Final Animations

Animation I finals with Lyndon were all about the flour sac. Got a couple of things in here, the 1st one is the final for the class. For whatever reason, when I composited in After Effects, the video just rendered very oddly putting in frames where it didn't need to and taking frames from where it should not have. I might down shoot this again (soo many frames), but for now, I did my best to cut out the bad frames using quicktime's frame cutting function. The other videos are just the raw pictures I took (no holds) and a jump cycle for the little dude.

Combined Flour from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Small Flour Sac - raw from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Big Flour Sac from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

small sac jump cycle from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Archer

Sooo stoked. Things are looking awesome for the animation department here at CCA, we got that sweet light table station, that really looks more like a bar, but I digress.  We're supposed to be getting some sweet metallic dry erase boards installed on the walls of the animation halls so we can draw to our hearts content on them. They're also supposedly going to put them in the storyboarding room, so we no longer have to tape the damn boards to the wall (we will use tiny earth magnets!). They used to have corked walls, but for whatever reason they were removed

In addition to that, the work I've been seeing from people is downright inspiring, one guy just went through his second ream of animation paper for his final. It actually feels what I imagine Calarts must maybe feel like, which is no surprise because the the professor who teaches their class graduated from there.

Anyway, I'm still struggling with animation, but slowly getting there. I've actually picked up a lot of stuff from just animating with these other animation students in the "animation bar". That and the After Effects animation Lyndon has been making us do, have, for some reason, really, really helped. Anyway, I still don't have my final done, but this is a small projects Lydon gave us over the weekend:

Archer from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Ballkick II

Added in some overlap, a bit of acting (nothing to write home about), and I think that's all...


ballkick II from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Ball Kick

Didn't get time to polish this up with the overlap, anticipation, etc. Just blocked in I guess. Err, I also think I got caught up again with solely the movement. We were just introduced to the graph editor in after effects which was pretty fun experimenting; the smooth spacing you can get from those curves- awesome.

Acting! Acting! Acting! Mr. Demille! Bah.


ballkick from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Jumpstick deux

Ended up doing the whole thing over, really didn't like the previous one. We didn't end up critiquing this in class, which is alright; had a lot of fun doing it. Getting used to after effects a bit so I don't spend most of the time trying to figure out how to get what I want on screen.

Anyway, here it is:

Jumpstick_deux_machina from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Jumpact

Not very happy with this, except with maybe the beginning overlapping action where I can really get a sense of this weight just coming down, stretching, holding and slowly coming back up and snapping back up into the wobble up top. I kind of copped out at the 2nd over look and just did a a static hold, when I really should've taken a page from cg and gone with some type of moving hold like I had at the beginning, or maybe something Hertzfeldt and have it shakey cam.

I also toned it down a bit from last time. Used to have this exaggerated Tex Avery anticipation (is this possible?) and major jump, but after some critique it maybe was a bit much anticipation, or:

"Most animators will tell you, you never want anticipation for anticipation. If you do that, your tipping off the audience of the anticipation for your action." - Lyndon 

Yo Dawg.

Anyway, here's the final:


Midterm from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Animation Scrap

Scrapped this one too, supposed to be in bound, acting, and jump off; didn't like it.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

CCA Animation Midterm Begins

Yep, this is our midterm.

Basically to get everything we've learned and follow this assignment:

Have this tear drop character bounce, then come to a complete stop because he sees a hole in front of him. Watch your acting beats, what's he thinking? Then make him jump over the hole and jump off screen.

I scrapped this one because I didn't really like it. Still interesting.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

The Day Buddha Shot the Sun

This is the second animation we were supposed to make, but a crazier version. I think I went too far off; Lyndon was not amused.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Overlapping action animation

Focus was on overlapping action, talked about in class a bit on Chuck Jones, Red Hot Riding hood, some looney tunes and how even in The Incredibles we see lots of overlapping action

Assignment was to give these shapes a sense of overlapping action, that one moved, then the other and as the first one is going back the top one is just getting to that side, etc. This was also in after effects.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

After Effects shape animation

We got a quick tutorial on After Effects and animating shapes. Interesting little program. I had a hard time with the anchor points and trying to get it to rotate right, I really have no idea how I did it, but kind of irked me when Lyndon shows me how I could've done the same thing using the pan behind tool, without having to input all those numbers on rotate/position.

Anyway, assignment was to introduce two different characters, have them interact and have one leave the screen. I did the typical violent cartoon animation...how interesting.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Real animation at CCA!

The animation paper begins.

This time was to do what we did on the index card, but incorporating what we now know of squash and stretch.

"Remember, squash and stretch is a secret. You don't want the audience thinking: 'Woah! look how it's squashing and stretching!', you want 'em to think 'Woah! look at it bounce!' " - Lyndon

So, I guess I kind of failed on that part, squash and stretch is a little to apparent for me, and the spacing is lacking in believability, arghhh!


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Three ball animation

More from the index card sets.

This project is means to show three different types of balls bouncing: bowling, ping pong, and tennis. My tennis ball looks like a beach ball...

Assignment goal was focusing on spacing, trying to get a feeling of weight without focusing on squash and stretch or anything else, similar to the Williams exercise involving a penny, which I did a while back. Hearing it from an Lyndon though made much more sense though.

Anyway, still getting the hang of animation. Guess reading lots of books/blogs/forums on animation doesn't help at all in actual practice, go figure.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Feather Animation

Another animation from the index card sets.

Pardon the poor resolution, but for some reason, we're told to render it in a small resolution that's not very clear. I think it's maybe to remove the preciousness of the drawing, and focus more on the animation, or as Lyndon would say:

"You're animating movement, not drawings"

Assignment was three feathers falling, give 'em different spacing, make each one a character, who is he? why is he falling like that? how?



Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

CCA Animation - Start!

Finally, some animation loaded in here.

The first video is a compilation of warming up assignments. Mostly focusing on keeping the volume of the shape in mind, logical morphs, et cetera, et cetera.

The second begins a group of animation projects done on index cards. This one is simply dots moving, all same spacing, just focusing on translation and contrast.


Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.

Untitled from Michael Barquero on Vimeo.