Cheese.

It's been two weeks. I've been busy...SORRY.

This is part of a story that will end with a lot of cheese. SO KEEP READING!...doooo ittttt.

Teaching and modeling the muzzle

These pictures were all taken by Thomas.

These drawings were done by one of the guys called Anthony - I think they're awesome.

Hopefully we may be able to put up the animations they made at some point.

Today was teaching day! Horray! About 9/10 kids aged 14-18 from Truro Youth Center and their mentor John came to Tremough house today and, Me, Joe, Thomas and George gave them a very brief insight into Digital Animation, along with two Graphics Illustrator students. The whole thing was set up by Olly West but we organized the equipment and the location.

Really no idea what to expect. We'd sort of sketched a short plan of what we were hoping to do with them but as is the way things kind of ab-libbed. They also had to go about 1 and half hours early so there was a lot we didn't get to explain to them.

Basically our idea was we'd say Hi and introduce ourselves, show a bit of our work for about a minute, then get them drawing for about half an hour because it was explained to us that a few of them didn't really know how to start with drawing or how to progress so I figured the basics of character design were the way to go. Then for the rest of the time we'd get them working with plasticine and produce some stop-motion.

However, it all go bundled into about an hour so it was quite hectic! Great fun though. They all seemed to really enjoy the plasticine which is what we hoped for because at school the best bits were always the practical bits. (At school - I only knew where the heart in a fish is because we dissected it and I threw it around the room not because I looked in a book :P) So that was brilliant. They're the kinda kids that feel let down by the education system, feel they don't have a purpose because they can't use a calculator or an essay so our main task was to basically say don't worry about all that anybody can be creative and it's way more fun than algebra anyway.

I talked to a few of them afterwards who said they'd love to come here and go to University but they were worried about the money or the grades, so I just said forget about the grades (you only need an 'E' at A level anyway) - sketch books are the important things and I told them what my mum told me which is don't worry about money, don't let it rule your life I mean yeah it's easy for me to say that with my loan all nice and secure but just chase your dream and the money will come - there's schemes and systems out there to support you if you show you've got the dedication just don't give up on something because of the cost.

Anyway they seemed encouraged by the whole session and they all got into it and the best thing was they produced two shorts that they could take away at the end of it (despite our pointing out it usually takes more than a few hours to produce a good quality second of animation). So we were assured of repeat business and agreed probably the most efficient way to go about it is for them to come to us with problems and queries rather than us try and guess and blabber on about this and that. Now we've got our toe in the water and met them a second meeting can be much more efficient and smoother and even more beneficial for them. I only managed to take 2 pictures though as I was running around like a mad thing trying to get everything set up, and helping them out.

Some of their plasticine models were actually quite impressive and they all can draw, I'm quite interested to push their drawing skills because it's always the thing that puts people off, I mean how many times have you heard somebody say "Oh I can't do Art, I can't draw". Utter bollocks. Anyone can draw and anyone can draw well. All it is is practice, Van Gogh proved that, everyone in the Animation Studio has proved that - that's always something I've been interested in preaching, but plasticine is the most accessible and it worked a charm.

Negotiated Brief - CGI Muzzle

So pointers/feedback and tips from Georg where positive. I was quite pleased considering this is about my 5th or 6th time modelling and this is by far and away the most complicated thing I've ever done.

So as you can see in this picture I've got to make nice smooth lines around the mouth - you look at the line immediately next to the opening you'll see it curves around the lips. I've got it going on this side.

I've called the whole area the muzzle, in case you were wondering what that was about.

But you can see on this side it hasn't joined up yet. As it comes with drawing in edge lines, it get's a bit messy so I'm in the process of cleaning it up, making it clear and easy for myself to work with.

As you can see here at the back I've deleted all the edges and vertex points that I'll never use - I could probably delete more of these too.

I've also enlarged the mouth cavity as it was one thing I didn't think; when you open the mouth really wide you need lots of room to work with so if you have a small mouth cavity and want to stretch the mouth a lot then it's not going to work.

