Animation Lounge IS BACK

As promised, Animation Lounge is back!

Come take a look!

ANIMATION LOUNGE

Animation Lounge

There is a long time that I didn't post and the reason is that I'm right now busy with Animation Lounge to put it back online which should be really soon.



I didn't want it to disappear so I contacted the last administrator to see it there was a way to have it back online again and so now I'm also an administrator of that Website.

Final Render - 11SecondClub - October

Here is the final render that I will post soon for my entry for 11SecondClub October.

It's not perfect and far from it. But I'm happy with it for few reasons and the main one is that I finished it!!! LOL



11SecondClub October - FinalRender from Mathias Aubry on Vimeo.

Smoothed 02 - 11SecondClub - October

Here is a preview of the animation close to the end, I think I will try to smooth just a bit more 2 or 3 moves and that will be done! not perfect but at least finished! :P


11SecondClub October - Smoothed 02 from Mathias Aubry on Vimeo

There is few think that I don't like but too late too change it!

Note for me to work on next animation:

- find more poses for fingers/hands.
- Not to be too afraid of static pose!

Smoothed 01 - 11SecondClub - October

here is the animation with the key smoothed and not anymore stepped (blocking) but I didn't work on them yet.
still some work to do... hope I will have time to finish!
I'm also still working on the end, I don't like the move during the "things will change for me!" So I will try to improve that!


11SecondClub October - Curves from Mathias Aubry on Vimeo.

Blocking Pass 02 - 11SecondClub - October

I changed some poses following pieces of advice that some posted on the forums (11secondClub forum and 3dStation) And I think it's better now... still need some work!


11SecondClub October blocking pass 02 from Mathias Aubry on Vimeo

Blocking Pass 01 - 11SecondClub - October

here is my blocking pass for the October's contest.

I still need to work more on the lypsync and face emotion.


11SecondClub October blocking pass from Mathias Aubry on Vimeo.

I'm still alive!!!

More than a month without posting!!! So sorry, just really busy with some stuff! I'm also helping a friend with his website, a bit a flash scripting, which is a lot similar to maya! And also lately when I have a bit of spare time I started to animate a character for the competition of the 11 second Club For October. I'm still working on my blocking pass and hope that I will be able to post it soon!

So stay tunned!
Mathias.

Lucien is back but.... naked!!!

So I forced myself to work again on Lucien but I changed a bit the way I was going to do it.
As you can see on the following pic, his body changed completly. I thought it will be easier to start him kind of naked and then with time add clothes than the opposite. But asd you can see, he is not forgotten!



By the way, On CGtalk a guy just post an amazing video of his rigs... just amazing, even depressing! lol, he is so good!
here is the link of his Website. Victor Vinyals

Animation Jump. Balls with different Weight

The animation of the day,
the first ball with texture... why is it important for the animation?
Well, by adding a texture on the ball, I had also to animate the rotation. there was no rotation of the ball with the preceding animations but because there was no detail on the ball, your couldn't see that, your brain thought it was rotating but now with the texture, I have to do it manually, Can't let your brain go it anymore... gosh!!!

Also you will see that the second ball has an other weight and you can feel it by its bounces and how it reacts to the environement... It's just animation! I'm crazy about this effects!

Enjoy





Here is the same animation without the rotation!

Animation Jump ball 02

So here I am back to the jump.
This one is faster which works much better!

I'm starting to be a bit bored/annoyed with bouncing ball but I will force myself to still work on that to really feel good about it!
I will add a second ball with a bigger weight. After that I will work on animating ball with character (Living Ball). And also I need to go back on Lucien! I need more than 24 hours!

Without Wall




With the Wall

Weight in Animation

Here is another exercise with simple objects.
What I love in this exercise is that it really shows that the animation is giving so much information to the eyes. For exemple, this 2 videos have exactly the same component and the same animation until frame 18 but after that frame the animation is completly different giving different weights to the different objects!

Bouncing Ball 02

Here is a new try with the bouncing ball. For now I definitly prefer that one!
This is a ball without any character, just try to look kind of realistic.

