Thank you to my mentor Ben Ridgway

View his art blog at benridgway.com

Ben was a fantastic mentor. He guided me through all of the most basic and most foundational animation principles such as timing, key frames, weight balance, and much more ever since the first day of meeting him. He was supportive of my work and he encouraged me to use my own creativity and go outside of my comfort zone with this project, and provided great help when I needed it. On the other hand, he is an amazing artist, animator and film-maker who creates beautiful films and artwork in his spare time when he's not teaching students at San Francisco State. His style of art will definitely have an influence on my future artwork.

Last time meeting with Ben and final animation reel

I met with Ben today to discuss and view my animated short. He said it looked good, just to eventually clean up the lines sometime. It would also be good, he says, to increase the time before the person reacts to what's in front of him. It seems that when he looks up, he reacts too soon. Although, he liked it and said I did a good job.

I also composed and edited a final animation portfolio to show Ben. This final reel composes of all of the work I had done with him these past two months. All the way starting with the ball bounce, leaf drop, walk cycle, baseball pitch, run cycle, and my animated short.

Ben said I got a lot of work done and it looks great when it is composed into this final portfolio. Since this is the last time I met with Ben today, we talked about quite a few things. I especially thanked him for the time he put in for my project and everything he has helped me with learning about this topic. He also signed my final Mentor Evaluation paper.

Note: This Animation Portfolio is unfinished as of 12/10/2013

Short: Unfinished

My finished animated short for now. I have not gotten much time to finish cleaning up the drawings or making some in betweens, but this is definitely good enough for now. I can always fix it up before time for my presentation.

Some thoughts about this short:
I feel pretty good about this animated short. It definitely incorporates the principles that I have learned with Ben; squash and stretch, run cycle, anticipation, and a walk cycle. The only thing is that I finally integrated some sort of style into this one which is what I'm most happy with. I also felt I did well with the anticipation and his reaction. The run cycle looked pretty smooth as well, as it was shot in ones.

You may also see that I played around with a little music and sound effects in this short, to make it a little more cinematic.

One problem I had with this short was the character-walk and the run cycle. For both, it was a little weird to actually have the character walk from point A to B. I also made the person walk as if they were a "cool-guy" in which I had to reference myself.

Time logged for this session: 6.0 Hours
Total time logged: 51.75 Hours

Short: 2nd Half Key-Frame Process

Produced the key frames from when he lands back onto the ground and begins running. He is running in place, and will run out fast to the right as an anticipation in the end.

Short: First Half Key-Frame Process

Finished the first half of the keyframes process for my animated short.

You can see there's a little bit of a character walk, as the person is walking like a "cool-guy" which I put to add some style and character. He begins to look up, and is shocked by something he sees ahead of him. You can definitely see the use of squash and stretch, as well as anticipation in this moment. I squash his body when he anticipates the scream, and stretch him as he flies up into the air.

One of the tricky aspects of this walk cycle was the movement of the shoulders/arms. The arms didn't move too much, but it was difficult to comprehend the angles of the elbows as he took each step.

I will work more tonight to turn his body around and have him run back in fear. Instead of regularly having him run backwards, I think I will urn his body in mid air with him running in place for awhile, and then zoom off out of the screen.

Time logged for this session: 3.0 Hours
Total time logged: 45.75 Hours

Short film ideas

Storyline:
My short film will be based on anticipation. I will have a guy casually walking into the screen looking down at his feet. Once he looks up, he sees something that shocks him and he runs away.
Principles:
The main animation principles that will take place in this short are anticipation and squash and stretch, and staging & exaggeration as well.
Concept Art:
For the stylistic aspects of this short, my character will be inspired by the cover of Hip-Hop Artist Nujabes' album, "Impression"

At the moment that my character looks up and sees something shocking, the animation style will be inspired by the a scene in the Looney Tunes short film, "The Flying Hare"

Met with Ben today to discuss my animated-short

Today I met with Ben at his office to discuss my animated short. He said it was alright and that some things were confusing to him and that it can use a lot of revising. I realized that my short-film didn't exactly have any "life" to it as it does not portray many well done animation principles. My short film frustrated me and I'm pretty sure I bit off much more than I can chew. For example, my perspectives were weird, my timing was off, and there was hardly any squash and stretch or anticipation of any sort. The tiptoe also does not look like it was done very well.

