Maya Animation and the story of heartache...

As you know by now I took a course on Maya essentials. For said course I had to do a 10 to 20 second animation, based off a toy that I choose. I picked the "Gazillion Bubbles Bug" and proceeded to hate every minute of staring at him and my screen to get even half of his details right, while learning the program. I screamed, I cried, I bitched at the screen, program, on FB and to my husband. BUt I got not only a decent resemblance of the toy, but also a 15 second animation out of it. Just for point of reference on how... hopeful... naive... enthusiastic... and over-acheiving I was at the beginning of class, I am also going to show you the original story boards for what I had conceved as the animation I was going to do.

But first the Animation:

And now my SB's:

An old GIANT puppet that I found

photos of and I helped to build. The client eventually changed their mind and they had to redo the entire thing. But it was fun to help build and set up. I even have a funny story about it. I got a bruise on my thumb from all the cardboard I had to cut to help build it. The scissors I used had a really hard, non-ergonomic handle, that put repeated pressure on my thumb. When I asked the pharmacist if an arthritis finger pressure wrap would help, so that I could continue cutting on day two, she asked if I got the bruised thumb from texting. Ah, to still look so young!

Anyway, enjoy the photos as they show some of the fun we had in building and setting it up for shooting.

So this is how he stood at the end of the day, with the "3D" cardboard words the were going to be stop-frame animated with us as the "models". See those shingles. Hand cut, stapled and glued cardboard and fabric, made by yours truly.

First photo of the yeti being changed. They didn't like the shingles. Bah humbug.
as he stood after the "de-shingling". Cute right?
His arms are too long. Sorry yeti, need to amputate those arms.

His final phase. Framed by the paper set, with tissue water and ice. And here are the final clips:

Movistar Patinaje, Movistar Flamenco, and Movistar Cueva.

Hidden Danger

A quick animation that I just did. Just trying to remind you that YES I still animate. On occasion. Enjoy.

Character Animation

I did this with a digital camera and no Stop Motion capturing software. In a way this was old school, like film, where I hoped that my timing was right as I was shooting it since I wouldn't know until after the fact. No onion skinning or toggle cheats for me. As you can see it's still really fast, but even with "mistakes" like this one I can learn a lot.

My latest animation

This is another quick animation that I did a couple of days ago. I used the only 2 puppets that I have finished (the others if you recall are in various stages of creation) and decided that having them fight wold be a lot of fun. Other than that though, I really had no set plan as to what exactly they would do. I love it when puppets decide on their own what they will do and truly come to life. I hope you enjoy it to!

All 6 Seconds as one Movie!

As promised, here are all 3 dailies in 1 film. A grand total of 6 seconds! Enjoy.

Spider End

So this is the last part of this animation. I may do more next week, depending on my schedule, but either way I will try to splice this together over the weekend. Enjoy!

Spider Nest Take 2

Here is the spider taking the egg (did you get that last time? What with all my lighting and aperture changes and whatnot). The legs again get a little jittery, but I think they sorta work here. So far I'm pretty happy with what's coming out. I can't wait to see this thing all spliced together!

Spider Walk from the Beginning

I started over today. Using the auto-toggle button, and the spider walk cycle research ( I was on the right path, just not quite getting it). It still slides a little (missed a couple of movements with the back legs), but I think it is a vast improvement from yesterday. At the rate I'm going I may have my full scene shot today! I'll post as soon as each 50 frame segment is complete.

Oh, and I fiddled a little with the camera settings through Dragon (nice feature), added some white dry brush and a soft spotlight as well. This way you should be able to tell what the spider is grabbing. Do you know what it is?

Spider Nest

So I switched from shooting on two's over to ones with this one. I thought I had the walk down better, but I think I was wrong. I found the Auto-Toggle button on Dragon and I think my animation improved. Can you tell when I found it?

Dragon Trial is only 50 frames

Why am I telling you this? Because I now have to limit how I shoot, shoot multiple takes and then try to string them together afterward to get proper continuity.

Here is my first 50 frames:

I really didn't know how I was going to make the spider walk. And well I am not 100% happy with said walk, especially not the beginning, but it's movement and animation and I'm finally starting to get things done. I may start over to get proper movement down, and I may have to switch some of the lighting since some details are missing. Hope you enjoy.

Really quick Animatic/Beat Board

So I've been working on a quick practice animation and ended up designing this spider and background. I wanted to start full animation today, but realized that I really had no clue as to what I was gonna make it do. So here is a quick beat board type thing to help me figure out movement, layout and "story". Hope you like it. You'll get full dailies tomorrow.

Enjoy.

UNC: Minds on a Mission

So this is the spot that the globe was created for as well as various other props.

UNC: Minds on a Mission.

I also helped the animator out by being his hand model and all I learned from being animated myself was amazing. I had doped that this year I'd have some of my animation on this blog ready for you all to see, but alas that has not come to pass. I have a week off, so that i may animate, and i will be posting an "End of the Year" post soon, with a lot of interesting insights into this past year in art.

For now, enjoy some animation.