So it's not looking to bad at the minute. still lots to do. I've got to extend the nose up to about midway through the bridge, define the cheeks and stress lines and define the lips some more. I'm hoping to have this looking pretty nearly perfect by the end of the week, leaving myself the last week to fiddle and tweak as necessary. My immediate job though before I get any further with this is to do some technical drawings and cross sections for reference. I also waiting on my retort stand (a piece of lab equipment but you can use it to hold your maquette and model it probably and not get fingerprints/holes and have it slipping and sliding everywhere) so I can get cracking on my Maquette

Progress.

So if I remind you what she sort of looks like. You can see where I'm going with this model?

The side is still the trickiest part.

Don't regard this model as finished this is 2-3 hours getting started. I'm going to have to put up all my lips and jaws drawings at some point too.

You may be thinking, 2-3 hours? That's all you do? Well no, I've spent about 6-7 hours line cleaning on TVP for Jacob's Inbetween A Fable (only a second of animation with 2 characters but it took foreverrrrrr) Then I've been writing that dissertation proposal, practice modelling in Maya...seminars...anyway it all adds up. I've been working 6-9 hour days. No less that 6 at the minute.

Anyway new skill today re-learned/learned = Edge looping. Makes things much easier.

Started off with a 5(width)x5(height)x2(depth) cube on this too.

This was practice/mucking around/ trying things out before I got started on the real thing (Above) Kinda looks like Batman's jaw to me? or An Avenger? Purely accidental. Anyway see, I've come a long way in 2 days!

This was my lovely nice computer desk (my laptop is now assigned to the bed which isn't all bad) covered in new materials to get going with stuff. The only thing I need now is random implements and tools (like cocktail sticks...pointy things, sculpting tools etc) and a stand to put my maquette on. So here you see Das modeling clay (air drying) and balsa wood and a latex head.

I'm going to be using the latex head for practice stop motion-ing, and making a blank head shape from balsa wood to map my 3d model onto.

So through this hole goes this;

It can't be done you say? Well, it can I'm assured with a lot of huffing and puffing. The green thing is basically a housing for the eyes, and provides structure for the face so that when you grab it to animate it, you've got something solid to hold. It's made from something similar to super sculpti (can't remember the exact name, I wrote it down somewhere...maxi?) that's soft when you mold it then you bake it in the oven and it goes hard.

So this is the latex head that I'm borrowing from Ann. It's made from a mold and I'm going to be using it to animate with.

CGI Mouth

Update - 9.20pm

Enough of 3D mouths for today I think.

From the side it looks more like a finger. The side view is proving particularly difficult to accomplish.

Probably the best angle. I added teeth! look! wow!

I think I need Georg's help to stop it looking like two plasticine sausages stuck together. :/

It's only taking me an hour now to get a recognizable generic mouth shape (thanks to Ryan :D)

It's a really challenging way of thinking because I've always been drawing 2D (on exercise that has helped with this is in life drawing when we draw the model using 3D shapes or as if she was made out of lego) but it's not so bad because in Maya you can isolate your viewpoint to the top, front or side. I'm just finding the side view, and therefore the extremities of the front view hard to re-create in Maya.

So if you see this image here which I've cropped, the rest of the mouth (besides the upper lip being different sizes at each end...) isn't too bad. So tomorrow I shall master the side view!

Oh and yes, I found the 'merge objects' tool. Good old random clicking.

(1st post - 7pm)

From this angle it looks more like a lips sofa.

So this was about 2 hours and I started with a cube this time. Ryan helped me and gave me a few pointers and it's defiantly made things easier.

So this is the pattern without the smoothness on which looks weird.

Obviously needs more definition and work but this is just a progress thing. At least they look like lips now right?

Anyway, not completely awful despite a year's absence from Maya? I'm getting there.

Getting there

So my first shot at doing a mouth. This is 4 hours spent on Saturday before I got booted out of the studio at 5. Bare in mind that I haven't touched Maya since the first year (which is almost exactly a year ago) and that I haven't really modeled anything as complicated as a mouth. Which is why if you notice on the left side some of my edges and vectors have gotten crossed. So I may have to start again from scratch but to get back to this point won't take me very long. The first problem that's arisen that I can see is the inside of the mouth, with the teeth and tongue and things...what do I do in there? I'm a noob at Maya but I think you can add in polygons and surfaces and link it all together? I don't know?