This led us to the point where we will create a new short-film. Ben suggested me to do something much shorter and simpler, one that shows the animation principles more than a detailed storyline. It will be good if I just come up with a small scene with an anticipation. A small short that's done very well is much better and rewarding than a longer film that was not executed well.

Ben also suggested that since I have the basic animation principles set in stone, that I should start coming up with my own style of art in my animations. This is very true, the fact that my clips have had almost no unique style to them whatsoever has bothered me. One of the greatest factors in animation is the artist's sense of style, which is something I am lacking. It seems that I was too caught up with the motion and getting it to look good and realistic that I had not paid enough attention to create the "magic" in the animation.

When I left Ben's office, I felt really good and refreshed. This short has been bothering me and I knew it wasn't going very well, and it feels really good to be refreshed in my mind. I will have to come up with new ideas for this short.

Ben will be going on Winter Break soon, so the next Tuesday will be the last time I meet with him, which should conclude my physical project. I will do all of the work I possibly can to finish this animated short by the time I see Ben next week.

Time logged for this session: 0.5 Hours
Total Time Logged: 41.75 Hours

Animating the first scene of the short-film

This first scene composes of Jim looking at the camera, coming out of the ceiling with a rope and tip toeing to the treasure chest.

This was my first try at this scene.

As you can see, I experimented with a background, to save time from drawing that chest through every frame. What I did was I drew the background with tracing paper and animated on regular paper. When I scanned each frame, I scanned it with the tracing paper under the actual paper, to layer them on each other in the frame.

There were a couple things I noticed in this. When Jim looks at the camera up front, theres absolutely no easing. So I needed to fix the timing.

Theres nothing much wrong with when he comes off the ceiling.

The tiptoe sequence was generally easy except for when he turns toward the chest. However, I noticed that since the chest is at a short distance, a fast-tiptoe sequence may be better.

My second try at going about this scene

I fixed the timing of when Jim looks at the camera to make it look smoother

I also converted the sequence into a fast-tiptoe sequence. It was pretty weird, and I may need to revise it as he looks like as spider and his body isnt moving up and down.

I am also going to want to add more in-betweens when he gets off of the rope. It's a little too fast.

I also added some parts where Jim is looking around to make sure he's safe, to add a bit more character.

Time Logged for this session: 7.0 Hours
Total Time Logged: 41.25 Hours

Short-film storyline

My short film will be about a curious, clumsy man named Jim. Recently, there was a powerful plasma rocket launcher that is kept secret from everyone, being stored in a top secret warehouse. Jim knows about this weapon, and he is so extremely eager to try it out.  Jim sneaks into the top secret warehouse one night to try it out. Once Jim gets a hold of it, he starts to toy and play around with it but without actually shooting it. After some time of playing around with the gun, he gets serious and tries to shoot it. On his first couple tries, it does nothing but a tiny bubble that comes out. This frustrates Jim to the point where he throws the gun to the floor, shooting out a cannon of power and sends Jim flying to the air. Jim thinks it's awesome.

Time to start creating ideas for my short-film.

Now that Ben has guided me through all of the basic animation principles, it is finally time to apply these principles into a short film.

This film will be around 10-20 seconds long with a very short, straightforward storyline. Ben told me he wants me to start by storyboarding and creating ideas for the film.
Storyboarding:
Storyboards are graphic, visual organizers displayed in sequence in order to help the producer visualize the parts of the film.
Storyboards are a big part of pre-production, as it allows the film-maker to clearly visualize what the movie will look like in sequence before it is made. These are basically like outlines to the film, as outlines are to essays.
Big film-making studios have been using the storyboard process since the early 1900s, such as Walt Disney Studios.

For my purposes, I will draw several frames of storyboard on computer paper and edit them as time passes.

Finished Run Cycle

This past week, I've been busy with schoolwork and many other things, so I didn't get as much time to work on this Run Cycle as I did with previous assignments. However, I actually found this animation to be fairly easy. My mentor and animators online say that the walk cycle is the foundation to nearly any kind of legged movement, which I found to be very true. Since I've done the walk cycle, I applied the run cycle as a simple variation and came out to be very similar. With the run, I only needed to exaggerate the movement of the arms and legs, as well as space out the frames much more to make it faster. Overall, this was probably my easiest assignment yet and I hardly stressed over this, even though I had much less time.

