Unit 6- Commission Briefing

After finishing the last project we finally arrived to the last one of this year. and what a project, this project has as title commission, meaning that we are offered a commission from a supposed client and we have to produce a 2 minutes CG Animation around the topic chosen.

Being presented to the topic today, it is related the formation of organisms and their own life cycle, something that really fascinates me. ( Other post will show the further detail into the topic).

So accompanying the topic we have 5 weeks to produce the final outcome, a 2 minute CG, visualizing the chosen process. Although, is inevitable to mention that a solid pipeline or workflow is essential, as we will have the 1st pitch presentation with our client.

The work flow consists in:

The Final Animation ;
Concept art supporting our designs;
Storyboards carrying our ideas from our heads to paper ;
Animatic with sounds effects;
and a CG Pre-Vis;
Also to mention a detailed research into the topic, but also around the market of choice, meaning the target audience.

As part of the publication and promotion, we are asked to create a 'making of' of our animation in a PDF Version.

with all the tasks set, the scenarios given, and already a chosen scenario a more than ready to start this project, once again an enjoyable one for me...

Strategy: Work efficiently, and dont' waste time, because I dont want to be on caffeine on the last days of the project. :)

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Unit 5- Animation Evaluation

We had the crit day las friday, but I forgot to post a small evaluation related to this unit. This unit was the one, I may say I had the chance to learn more from a field completly unknown to me, Animation. Through the use of books and the workshop classes with Meg, I was able to create an animation in which I'm pleased with. Also, my know ledge in the animation field, either in 2d or 3d, broaden a lot, and now I'm ready to take what I learn, improve it and apply it to my animations from this time onwards.
Overall, I really enjoyed this unit, as allowed me to draw and draw non stop, improving my skill, however, I am a bit tiredfrom the lightbox, so Ill take a little break from it.

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Animation: Walk Cycle

here is the hand drawn version of the walk cycle, just as part of our animation tutorial classes.

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Maya Tutorial: Walk Cycle Double Bounce

The last of the walk cycle series, this walk cycle was rather different as we had personality to the character instead of just a standard cycle. We created a joyful, cocky walk cycle that not only made the character move but also it gave peculiar characteristics.

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Maya Tutorial: Rigging Tutorials

This tutorials are from this week's maya classes. Taking in what we learned before, we just had to rig some small details the can cause some complication when facing them.

Firstly is the characters eyes, where we add a locator in the control of the eyes and it gives us the chance of aiming the eyes to it, really helpful and useful when to animate a character.

Eyes Rig:

The second tutorial was around rigging another detail of a character, the tail of a tentacle

Tail Rig:

Finally, the arm rig, this tutorial is not just simply a arm rig, it is a rig used when we want to pass objects along from 1 character to the other, without having objects floating.



Passing Objects Rig:

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Unit 05-The Ecstatic Peppermill...- Final Animation

Here is final animation starring my ecstatic Peppermill, I'm happy to say that I'm quite pleased with it as it is my 1st animation ever, this unit helped me to understand how traditional animation really works, and how the same principals can be applied to CG. Through Timing and Spacing.

Even though the animation follows pretty much the animatic, slight changes were made to allow a better flow, but also to correct any faults seen in the animatic, such as the silhouette sneeze.

I hope you enjoy it!

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James Cameron, From Titanic to Avatar

James Cameron is an Canadian film director and screenwriter, who is mainly known for directing the most expensive yet innovative films in Hollywood. His films are memorable, not maybe for their storyline, but for the use of special effects to portray the story fully.
His films include the Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day ( 1991) films, all directed by him, A sucessful sequel of Ridley's Scott's Alien, Aliens (1986). Also, The Abyss (1989), and the high-profit Titanic (1997). Recently he released Avatar 2009.


As I mentioned before, Cameron applies special effects in most of his films, but the most visible ones and achieving are in Titanic or Avatar. Titanic released in 1997, used and open the way to the use of Computer Generated Special effects to be used in films, at this time, CG was progressing in terms of technology and popularity, since its use in a the 1st full feature length film, Toy Story in 1995. Thus, Titanic was the pioneer of CG special effects in films, because not only it open the way to many other films to start using it, but also it created scenarios never imagined possible with the use of models in a studio.

Titanic is best known for its amazing techonlogic achievement and not its storyline, because it open people's minds to see something imaginary but yet so real and present. This Technology is still used nowadays, where the models era is long gone and CG took over the special effects market.

12 years had past since Titanic was out, the story repeated, Cameron became the man behind the special effects in films. Avatar was released in 2009, and it became the most profit film ever made, but also the most expensive one, because once again the extravagant use of special effects, to aid tell the story. Although, the special effects used in Titanic are believable, and much superior than the previous films, Avatar took special effects to a whole new level, because to set us in the story, it created a whole new world, never seen or visited, with only the power of CG. it also used the recently discovered perfomance capture technique, to create digital characters as actors.
James Cameron is the director behind the most extravagant and astonishing visuals in films in hollywood at the present time.

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