Monday, December 2, 2013

Late nights!

So last night I stayed up till about 4 am, working on the two ball bounces I was talking about in yesterdays post. They look ok, but the bounce on the second one looks a bit off to me.. In any case I shall upload them here and continue working on the list of 51 animation exercises.

Practice time!

So this past week was Thanksgiving, my awesome mom came to visit from Sat-Friday and i wanted to hang with my mom so my animation practice was put on hold. I did get to bust out a few poses with Stewart (a free rig from AnimationMentor) and a toy Trex from Creative Crash. I've got a lot of practice to go with camera angles and pushing poses. I'll be honest, lately I've been feeling that "afraid to fail/practice" feeling. Which I just have to push through and keep practicing anyway. Aside from these I'm starting the 51 animation practices that are on animatorisland.com. First is the non decaying ball bounce, once the mechanics are hammered out I'll make others with specific emotions. Happy, sad, etc.

Onward!









Monday, November 18, 2013

Lemme find that aloe..

So I burnt (burned?) myself out recently, working on that animation and the schedule I was trying to keep. I think I'll build up slowly over time..

I recently found Animation Island, which seems to have a good amount of the things I need to grow. They have a list of 50 or 51 things to practice. Off to check some stuff out and start working. Sorry for the wait! And thanks for checking back in. :D

Monday, November 4, 2013

90ish PERCENT DONE!

So during this week I got some good reference, ripped it apart, understood some of it and added it to my animation. The hits are more impactful, but the whole thing seems too fast. I rendered it out with motion blur and put it up on Youtube but for some reason it downrezzed it from 1080 to 240. When I get home later on tonight I'll get it set up right and put the link up here.

Edit: Here's the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmrxslwf4As

For those who read the blog, constructive criticism is always appreciative. D:

Monday, October 28, 2013

Some progress!

I got a bit of work done yesterday on the animation. I also started putting them up on Youtube so I can show them properly here. I wonder if there's a way to change my blog from one email address to another so I can easily upload and post them here. Anyway! Even though I got a lot of stuff in with timing and whatnot there's still a bit to go, the landing of Beefy, maybe a better ending pose for Bony. Even possibly...an altered camera angle. The silhouette is a bit cluttered during the hits in the air, a better cam angle may fix it. Once this animation is done the next one will be a very quick dialogue piece, to start facial animation practice. Thanks for checking out my stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKDBjJDZpA

Monday, October 21, 2013

Week two on the same animation

I should probably minimize the scope of these weekly animations to simple things since I'm now on week 3 of this single animation. Granted the other reason why is that I'm not working on it nearly as much as I should. This weekend flew by with a birthday party, buying and setting up the living room tv, etc. Work has been done on the animation, and it is looking more complete than the beginning of last week. The timing is coming together but it's still in stepped. I'll get a playblast of it tonight.

Peace!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Is Pokemon interrupting life or is life interrupting Pokemon?

So, I didn't finish my animation last week. I did mention that this one was a bit more intense and would need more time. I have not yet taken that time to do so. Pokemon came out...4 badges ago and it's been hard to pull myself away from it. I did get back to my file tonight and I'm organizing the timing to make it feel right. Zhen (my roommate with whom I workout with) suggested to have Beefy bounce and then get hit by the knee. It looks a lot better with the bounce, but now I'm at the tough part of filling in the bits in between the keys. I prefer to use straight forward animation so I get a bit lost once the keys poses are set.

One of my biggest hangups as an artist is not knowing how to make what I see in my head. I choke up and stop working on whatever it is I'm working on. This is the main reason I'm not as proficient at my drawing as I should be. This sometimes carries over to my animations and they get delayed, at work I have no choice and I just keep working on it till I figure it out.

So I gotta take that approach with my animations at home, quit being a little bitch when it doesn't look how I want it and figure shit out.

On a bit more of a positive note I was able to download "Stewart" one of the rigs that Animation Mentor uses. I quite like the proportions on the character, ALSO he's not segmented like Norman or Ultimate Beefy/Bony. I definitely have some plans for that rig, some with the gun that I rigged up for TCAE. Anyway, updates to come over the weekend when I plan to finish the rest of this scene and start a new one!


Thanks for reading.
Mike

Friday, October 11, 2013

Mid-animation post

Hey there! Glad you came back to check how the animation is going. The time I have to work on this during the week isn't is as much as I'd like but I'm doing stuff. Maybe my productivity would go up with Netflix off...Anyway I'm laying out the animation in stepped still, getting poses to look nice, and finding the motion that I want the characters to go through. Motion-wise it's looking ok but I haven't really messed with the timing too much, and that's obviously the biggest factor.

I need to push my poses more but can't seem to see where they should go, and the timing is really baffling me. I think for the interest of learning through mistakes I should power through it and find out what I did wrong and fix the mistakes on the next animation which will be the big characters retaliation.

