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Weasel news...
17 years ago
So after a lay in and an hour or two playing video games im at at my desk animating, headphones strapped on and coffee flowing through my veins.
12:20 - Taken a good look through what I have. It's in a pretty good state, only needs the voice stuff, but hey, Im all geared up, might as well be a little more ambitious...
12:40 - I like this anim, its stretching my abilities. Theres a lot of rythm to the key events. Its slapstick, so that rythm is tightly linked to how funny it is. The trick is to set up a rythm and then emphasise the funny moments by having them come a beat too soon or too late. Knowing which key to put the emphasis on, and getting the character to flow with nice weight AND hit key poses in rythm is tricky.
12:43 - First crash of the day.... *ping!* Max is gone! Backup was taken 5 minutes beforehand. Have to spend a few minutes getting the texture routes repointed.
13:40 -Lots and lots of "Hmmmm..." Trying to get the poses right is slow work and theres a lot of pacing around going on as I stare at preview renders. The anim has increased to 600 frames, 20 seconds, which is quite a lot for hand keyed stuff.
13:50 - It's a good job im alone here. I'm acting out a lot of the poses in my room =OP
15:30 - Lunch break and its all coming together. I have the poses now its a matter of getting them in the right timing and making them flow. Im really happy with this, I may well stick it in my showreel. Although its crazy how short it is, considering all the work.
16:15 - Looking good, now comes the interesting bit.. sound. usually id just record the soundtrack and animate to it, but here i have to do the sound to the animation.... then do the animation to the sound... back and forth. No idea how long this is going to take.
17:40 - Found a good place to get foley from. The impacts really do add a lot. Ive discovered that my laundry basket makes an excelent place to record voice stuff. It muffles the noise nicely.
19:00 - Egad, its 7 already.. well sound effects take a while but dang, it's making a big difference. =O)
20:15 - Back on the animating. Adding in the eyeblinks and syching the mouth to the speech. Audio still needs a little more attention, gotta add some paw thud slappy kind of noises but my mic set up isnt good enough.
23:40 - Right, well the sounds pretty much done, the renderer is all set up and I've set it rendering. Im sure theres all kinds of things ive missed, but for now, im done. =O)
Deezlberries, signing off...
12:20 - Taken a good look through what I have. It's in a pretty good state, only needs the voice stuff, but hey, Im all geared up, might as well be a little more ambitious...
12:40 - I like this anim, its stretching my abilities. Theres a lot of rythm to the key events. Its slapstick, so that rythm is tightly linked to how funny it is. The trick is to set up a rythm and then emphasise the funny moments by having them come a beat too soon or too late. Knowing which key to put the emphasis on, and getting the character to flow with nice weight AND hit key poses in rythm is tricky.
12:43 - First crash of the day.... *ping!* Max is gone! Backup was taken 5 minutes beforehand. Have to spend a few minutes getting the texture routes repointed.
13:40 -Lots and lots of "Hmmmm..." Trying to get the poses right is slow work and theres a lot of pacing around going on as I stare at preview renders. The anim has increased to 600 frames, 20 seconds, which is quite a lot for hand keyed stuff.
13:50 - It's a good job im alone here. I'm acting out a lot of the poses in my room =OP
15:30 - Lunch break and its all coming together. I have the poses now its a matter of getting them in the right timing and making them flow. Im really happy with this, I may well stick it in my showreel. Although its crazy how short it is, considering all the work.
16:15 - Looking good, now comes the interesting bit.. sound. usually id just record the soundtrack and animate to it, but here i have to do the sound to the animation.... then do the animation to the sound... back and forth. No idea how long this is going to take.
17:40 - Found a good place to get foley from. The impacts really do add a lot. Ive discovered that my laundry basket makes an excelent place to record voice stuff. It muffles the noise nicely.
19:00 - Egad, its 7 already.. well sound effects take a while but dang, it's making a big difference. =O)
20:15 - Back on the animating. Adding in the eyeblinks and syching the mouth to the speech. Audio still needs a little more attention, gotta add some paw thud slappy kind of noises but my mic set up isnt good enough.
23:40 - Right, well the sounds pretty much done, the renderer is all set up and I've set it rendering. Im sure theres all kinds of things ive missed, but for now, im done. =O)
Deezlberries, signing off...
And re-jigging the thumbnails in my gallery! =D
Yow. Crashes aren't good though. How often does Max crash for you?
Max crashes quite often, in fact right now (1:15) its crashed yet again. My computer at work is rock solid, with crashes very rare. I cant say the laptop has the cleanest of installs, so the fact it crashes once an hour is probably to be expected.
Ahh, I see. Windows can sometimes get very temperamental from the slightest change (assuming you run Windows).
..animating! Yar!
P.S. Haven't forgotten those promised tfs to you, the roo and ferret, if I remember completely. Just put way more on my plate then I should have. I'll get them to you, sooner or later.
As to where I got the insight into timing, its a combination of a number of sources. I kind of put it all together from humour theory, animation books and frame by framing animation I liked.
The big eye opener for me was the opening of ice age - Just before the title arrives we see Scrat fall down a cliff - Thud...Thud...Thud......Bam. The three impacts lead us to expect a certain rythm, and when a fourth bang doesn't come, we assume he's safe. Which makes the end that little bit less expected. So yeah, set up rythms and break em for dramatic (or funny, effect).