The Rise of Fall 2011: 3D Computer Modeling

Recently, 3D Computer Modeling was added to the list of required courses in LCAD's animation program in what I assume is an attempt to expand students' skill sets and job opportunities. The aim of the class was to model and rig a character from scratch, though admittedly the rigging part was more of an extra credit deal than it was an actual assignment. Some of my classmates chose to try and model stuff from outside/licensed properties, though most of us attempted to model our own characters. I chose to model good ol' Dr. Stunkov because I felt that many aspects of his design would lend themselves well to a three-dimensional format.

Despite what the course title's name led me believe, we didn't start out modeling on the computer box right from the get-go. Instead, we were tasked with modeling our character of choice out of Super Sculpey modeling clay to use as a reference for the CG model.

 The pre-baked Stunkov maquette, complete with unblended lab coat!

I kind of stressed myself out a bit going all perfectionist with Stunkov's maquette, but I did eventually come to a point where I had to move on and begin modeling him in Autodesk Maya. Maybe someday I'll come back to that little statue and paint it.

As for the actual computer modeling deal:

I think I was pretty successful, though there are some missing details that I will attribute to my inability to wrap my head around UV texture mapping. Stunkov may not look like he does in his redesign, but he ended up working well as a solid model.

It took me about half of the semester to finish modeling Stunkov, so I figured that I'd dedicate the second half of the class to getting him rigged for animation (sans facial controls).

Rigging Stunkov was a pretty straightforward affair thanks to the aid of some video resources over at Lynda.com, but skinning the model is an entirely different story. For those who don't know what "skinning" refers to, it's something that modelers/riggers have to do to the model to bind the character geometry (the stuff made out of polygons and whatnot) to the rigged joints/skeleton beneath. The problem with skinning the character is that some points of the geometry end up binding themselves to joints that they have no business going near, resulting in the geometry stretching out unnaturally and generally giving the model a lousy look.

I'm pretty glad that skinning is something that can be done automatically these days, because I'm pretty sure I'd go nuts over having to manually change the influence each joint has on the countless vertices that make up a character's geometry.

That being said, I definitely enjoyed the class and feel like I got a lot out of it. Like everything else, good computer modeling takes time and practice, and I can see myself returning to that polygon shelf in Maya to bring some of my other characters into the THIRD DIMENSION.

The Rise of Fall 2011: Figure Drawing for Animators

Hey, I said I was going to make a series of these, and I sure as hell ain't skimpin' out on my word! Today's special: Figure Drawing for Animators 3.

This was my third semester taking a figure drawing class tailored specifically to animators' interests, and the first to be heavily focused on digital media. My past two Figure Drawing for Animators classes were all strictly traditional charcoal-on-newsprint affairs, but with a new professor comes a new set of rules and media to work with. I did pretty much all of my drawing in that class in Corel Painter 11, a program which definitely took some getting used to, but not so much that it impeded my progress throughout the semester.

What I really found odd was the multi-layered disconnect that happened with drawing from life on a tablet. It's difficult to articulate exactly why it felt so weird, but I guess it was just the whole... new-ness of the experience. We focused a lot more on drawing clothed figures this semester than we have in the past, but we did still have out fair share of nude models to work from.

This entry is kind of short because I've always felt that gestural figure drawing has been one of my biggest weaknesses as an animator. Getting the whole figure down on paper (or digital canvas) turns out to be a rare occurrence when I'm faced with drawing from shorter poses, and the whole act of figure drawing has a bad tendency to easily frustrate me. I know I'm not terrible at it (I wouldn't have passed the classes if I were!), but I definitely feel it's an area that I could improve a whole lot on.

Luckily, my bad luck with gestural drawing doesn't seem to have a direct effect on my ability to animate, so maybe I'm not a lost cause after all!

The Rise of Fall 2011: Animal Drawing

Man, I really am bad at keeping a regularly updated blog, aren't I? I've got nobody to blame but myself regarding these long stretches of inactivity, but at least I was doing some really productive things at school in the meantime!

My most recent semester at LCAD was an unusually breezy one; I rarely found myself on the breaking point of an anxiety attack unlike with some previous semesters, and the projects that were assigned across my various classes were all fairly easy to handle for the most part.