So I'm posting the playblast, yes the timings off, and I need to finish the bug guys bounce to a stop. and probably put the skinny guy in a better end pose but it's getting somewhere. If you have any constructive criticism on posing or maybe a preemptive tip on timing that'd be great. Saying "X is too fast" doesn't help me now cause I didn't put in the timing yet. (It seems silly to say this but so many times have I said "I haven't touched this part yet, look at that part." gets ignored.) Anyway posting and bed. NIGHT!

P.S. Still haven't done anything with getting a better video quality. Will test over weekend. 


Monday, October 7, 2013

A new week, and a new animation!

Hey again! Before I start off on this weeks animation, I want to address the quality of video I posted on my last post. It seems that Blogger went and didn't put an HD version. I think I'll have to put these up on Youtube and link them to get the better quality video.

So this week I'm doing a more in depth animation, it'll be a couple punches/kicks, maybe to be added to later, who knows. The two characters in this scene are Ultimate Bony and Ultimate Beefy. Similar to Norman in the fact that they're segmented but not, cause they don't have faces.

Anyway, the current plan is to have the larger character checking his gun, and have the thin character drop down into the shot, sweep kick, jumping knee to the midsection followed by a back kick. If the timing doesn't allow for the knee then the sweeping kick followed by the back kick. I think I'll start storyboarding things out so I get some practice with that, and to better explain what I aim to do.

To things!

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Sideroll!

Alright! In a weekend sprint while battling the urge to play the Wind Waker remake I finished a quick animation to adhere to the schedule I set for myself.

So this animation is just a quick sideroll as the title mentioned, I did a forward roll a bit ago with a rig from my past studio but since it belongs to that company I decided not to put that one up online (mainly cause I altered him a bit by giving him a different weapon.)



I hope this video works, sometimes blogger doesn't like my playblasts. (It may be the QT format..) Anyway, I also have the gun transformation for you to check out! This is the transformation from the base gun to the sniper, it has 4 other forms although I think this one is the coolest out of them (it's the most intricate of them so far.)



Also, I got my car! It's a sexy little thing, 2011 Honda CR-Z. Also it's a manual, which I'm learning. Alright that's it for this week that's ending. I'm gonna go practice driving stick, play some Zelda, and plan this coming weeks animation. I may even make another post today. (Two in one day!? Whaaaat!?)

Aight, keep it loose.

Mike

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Guns, guns, and cars.

On the animation front, I just finished a crunch week and can now implement a weekly plan that I...well planned. Anyway, each week I'll make an animation and blog about it 2 or 3 times. I've got new rigs to play with, and some cool ideas to try. This week is the start, a day late but shits been busy.

So! Over at Iridium studios we've been bustin our butts to get our vertical slice done. A vertical slice is similar to a demo, but demos sometimes make extraneous things that don't get in the final game. The vert slice is a level from the game that's playable early in it's (almost) finality. Anyway we've got in 3 characters and an enemy in the fifth level of the game. The voice commands are amazingly responsive and it's cool commanding your units without using the mouse and keyboard. The title mentions guns twice, the first gun is the weapon for the game. Which by the way, is freaking sweet. You can tell I meant that cause it was italicized and underlined. Anyway it's awesome, cause only the coolest games have their guns TRANSFORM. Yeah. Shit's tight. I shall be uploading a vid of one of it's transformations when I get to my work comp tomorrow. Currently now that we've finished work on the vert slice I'll be rigging up the gun properly.

The other guns would be the ones that you'll have to buy tickets for. *flex* I just started working out with my roommate, goodness I'm stupidly sore but man that sore feeling means it's working. Now to keep this up over time till the results kick in.

This post is taking forever mainly cause I'm watching the animaniacs while trying to write it.

Cars!! I shall be getting my first new(ish) a manual 2011 Honda CR-Z, with 30,000 miles. I'll be picking it up this week and then be cruising with my new ride. Can't wait!

That's it for today, I'm gonna go start some random animation. AWWW YEAH!!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

My word, this half of the country is gorgeous!

     So, I'm from Long Island NY, and South Florida, which means I'm accustomed to the world being very flat. Now that I'm in California (living in the Valley) where I live is flat but I am surrounded by MOUNTAINS! Mountains to the North, mountains to the South, it's all so pretty. Today is the second Tuesday of my employment of Iridium Studios and I am having a BLAST. In n Out for lunch? Just happened, delicious. The weather is much better now that it's not humid like Florida is and Burbank is FILLED with people in my industry! It surely is what I wished for when wanting to move here.

    Currently I'm learning Unity, finding out all the small little details of importing rigs and animations to get everything working. Once that's done I just have to wait for all the finished character models, rig em up and get to animating! Once I'm completely settled in (around early September, move into the new apt on Aug. 1) I can start saving up money for my iAnimate classes! I can't wait to get some more hands on experience with an experienced animator showing me how to improve my work and workflow. Until then I'm also working on a side project for the new short by Winck Studios, gotta get that cinematic animation muscle flexing. Anywho, that's the haps. If anything new happens I'll get to posting! I'll also be posting work from TCAE, cause it'll mostly be cycle. Also here's an attempt to upload a video of a dodge roll!

