TeresaNord
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Posts posted by TeresaNord
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Just thought I'd add my quick 2 cents...
I was asked to animate on TWO after completing the door's stuck and I was so ecstatic!
I however, was new to the A:M software, new to animation, and was super confused by all of the different locations and tortoise svn thing...
It was very overwhelming, it's not that I was lacking the drive...it was a lacking of the basics and being handed too much too fast.
I don't feel that completion of the door's stuck is enough preparation for TWO. I know that the only reason I completed that tutorial was because it had great directions, I really didn't understand the underlaying principles of animation. I think that in order to have greater success with the animation...the Animation Boot Camp requirements would definitely be a step in the right direction. I feel that it is imperative that learning animation begins with simple rigs and simple exercises...
In order for animators to not get overwhelmed in a project like TWO, I think that they need to first of all...know the A:M software much better than I did, and secondly have a good grasp of the principles of animation! (stressing the principles here)
From my experience...I now feel much more confident as an animator after establishing a workflow and knowing the basics.
I think that it's important for animators coming into TWO to have a workflow method down
-plan out the shot (pre-planning is essential in animation)
this includes video reference, thumbnails, etc.
-block the shot
-then move on to refining
Hmm, anyways, I don't really know where I'm going with this... I just thought that it might be helpful to get an opinion from one who was overwhelmed and left...
Hope it helps!
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Sounds like you guys are having a blast! (thanks for putting the camera up, it gave me something to do during hr hrm... while I was "researching" during class)
Nancy, I hope you're alright! Falling in the ape caves is pretty painful.
Thanks for giving updates, Martin!
Ok, well, keep having fun and soak it all up, because the three days go way too quickly!
I better go to my next class... cya later dudes!
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....so i was just thinking that you guys are probably all arriving at the hash bash right about now....
I'm so sad that I can't get away from school to come this year... especially now that I know how much fun I'm missing out on
You guys have gotta promise to tell us all about it... ok?
Alright... well back to the books ... don't have too much fun without me (especially in the lava tubes)
Anyways, just wanted to say "hi" to everyone over there... I miss you mucho!
*EDIT- Oops... Looks as if the dates of the hash bash are May 28th-30th... umm, I'm still really sad though...can't stop thinking about it.
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Unless something drastic changes, I will not be able to attend this year... Finances and time are working against me.
OK, so change something drastic!
You HAVE to come dude! We had a blast last year.
Look, you even made me post to the forums for the first time in like .... umm....ever!
Dylan
Oh, my goodness! Jody, you have to go, Dylan never posts!
(hello there Dylan, by the way long time no see)
Anyways, hope you all have a great time this year! It was an incredible experience last year and it was so great to get to know everybody. I'm sad I can't make it...
Have fun in the lava tubes for me!
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Roger,
Let me tell you this again...I have only modeled the flower in the a:m tutorial, honestly...I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to modeling and stuff. I prefer the animating side, and I'm just a beginner with that stuff too. If I were you I would ask somebody with more experience to look at your work.
Really, it's up to you whether the penguin is uni-body or not? You're the director, right?
About renaming a thread...I dunno...sometimes forums let you rename them when you add a new post to a thread that you are the original author of (in the topic bar)...I'm not sure you can rename threads on the a:m forum though?
I wouldn't start a new thread for the sake of a title though, it would be more important to keep all your progress in the same place.
Anyways, good luck with your film. Keep up the good work....and start animating!
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Well that's a bummer How're supposed to have a bash without Woot?
In that case, you promise you contact me when in California, maybe I can arrange a PDI/DreamWorks tour for you
What do you say?
really? that would be so cool! I promise
We're flying out Friday night March 30
visiting Academy of Art March 31
touring Pixar April 2nd (flying out that night to LA)
visiting Laguna College of art and design April 3rd
and then CalArts will be April 4th
and then we're flying out the morning of the 5th to come back home
Dreamworks is in LA right? So it would probably have to be on the 3rd or 4th of April, but that would be so cool!
I didn't even think about setting up a tour with Dreamworks!
(is it not a closed studio like Pixar? or do you have connections?)
(we'll have to talk more about this through email or something
)Okay, anyways, take care all!
Teresa
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I'm not going to be able to come to the bash after-all....
I was going to buy the airplane ticket and come alone this year, but the problem is school (since I'm in college this year instead of high school...and I also just became a manager at the movie theater and asking for time off is more difficult). Most all of my art classes allow about 3 days missed before it starts to affect your grade. Which, would've been fine and I could've made it work....but that was before my family scheduled a trip down to California this spring break. The trip to CA had to be during my mom's break (since she's a teacher) and so I will be missing almost the first week of next quarter. There is no reasonable way that I can miss one week plus three more days for the bash. I definitely don't want to cancel the trip to California either because we plan on touring Pixar
and visiting the Academy of Art, CalArts, and Laguna College of Art and Design.So, anyways, I hope that everyone has fun at the bash and I will miss seeing you!
