INSTRUCTOR POST - Thanks for a great semester!

That's it for Spring 2012! Thank you for your hard work and enthusiasm. Please make sure you fill out the AAU online feedback forms. (+cookie points if you already have). If there's any direct comments you want to pass on to help improve the class (things you thought worked well, and things that you would've liked to see changed ) - put them in the comments section of this post. Thanks for your feedback.


A few tips to keep from getting rusty over the summer:

1. Join up with the S.L.A.W folks on Facebook - student led animation workshops that will be running over the summer. Fun feedback and animation exercises galore. Huzzah!
   
2. Pick a 3-5 sec audio clip and do a quick acting animation over 2-3 weeks.
   
3. Grab a random rig online and audit it. (test every control and try a tricky pose or two)
4. Pick a random emotion and do a quick 15 minute posing drill: 5 minutes to gather reference and 10 minutes to make the pose.
5. Go through the blog archives or onto an online animation forum and offer some constructive critique on someone's animation work.

Aside from the workshops or the lip sync - none of these exercises should take more than an hour of your time and will help keep your skills razor sharp.


I've enjoyed watching your abilities evolve and improve over the term. I look forward to working with every one of you in the future. Graduating students: please keep in touch. Folks continuing their educational journey: make an office appointment with me in the next term.

Have a great summer everyone!

David Latour

Tim Li Final

Hey guys, i had a great time in class and I learned a lot. Everyone's final turned out really good! Hope everyone has a great summer!

Wan Cheul Kim - Final

I had great time learning and sharing with all of you guys!
Wish all a good luck and thanks to David Latour for being so friendly with all those candies! ;D

JR Fuentez - Final





Had a lot of fun in class, wish everyone the best, and keep on animating!

Nick Tejano FINAL

Here's my final happy with the results and hope to add texture to it over ther summer maybe

Sean Taylor - Final Assignment

Here's my final with the Loth.

https://vimeo.com/42346797

(Sorry that the video won't embed. Blogger must not like Vimeo anymore.)

Ivania Arguello - Final

Here's how far i was able to get with mine :)
It was a pleasure having you all in this class. Any feedback is welcomed.

Yu - Eagle Fishing

Any critique welcomed!!
I had a great time with everybody in this class, thank you and see you around!

West Final

Ralph Final



Bixby-Final

Hey everybody!  Here is my final.  Over all, I am happy with it.  Of course there is always places to improve on and critiques are welcome.  It's been a fun class and I hope everyone had as much fun as I had.

Bix

Ziteng Final

Any suggestion is welcome :D

Michael Kinder Final

So here is my final piece...I tried to do some water effects but they didn't turn out and it was taking too long and making my file size super huge so I took it out.  Maybe sometime later I will try and do some water and wind/atmosphere effects along with some movement on the grass but for now it will be just the basic scene.

I had a good time working with all of you this semester and I hope to work with any or all of you again soon.
I wish you all the best.
Cheers,

Michael

Drew- Final

Yo class, here's what is going to pretty close to what I will have tomorrow. I don't consider the animation complete; there are still some areas in the cat tail and the pick-up that I still find a bit messy.
I haven't been able to replace the sphere with the mouse because that rig is way too heavy and makes the scene nearly unworkable. I figure it would be best to spend my efforts on the two main characters.

Probably the hardest thing about this assignment was trying to make the pick-up believable. Most eagle attacks on land usually have the bird pouncing on the animal rather than picking it up in one swoop, which is what I wanted. I used a lot of reference from eagles catching fish and hoped I could implement it well for catching a cat on land. I feel pretty good about it, but I feel that there's something missing, something that could make it a bit more exciting.

Of course, I'm open to all ideas and feedback and it has been a pleasure being in this class with all of you.

Cheers,
Drew.

Taylor Holmes: Almost Final

For the most part this will be my final. I am pretty happy with the overall physical action so I added small face movements, mainly in the eyes. I would love to hear and and ALL critique as I plan to keep polishing this after the class ends.

Sorry the quality is so bad, might be hard to see the eyes.

Amelia - final in progress

My to do list on this file is still incredibly long - so join in the fun and add to it!

Michael Kinder - Fixed loth

I have fixed the Loth shader for the eyes.
This is for Taylor, who wanted the eyes fixed on Loth. All you other Loth users, can also have this file if you would like it.
The issue seems to be that someone convenetly removed the shader for the eye ball and replaced it with a generic round glowing red orb.  This is currently the problem with the Loth character in the download section, that it has the correct eye shader removed. So if you would like to have the correct eyes for loth setup just email me: mkinder1219@gmail.com and I will send it to you. I would place it here but don't see a way to upload a file like that.

I will give this to Dave on Thursday as well to replace the one on the download section for future use.  

JR Fuentez - Final - Polishing Stage

Hope everyone's final  is going well, wanted to get some feedback before class, Thursday.

The ScreenMarker app really helped out in noticing extra/unnecessary keys.

JR Fuentez - Desktop drawing app

Quick question: What's the name of the application that allows us to draw on the desktop screen, which helps mark spacing in our animation?

Amelia- Cat Ear Flick

Found it at 2:42 on the Lion King
Whole ear  down in one frame -
then dragging the tip back to the original position -
made a nice C to reverse C on the flick

thanks David!

JR Fuentez - Tips and Tricks in Animal Animation

Nice little gem about what to look for in achieving realism when animating animals.
-For the people doing their final with the cat, he uses it in his demos.



Hope everyone's finals are going well!

Bixby- Loth Non-linear

All righty, I blocked in all the legs but needs another pass or two.  I'm getting to the point where I have been staring at this for too long and need new pair of eyes.

Critiques and suggestions are welcomed.

P.S.  This vid is not set on private this time, I swear!

Tim Li-Fox Anm

Hey, this is my animation so far, i haven't gotten into the end bit of the animation yet. But i would love to get your opinion on the animation so far. Thanks.

Nick-Raptor

I tried once again. I slowed down the run cycle and made it start from a slow take off to fast sprint. I slowed down the jump the raptor does at the end  because he jumped from the 2nd florr to the ground way to fast in my previous videos. ANY suggestions will help.

Taylor Holmes: Leg test, and finals music

I'm trying something with the leg and want to see if you all think it works.

So I am testing to see if I can successfully make the leg look like it's idly looking for contact, without distracting from the main performance.

Now here is the same thing as the other video except the action on the main leg swing is smaller.

Which do you think is more effective? Number 1, 2, or neither?

Also, as a treat for finals, this should help make everything you are doing 10x more epic. It's a 2 hour video of the Lord of the Rings Symphony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfFQuhWaA_k
(the battle scene is 35 minutes in, it's pretty awesome)

Ziteng Realistic Ainmation

Any suggestions are welcome :D  I worked on tail last week, but it is so failed. These tail controllers are kind of twisted. I think I may break the rig since Maya crash last time :( so I will go to workshop to fix the problem.

Amelia - Tea Time Lectures

THIS Friday, May 4th, Jim Brown, Animation supervisor from Tippett Studio, is going to be here to give a lecture in room 400a of 180NM @ 7:00pm.

and

NEXT Friday, May 11th, the long-anticipated JD Haas of ILM fame will be giving his lecture on what the industry is really looking for, also in room 400a @ 7:00pm.

Bixby- loth non-linear