Bouncing Ball

So to start again this new season I will work again on the bouncing ball. I notice that there is a lot of thing off in this animation, I opened it again but I was not able to solve it so I did some search. I hope this will help me!

On this website I find a chart that show the bounciness of different type of ball.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/bouncing_balls.html



Also on this next link you can find a lot of really good video slow motion.

http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/high_speed_video/

Tennis Ball raquet bounce
Tennis Ball shot
Newton's amplifier
Newton's amplifier explenation

I will start again soon to work on Lucien, just need the energy, courage and time, LOL!

The return!

Every good things come to an end so here we are back in Montreal after some amazing moment spent in France. If you never went in the Provence and you have a possibility to do so, don't miss it, for me it's the most beautiful place in the world that I have seen so far!
But now I will focus on the new season, and go back to work onLucien and other animations.

Holydays

3 Weeks vacations!!! wouhouuuuu!!!

I'm gonna go in France, visiting my family and showing Kaleigh, my wife how beautiful the south of France is. So I won't be posting during that time, but I will be ready and relaxed for September!

Animation Bouncing ball 01

a little break from Lucien. A first pass of an animation of a ball, I'm not quite satisfied with the last small bounces and I need also to add some squash and stretch... but it's a beginning!



Animation Ball Bounce from Mathias Aubry and Vimeo.

LUCIEN Hand 02

Up, working on the hands!

LUCIEN Hand 01

This weekend I work on the hands, still a lot of work to do on it...

LUCIEN body 03

An update of the body! What else to say...

LUCIEN body 02

So I will put in the first version (I'm not sure if I will have the courage to do more version!) two haircuts, and the mustache, there will alse be the possibility to hide them, so here a little animated gif to show the different possibility and how it change the character!



Babiroussa told me that it would be better to make him a little bit bigger around the hips, so here it is and I think it looks good!

LUCIEN Body 01

here is the beginning of the body, just the proportion and several detail to give a preview.

their will be an attibute to control the visibility of the mustache and the hair!

LUCIEN First Dialogue

Not a preview anymore! I smoothed the moves a bit more and improve the end which is the most difficult part, especially with just the head. Sorry for the sound at the end, and I was not able to fix it with the softwares I use.

Hope you enjoy!





Here some preview!
The manipulators in action!



Lucien First Dialogue - Manipulator from Mathias Aubry and Vimeo.

The Manipulator and the mesh smoothed!



Lucien First Dialogue - Playblast from Mathias Aubry and Vimeo.

What is usually hidden when I'm animating! a big mess!



Lucien First Dialogue - setup from Mathias Aubry and Vimeo.

LUCIEN First Dialogue (preview)

there is a long time I didn't post, almost a month! I was busy with a lot's of thing and also I was working on Lucien to fix small things and on this animation that took a really long time. It's not finished yet that's why I will post it only on the blog. I need to work on the end and to smooth it a bit after.

the dialogue is taken form a hilarious french movie that I recommend if you didn't see it. Le diner de cons.

So here it is!

LUCIEN rigging 13 Rigging Mouth

Ok, so Just a post to show that this project is still in progress!
I had to review the mouth again, there was some shape that I didn't like, so I changed the position of some joints, duplicate and simplified the nurb patch mouth to have a better control on the joint inBetween. Then I had to reskin everything. I also added a joint close to the corner of the mouth to have some relax in that area.




And here a screen of the paint skin weight tools! Scary!

LUCIEN rigging 12 Rigging Control

As you can see with the next picture, I worked more on the Eyebrow. I even had to review a bit the mesh!



But With all this joints and Locators, it began to be really challenging to animate it to control the skin weight. So I also started to create the controls which take so much Time!!!

LUCIEN rigging 11 Rigging Eyebrow

It's not done yet but I'm working on the Eyebrow.
Again a setup without blendshape... Do I hate blendshape? mmmh I think they are heavy (a complete other mesh) and used too often. But I start to think that I'm trying to avoid them to much... well for now it's working. Maybe at the end I will add some of them.

So about the system, joint moving on a surface with locator and nodes PointOnSurfaceInfo. I love that Node! lol

LUCIEN rigging 10 Rigging Mouth

It's done, I change the location of the mouthNurb patch to be at the base of the joint instead of the end of them. It works much better. Also I added some joints that follow the action but do not rotate and that really usefull for inside and around the mouth.