(don't have too much fun in the lava tubes without me)
Teresa
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Here's mine...not very many though... http://www.flickr.com/photos/teresanord/se...57594174419372/
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Start animating already!!!!
I'm not one to know how to comment on models and stuff, cause I've only made the flower in the tutorial...but I have a feeling that once you start animating you will realize if you need to change something in the model and what that something is.
You should definitely start animating though, even if they're just little tests!
Go for it!
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I would really love to come again!
This year however I'll probably be solo....I'm not sure how I will get there, but I'll figure it out later. (probably plane, train, or automobile)
Anyways, I can't wait!
(this might be a little more tricky this year missing college classes instead of high school ones... at least monday is a holiday though..I have no idea what my spring quarter classes are..almost all of the art classes are super strict on missing classes and this trip might suck up my max excusable miss days before it starts to drop my grade, which wouldn't be a problem unless my visit to Pixar in early April (which has to be during my mom's spring break) takes up a lot of school days...sorry thinking out loud....I will make it work though, cause I love the hash bash and Pixar....)
All I can say is "this is going to be the best spring ever"!
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That's most excellent! I love it!
Awesome job Will!
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This is just awesome, awesome, awesome!
That's all I can say!
Go check it out!
http://punchandbrodie.com/leo/stanchfield/
(and it's completely free)
Walt Stanchfield was an animator who taught life drawing classes for animators with a special emphasis on gesture drawing. For each weekly class session, he wrote informal handouts to emphasize the theme of the current class session, to comment on work done in the previous class, or discuss whatever topic struck his fancy. Over a period of years, these notes were lovingly shared, studied, and treasured by animation students everywhere.Mr. Stanchfield personally gave copies of his collection to interested students, and was happy to seem them distributed. According to many people who were lucky enough to study under him, he wanted to publish them as a book, but the studio where he worked was not interested.
The goal of this project is to imagine the book that Walt Stanchfield might have written: Gesture Drawing for Animation. I hope you enjoy it and benefit from it as much as I have putting it together.
This project is a compilation of the first 60 handouts that are shared on the www.animationmeat.com website (as that site has numbered them). Walt Stanchfield did not present his topics in any particular order, which suited the ongoing nature of the classes. Walt's handouts are like individual frames of animation -- some are extremes, some are inbetweens, some are even cleanups. As I was reading the notes and trying to absorb as much as I could, I thought I might understand them better if it were all laid out in sequence, with basic topics followed by more complex ideas. I wanted to see his ideas grouped by subject so I could compare the ideas. In other words, I wanted the topics to be arranged like a normal book.
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*umm removed out of sheer embarrassment
pretend that this was never here
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Sure Niels,
I would be happy to play around with a version like that....until then though I think I'm going to remove that link in my last post....it sounds much worse than I remember it yesterday.
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oh this is really cool! I like it!
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Okay, no laughing (I know i can't sing)...but, I just thought that the tin man needed some tin girl in his song...
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So far, 3D has been all about self-absorbed propellorheads whose only contact with reality is that they're on the same web forum as a guy who animated a shot in "Over the Hedge."
Wow, that won't sit too well with their readers, slamming all 3D enthusiasts. Did you already reply?
Maybe not, but it is definitely true.
I like that quote actually!
I'm pretty sure it's my favorite one! Great reply Martin.
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Looks like David answered your questions about Woot's FACE interface already... I too had trouble with Woot's face in my practice scene and I ended up switching the proxy for the real Woot, model, which helped immensely!
Anyways, I can't wait to see what you do with the scene.
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Oh wow, th-th-thank you sire...uh I mean Robert!
That is of the most tremendous help! I will put those plans into action tomorrow after school, I really like the leaning forward and then straightening up at the end idea! That is just brilliant! I will also try to reconcile Woot's eyes with how they are in Dhar's shot. Yeah, anyways, I'm really really really looking forward to fixing this shot up. I would do it tonight, but I need sleep (worked until 1am yesterday on a school night).
Oh, and you are right, that girl's hands look like they belong to a guerilla.
Thank you so much again! Those videos you make are SO EXTREMELY helpful!
Alright, I'm off I'm gone, goodnight!
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Sweet! Is this true....I can't believe my eyes! A post critiquing running!!!!
I don't know how many videos I've sat through at cross country camp going frame by frame through each runners stride listening to the coaches critique everyone and give advice on being a more efficient runner. Maybe that critiquing at xc camp and four years of xc and thousands of miles under my feet will pay off a little, I know running like the back of my foot!
Teresa's Running Analysis of Woot!
