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Welcome to the Archive section of the blog!

“Alma” finally online

Posted on December 20, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | 2 Comments

Story is not ground breaking but the shortfilm is a very enjoyable experience.

Related posts:
Alma teaser

FX and Mat

Posted on December 20, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

fxandmat

fxandmat


I have spoken about those guys some time ago and browsing the net I realised they have a blog. I am not entirely sure who those guys are but they seem to be linked to the great british production company Nexus. Nexus is also a studio I have been admiring since the days of Satoshi Tomioka and his surreal short films like Justice Runners.

After the great Royal Bank of Canada advert, FX and Mat have created a very nice shortfilm for the next olympic games of 2010 and sharing with us some behind the scenes. Nice! {james I saw you ;-)}

Yep it is possible to animate in Max and rendering has never been an issue:

http://fxandmat.blogspot.com/

“There is no such thing as a Gruffalo”

Posted on December 20, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

Gruffalo

Gruffalo


Some of the best European Animation Mentor graduates worked on that great looking Christmas short film done for the BBC by Studio Soi in Germany. The Gruffalo is a very charming child story books created by Julia Donaldson.


[…] Read more

“The Passenger”

Posted on December 16, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

The Passenger

The Passenger

During an animation lunch, one of my co-workers told me about a crazy Australian video game developer who spent 8 years making a 7 minutes shortfilm from animatic to rigging, animation, rendering, compositing, music scoring and music FX!!!

[…] Read more

Weight shift

Posted on December 15, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Animation Mentor, Education | 2 Comments

The principles of animation have been laid down by Disney Animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the “Illusion of life ” in 1981.

Some more concepts have been added over the years and one of the most important addition, or clarification, is the concept of “weight shift”.

When standing straight, our weight is equally distributed over both legs, so to be able to lift up one leg, we need to transfer that weight in the opposite direction of the leg being lifted up.

If a character were to lift up his left leg and did so without shifting his weight from the centre to the right, he would immediately fall to the left as 50% of his weight wouldn’t be supported by his left leg anymore.

Animation is about stylised motion but no matter what style of animation you are going for,
weight shift is a concept you should always keep in mind when animating a character lifting up one of his legs. Successful weight shift is what separate the boys from the men!

Here are several examples for you, a good one I just made in Maya using the great Animation Mentor rig Ballie and a very average one that is still on my showreel :-) {examples coming soon}

{my reel, bottles lifting up his leg}

Ballie Step to side

Kyle Balda has a great weight shift demonstration on the trailer for his Masterclass .

kyle

http://www.kylebalda.com/

Related post:
28 principles of animation

Pencil test depot

Posted on December 14, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

Doppler

Doppler


Because of copyright reason, I wasn’t too sure this website would stay up for too long but it has already been 3 month and I must admit that there is a lot of amazing work on display so make sure you check the “Pencil Test Depot”.

[…] Read more

“Speaking of animation” blog

Posted on December 14, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | 1 Comment

Speaking of animation

Speaking of animation

After Pixar and the Splinedoctors, Disney and the Animation Podcast, Dreamworks has now http://www.speakingofanimation.com/ a blog managed by a bunch of animators working mainly at the house of Shrek and they have started with a bang! The website is really really professional and was very well thought. They also started with a great interview of an ex Disney 2d animator: Ted Ty. I didn’t know him before but he definitely has a lot of great things to say!

Check it out and bookmark the website immediately, hopefully a lot of similar interview will follow.

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/

Ted Ty interview

Simplification in animation

Posted on December 8, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | 4 Comments

I wanted to post this for a bit but never found the time until today.

One very important concept in animation is “Simplification”. Looking at shots like the following extract from Pixar’s “Presto”, you will realise that animation is not about making hyper realistic motion but rather “to paint it”, with broad brush strokes.

Instead of painfully detailing how Presto unlocks Alec’s cage, the animator only “evokes” the motion of opening the closing mechanism.

“Rhapsody with James” short film

Posted on December 8, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Animation Mentor, Friends | Leave a Comment

My ex-classmate Rok Andic posted his great shortfilm online. It is quite refreshing to see an AM shortfilm done with a custom rig and a customized soundtrack. The idea is very original which makes it delightful to watch.

Check it out!

http://rhapsody.rokandic.com/

Animator breakdown

Posted on December 4, 2009 
Filed Under Animation | 2 Comments

I was aware about those video but forgot to mention them on my blog. Here is the link to a cool series of old Disney and Warner short film where you can track which animator animated which shot. How cool is that??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwMIE6JwLUk&feature=player_embedded

and here is the link to all the videos

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=cartoonexpert#g/u

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