amanda

*whispers*: 3D Animation.
-world goes into chaos-

That kinda-sorta-maybe happened in my head when I realised I had to learn to animate in 3D. I mean, maybe it's just me– but, when someone requests for a flat drawing, it's easy. When they request for something to be drawn in 3-dimensional, that's when walls have holes in them and floors get flooded with tears.

Okay, for a second there I made it sound really awful, didn't I? The great thing about Falmouth University is that they actually teach you from scratch, which is fantastic (especially for me)! It didn't matter if you had top notch experience with 3D softwares or even better– if you have zero experience at all.

Before the practice session began, Georg gave us some links to some tutorials to learn about the Maya interface beforehand to save time on the practice sessions. The video that I found really helpful was on <Lynda> and it's a video called 'Maya 2017 Essential Training' by George Maestri. I can't seem to link the entire video here, but if you have access to Lynda, do try checking that video out. Apparently, the video didn't really appeal to some people that I talked about it to but for me, I felt really at ease George Maestri did the voiceovers as he explained the steps along with the interface rather clearly. Adding to that, the transcript section that is placed below the video helped in catching up with some of the stuffs that I've missed from the video.

So, when we had our very first 3D practice session with Georg, I was pretty excited. Why? Partly because I was going to learn something very new and also possibly try to appreciate the existence of 3D models that people go through lengths to create. Also, seeing a few third years making such complex and detailed 3D human models on the Cintiq in the studios make me wonder if I'll ever get to that stage of appreciating 3D modelling that much.

Anyway! Our first task was to animate two bouncing balls. One of which was the bounce of a light ball and the other was the bounce of a heavy ball. Here goes:


It seemed alright when I completed it at that time (which was about a week ago). Now, looking back at the video, the ball doesn't really feel like a ball, if you get what I mean. It feels like a floating balloon that has been forced to act like a ball.

I seem to have a problem with giving bouncing balls their natural rhythm, which to me, makes it very odd-looking. It's probably to do with the timing... I wonder. I'll have to do some test runs until I eventually get that Eureka moment. Until then,



Heavy ball bounce:


Definitely feels much better than my first attempt! So, so happy with this.

Have a nice day!

This has been long overdue (by long overdue, I actually meant like a week overdue), but we had a lecture on the module of Animation Principles a week ago. At the end of the session, our lecturer with his funky boots, Georg, told us to take some footage of us tossing any ball (ping-pong ball, tennis ball, basketball, etc..) and watch it frame by frame in Adobe Premiere Pro.

We were told to look at the distance that the ball has moved in between frames and also the timing of the bouncing ball. From there, we also were encouraged to look at the arcs that have been formed from the bouncing movement.

My friends and I recorded ourselves throwing a ping-pong ball on the table at the library (ooh, what rebels) and later used the rotoscoping method on Photoshop. Needless to say, I spent a good five hours sat at the studio trying to rotoscope 198 frames and the result was... okay, I guess? You can be the judge of that. In my personal opinion, I could have done better at the rotoscoping part of the video.

Here we go:


I know it's fairly unpolished and somewhat jerky, or you may have thought you wasted 13 seconds of your life. Guess what? Think of the beautiful arcs you have witnessed– it isn't all thaaaat bad, right?

I'd never thought I would actually be sat in the studio using the ellipse tool, tracing over a ping-pong ball, following it through 198 frames. There's always a first time, right? On that note, thanks to <this> tutorial that I found on YouTube, I managed to get through the entire process of rotoscoping with Photoshop without physically smashing my head on the table.

Another video that we were told to try out and observe the movements was the walking human. My friends and I filmed each other walking around the library past midnight... let's just say that I hope the video never lands on anybody's hands.

Have a nice day!

The following 12 principles of animation were introduced by the 'old men' of Walt Disney Studios in the 1930s and later printed in their book called, "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" in 1981.

So, the 12 principles are as follows:

• Squash and stretch
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Straight ahead and pose-to-pose
• Follow through and overlapping action
• Slow-in and slow-out
• Arcs
• Secondary action
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid drawing
• Appeal

Here's a little clip that I came across while looking at some materials online. Italian illustrator, <Cento Lodigiani>, created this clip to help people further understand the topic of the 12 principles of animation by applying it to a very simple subject a.k.a., a cube.





In my personal opinion, almost all of the principles that have been listed out above give a certain breath of life towards animation. I definitely disagree on having 'appeal' as part of the list as different strokes for different folks. Having the idea of making sure everything is aesthetically appealing is somehow narrow-minded as most media nowadays be it animation, music videos or even paintings in general, rely on strange or even grotesque art forms to portray a certain setting or mood.

One of which would be the Czech surrealist filmmaker and artist, Jan Švankmajer, who directed an animated short film called "Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti Dialogu)", which is split into three parts:

1) Eternal conversation (Dialog věcný):
- Arcimboldo-like heads reducing themselves from large complicated objects into finely-chopped copies of themselves.

2) Passionate discourse (Dialog vášnivý):
- A clay man and clay woman dissolving into one another sexually, then quarrel then reducing themselves into some sort of clay mess.

3) Exhaustive discussion (Dialog vyčerpávající):
- Two elderly playheads extrude various objects on their tongues (toothbrush and toothpaste, shoes and shoelaces, pencil and sharpener etc..) and mixes them in various... odd combinations.




To wrap things up, I would say that new mediums have arisen since the era of when "The 12 Principles of Animation" was introduced. Alongside with new mediums, new rules are formed. Also, with us living in the 21st century, rules are made to be broken– hence, animated films are continuing to push boundaries into new territory (which, if I might add, is awesome).

Have a nice day!

Hello! Welcome to my first ever animation-slash-art-slash-university blog. This blog has been created to follow up with the daily progress that I have and am about to make as an Animation & Visual Effects student at Falmouth University.
theanimatingpanda is no doubt a work in progress, so, I sincerely apologise for whatsoever mistakes that I am about to make. I would very much like to make this blog a little more personal, such as just posting things that have inspired me or maybe some personal work along the way.






Well... that's it for now when it comes to theanimatingpanda! Enjoy the journeys of the animating panda!