Here's what I see when I watch your run cycle Yves (which is very good by the way):
-1st thing i notice: Woot is a very efficient runner by how far up his back leg/foot comes. His leg swings through nice and high with his heel going right by his knee on the way through, which makes a nice triangle of space between his two legs (which is GREAT form)! This is really good, because he's a little kid with a lot of energy, if he didn't have energy his leg probably wouldn't swing through that high. So two thumbs up from me on that part.
-1 1/2 thing: Nice full leg extension. When his back leg is down and his front leg is bent forward in the air. you can draw a diagonal line right down him which is awesome. That means he is pushing off the ground very nicely.
-2nd thingy i noticed: If Woot runs a lot, he is bound to get injured by landing on his heel like that. Ouch! A lot of people really DO run like this however, so don't worry about it, it's fine. I'm just critiquing because it's basically one of the most common critiques the runners at camp got from the coaches. To run efficiently your actually supposed to land on the balls of your feet, but Woot's a kid and he doesn't need to have good running form, so don't worry about it. He's fine! (landing on your heels just means that your taking too long of strides, which actually makes sense for Woot, because it's a common misconception and among kids especially that the longer strides you take, the faster you are. However, that's not true. You waste more energy over striding than taking quick short strides) Wow, sorry, that was a long answer to only say that I like the stride length you have, since Woot is a kid after-all and not a competitive runner!
-3rd thing i noticed: Nice job at pointing the toes/foot up during/after the swing tough, that is very good form indeed, very good.
-4th thing: I love how he leans forward while he runs, which carries his momentum, nicely done yet again!
-5th thing: Since he's over striding Woot is landing ahead of his center of gravity, which isn't efficient, but as I said up above is perfectly fine for a little kid with a lot of energy and a lot of people do it. So no problems there.
-6th: the back and forth shoulder/arm movement looks nice!
Yup, so there ya have it...Nothing to change...You've got Woot's run down!!!
Nice Job Yves!
Sincerely Your A:M Runner Consultant,
Teresa (runnergeekazoid) Nord
-Run Happy-
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Thanks for all the comments guys, and yeah I still need to fix how his back and arms move backwards before the hunch forward (i think that's from me just not using the zero slope interpolation thingy).
one question first... is the length of the clip the length the shot is in the animatic right now or is it intended to run longer?
The length of the clip is the length it's supposed to show in the movie, right Rhett? (40 frames)
I'm pretty sure it won't be any longer.
It looks like he's hunching over at a constantI agree, thanks! I can definitely fix that!
Thanks again for all the critiques!
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Sorry here it is, this should download now...
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Sorry this has taken me FOREVER to post!
The past couple weeks have been crazy, but I think I've finally straightened out my work schedule so I don't have to work on school days anymore. (which should help immensley)
Anyways, I made some minor minor changes to this scene....Since Woot is supposed to be looking at the Tin Man at the end of this scene instead of remembering or thinking of an idea....So I redirected his eyes and I also messed a little bit with the eyebrows since changing his eyes kinda meant that the brows needed changing too. (i like Robert's idea of maybe having some proxy type eyebrows for the characters, that would be most helpful for viewing them without having to render hair)
Well anyways here is the latest on this scene...comments and critiques welcome!
(p.s. a big thanks to Rhett for helping me render the scene in my last post and a big thanks to Mike Stamm for helping me mess with settings to render this one in 20 minutes instead of 4 hours!)
edit-shoot, i was writing this post during the render and now that i take a look at it something went haywire with his body/arms...i will find the problem re-render and post it again ASAP (actually it might have to wait until after work)....here's this one in the meantime....
I think the problem with the body and arms is due to me not knowing about how you can select points in the timeline and give them zero slope (thanks Jeff Lew and Larry
! Okay anyways.... -
Well, when I came home from the hash bash I discovered that I couldn't do partial updates the same way I was watching watching them being done (right click). On a mac you can't do partial updates on your folders...so I dunno why you lost your ability to update individual folders by right clicking, but there are a few ways work around it.
One is to go directly through svn I think...I'm not really too sure how to do this one confidently...but somehow you can chose the folder by selecting the file path and updating it that way....
or
If you go to the repository URL in options in A:M you can also select just the things you want to update (and deselecting what you don't want to)...if that makes any sense at all???
I dunno I'm pretty tired...I can describe it better tomorrow...or somebody who knows what they're doing more than I do will surely be better at explaining it....or could probably even get your right clicking ability to update to work or something...
Hope that helps...maybe...sorta....kinda
Animation Mentor (Animation Basics Discount)
in Open Forum
Posted · Edited by TeresaNord
Wow! That is a big discount.
AM was a great program when I went through. I know they switched up their courses a bit, so I can't speak to that. There definitely is a lot of competition now with AnimSchool, iAnimate, and more recently AnimSquad.
Competition to get a staff job at the big studios seems to be as steep as ever. I owe AM everything for getting my foot in the door when I did. I'm so thankful to have one of those staff jobs and definitely count myself lucky.
Oh, I also had Dimos as a mentor and he was fantastic!