Anyway as suggested by Laurence I started off with a sphere and after a while it did make sense as to why. Anyway its recognizable as a mouth sort of? And the first year stuff trickled back to me. After this I'll have to get to grips again with Blinn and Lambets and colouring and all the malarcky. I expect solid progress this week though! My Laptop also seems to cope well with Maya (you can download it and use it for free if you're a student here) so I can work on it after hours too. Also by the end of this week I shall have a maquette done, or at least a rough version of one.

Ohhh graphic. I like this font (perhaps needs to be bigger though?). Placement of it maybe needs playing with though. Should I add in features? I quite like it this binary.

Windmill possibly needs more definition.

Rockin' Oot.

So here's the plan with the negotiated project;

I'm going to model a mouth in maya.

Then I'm going to animate a stop-motion puppet (using a ready made one in storage due to time constraints because there's not enough time to learn to build an armature AND learn how to 3d model in 4 weeks).

Then I'm going to converge the two into a 10 second piece that's a practice of the technology.

I will however provide armature and puppet designs for my own character.

This is waaaay outside my comfort zone. And I've never done any of it before, except a tiny bit of modelling in the 1st year, and I've animated plasticine before a couple of times but not a real puppet.

Alongside that I'm making a clay maquette of the character I already have. Then using the pitch project, which runs parallel to this, to pitch "the monster's mother" concept (which is what I've named my idea).

So the first two jobs are to actually buy some clay, and get stuck in with Maya. There's lots of people willing to help which is great 'cause I'm a total noob at it.

I figured my first step with the modelling would actually be to do it with clay or plasticine to get a whole feel for the 3D-ness but there really is no time to waste so that's not going to be a days fiddling.

In case you WERE by any chance thinking this course is a fob off drawing exercise, well no because not only do I have to do all of the above, I've got to write a thing about wacom tablets (the past the present the future of technology related to animation) and do a dissertation proposal, AND do some line cleaning for Inbetween: A Fable (this is optional but I'm not one to quit on a project just because it's optional)....ah you think that's it don't you? NO! I'm also going to be teaching animation basics, and a sort of wow! come and do animation! type seminar to some kids aged 14-18 from Truro Youth Centre with 4 other guys. So I've done a lesson plan and organizing equipment for that. ...

ALL IN THE NEXT 4 WEEKS :O

This is sufficient to explain why I'm unemployed and single yes? :D

I'm actually excited , I like being busy. I'll try and get weekly blogging in. Maybe even twice weekly.

On another note 'Cheese' is rising in popularity. I now have 3 avid readers (4 if you count my mum but I'm sure she just does it for moral support :P) . Horray!

Anyways so if you were confused the clay maquette will be of this character;

She can look kinda scary, I've got plenty of time to debate the zombie/non zombie look of this character. (the whole summer in fact)

We did an exercise like this in life drawing with the model using a broom taking up different positions every 2 minutes, for 10 minutes.

So she's not all doom and gloom is our mother 'cause mum's still have fun.

Just some doodles of potential other characters but as I haven't worked out a coherent story yet these really are just doodles that I can come back to.

I think this is probably my best yet. I exaggerated the right shoulder a bit. I did manage to get her toes in (just) but I've cropped it badly here.

Yeah I went to that Kurt Jackson exhibition...can you tell?

So I started off with this, simple little character. Depending on how things go I may go back to this simpler design. I tried to get something else though because I don't want to be too 'stop-motiony' if you get me? There's almost a certain look, or the feeling that maybe stop-motion has to be a bit...odd. It's a completely different aesthetic from 3D and 2D. But because I'm combining 3D and stop motion (well that's the plan) and I'm potentially modelling and rigging the face in 3D and mapping it onto the stop motion puppet, I thought I'd put a little more effort into the facial design.

