This video review is full of awesome tips on camera work, so be sure to have a look at it.
http://content.animationmentor.com/movies/products/11secondclub/2013/december-2013.mp4
Here's the link to the 11 second club video review site. I couldn't find a link to the video from the site itself, so in case my first link stops working, you can always go and look it up yourself.
Cheers!
Ricardo.
Showing posts with label 11secondclub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 11secondclub. Show all posts
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Monday, September 7, 2009
My entry for the 11 Second Club competiton - August 2009
I was waiting for the results of last month's competition to post this entry here. As some know, I entered last month's 11SC animation competition, and I have to say I felt different kind of feelings when I saw the results. To be honest, I was expecting a much better score, since I felt I improved a lot since my last entry.
Here is the animation I submitted:
As I said, I feel I'm improving as an animator, and the whole idea that my score was lower than my previous entry was really discouraging and disappointing. Discouraging basically.
However, checking all the entries on the competition, there is really a ton of good work! I can say that my entry (in my opinion) is better than some that got a better score, but again, I remembered that this is an art form, and as such, it's subjective to the poeple viewing your art. Some will like it, others will love it and a bunch others will hate it. So that helped me go through the mix of sensations I felt when I saw my 130th place (over 188).
What did I learn from all of this? First, that I improved! And I am improving, no matter what a score tells me. And I feel happy about it. Most of all, I feel proud of it. Second, I have some problems choosing my acting choices. I read somewhere than a huge part of an animation is not how you animate a shot, is what you decide to animate. Acting choices, especially in a competition like 11SC is very important. And I feel that I'm falling in very cliche poses. That's something I have to learn. But most importantly, I learned that my animations still feel floaty, weightless and somehow unnatural. And THAT is what I have to attack first.
Learning how to give weight into something that has no weight at all is not an easy task. But I also learned (some years ago in fact) that no task is impossible. So I'm currently working on it now.
I'd love to enter September competition, but I'm still not sure. I'm doing small tests for my demo reel (which I'll have to do in the next month and a half), walk cycles and stuff like that. Basic stuff actually. I have to learn those before getting into more complex things like acting. Anyways, if I decide to enter, score won't be a way of measure my progress as an animator.
EXITOS!
Kron.
Here is the animation I submitted:
As I said, I feel I'm improving as an animator, and the whole idea that my score was lower than my previous entry was really discouraging and disappointing. Discouraging basically.
However, checking all the entries on the competition, there is really a ton of good work! I can say that my entry (in my opinion) is better than some that got a better score, but again, I remembered that this is an art form, and as such, it's subjective to the poeple viewing your art. Some will like it, others will love it and a bunch others will hate it. So that helped me go through the mix of sensations I felt when I saw my 130th place (over 188).
What did I learn from all of this? First, that I improved! And I am improving, no matter what a score tells me. And I feel happy about it. Most of all, I feel proud of it. Second, I have some problems choosing my acting choices. I read somewhere than a huge part of an animation is not how you animate a shot, is what you decide to animate. Acting choices, especially in a competition like 11SC is very important. And I feel that I'm falling in very cliche poses. That's something I have to learn. But most importantly, I learned that my animations still feel floaty, weightless and somehow unnatural. And THAT is what I have to attack first.
Learning how to give weight into something that has no weight at all is not an easy task. But I also learned (some years ago in fact) that no task is impossible. So I'm currently working on it now.
I'd love to enter September competition, but I'm still not sure. I'm doing small tests for my demo reel (which I'll have to do in the next month and a half), walk cycles and stuff like that. Basic stuff actually. I have to learn those before getting into more complex things like acting. Anyways, if I decide to enter, score won't be a way of measure my progress as an animator.
EXITOS!
Kron.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
11 Second Club August Competition!
After not being able to find a good, creative and funny concept for the 11 Second Club June's competition, I decided this month is a go! I've been blocking my scene last week in stepped-mode, and today I moved to linear.
To be honest, I must be doing something wrong, because I find passing from stepped to linear way too complicated. I'm feeling I have a better understanding of timing if go directly to linear and avoid going through stepped. As I said, it must be me, because everywhere I read it says the same thing: workflow is stepped-linear-spline.
The first time I entered the 11SC I worked on linear from the beginning, but I make the mistake of trying to emulate the stepped mode through linear tangents. What I mean is that every pose was duplicated, marking the starting and ending pose. As you can imagine, it didn't turned out well. Now I've realized that when blocking in linear, you still have to keep in mind that the spline tangents are coming next, and linear and stepped are two different things (Duh!).
Anyway, next month I'll do the whole first passes in linear (taking into consideration my latest discovery) and see what I get. For now, you can find my postings on this month's competition in the Youtube link below.
Actually, here is my first blocking pass:
As you can see, I've done a bad staging. When you see the video, your eyes go back and forth between both characters, when they should stay focused on one of them (the one to the right in your screen is the main character, the other one is Charlie).
I recognized two mistakes here: The secondary character has poses as strong as the main one, if not stronger. Second, both characters share the same amount of space in the screen, making it difficult to recognize which one is the one to see.
I fixed this (I guess) by:
- Adjusting the camera, putting in the center of your screen the main character, and Charlie more to the left.
- And changing the poses on the secondary character
- I'll still try to play with the lighting and the colors of their clothes to increase the attention on the main character.
In the next playblast, you'll see that when the main character is talking, Charlie is doing nothing. And when the main character is not talking, Charlie is doing his "thing". Let's see how it goes. I still have to do the playblast on the second pass, but I'm still adjusting my now-linear curves.
Stay tuned!
Kron.
To be honest, I must be doing something wrong, because I find passing from stepped to linear way too complicated. I'm feeling I have a better understanding of timing if go directly to linear and avoid going through stepped. As I said, it must be me, because everywhere I read it says the same thing: workflow is stepped-linear-spline.
The first time I entered the 11SC I worked on linear from the beginning, but I make the mistake of trying to emulate the stepped mode through linear tangents. What I mean is that every pose was duplicated, marking the starting and ending pose. As you can imagine, it didn't turned out well. Now I've realized that when blocking in linear, you still have to keep in mind that the spline tangents are coming next, and linear and stepped are two different things (Duh!).
Anyway, next month I'll do the whole first passes in linear (taking into consideration my latest discovery) and see what I get. For now, you can find my postings on this month's competition in the Youtube link below.
Actually, here is my first blocking pass:
As you can see, I've done a bad staging. When you see the video, your eyes go back and forth between both characters, when they should stay focused on one of them (the one to the right in your screen is the main character, the other one is Charlie).
I recognized two mistakes here: The secondary character has poses as strong as the main one, if not stronger. Second, both characters share the same amount of space in the screen, making it difficult to recognize which one is the one to see.
I fixed this (I guess) by:
- Adjusting the camera, putting in the center of your screen the main character, and Charlie more to the left.
- And changing the poses on the secondary character
- I'll still try to play with the lighting and the colors of their clothes to increase the attention on the main character.
In the next playblast, you'll see that when the main character is talking, Charlie is doing nothing. And when the main character is not talking, Charlie is doing his "thing". Let's see how it goes. I still have to do the playblast on the second pass, but I'm still adjusting my now-linear curves.
Stay tuned!
Kron.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)