The only issue I may have with this final run cycle is that the character is in the air for too long.

Ben is busy this week so I am meeting him next week to evaluate this assignment.

This assignment will be my final assignment for my Animation reel. This reel will present all of the weekly assignments I have done with my mentor, showing how I've learned the basic, foundational animation principles.

Time logged for this session: 4 Hours
Total time logged: 34.25

“The artist must make an heroic attempt to disentangle detail and tone in his own mind and vision. He must realize that his vision is a thousand times more beautiful than the camera’s if he will but trust it. If he is to obtain that greater beauty, he must combat the too-great detail registered by his camera rather than abide by it slavishly. It will be better if he learns to trust the camera less and believe more in his own inventiveness and feeling, trying to see with reason and imagination. Only in this way can his work soar to heights unattainable mechanically.”

-Andrew Loomis

Met with Ben today to evaluate Baseball Pitch animation and discuss next assignment

Today I met with Ben in order to evaluate my Baseball Pitch animation. He said it was good, except that I could have exaggerated the motion much more, especially the wind-up/anticipation to the pitch. He said it was done very well though, which made me feel really confident and proud.

We also discussed the next project, which will be the final one. He is going to be on Thanksgiving Break next week, so I will have a two week time period to work on my assignments.

Ben told me he wanted me to work on a run-cycle, which I should be able to figure out easily on my own since I have much experience with animating by now.

He also wants me to create a short film, having a length of 20 seconds at the max. I am going to figure out my storyline and I'm going to need to create a story board, as well as create conceptual drawings of the characters in the story. Normally, his students create a narrative short film at the end, which will tie together all of the principles that they have learned over the year, similar to my situation. I'm really excited for this short film, as it is what I originally intended on doing for this project, and being familiar with the basic animation will help me guide through this short film.

I will work on a run-cycle this week, and the short-film the following week.

Time logged for this session: 0.5 Hours
Total time logged: 30.25 Hours

Finished Baseball Pitch

Finally finished my baseball pitch over the course of this week. I spent wednesday to friday simply working on key frames, and by then I knew how challenging of an assignment this was going to be. It was very tricky, for many reasons:
-The mechanics of the pitch. For example, the rotating of the hips and shoulders and the whip of the arm in the end. I had to apply all of these factors into each frame.
-The timing and speed of the wind up and the pitch
-Shifting the weight from one leg to the other was extremely tricky. The shoulders and the hips played a very large role here.

I had to spend much time studying Tim Lincecum's baseball pitch as well as my own. It took many tries to get this to its final product and I'm extremely happy how it turned out.

If I had a chance to redo this assignment, I would definitely revise the timing. It seems that the pitch is a little slow and the wind up is a little too slow. I animated it on 2's so maybe I was a little thrown off since I was used to animating on 1's.

I've spent nearly every night this week working on this, and I definitely did put a lot of hard work and effort into this, to the point where I had absolutely nothing else to spend my time on besides homework.

Overall, I'm extremely proud of how well I did this. There were points in time where I simply wanted to give up, throw everything away and simply do another assignment instead of this baseball pitch. It was incredibly difficult but now that I have finished, I have never felt better about an animation of mine. Although, Ben did tell me if I'm getting frustrated, I can literally throw all the papers away and refresh, which I actually did. The first night I worked hard, and it ended up being a pile of waste and made me aggravated. This caused me to refresh to something totally new. I am totally satisfied with the final product and I will meet with Ben tomorrow to evaluate this.

I spent a total of 8 hours on this Baseball Pitch
Time logged for this session: 8 Hours
Total time logged: 29.25 Hours

Baseball pitch studies

Before I go off animating the baseball pitch, I need to understand the mechanics of the pitch.

In my animation, I will be referencing the SFGiants pitcher Tim Lincecum. This is a very good video for reference as they explain his technique and mechanics which are very beneficial to my final animation.

I took some notes in my sketchbook: 

Time logged for this session: 1 Hour

Total time logged: 22.25 Hours

Met with Ben today to discuss walk-cycle and begin new project

I met with Ben today to discuss my walk-cycle animation and to discuss this week's assignment.