Here is the video test.

It's really close to what I was looking for!



here is a screen of the methode I used.

LUCIEN Rigging 09 Rigging Mouth

Here is some pose test during the skinning.

I like it but there is still a lot to do... Also I think I will change a bit the methode I used for the corner af the mouth.

LUCIEN Rigging 08 Rigging Eyes

Here is the first test for the rigging of the Eyelid.
Used of 16 joints by Eyes.
I'm for know satisfied by the results and the possibility of this methode.
Methode that Keith Lango explain in a tutorial in his blog.

http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?p=562

It was a bit challenging to do a mirroir skin Weight in Maya 8.5 but by Using the labels of the joints it work really properly. So by being careful and organized while creating the joints, We can gain time latter.

Next step the mouth.

LUCIEN Rigging 07 Modeling

A little test to cut my mesh to have enough vertex aroud the eyebrow to give him a upset look.
Next step will be the mouth I think, which I'm a bit worry... Go Math, Go! You can do it! (yes I try to encourage myself! LOL no, I'm not crazy!!!)



And also I've done the teeth.
I tried to find a balance between not to simple but still toon.

LUCIEN Rigging 06 Modeling

After several comments, I picked the version number 2.

Now I'm working on the throat. I made a rough skin on the tongue and the face to open the mouth just to see how it will look like!

Here is the picture!





Also, To show Why I want a face more adult but kind of neutral here is a little slideshow to show that by adding just few more details it can change it really quicly... well I'm not sure about the girl but will see...

LUCIEN Rigging 05 Modeling

I received several comments on the fact that the previous version was better, so Ièm going back to the first one.

here is some tests to make it look older but still cartoon and 'cute'.

I'm waiting for some feedback to kow which one is the best. Will I come back to the first Version?

LUCIEN Rigging 04 Modeling

More I looked at it and more I find that it looks too young. So here, before to go further, I tried to change the proportion and the face to make it looks more adult.

LUCIEN Rigging 03 Modeling

The entire head...

Next step, the inside of the mouth. and some modification of the mesh if needed!




Et Voila!!!

LUCIEN Rigging 02 Modeling

Here is a new update!
I made the ears, which by the way I think is the more difficult and frustrating thing to do in 3D. But for this one I'm kind of glad to see how it looks like!

I'm just a bit afraid that he looks like Dopey... Are the ears to big??

Anyway, as you can see I need to cover some holes in the back of his head, then I will clean the mesh and I will post it on some forums.

LUCIEN Rigging 01 Modeling

Here is another Project I'm working on and this one might last for a long time.
My goal, create a Rig for my own use from the begining to the End.

I will call it LUCIEN

Here is the head under construction. I'm trying to find a neutral but cool design. I tried to have a pixar's look for the eyes.

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 06

Sadly I wasn't able to finish it! But that's ok, I learned a lot about key so next time I'm sure I will do better. (when I went from the blocking pass to the spline it was kind of awfull! lol, a newby mistake!)
So what did I learn?

-Spending more time on preparation! drawing and thinking of important position but also thinking of overlapping moves. ( Keith lango Tutorials).

-Switching between stepped tangent and linear tangent more often and from the begining.

-Using some maya script to copy and paste keys, curve and movement.

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 05

New update. Worked on some poses.

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 04

here a new update that change a lot, still a blocking pass... I hope one day I will be able to use the curve LOL. Anyway, so, I did the start again because I had lot's of comment saying that its dancing's step were weird and... I think I agree, I also look at some video and a bullet doesn't have the power to push you that much, so I tried something else.




Feel free to Comment or Critic.

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 03

Still a rough blocking but I added more to make it more cartoon and less serious.

C&C if you feel like it.

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 02

Here is a little update, adding some inbetwenn

Challenge #7 CGtalk - 01

First rough blocking

An animation of a guy who is being shot...
I hope I would be able to add stuff before and after but first I want to focus on this action to be able to post something not to bad at the end of the challenge.

Here is a start, a rought blocking step.



At the end, the render shold look like that




C&C are welcome