PEPMIN THE ELEPHANT: Lets get RIGGING

Right so previously I was in the starting point of texturing. However I thought it would be better and safer time wise to start now and worry about making him pretty later on. so here is the joint layout of him so far.

Just need to get the naming down and sort all the fidgety parts of the rig and freezing parts so that nothing is effected later on when so many hours have been done to it.

Next step is to get the tail and trunk hard rigged but in a way to get a nice 'curl' and 'sway' to both body parts.

it's been a while since I rigged but the memories are flooding back and I think this character is going to do well being animated for his shot on the big screen.

SPECIAL TALK: Business of Masterclass

During our business studies we were introduced to 3 people, each with amazing and well lived backgrounds towards the business world.

our main topic was about your IP about the usual of whats your rights towards something that you own and how to make sure you keep your creative idea without another taking it from you using your weapon of ownership.

There was plenty of discussion with the certain key points about how to start and run a business and how to run a business smoothly whilst sharing ownership of an IP with another. Going deeper into collaborations there was also the case of backup plans incase another partner takes full credit so using  good ideas to keep your own is the basics of always signing your work and perhaps putting it in a safe place or get a lawyer to keep it for a fee.

These points interested me a lot in the guest talk. At some point in my future, I would like to do some collaborations in my spare time with others whilst being in the industry so that I can improve on my own skills and have creative freedom.

After that talk we moved on to Helen Howles from HO HO entertainment who helps with the marketing and merchandise to big up the very popular brands and helps within production. She helped on a series of children s programs and programs for S4C. I was very interested in knowing the ins and outs Helen had to go through for other brands even from outside Europe such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and 4Kids. She even helped towards the video game industry such as 'Little Big Planet'

Listening to this overall talk I was pretty excited about starting a business or even an animation series for a number of reasons and now more positive reasons are added to the list of reasons to start. I do like the idea of working in a company but I also love the thought of starting something that no-one else has done yet and hopefully in the future things happen.

THE CAT CHASE ANIMATION PROGRESS 2: polishing the works

The semi-final update to 'The Cat Chase' project. Theres been a lot of fixing errors with the mesh of the cat since the poly is short numbered. But all in all it's pulled through and the characters are doing just fine.

Heres the Semi-Finals to the animation, just need the final feed back from my director and fingers crossed it's all ok.

Cat Animation: Run cycle

This is the cat animation, I have added facial movements to the cat so it has a similar animation style  such as the toon squash and stretch but since the cats face is much closer I too more attention to the movement in the cats face. Thanks to our helpful rigger and big supporter he was able to rig  the front paws and enlarge them so a nicer perspective can be noticed in the camera angle.

Policeman Animation: Run Cycle

Heres the policeman's animation. His character was a challenge to begin with but now I think he is one of my favorites so far. I love the squash and stretch and the hat really works well with character bouncing up and down. My only concern mainly was him holding the baton, it seems to be rigid and wiggle in the air.

Cat climbing the building scene

This scene has been through the works with changing the timing positioning and other option to make the cat seem more frantic. I have even given myself the task of adding the smaller things to make the animation more pleasant to look at for when I capture this at a closer distance in my own time.

THE CAT CHASE ANIMATION PROGRESS: chase and climb

For this week I have mainly been focusing on the cat chase project animations. So far so good the run cycles just need a little polish and The building scene is in first official blocking and thumbs up from the director to proceed the completion of this. I believe that this project will be complete by next week and then I can continue the other two projects Pepmin the elephant and The dance animations.

So heres the almost complete version of the run cycles.

The aim for these animations were to be as tooney as possible, full of stretching, squishing and bouncing. I think a little more side-to-side squishing on the hips will really make this character seem fleshier. But that will be taken care with the final steps of completion

The cat so far in my eyes needs to features to move with it but apart from that I'm really happy with the results. It has been since 1st year of my uni life that I dealt with quad ped creature animations, so im glad that I indeed improved in my skills. 

The building scene had a few improvements for it to be a green light to continue to spline or further poses. The time was the main issue. The director has an idea of it being very fast paced and so I had to keep compressing keys until it was perfect. 

block1

block1 timing

 still too slow 

remove camera and check

I playblasted this without the camera animation as the cam was too quick rising. so i kept getting the cat to go faster but still it needed more as feedback from my director.

Final animatic blocking 1

so this is the correct timing. Just needs to have the tail animated as well as the features 

This animation will be the most complex-ed for this overall project. But I like a challenge and so far I have enjoyed every step of it. 

Special Talk with Michael Cawood

In university today was a special talk with Michael Cawood about his personal career and journey from where he is today.

We first before skyping the special guest from Los Angeles we had a look at his website with all his creations from advertisement to gaming and films.

Asking him questions to do with the correct career steps hes taken, wages and keeping relationships balanced. It gave me more of an insight to what I should prepare for in the future, meaning perhaps I need to prepare what I should do or sacrifice in order to achieve my dream career.

It's exciting to know that my job involves travelling to find the jobs I need but that also means travelling light. That sounds a little difficult to do being a person that enjoys the little things like little trinkets and many books.

I loved this talk and it really educated me on what not to do as a beginner in the industry business and how to sell myself as a Generalist for the better. Michael Cawood himself was a friendly character that seemed to have gained a lot of wisdom in such a short time and I wish him luck for the future to come.


Here is a link to his website where you can see all his creations. Some amazing projects he has put effort into. Please check it out.

http://michaelcawood.com/

MAJOR: PERSONAL PROJECT, PEPMIN the ELEPHANT

Heres a little reminder from what my personal project involved and that was this character. 

Heres the complete Maya model for my Personal Project for 2015

Heres an image of 'Pepmin' and his UV map. Next step it to open Zbrush and add some texture details, nothing too detailed since I want a simple and tooney style for my character.

I created a play blasted version of a character turnaround. So far so good I'm liking the look of him and soon he'll be even better after Zbrush.

Cat Chase Car Production

Finally I began and finished my car Rig, textured the whole shabang. I'm glad on how it turns out. The rigging went smoothly and the model was simple. My only mistakes were the Maps themselves. The diffuse map (colour map)  too k a while to accomplish because of how tedious cutting a model can be to create these maps.

But Its complete it is a turn around of the stages of modelling

Then onto out rigging, It had been  a whole year since I properly rigged but I pulled through with a little guidance along the way from our artist Director






Heres a Rig demo of the car

It's only a prop but I'm still quite liking the toonyness and simplicity of the overl look.