I have to say, though, I never suspected that my Animal Drawing class would have had as much of an impact on me as it ended up having. Little of the artistic growth I experienced as a result of my professor's teachings in there had to do with studying animal anatomy or figuring out how the muscles are arranged in a big cat's hind legs, though it still did play an important role in my learning how to draw non-anthropomorphic animals with confidence. What really contributed to this growth were my professor's lectures and demonstrations on classic draftsmanship. Having a sense of solidity in one's drawings lends even the most unbelievable subjects a sense of believability, therefore making having strong draftsmanship skills one of the highest priorities for traditional animators.

The final project for the class was pretty free-form. We were allowed to do whatever we wanted as long as it related to one or more of the major concepts that were taught in the class. Being the incorrigible dork that I am, I chose to redesign a trio of my Updown Town characters to look more like their respective species while taking some artistic inspiration from Team Fortress 2, Blacksad, and the work of Milt Kahl.

Frankie was the first up to plate (he is my avatar on the intertubes, after all), and I think he ended up with the most successful redesign of the bunch. He definitely looks much more stoaty than he used to, and a lot of his little accessories have helped sell more people on the whole "demolitions weasel" angle he's got.

He may not have changed too much from his original design, but I still think that the villainous Dr. Stunkov looks more like, well, a skunk now than he did before. Unlike with Frankie, Stunkov's real-life animal counterpart doesn't really have much in the way of physical features to exaggerate beyond the large, bushy tail, pink nose, and fur pattern. In the end, I decided to play up all three of those some more and make him a bit stouter for good measure.

The final candidate set for a redesign was Suko, a character who a lot of friends and family had mistaken for a fox for some reason or another. Raccoons have a very distinctive football shape to their heads, and I've found that giving him one has helped many more people correctly identify his species. Suko's role as the Updown Patrol's resident gadgetry expert and tech guru has also been made more clear through some of the changes in his costume accessories and that handy copter contraption.

These redesigns have done a whole lot to endear more people to my work and whatnot, but as far as I'm concerned, there are two versions of each character in my mind now: these new, redesigned versions, and the more human-proportioned versions that you've come to know me for.

I've still got plenty of room for improvement, but I can say with certainty that my spending those hours drawing nothing but cubes and cylinders has had plenty of positive results on my artistic output.

Be sure to stay tuned for some more posts regarding my thoughts on the semester! They'll be accompanied by more work than you can shake a stick at.

Computer Animation Follies

As part of the animation program's efforts to turn all of its students into well-rounded animators capable of working in both traditional and computer animation, 3D Computer Animation 1 is one of the classes I've signed up for this semester. The program the class concentrates its efforts on mastering is Autodesk Maya, an industry-standard animation, modeling, and ear-pulling piece of software. Despite my attachment to animating traditionally, I've found the class to be equal parts fun and infuriating. Oh, and I guess the professor is a pretty cool guy who has done some really excellent work in the past or something. Unlike with the traditional animation classes I've taken in previous semesters, 3D Computer Animation 1 has the added restriction of using a predetermined character who has already been rigged for animation. The character in question here is a happy little guy who goes by the name of Norman.

I've found Norman generally easy to use for the projects my professor has assigned, and he can be endlessly amusing to mess around with, but he certainly does have moments of weirdness and the occasional bout of the dreaded Gimbal Lock, which essentially is an interpolation error Maya runs into that results in one's animation going completely bonkers.

Well, maybe not completely bonkers.

Though all of the same principles apply to both computer and traditional animation with regards to slowing-in, slowing-out, arcs, staging, and all the other jazzy animator lingo, animating in Maya has proven itself to be a completely different beast from the ol' fashioned way of doing things. I may be more inclined to work traditionally when it comes to animating, but I do recognize the advantages and disadvantages of both working methods in addition to their innate similarities and differences. The biggest difference between the two is the newly-added layers of complexity and frustration that Maya's technical complications bring to the table. An easy analogy to make would involve comparing these tech issues to drawing and draftsmanship problems encountered when animating traditionally, but whereas I find it relatively easy to go back into a drawing and fix whatever glaring missteps I may have made, Maya puts up a fight nearly every time I try to patch up gaping holes in my animation. Obtuse concepts like Gimbal Lock and the manipulation of countless animation curves make things far more aggravating than they need to be, but I do feel like I'm getting the hang of animating in this crazy program.

AHHHHHHHHH

It may just be that I haven't had enough experience working with Maya or Norman yet, but I certainly hope that they both decide to be more friendly in future projects.

Speaking tangentially, boy, I sure am bad at updating this blog in a timely manner, aren't I? I'll do my best to add some more entries as soon as I have something more interesting to write about.