Out of time- last week
in the last week?
A lot of time spent trying to absorb as much of Toon Boom premium in my trial period before it expires. I'm really excited to get and do something... with bit of finished animation in it..
It looks like its a lot better for doing 2d characters and scenes than After effects.
Especially the way rigged characters are contained in their template.
Fortunately I was able to look at/use the Toon Boom 'Learn' site- in Beta, which is way superior to their other online learning offerings that I could see. A really good resource for animation learning full stop- as they don't just have how to use the software but all about studio type production- even animation principles. So a lot to look at.
Thoughts- the node based nature is really great I think- and a lot of stuff is exposed for people who are into that sort of scripting/programmatic stuff.
- only seemed convoluted or ass about when I was watching the rigging tuts with the invert masked auto patched character-
mainly if you are going to have an invert mask a lot of the time with a predicable use for a snippet of node network why not include that as a pre made node?
Anyway...I'll watch that bit again.
Sad bit is instead of watching cartoons with my boys the way I used to I'm now analysing their choice of deformation/elbow style etc....breaking it down into what I've learnt or how to do it.
Ie I was walking past and the kids were watching Camp Lakebottom- and the main character must have had every conceivable type of arm deformation style in the space of 5 secs with different styles on each arm- curve deformation ('hose'), rigid bones /segments- sharp elbow, smooth elbow, etc..
The examples on the learn site had different views in the one template but with similar deformation/hierarchy- whereas that arm stuff is different deformations on same view-- although they did have a 'planted'/steady foot example with 2 deformation types on the one thing.....hmmmm.
Spent a day looking at the Magic Word book again....need to sort that out and do 'final' roughs and text.
Starting to look at a new job for Radium in 3dsmax- which means I have to get to grips with Vray.
Which will be good to know but I feel I want to spend my time on the 2d animation .....
Ah well.
Am going to the Vray roadshow in Brisbane on Wed to kickstart it all.
Only managed to make it to 2 halves of life drawing the last couple of weeks- :(
A bit patchy when I've been there....(turning up late.)
This is at the West End/Kurilpa hall.
Have a feeling my eyesight is a bit worse....glasses soon I think..
Or at least it takes a bit of time to adjust/focus- is slow.
Because I wasn't doing so well I had the idea to just mark in watercolour style where the shadows were instead of trying
to start shading -
the pose ending-
and only having the initial crappy shading done anyway.
So I've had part of my ear cut off and a bit of my neck used to patch it..
Cut and paste because there was no undo....
.thats cancer I guess.
Spent the last few days sort of bleeding.....
(Can't see what sort of job has been done because its all bandaged.)
Still looking at software-
Adobe Audition with a view to voices for animation etc
Will be looking at 3ds Max and Unity again-
Premier again,
Illustrator and Adobe Muse......
Bought a good book on Stop motion animation.. (a bit troubled I hadn't done anything with Dragonframe for months- even tests or development :( )
Has lots of good hints on the practicalities while you are animating and what to do if you forget ti animate a bit of a character...(as you do)
In other news
Closer to sealing a deal on Over is Out book.
I'll be at the Big draw at the State Libraries in August
and at the Sydney SCBWI conference in September.....
Might also try Ozcomic con in Sydney this year.... I've been a bit absent from these things this year...
and its nearly Spring..
.time to liven up
Goblin character animator test from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Featuring the goblin from the Magic Word book!
Trying out adobe character animator.....
thoughts:-
Blisk Walk -draft Art render from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
(Hope that includes me )
What have I been doing-
trying a pass on words/story for The Magic Word book
- Its been a bit slow and difficult yesterday and Monday- so I resorted to just writing down alternative sections in the hope of distilling it into the children's book haiku in another pass.
Looking at Adobe Muse and thinking about new websites.
I was looking at it and thinking just a basic one would be easy enough-and I desperately need to update/something to work on all devices,
simple is good because its all about the images and videos really...unless the animations are my own I'm not that interested in tacked on store bought 'widget animations' to decorate.
(- the hard bit is listening to Adobe evangelists in their tutorials- why does the word 'widget' make my skin crawl? 'Widget' sounds like something badly made to me......anyway.)
Looking at Storyboard Pro some more....
Mucking around with the animation of layers in simple tests and distributing motion across frames.
Thinking about the equivalent in After effect and photoshop combo- and the relative advantages.....I guess if you were a traditional artist starting there's a whole lot less in Storyboard to learn.
Only thing I haven't been able to try much is the whole script side/importing and distributing it across panels - which is half the deal and why you'd use Storyboard pro for storyboarding instead of photoshop/AE........apart from that I felt fairly comfortable in what I knew.
Quietly looking about at old anims and looking to rerender......
