Weekly Update

It's been a while since last update. My progress of rigging is rather slow mostly because there are too many tiny little annoying traps while rigging. I did not spend too much time modeling. (about a day or so) But rigging is a different story. As said before, I am forming the habit of planning in whichever production stage, which is quite important. In fact, I found myself becoming more organized recently. I event created a version log for rig files as well as a rig requirement note before I started doing rigging.

It is painful if you fall into one of those rigging traps. You have to dig into the outliner's hierarchy to find out what went wrong especially if you can't locate the problem visually(which you should actually). But anyway, I am mostly done with the rigging of Di. Next week I will start on Bo. Hopefully by the end of this month , i could have a complete animation rig for production. Hopefully. This week I will post some 2D animatics which I compiled together using windows movie maker here. It's not complete yet still fun to watch.

Planning makes me think

Today I just realized something. Something my wife often complains about me, which is either lack of planning or no planning at all. She did complained about that even before our marriage. I never give it a serious thought until now.

I was told that Planning is probably the most important thing in animation the first time I seriously started learning it from some seasoned pro. And now I look back at some exercises or practices I have done, still, not enough planning.

My 2D animatics stuff was mostly going fine. While I was doing it using flipbook (much under the influence of JRA), I found many more interesting animation ideas rather than my original ideas, which was mostly reflected using some rough storyboard. And one thing I often ignore while I was doing other animation exercise is that I rarely consider how the animation should end. I guess it's mainly because there is essentially no story point in those exercises. But now things are different. Every animation serves as part of the story hence forces me to think more about staging, camera angle as well as how the current shot transits to the next. (although there are not many of them for its simplicity) So I guess yes, I am starting to plan more on almost every aspect. Even this type of planning is by no means adequate, I still gain a better vision and most intriguingly discovered a couple of new ideas along the way.

Happy planning!

Simplicity is the king

Posted twice in two days! Great momentum I am sensing.

If the story idea already sounds too simple and naive for you, here comes a even simpler character design. Yes, ultra simple, as straightforward as even the creator himself.

I am showing some design sketches I did, which would 95% resembles the final look.

It is my first short, so I was hoping that it wont look too bad. (People keep saying that your first idea or creation always sucks) For that reason, I decided to allow it to suck, but not too much, must be within my tolerance range.

I have started to create the 2D animatics for the short. Actually it is going to be a bit more than just 2D animatics. They are going to be some 2D animation plannings in Flipbook. Most of them are going to be on 4s. Doing these helps me to have a better vision of the whole film. I figured they are going to be super helpful for my animation in later stage. Plus, I can use it as a reference for rigging process.

Starting Point

Although I hate to admit that I have initiated too many of them before, I still have to announce it here. A new journey begins, lah lah lah lah....

This blog will serve as a production diary for my first short film production. Actually, for many more to come, who knows? I am planning to do a short film every year. I know it sounds a bit ambitious, but let us plan it this way first. We will see how things go. Oh, I was also thinking that I could publish my rig for my two little characters as free animation resources on the internet. But that is going to happen when the film is done, which assume to be happening soon, hopefully. Just for that reason, I have been learning about rigging, which is ......DIFFICULT.

Ok, enough bluffing. I will talk about my simple story ideas first. I came up with this little story one day after a nap. It didn't appear in my nap, but after. I was thinking about chopping a generic character into half right in the middle, so it becomes two separate pieces whereas both are still alive. Yes, simply put, they are upper body and lower body. Yeah!!!!! very exciting. I was imagining that the upper body (a ribcage with shoulders and arms) wants to combine with the lower body ( a pelvis and two legs). But the lower body does not want to do so. Hence, a fight is inevitable. In the end, the two combined to form a body and happily walk away. Another happy ending! Yeah!!!!

Ok, it is not so great. But I figured it is stupid and simple enough to become a short film. That is how this blog get started. Wish me luck.