This is looking ahead to the 3rd year film though, I shan't be modelling and rigging entire faces just yet.

So after a few doodles and flicking through books and google images I came up with this one that I kinda liked. I'm still debating over giving her pupils or leaving the eyes blank.

So this is a first rough look at how the puppet will work - I haven't drawn the joints in properly as I was more labeling things for my own sake. So there are several elements to it.

Things to be 3d modeled;

Her scarf

Hands

Mouth

Possibly also her; Hair, entire face.

The puppet will be a clothed armature using a mix (depending on cost etc) of ball and socket joints (stronger but expensive and fiddly joints - these would be used on the ankles and knee) and twisted aluminium wire joints (because they're cheap they'd be used on all the other joints).

The hands and Head would be left as blank balsa wood.

So why go to the trouble of mixing the two, why not do it all in 3D?

Well a) because I don't want to and b) because you don't get the same type of animation from 3D or stop-motion and I personally prefer the feel of movement you get from a puppet.

For my negotiated brief however there may not be enough time to build the puppet and model the extra parts (since I'm a newbie in both). Due to this being an exploration in the technology techniques (ooh big words!) there's a possibility that I may be able to use ready made puppets with removable parts instead of making my own from scratch.

A few discussions are needed but I'm hopeful that my puppet is simple enough (and since I'd be doing a turnaround rather than animation it doesn't have to be perfect movement-wise) that I can make my own and still learn the 3D stuff.

Anyway it's all very exciting. I wish I could just press a button that said "learn" and get on with it.

In the meantime; next Friday the teaching starts! This is me and 2 others teaching some basics of animation to a group of kids aged 14-18 from a youth group in Truro run by a guy called John, the whole thing is organized by Olly West who's a sort of ambassador for the University. It's going to be cool hopefully, we have 4 hours to impart on them basic wisdom that will interest and inspire their minds.

In other news; I was browsing Amazon for anything cool out on the Xbox (the only thing that peaked my interest was Gears of War 3 but it's not out until September and even then it's £40 so I'll have to wait until after christmas when the price drops) and I found this thing, the game looks pretty lame and a rip off of beautiful katamari but they'd made a few animations that made me giggle.

I was thinking though why all the games these days suck balls, in my opinion. I suppose it's my own fault for not liking 1st person shooters because I can't deal with the view point because it both scares the crap out of me (my imagination runs wild and I convince myself I'm the person, which I guess is the point but I don't want to be shot at, and chased by zombies really) and I find looks rather silly because you only ever see a floating gun on your screen.

It's just a shame the game doesn't look like this little trailer other wise I might have bought it :(

But I've figured out what annoys me about most games, is that they just don't put the effort into the story, or the characters, or they put too much effort in and get so wrapped up with creating something that could be a cult that they forget all the basics, take for example this from Dragon Age Origins - possibly the dullest game I've ever had to endure.

If you managed to watch the full 4 minutes I'm impressed.

Compare that now to this extract from Gears of War 2 (mature language warning)

Dragon Age got so wrapped up in it's own lore and being so anal and becoming the next World of Warcraft (why you would want to do that is beyond me...except maybe the insane amount of money it gives Blizzard) that it's made a complete hash of it. I've read reviews were people said they found the story beautiful, okay fair enough, but how could you stand to see the incredibly poor lip sync and animation? That's what put me off. I don't care that Gears of War is a bunch of hyped up macho masculine bull-crap because it's fluid and well executed. It's actually quite an alright bit of animation with a bit of humour.

If I ever went in to gaming which I'm not sure I want to, I'd definitely be making stuff very opposite to these games which are so concerned with putting you in a "cinematic" experience that they've actually all become like each other; fairly pretty un-exciting, characterless, charmless drivil. In my humble opinion.

Anyway 'scuse the rant I was in game mode this evening and I really want to play something that isn't centered around blood splatter. I'm not violent, zombies scare me, I hate stuff that jumps out from corners and I fall asleep during Fantasy RPG's.

Which Is why I settled on a purchase of Lego Star Wars thank you very much :D