YEN3D ANIMATION

Moving

2007-03-08T05:56:00.000-08:00

I am moving to yen3d.animationblogspot.com.
Point your browsers please.

Ricardo Silva

My Take on The Animation Principles

2007-03-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

I am not a super duper experienced animator and I don't feel very comfortable talking about this subject nor defying what the old masters have said in the golden days as I am, myself still trying to understand the principals of animation.
However, in my short experience I have developed some thoughts about this subject.
What follows may sound a bit like rubbish as they are just thoughts of a young guy... but what the heck?!

I remember the first time I saw a list of the Principles with a detailed explanation of each one and I though : "This is complicated!", and even now I still think they are a bit complicated.
Everyone as his or her take on the Principles.
If you open "The Illusion of Life" you'll find a list of 12 to 14 Principles.
The other day I found a guy who had list of more than 20...
They were all good points but, my problem is that if I think of all those things at the same time and try to fit them all at once in my work, I'll probably go crazy.
The funny thing is that one of the Principles is SIMPLIFY.
If animators simplify their work so that the audience can understand it, why can't they just simplify their Principles?
That is what I'll try to do here with my own simplified version of the Principles!

I'm not going to say: "Forget the animation Principles that you red before!" That would be just stupid.
However, what I am trying to say is this: "Think about The 3 Kings and use the rest to support them."
"The 3 Kings? What the heck is that?"

The 3 Kings:

Poses
Timing
Spacing

For me this is the core of good animation. It's what I think about when I'm animating.
How I get there is when all of the other principles come into play.
You see, I'm not really throwing away the squash and stretch, the silhouette, the staging, ease in ease out, etc.
I fit all of that inside these 3 kings.
I'm just build a core so that every thing I learn works to straighten it.
It is a structure to keep things organized in my head so that I don't have to think about a million things at once.

Maybe this is just nonsense...words of a not very experienced animator trying to understand the craft.

later :)

Ricardo Silva

The Vulture

2007-03-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

Not really any animation here but, I modelled this guy last year and now found him lost in a dusty Windows folder.
I'm going to dig up in some of my bedroom's drawers and see if I can find his model sheets.

Ricardo Silva

Mocap!

2007-03-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

Happy Feet won an Oscar for best motion capture film... oops! I mean best animated film.
I too use mo-cap for my animation...err...I mean my motion?! The above picture clearly proves that I have mo-cap technology.

I think if mo-cap films are going to win Oscars (competing with animated films) they should at least avoid calling it Best ANIMATED Picture but instead call it Best CG Picture. That sounds fairer to me.

later

Ricardo Silva

My animation process

2007-02-24T04:51:00.000-08:00

I've been asked a few times, by friends and folk from the web, about my animation process.
I'm not a very experienced animator and recently I have been struggling to develop a more solid approach to my shots and a better workflow.
I think that understanding and having a strong workflow that benefits the quality and speed of the animation is one of the most important steps to become a successful animator, especially in the competitive CG animation market.
Animating a character properly is a difficult and complex task. There are so many things to be aware of, that an animator can feel lost if he or she does not know what to focus on at a given time.
The thing that has helped me the most is not to do too much at the same time and even though this may sound like it doesn't too much help speed wise, it actually does!
So here's my animation process.

1 - THINK!

Ok, this may sound ridiculous as it is so obvious, but you have no ideia how many times I just jump right into the computer without knowing exactly what I'm going to do.

2 - PLANNING.

I start to put those thoughts into paper. Yes, paper! Not photoshop nor maya. Pencil and paper!
I sketch, thumbnail the action and add notes. Whatever it takes to help me understand the action as clearly as possible.
I work on the poses and explore multiple options.
I try to find The Pose and work my way around that.
I'll also plan some breakdowns to define how to go from one pose to the other.
It is a good thing to spend some time in the planning stage. It's fast, cheap and it is like building a road map to the crazy journey that is animating in CG. The better the map the better the chances of not getting lost. And I have been lost before and let me tell you: it sucks!

3 - GO CG

After I have my map, I'm good to go into the computer.
I start posing my character using my thumbnails as reference.
At this stage I'm just posing my character one frame after the other. like: pose A = frame 1 , pose B = frame 2, pose C = frame 3 ... this way I focus on the poses and don't think about timing.
This is what I mean by focusing on one thing at a time.

