Promised Land

A year ago Baily Brent and I were fortunate to participate and teach at this amazing festival in Lodz, Poland! Thanks Sebastian for the invite!

Europe backpacking trip!

Starting in Amsterdam where I was lucky enough to get a tour around the city and share some nerdtalk with fellow animators here in the Netherlands.

Vasco and Melvin represent'n the Dutch AMers

Animation Mentor Demo 2

In my last two classes at AM, I taught animals and creatures and advanced body mechanics. I asked my students to pick a video reference they wanted me to animate for an in class demo. Here is a breakdown of the second from animals and creatures.

I found a 2 second clip I filmed on a trip to the San Diego Zoo a few years ago. The proportions were well suited to the AM Ogre rig.

                    Original clip

I blocked out the animation during 2 classes talking about my mindset and how I approached the spacing, by favoring the hang time keys and pushing the poses to be more clear. Before class I set up a simple set and put in the first pose. Then blocked using a straight ahead method, a new pose every 6-8 frames

        Blocking pass (75 minutes)

I then spent half of the next class polishing it. Starting with a pass using the COG and graph editor making sure his base of movement was smooth, had weight that F=favored the hang time. I worked outwards to the chest, head and limbs. The blocking was detailed enough, to make splining painless, mostly and working on and arcs for the arms and legs.

  Spline pass (60 minutes)

Hope you enjoyed the clips!

Animation Mentor Demo 1

In my last two classes at AM, I taught animals and creatures and advanced body mechanics. I asked my students to pick a video reference they wanted me to animate for an in class demo. Here is a breakdown of the first. I will post the second shortly.

I told them to find me a 2 second clip showing body mechanics. The class voted on this clip, one of them hunted it down online. They then voted I animate it with Stan, making it slightly more difficult due to proportion challenge. Hmm...next time I don't give them that option! :D

 

Original clip

The original video had even timing so during class I edited it to adjust timing using quicktime. I then also converted it to 12fps so I had less frames to distract me and would not be a slave to the reference.

  

Edited clip 12fps (15 minutes)

I then blocked out the animation during 2 classes talking about my mindset and how I approached the spacing, by favoring the hang time keys and pushing the poses to be more clear. Before class I set up a simple set and put in the first pose. Then blocked using a straight ahead method, a new pose every 6-8 frames. 

 
Blocking pass (75 minutes)

Afterwards, I went back and added a few more breakdowns to achieve the pass you see above. I finished blocking, and turned it into auto-tangent spline and did a couple minutes just working on fk/ik switching and this was the result. 

  

1st spline pass (20 minutes)

I then spent half of the next class polishing it. Starting with a pass using the COG and graph editor making sure his base of movement was smooth, and working outwards to the chest, head and limbs.

  

2nd spline pass (30 minutes)

It was odd to animate and talk about my thought process in each step, and something I had never done before in such detail. I found it to be an interesting challenge. Because it was a short clip and the blocking was detailed enough, the splining was quick and painless, mostly and working on nicer spacing and arcs for the arms and legs.

Hope you enjoyed the clips!

Monsters in the Orchestra

A bunch of silly monsters playing music for an AMD tech demo at CES 2014. Animated as a fun freelance gig from my buddy Amir in the summer of 201. There was a bunch more monsters in the final demo but these are the ones I was assigned. I had a bunch of help from my good friend Hugo Hernandez! Thanks Hugo!

http://s2014.siggraph.org/attendees/emerging-technologies/events/monsters-orchestra-surround-computing-vr-experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgfa9Q9Trw4

Last day at Black Tusk

Ten months has flown by! It has been a blast working here with this super talented crew and on Gears of War and I am super excited to see it when it releases. I wish I could share more but good things come to those who wait. Up next I'm returning to Sony to work with Genndy on Hotel Transylvania 2! :D

Tiger fun

This is a little animation test I did in my spare time with a rig made from Thawatchai "Boat" Chunhachai. It is quick and fun and flexible. I did both animations over a couple days.

tiger

Roar!

Writing is hard

I have been doing some writing recently and am enjoying the creative process and excited about coming up with a new world and characters. It started out just for fun but now I am hoping that I can build on this and make it turn in to something tangible in the real world. I have reached the point now where I need to get advice and help of others who I respect. Excited and hopeful I can keep this up.

As far as work, I have started working on an untitled Microsoft One game at Black Tusk Studios. Everyone here is great and I am enjoying it. I just started up life drawing again and am applying for Canadian residency. Ski season is upon us and it is starting to snow. Spent X-mas break in Kauai, which was great, and have continued doing Animation Mentor.

I had a fun summer job working on MITO for AMD. It was a tech demo for CES featuring animated monsters playing music in an orchestra. Great to work with Amir and Hugo on that and looking forward to posting some of that soon!

Saaspa!

A breakdown of one of my favorite shots on the film I got to work on. Sam and Barry learn to communicate. Shot breakdown, boards, video reference, blocking and final animation. With these astounding storyboards by Kris Pearn, 90% of the work was done. I just had to not mess it up. Thanks to everyone who helped on the shot! SAAASPA!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sFw4Sfr0pQ

Final Lighting

Awesome boards by the director

Cloudy 2 is out!

I spent 5 glorious months animating on this fantastically funny film, and encourage anyone who likes silly animation and goofy or uber cute characters (as you can see below) to go enjoy it themselves. The few months since leaving Sony have been spent doing freelance, enjoying an amazing summer in Vancouver, and catching up on some important video games, like The Last of Us, an equally amazing project I am very sorry not to have been part of. But luckily I was part of this crazy Cloudy film! Huge thanks goes out to all the awesome peeps and the sups and leads that helped me make these shots what they are; Hugo, John, Josh, Tim, Kevin, Alan, Pete, Bianca, Brandon, Avner, IT and everyone else who gave great advice and reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvrqR_K1TxU

 

Cloudy 2 Crunch Time Beard Team!

My professorial look

Animate quickly! What?

10 Vistas hike 

Kingston Lake 

 Lions hike

 Vancouver after a storm

Back in Vancouver

Back in beautiful Vancouver working on Cloudy 2 since Feb. The movie is hilarious and has been a joy to be part of. I got some boarding in since it was still the dead of winter when I returned, but now spring is upon us here, so time to strap on the hiking shoes.

Cloudy 2 trailer link-a couple of my shots in there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw6dECrl-BE

working on meatballs

ex AMers and Mentors at Sony

 Cypress

Blackcomb glacier

Germany to Dominican wedding

The last week has been a juxtaposition of climates as I went from visiting my good friend Til in Dueseldorf, Germany to a surf camp in Cabarete DR.Temps from -6 to 30 (water too) up next is Kevs wedding in Punta Cana.

Til & I

Dueseldorf

9 hours later...

Puerto Plata

prop plane to Punta Cana

Kev and Christine's wedding!

Lionhead Studios

I was super fortunate to have an opportunity to visit Lionhead Studios for a week and hang out with these cool guys! Thanks for having me and good luck on your next game!

Si Jamie Franck Virgil Emilio Ed Lusimi Chris (Andy Chris np)

Guildford Castle 

Con Virgil, Emilio y Lusimi

Stockholm

Was able to spend a few days in Stockholm to visit friends (thanks Anna and Micheal!) and I got to see several of my AM students from past classes! And even visit Marie and Juan at Easy Studios. What a great city, will have to return in the summer some day. Brr...

Chris Juan Laura and Marie - animators unite!

AM peeps

Marie and I outside Easy Studios

Skansen

Cougers

Wolverines!

Owls are cool

My awesome hosts Micheal and Anna

Old town