As I showed him my walk-cycle animation, I explained to him how tricky this was, and that I spent a lot of time on it and eventually got it correct. He told me it was done very well! Everything was done pretty good on this animation, which made me feel really good because my hard work really paid off. The only criticism he proposed with my walk cycle is that the shoulders need to move slightly from side to side as the arms swung around. Overall, he said my walk-cycle was done very well which made me feel really proud of myself.

New Project: Anticipation
Today, I spent a good amount of time speaking with Ben about this week's assignment, which will be based on "Anticipation".

Anticipation is the preparation for a certain action.

For example, if an animator was animating a person jumping, the character would not jump immediately. Instead, the character would crouch down and explode into the jump. The character crouching down is an example of anticipation. The animation would look very dull and incomplete if the character went straight into the jump without an anticipation.

Ben showed me a 20 minute video by Richard Williams about Anticipation, which definitely gave me a lot of helpful information to this principle.

I will be animating a baseball pitch for this assignment. The anticipation would be the pitcher winding up for the pitch, and the action as the pitch itself. I have a big feeling this is going to be pretty hard but with hard work and persistence, I will get it done and it will be extremely rewarding, just as it was in my previous animations.

Time logged for this session: 1 Hour
Total time logged: 21.25 Hours

Finished Walk Cycle

I've finished a walk-cycle, and I'd have to say it was extremely tricky. At first, I figured it would be easy since there aren't as many frames, however, there were many complications that took place.

First of all, I had to make sure that in each frame, the legs/knees and the arms/elbows were in the correct angle. If the angles were off within any of the frames, then the shot would be very choppy and jittery. I needed to make sure that they corresponded with each other perfectly in order to get the movement smooth and precise.

It was difficult to keep the arms in each frame the same length. I had to gauge how long the arms and legs were as the bent or straightened, which was really tricky. This wasn't something that you can simply do by looking at the previous frame.

I also had to make sure the "small aspects" were correct. For example, as the knees bent, the body itself would be lowered to the floor, which I had to make sure I did not forget in the animation. I also had to make sure that the feet were stepping on and off the floor. These small play a big role in the final animation.

This walk-cycle was very tricky and sort of frustrating. I had to go back and revise multiple times to get it right. However in the end, it felt amazing to see it finally done correctly.

During pre-production, I studied the human walk-cycle intensively, watching the details of how an individual would walk, how some people's walks are different than others, and even creating a reference video of myself walking. This clearly shows how animators definitely need to have a reference in order to get a certain motion correctly.

Time logged for thie session: 6 Hours
Total time logged: 20.25 Hours

Began the walk-cycle

Before animating, I produced about eight key frames which will be the most significant frames, in which I can do "in between" frames of them.

When I began animating, it's really difficult and tricky because there's so much to pay attention to. I have to make sure the legs are in corresponding angles of each other, that the figure is bouncing up and down, that the arms are moving okay, and etc. Tonight I animated for about 1 hour and I'm about a quarter of the way done.

New Project: The Walk Test.

As I met with Ben today, we discussed this week's assignment which will be a walk test shot on Ones, or 24 frames per second. He showed me the principles of the walk test. I took note that:
-As the figure takes a step, plants foot and knees bend, the figure gets lower.
-As the figure starts to switch legs and straighten knees, the figure will be standing higher.
-The legs move at a constant speed.
-The arms move at a slightly eased motion when it swings around.
-Do not focus so much on the figure, focus more on the animation mechanics. A nice looking figure is nothing without a good animation. I can easily simplify the figure for now with a circle for the head, and a sausage-sort of body.

Ben also showed me a couple reference pictures that I can use, such as:

I can tell that these reference images will be a great help for me, and I will also want to take a reference video of my own walk.

I'm pretty excited for this assignment as it will be my first animation with a human figure.

Met with Ben today to evaluate my leaf drop and discuss next project

I met with Ben today to discuss my leaf-drop animation and to discuss my next project, which will be a walk test.

He said my leaf-drop was done very well. He liked that I shot it in 24fps, and he said there were really no errors to my leaf-drop. He told me it's really good that I like to go back and revise my animations to get it to be right.

This made me feel really good. I spent numerous hours getting this leaf-drop correct and it all worked out and I'm glad it was done well.

My next project for this week will be a walk (in place) test.

Time logged for this session: 0.5 Hours
Total time logged: 14.25 Hours

My studio set up in my garage. You can also see a new lightbox that I had acquired from Michaels.