4 - TIMING

Now that I have my poses I can start testing my timing. It's cool to use a pencil tester software like MonkeyJam. Instead of moving keys around I am working with flat 2d pictures much like a traditional animator.

5 - BREAKDOWNS

I add more necessary breakdowns.

6 - ADJUST TIMING

After adding more information (more breakdowns) I usually feel the need to adjust my timing.

7 - GO CURVE EDITOR

Now it is usually the time when I jump into the graph editor and start polishing my animation.
Sometimes, I turn my curves directly into spline tangents, others I prefer to turn them into linear first.
The trick I think, is not to do too much at the same time ( one controller and one attribute at a time), I do this by starting at the character's root and moving my way down the hierarchy.
And I'm done!

This is the process I am using now. It's not the best nor it is the only way of doig things, but right now, my animation is really improving by working in this way. Maybe in a few years as I gain more experience, I'll have a completely different way of doing things and I'll look back at this post and think : "what a dumb ass" :)

I'll see if I can post some examples of my work with my next animation.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.

Later

Ricardo Silva

"Urso and The Fly"

2007-02-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have just finished this small animation test.
This one was really fun to do. Not just the animation but the sounds too, especially the ones I had to record myself (with the help of super miaumau).
The render is not that great but, that is not the point of this test anyway.
I'm seriously thinking about doing something bigger with this character... like... a feature film! Or maybe I'll just do a short one... a 3 min feature film :D

- Why Nintendo DS Rocks?
R: Because Hamsters love it!

later.

Ricardo Silva

Glen Keane Linetest.

2007-02-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

Here is the linetest from the scene that Glen Keane talks about in his lecture.

Glen Keane Lecture!

2007-02-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is GOLD my friends!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18

New Character : "Urso"

2007-01-21T05:49:00.000-08:00

Here it is. My new character.
He is almost 100% complete. He is just missing some controls here and there.
I have some plans for animating this guy and will post them as soon as they become more than ideas...
Meanwhile, I've done a small WALKING TEST. Enjoy

Blur's new short here.

It's coming...

2006-11-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.
Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm cooking a cool new character but, he is not ready to face daylight yet. Soon, very soon...or so, I hope :)

Bruce Lee to ressurect here.

Funny Wii vs PS3 video.

later.

Blue Sky's short

2006-10-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this Blue Sky's new short movie and buy the "Ice Age 2" dvd to see this in full resolution.
Also check there blog for some serious inspiring stuff.

what is WIP?

2006-09-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

Here is what I've been doing for the past few days. I downloaded the TSM guy free rig at http://www.anzovin.com/TSM2Maya/ and decided to give it a try.
I had and idea to make this guy play with some teapots.
Most of it is still in stepped keys. There is still a lot of work to be done here but, I like the way this is coming along.
Also I embarqued on "just-for-fun-co-op-project" with a cool guy that I met at dimensao3.com. His name is Filipe aka ULTRA.
He is realy crazy about Unreal Tournament series and he modelled this cool character for the game. Now I'm rigging it for animation... soon there will be a crazy old lady running around in the Unreal world. Heh! Check is work at: http://www.ultrawashere.com/.

later

Guyver is back!

2006-08-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

The Guyver is an old manga that was turned into an animated series back in the 80's.
It was suposed to last for 26 episodes but, I think the show got cancelled for some reason or other and they ended up only making 12.
A few years later the first live action movie was made, and was later followed by a sequel. These are both very bad movies... :P
I just found out that a brand new version of this series (which, by the way, I'm a big fan) as been released!
How cool is that?! :)
I am finally going to enjoy The Guyver in all of his modern day Anime style glory... I'm so happy!
And, as for the pictures above... It's going to be the new addition to my dusty collection of action figures... Yes, a Guyver action figure. I've been looking for this baby for quite some time now and in September is going to be on sale at www.entertainmentearth.com... Sweet!

Later

Wait... I was suppose to post something... Can't remember... HAA!! yes, animation, must post animation on my blog :)

I live...

2006-08-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not dead. I'm very much alive.
What's new?
Check out Keith's new animation training program.. www.keithlango.com this is good stuff, especially if you can't afford Animation Mentor.
Also his online store is... eerrh online, now you can buy his VTS lessons without having to subscribe, however, it is much better if you do subscribe, it is not only cheaper but, you also get extra goodies and free stuff.