Above is a boss Blisk that would have been in Destroy All Humans 2,
design by me , model and texture by Milenko, animation by me.
Still need to look at rendering type stuff more and Autodesks cloud rendering- because I want to try out motion blur and depth of field etc but the frame time blows out...
Here are some design drawings of olde of the blisk- (has it really been 14 years?)
Chantelle is the model.
I think this is the third time I've drawn her...
.face is getting better/more accurate here,
face placement still not quite there
blame it on the wine and cheese
Character Evil dez walk and run from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Anim by me- model and texture by Milenko
A bit lighter lightwise...
(a bit of wobbling due to low anim sampling for export )
also the leg coat intersection you didn't see ingame because of the top down view and the size of the character onscreen
flop on trucking from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Body issues....underpant issues.....
Dear void,
Well apparently I am scheduled to go to surgery sometime and potentially lose an ear (in their efforts to remove a basal cell carcinoma).
Missed out a few days (and life drawing etc) in the process of finding it out.
Isn't life fun.
On the positive it puts me in company with Van Gough-
on the negative I'd have to be dead and famous to complete the picture.
(Had noticed my blog had been getting more hits of late- but I think its due to it being visited by bots instead of people...
.. thoughts anyone??
*sound of bots and spiders cheeping*)
Finally started looking at 3ds max again...
...finally looking at CAT tools.
Seems neat with the character rig creation stuff..
..but then I played with their horse and the neck/head seemed odd-
I realise what the head/automated spine curve is doing but then if you want to rotate the head or have less curve in the neck when the head is extended' to eat grass' its painful/wrong.
Also with 4 leg animals like horses the front legs the most of the weight
(ie they lock straight for support and back legs are bent for propulsion)
- wonder if it isn't better to have chest the top of hierarchy instead of pelvis
but I guess for the sake of a unified system they have to be consistent.
I guess then the immediate thing to try is to see how CAT rigs bake or export to Unity say.
(and me look at Unity again while I'm at it.)
.can't help wondering whether i should be looking at C4D instead or something more modern....
On the positive they fixed IK in the latest max update I downloaded-
it wasn't me it WAS them -they confessed the fix in the release notes
always reassuring to be proven right/competent /not mad.
Also did a bit more on the Magic Word book- trying to decide which rough I should use for which page....half the time picking one but thinking "I still need to incorporate this from that one and this from this other one into it.....)
**added a friend to make it a bit more 'edgy'- a bit sexier- you know***
flop with a friend from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
A collection from previous weeks of life drawing-
bit of a form slump- not sure why
well actually I have an idea- I wasn't looking properly and checking as I go-
had the wrong rhythm too
although at QLD sculptors I've figured out that my change of position to get a better light on the model combined with the crap glossy paper I was using meant I couldn't actually see what I was doing/where my line was going as I drew.
So I'll change both of those and reap the reward.
goldie_segment test2 from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Taking the rough segmented dinosaur and trying DUIK on it (the way I did with the wombat)
short wombat_test_using duik from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
So this morning took the pieces from a test a few months back and used DUIK on them-
to see how much easier it is
(after having used it on that cough thing but not read the instructions properly or the guide)
It's massively easier- and all the tools and ik and controllers in it are just essential to make animating in AE a proposition.
DUIK is awesome.
It has a whole bunch of stuff that solves things I was cursing adobe for-
simple things- like cutting and pasting animation-- (duh).
Why these things in DUIK aren't natively in AE is one of life's great mysteries.
(didn't cut and paste anim in the test-but a cut and paste relative might be an addition they could add- and then I might have used that)
wombat_test_duik_2 from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Elevator ad elements from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
Some animated elements destined for an ad shown in- of all places an elevator.
A bit 'quickly' done-
except the naming of all the layers, and me putting this contingency of IK legs and hands with fingers.....in case- which added up for 6 characters.
-and the guy on the far right is barely animated because I figured by the time you see him it will all be shoved off screen for the product shot.
(Correctly it turns out)
The previous week and a bit my hard drive was failing- and my sound died on my computer--
fixed now-
but made doing this a bit tricky- limping along waiting for the warranty guy to turn up with a new hard drive.
Still a start on the after effects road once more.
Went to Jugglers life drawing and saw drawing style I recognised hung on the wall (a huge drawing)- it was by Gregg Greinke. Since I'd been back doing this life drawing in Brisbane I wondered if I'd bump into him again- (he'd sometimes run the QLD sculptors life drawing).
As I was looking at it someone commented that he had in fact died a year and a half ago from Melanoma.
I know I've been out of the loop in Brisbane for about 5 years but just the shock- you know you don't quite keep up with people but you still expect them to be kicking around somewhere.......
..but then sometimes they don't.
