot in this process though, I mean about Maya. This is my first time using Maya for character animation, the last time I used Maya was last year and that was just for Dynamics. 

Above is a shot of  the model, then its rig and then textured. Texturing was a bit of a long process, but making sure it all fit means I can stretch the limbs, and have the wolf character in exaggerated poses.

This image I though summed up the whole idea and story, sleeping farmer, un-bothered sheep and sneaky wolf. My actual animation for the Client project had to be sped up and cut short in places, but more of that later.

Getting There

Sorry nearly at the point to add the finishing touches to my Animation, but this is a shot from the first scene with all three characters together

Initial Setup

Just sorting through my folders and came across this image. I think its from my initial scene set up, before animating. Its like Tex Avery meets Shaun the Sheep!

Le Update...

Add some screenshots I should have uploaded last week, but not had the chance.

Both of these shots are still in the T pose and early stages, but all rigged up using the beautiful software ANZOVIN. Amazing stuff and super simple to use, very straight forward. Will up date later with animation I am working on.