April 9th, 2007 Ahmad Al-Mahir
I managed to churn out a basic standard run cycle still focusing on the lower body movements only on Saturday morning. Was too tired to post it on the spot so I’m including it here.
Feeling a bit more confident about the standard cycles I’ve done I thought I’d naturally move on to some full body walks. I didn’t want to just keep doing one walk after another though (I’m trying to avoid the generic approach and inject a little creativity if possible) so I came up with a basic situation involving 2 characters, a change in emotion and a bit of walking. I’m incorporating 2 different types of walks for my main character in the scene, while telling part of a story. It’s still at the blocking stage for the most part, but at least it’s a start right?
That guy on the left will probably walk into the scene as well so that’s 1 more walk style I need to work on.
It seems the animation juices are kinda pumping at the moment eh? 
Cya soon!
Posted in Animation | No Comments »
April 6th, 2007 Ahmad Al-Mahir
OK. This is the second exercise - the ubiquitous walk cycle. I’m focusing on animating the hip and legs first. And it’s just a generic walk cycle for now. I’m thinking of doing a standard run cycle next. After that I’ll progress on to a full body walk and then work on displaying different attitudes/emotions in a walk next. Then maybe a similar set for the run.
Yay! Second post in a month! 
Posted in Animation | No Comments »
April 4th, 2007 Ahmad Al-Mahir
Hmmm. So far this year I’m averaging 1 post per month. I’ll keep working on it.
I’m glad to say that my transition to Maya is going very smoothly. I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit now and am getting very comfortable with the interface and work flow. Of course I’m not exploring every deep dark corner of the software at this point, but I’m already quite familiar with the various aspects of the application and am presently focusing a big chunk of my energies into buffing up my animation approach and skills. I’m working through some animation exercises and will be posting a few of them here every once in a while for your viewing pleasure (and critiques please!). They probably won’t all be polished or finals when uploaded. More like short little ongoing tests. Maybe if I can get a set of them done real nice I can include them in my showreel! I personally believe a person’s portfolio/showreel is never done and should be updated as regularly as possible (every 6mth - 1 year maybe) especially if you’re looking to get into/keep working in the industry.
Speaking of industry, a bunch of us educators were invited to Lucasfilm Animation Singapore last week for Educators Night and I must admit to being very impressed by the staff and facilities. They gave us a short talk and a tour and capped things off with a light buffet cum networking session right after. There were quite a few representatives from the local animation-related institutions - some I recognized and some not. I ended up being one of the last to leave because I was bugging them with so many questions (while trying to eat at the same time) towards the end. Unfortunately I can’t tell you any more than that since they made all of us sign an NDA before the visit. 
I’ll be visiting another animation production house with my director and a couple of colleagues this morning. It’s a day trip. I’m pretty stoked to see how they run things there and what kind of stuff they’re working on (if they let us). I’m probably the last of the animation lecturers from my school to take a tour of the place so I’ve been feeling kinda left out. Also, these guys are utilizing a particular software as part of their production pipeline that I’ve missed seeing for awhile so it’ll be quite comforting when I do get to see the familiar GUI on monitor screens again. Err. Never mind…
Anyways, here’s my first animation exercise: A Jumping Sack.
It’s a Quicktime movie in Sorensen 3 codec.
The cool floursack rig is provided by Tim Oberlander.
See ya soon!
Posted in Animation, General | No Comments »