Seen Superman....hhumm.. didn't like it... another bad movie with kick ass FX. When is this going to stop?
Good stories people, good stories... That is how you make a good movie, NOT just groovy FX-although it's good to have them.

http://www.splinedoctors.blogspot.com/
http://www.victornavone.org/
http://www.animationpodcast.com/
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/

I'll be back with some animation.... Seriously, I DO animate stuff...

later

Summer, Work, Pixar looking for Animators

2006-06-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since my last post...
I feel terrible. Not only I don't have any new animation tests to post, but also I still haven't finished my last gear change exercise.
It's all this summer heat... I can't think straight.

I've heard something about Pixar being desperately looking for animators... what's up with that?
Pixar having trouble finding nemos (... eerrhh I mean animators...)?
They must have 2 billion animation reels to choose from....
Maybe - and this is just a guess, all those reels must really suck, because all they must get are reels from kids who know how to work with maya and never even heard about the old animation masters.
Or maybe their standards are so high, that now they cannot find anyone ready to animate at their level because all those great animators are already working either there or at Dreamworks, Blue Sky, etc...
What a paradox....

Anyway, they say it's a good time to get really stuck into it, so I'll be sending them something that sort of resembles a showreel pretty soon.

"Never try, Never Fail" those are the words that I DON'T live by :)

cheers

Gear Change Update

2006-05-31T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here it is : http://www.macgio.net/movies/gearchange_b.avi
Still at the blocking stage.

More soon.....

Gear Change Blocking

2006-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Download here!!!

My current WIP. The gear change!
Still in the blocking stage. I´m trying to get the poses and timing right.
I´ll be posting more of this animation soon.

Thanks to Marco a.k.a. Macgio for hosting the file.

Tex Avery Poses

2006-05-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

This is a new and very expensive Tex Avery statue... only $300 :P
Sandra Murta send me this image today and I was imediatly reminded of how good Tex cartoons where. I meen... just look at that Pose... the Line of action is just beautiful and leads your eye just to the right place.
People just don´t make poses like that anymore.
I miss the old cartoons, I miss Tex Avery´s style!!!

Later...

Samurai Champloo Trading Arts

2006-05-12T02:09:00.000-07:00

This is not animation but is goovy non the less.
I´m now into this trading art stuff and the quality of this figures is outstanding.
Right now I only have one of them but I hope to buy some more sone.
If you wonna trade drop me an email.... but not now... I only have one... nothing to trade.. yet!

Underwater Animation

2006-05-12T01:38:00.000-07:00

UnderWaterTEST : http://yen3d.com.sapo.pt/underwater.mov

This is just a small animation test thatI did in 10 min.
As an animator I spend a alot of time trying to understad phisics, weight and gravity but underwater stuff is a diferent game...
That is what I´m trying to figure out with this test....how the body moves under water.
This one was quick and rough like a sketch and it feels stiff but I´ll get there.... one day :)

Enjoy!

new links...

2006-05-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

My baby blog is slowly growing.
I add two new links to the links side bar.
One for my special friend an co-worker animator Sandra Murta and another to my friend and ex-partner in crime A. Brown.
This are two blogs worth checking out.

Stay tunned for more updates.

A post that must be posted!

2006-05-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

What I must post is some good words about keithlango´s VTS.
VTS is a Video Tutorial Service provided by animator Keith Lango via online.
I´ll say this nice and simple: If you are into learning animation ( and like me you can´t afford AimationMentor.com ) then YOU MUST HAVE IT.... as simple as that!
Keith we thank you for the VTS!
www.keithlango.com

New showreel.

2006-05-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

I feel that my current animation reel doesn´t do me justice any more, It´s a year old and I think I can do much better now...ok maybe just a little better.
So I´ve been trying do manage some time do work on personal animations for a future showreel.
Hopefully It will be on time for Siggraph 2006.
Here is an animation I did last month using a 10secondclub.net audio file.
I have some cool ideias for this month´s audio...

FILE: http://yen3d.com.sapo.pt/lambdocyen.avi -5 mb

hhmmn...a blog?!

2006-05-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

ok... so... now I have a blog right?
what can I do with it?
I know! I know! I can showcase my work to the world...or not...
Stay tunned for more stupid and uninformative posts about......ANIMATION