Monday, June 24, 2013

GREAT NE...Oh wait..I already made that title.

Hey there! Some large large things have happened since the last post. I have left Trendy Entertainment as an animator and joined the growing ranks of  Iridium Studios. I'll be working on their new title, There Came an Echo. Unlike Dungeon Defenders this game will be in the sci fi category instead of fantasy. For those who haven't seen here's a link to the video LINK!

If you're curious of my reasoning of leaving Trendy, it's because I was offered a position with great potential and opportunities. The west coast of this continent is where most of the movies and game studios are located so I chose to place myself in the thick of it. I wish Trendy the best of luck with the rest of Dungeon Defenders PVP and Co Op and can't wait to play the finished product.

Demo Reel time! I've been working on a revision of the Demo Reel I'm posting now but can't show you since I have a character that hasn't been revealed yet, and I'm still under NDA. The current reel was put together in two days, and needed some extra lovin so I made a revision (which like I said, can't show yet..) So you'll have to deal with this one for now.

In the first week of July I'll be moving to the Burbank area, starting on There Came an Echo, and saving up money to get classes at iAnimate! Once I start taking those you'll see some real improvement! (If I showed you current work, which I'm kinda lax on sadly..) Blogging and Tweeting are hard habits for me to get into. :-/


Shit. The video won't upload, gotta do it through another site. Gimme a bit.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Great news everyone!!

In the next two weeks I will be able to post my new Demo Reel on here to show you all! I made some revisions to it since I showed it off at GDC, mainly stationary cameras in the Front, Side, and 3/4 views. As well as a piece that I worked on for fun to practice a snappier timing. So that's going up in two weeks and I also have a big announcement around that time as well!

I have to admit I hit a bit of a funk right after GDC, don't know why, but I've not been animating as much as I should or want to. Luckily, two of my friends from Full Sail, are here in Gainesville for a bit so I can get back to a really excited environment, working on stuff we have fun doing. Since that happened I'm going to be making a lot of animation assets, run cycles, dialogues, timing and weight practice, and especially acting. I need to get back into animating for cinematics because that's what I want to do. If I get stuck practicing game assets all the time I'll never get up to game cinematics and then movies. So the new project begins, I plan to have one large animation per month and smaller one per week anims. What I make I'll post here, thanks for reading!

Monday, April 1, 2013

To All the People I Met at GDC, WELCOME!!

Hey there! If you're checking out this site that means that you acquired my business card at this past GDC. I've got some updating to do of the Demo Reel page, updating with animations I've recently done, and the important post that my current demo reel cannot be posted up on the internet yet. It's all under NDA since it's all Dungeon Defenders 2 assets. I can post it on a locked Tumblr and send you the passcode, I'm not sure if I can send it through email yet, I'll ask and put the answer up here.

Since the other animator and I were both gone for a week we have a bit of catching up to do (still crunching :-/). Once I update the reel with the amazing critiques I received I'll make sure to put that up here. If you want to talk to me personally, or ask for me to email my new reel (if I can) please send me an email at MikeSmithAnim@gmail.com.

Monday, March 4, 2013

GDC and Crunch time!!

All right, so GDC is at the end of the month and it's going to be a blast. I'll be rooming with 3 friends from FS Robert Baum, Josh Gregurich, and Stephen Wong. We arrive in SF the Saturday before everything starts so that we can check out the city before the conference. There'll be some family and friend visiting, sightseeing, eating and game playing of course.

PAX East is that weekend right before GDC as well so that means here at Trendy we're on a crunch to get things ready to show to the lovely people there. What we're working on I can't say but I can say that if you like DD then you'll enjoy what we have to show you all.

Anyway I also have been keeping up on my Twitter frequently ever since the Oscars and their rudeness to the VFX industry. So if you don't have me on Twitter already, @Veloth88 is where you'll find me. I'll also link this to my followers on Twitter as well so maybe more people can see this blog! In which I have a thought to do a weekly animation and put it up on here. I made a few cool ones since my last post so i'll throw those up as well.

In terms of playing games Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate comes out in two weeks from midnight tonight and if you can't tell by that exact timing I'm super fucking excited for it. Smash and MH are the two games that I'm most obsessed about. Thousands of hours into both of them, no other series garners that dedication from me. Till it comes out I'm playing Fire Emblem Awakening, which I forgot how good it was, and am very glad that I have the GBA Sacred Stones from the Ambassador program. Bioshock Infinite comes out while I'm in SF and I want to try to get the edition with the statue but haven't thought about how to get it back if I bought it there. Maybe ship it through UPS...I mentioned in my last post about a desk and I got one, gave it to my g/f then bought a newer one for cheap, and Neville (the cat from Ted) is chillin like he's gonna work on something.

So, here's Neville getting hair on my chair.

Here's the leaping hammer strike 


I wanted to do a creature run that was bug like, and here's what i came up with.


I started watching Samurai Champloo again and really like Mugens animations so I grabbed reference from the intro of the show and bam.


That's it for me this week, I'm working on some other things I plan on showing next post which will be in a week at the longest.