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. 

The Horrifying Rant!

So I know i said I'd write a blog about my internal project yesterday, but I actually was very productive in another project, my Research Project.
After spending a good time reading what is expected of me in the 3000-4000 words research paper, and what is necessary in such a paper, I've come to realise that there are not enough words for what I want to talk about. I thought it would be a in depth discussion, but apparently not the case. The extra section like 'background to research', 'research methodology' and 'description of proposed practice' can surely be merged into other areas. Why waste entire sections for this headings when it is a creative course, I'd understand more if it were a soical/science dissitations, as then it is obviously advantageous. But by giving entire sections away means having to write more than just a few sentences and writing something more substantial to justify having it as a section, right?
I don't know, maybe my lack of experience is showing, but there is not much logic behind it, yet others have done it in the past. Although with this is mind, after reading the example given to us as reference from someone last year, their discusson section was mostly pictures?!! They too didn't have enough to space to write. Maybe I'm being too optimistic in what I intend to write and will be glad to have so few words.
Anyway least I have a structure in place and a topic that interestes me. In fact I went to see 'Hotel Transylvania' yesterday. Good film, not great, but definitely would watch and enjoy it again.

In terms of animation I actually expected more extreme poses, it was great what they accomplished don't get me wrong, but it didnt have the wild takes I was expecting after reading some of the articles that Genndy Tartakovsky wanted it to be like the wild Warner Bros. and Tex Avery Cartoons.

They've done an awesome job at finally a new way to animate, rather then try and copy the kingpins Pixar. Its very much like Tex's work in the grand era of Walt Disney. Animation needs a fresh perspective, I know the picture above shows some extraggeration, but it wasnt like that all the way through the film, in fact some of the extreme emotions didnt really show till towards the end , which i dont understand as dracula had plenty bursts of rage since the beginning of the film. I would love to have seen it pushed more.

In fact that is what my finally year is all about, pushing the limits of animation. Tartakovsky's team had to re program and script how the rigs and models would morph so as to make it smooth and not crumpled or disfigured in a horrific mess. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about doing it, but I know they used Maya. so thats what I intend to learn today, wish me luck.