New Reel and Stuff

Well hi there!  It has been quite some time since my last post, so I thought I'd make one to let you guys know what's been happening!

So since Animation Mentor ended, I updated my demo reel!  Here it is...

I finally added music to my demo reel too!  I really love the bass lines in most of Cake's songs, so I decided to go ahead and use one of their songs, without the words, in the background of my reel.  Hopefully it's not too too low and you guys can still hear it, I didn't want it to be too distracting.  You might notice that I also cut the ball throwing one short by taking the front end of the animation off too.  I did this because I felt like the beginning had some issues that I didn't have time to fix before submitting it to the Reel FX Apprenticeship.

Which brings me to my next thing that's been happening!  So about a month ago, Reel FX University picked my animation reel to be critiqued by an animator at Reel FX.  Exciting right!  Well I still have yet to receive the critique, but when I do I will definitely let you guys know what they said, if you don't already see it through it being on my Facebook page.  I also decided to apply for the Reel FX apprenticeship!  I just submitted everything for my application this past Friday, and now I just have to impatiently wait until sometime in November to hear back from them.  I really really hope I get it though, that'd be just awesome!

I've also been thinking about partaking in the Riot contest that has started as well.  Might be fun to try out!

Well that's all I've got for now guys!  I'm going to try to be more productive since I've been kind of slacking lately.  I am super excited for my trip to CTNx in a month though!  Can't wait!  Have a great day/week/month guys!

AN04 - Final Reel

My how time has flown!  I can't believe it but it has been a year and I am currently done with Animation Mentor!  

Now I say currently because when I started the Animation Fundamentals program, last September, the course was completed when you finished class 4 and class 5 and 6 were extra classes after the fundamentals track.  I'm going to stick with that frame of mind because it really reminds me of when I was taking my undergraduate courses at UCF where they would try to make you change you catalog year to be current but then it would actually make you stay in school way longer.  

Now I know that class 5 and 6 should be taken at some point because they are very good and useful classes, but honestly I do not have the means right now to take them.  I might take them in the future though, who knows!

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Well here it is, my final reel for both AN04 and Animation Mentor as a whole for the time being...

You may notice this, or not, but I did make a few revisions to my dialogue assignment before including it in this reel.

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I want to thank all of the mentors that I had the opportunity of learning so much from (Anthony Wong, Steve Cady, Steve Cunningham, and Joseph Antonuccio), they have taught me more in a year about animation than I would say all of my undergraduate years.  Thank you also to all of the AM community, they are so very helpful with everything!  I really want to thank my classmates as well as those who took me on as a peer buddy.  You guys gave me so many helpful critiques, were so supportive, and I'm so glad to have met all of you!  Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank everyone else who has supported me through this program as well as those of you who have just read my blog from time to time, it means the world to me!

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Well that was longer than I planned on it being, but I just think you guys are all awesome!  And don't worry, I will still be posting stuff on here even though I will not be in class anymore.  Have a great week everyone!

AN04 - Second Assignment Wk.6&7

Hey guys!  So to be honest, I forgot to make a post last week.  But to make up for that, you get to see both of my polish passes in one post!

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So first up, my first polish pass!  I went through all the channels of all the curves to smooth everything out in the graph editor.  I also cleaned up the mouth shapes and timing for some of the dialogue so that it looks more dynamic.

My mentor also noted that I could go through and make some nicer looking arcs on the arms and head.

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And now for this past week's pass of polish!  This week I went through the mouth shapes again and pushed some of the open shapes even more.  I made sure to go through the tongue animation to add a little extra finesse to the dialogue too.  Also, I went through all the curves again to smooth out any hitches in the graph editor.

All in all I think this assignment turned out pretty good for being my first legit dialogue assignment.  I'm not going to include the dialogue assignment I did in undergrad as being a legit dialogue assignment, that one was pretty bad, haha!

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Well have a great week everyone!

AN04 - Second Assignment Wk.5

Hello everyone!  So for last week we had to submit the second round of our blocking plus/first spline pass.  We also had to submit a dynamic hand pose for our mentor to critique.

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Here's what I submitted for my second blocking plus pass...

This pass was mostly me adding even more breakdowns to the animation.  My mentor also pointed out that he seems to be doing a lot with his hands so I'm going to simplify that this week and start smoothing things out in the graph editor.

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The dynamic hand pose I chose was one that is in my animation...

Again, my mentor pointed out some changes I could make to make this hand pose more dynamic, so I'll adjust it for this week.

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Also this week I attempted to use my Wacom tablet to animate...

Let me tell you, that did not last long, lol!  I was just so slow with it and I needed to be moving at a faster pace so I'm back to using my mouse.  I might try it again when I don't have homework due every week.

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Well I hope everyone has a great week, see ya!

AN04 - Second Assignment Wk.4

Well lookie here!  I'm actually making a blog post on a Monday!  Yay for being productive!  So for last week we had to submit the first of two weeks of blocking plus pass.  Yes folks, for this one they are really breaking down the process and stretching out the assignment for a total of 7 weeks.

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So, for my blocking plus pass I wanted to add more needed breakdown poses as well as get the shot out of stepped mode and into spline mode.  So here is what I submitted...

Now I'm going to be completely honest with you guys.  You can probably tell, but I did very little in the way of working in the graph editor with the splines on this pass.  In fact I just took the whole thing and converted everything to Auto Tangents.  I know!  Some people say it's bad, but for me, I think converting everything to Auto Tangents and then going into each and every channel of every curve and adjusting the tangents from there really helps me get started on the whole splining process.  Don't judge me!

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Alright guys, I hope you all have a great Monday as well as the rest of the week.  See ya!

P.S. - This past week I was introduced to the Crypt of the NecroDancer soundtrack and it is awesome to listen to in the background while I'm animating!  This great soundtrack was composed by Danny Baranowsky who coincidentally composed the soundtracks for Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, which are also quite awesome!

AN04 - Second Assignment Wk.3

Hey guys!  So this past week we had to continue blocking out our shot and add more key poses and breakdowns.  

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In the lecture for this past week, they talked about important mouth shapes to hit in your dialogue animation.  So that is where I started with this pass of animation...

I still have to adjust some head movements and eye direction things that my mentor pointed out, but after those fixes I can head into the blocking plus/first spline pass of animation!

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Have a great week!

AN04 - Second Assignment Wk.2

Hello everyone!  I'm finally making a post before the weekend!  So this past week we had to submit the first blocking pass of our animations, along with the phonetics of our dialogue and two more of those poses showing the acting beats from our reference.

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I can't remember if I said this in the last post, but I ended up going with clip number two.  To refresh your memory, here's clip number two...

And here is the first blocking pass that I submitted...

My mentor gave me some good notes about certain eye directions that I should change, as well as some head movements that should be altered slightly.  I'll make sure to add those this week!

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I also had to break down my dialogue and write it all out phonetically.  I had to do this because when animating dialogue, you don't really want to have the character pronounce every word that is in the dialogue, they would end up looking very chattery.  What you want to do is animate what you hear.  There's a difference because generally when we speak we don't enunciate every word.  It's also a good idea to make note of what has a stronger emphasis as well as weaker emphasis in the dialogue to help plan out the shot.  So here's the phonetic breakdown that I created for my dialogue...

Also writing that out made me feel a bit like I was in first grade and didn't know how to spell things correctly, haha!

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And finally here are two poses that I took screen shots of that showed a couple of the acting beats...

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Well that's all for now, have a great week!