My Leaf Drop template that I created prior to animating. This template represents the timing of my frames as well as key frames. You can see how I increased the length between each frame when the leaf accelerates and decreased the length when the leaf decelerates.

Although, I did make many changes to the frame timing as I went through my animation.

Time logged for this session: 1 Hour
Total time logged: 14.75 Hours

Final Leaf Drop Animation

Final Leaf Drop animation

Over the weekend, I've been putting a lot of work into this leaf drop.

The most tricky part was definitely the timing and the speed of the leaf, as I had to revise the animation more than five times due to incorrect timing.

Like what Ben told me, I tried to keep my drawings more consistent to keep it from looking "jittery". It's still there a little bit, but I know it's improved since my ball bounce.

This was shot at 24 frames per second, so I had to make 24 drawings per second of the film, and I had to estimate the timing of the leaf in relation to the 24fps scale.

I don't think this would have been easy if I didn't study leaves before-hand. I had to learn how they react to wind, how fast they go when they react to wind, how they fold, what they look like when they're blown off of trees, and etc.

This Final Leaf Drop animation took me about 7 hours to complete.
Time logged for this session: 7 Hours
Total time logged: 13.75 Hours

Leaf-everything studies

Before I begin animating the leaf-drop, I need to fully understand how a leaf looks in different angles, how it reacts to different motion, etc.

After studying leaves after a little bit of time, I've realized it's much like gesture/figure drawing the human torso in a very simplified version. So after some thinking, it's fairly easy to draw at any angle.

The leaf is very loose, so the leaf very well follows its action line. It's so fluid in its motion it's like water!

Evaluated my Ball Bounce and discussed Leaf Drop animation

I met with Ben today afterschool to discuss my ball bounce and to discuss my leaf-drop animation for this week.

Ben told me that my ball-bounce animation was done pretty well, that my timing and exaggeration were well done. However, I need to keep my drawings consistent in each frame, otherwise that will create a "jittery" sort of effect, which I had never thought of. Ben wants me to create a heavy ball bounce during this week, which I should be able to get done rather quickly.

We also discussed the introduction to the Leaf-Drop animation. This is one other fundamental test that an animator should be able to create.
As we discussed the leaf-drop, I took note of the following:
-The leaf will ease in and out very suddenly and exaggerated, meaning the spacing when the leaf speeds up is very large, while the spacing when the leaf slows down is very sudden and tiny.
-The leaf performing twirls and moving side to side of the frame in a very exaggerated sense will give a lot of character.
-The leaf will overlap, fold, and spin many times throughout the animation.
-Try to make the leaf very "loose" and free.
-Try to generate a background, such as a tree for the leaf to be blown off of.
-Timing and planning is crucial

A very well-done leaf-drop animation:

Time logged for thie session: 1 Hour

Total time logged: 6.75 Hours

My revised ball bounce at 12 frames per second. The movement is much smoother than my first ball bounce, and the timing and speed is much more exaggerated to give it a more realistic sense.

Time logged for this session: 2 Hours
Total time logged: 5.75 Hours

My template for my revised BallBounce.

As you can see, I rounded the arcs much more to achieve a smoother motion. I also placed an emphasis on the timing and the speed as the ball accelerates downward and upwards.

Time logged for this session: 15 minutes
Total time logged: 3.75 Hours

My first attempt at the BallBounce which I made earlier today. It could use much revising.

I notice that my motion arc is not smooth enough, as the arcs are in a triangular shape as the ball bounces up and down.

I also notice that the speed looks very constant and unexaggerated. Although I've tried the squash and stretch, it does not benefit very well if my timing is not proficient.

I will revise this animation, and in this revision I need to remember:
-Make the motion arcs much rounder, to have a smoother approach to the ball's motion.
-Place more emphasis on the speed of the ball as it falls and bounces back up. I need to exaggerate the way the ball speeds downward and slows upward. The squash and stretch will compliment this exaggeration.

Time logged in for this session: 2 Hours
Total time logged: 3.5 Hours

My animation setup for my project:
-Light-box
-Peg for registering the paper in place
-Animation paper
-Pencil
-Light source under the light-box

In this picture, you can also see my template with the motion line and key frames for my first BallBounce placed on my light-box.

Time logged in for this session: 30 minutes
Total time logged: 1.5 Hours

General Ball Bounce

Here is a short video explaining the motion of the Bouncing Ball.

Today when I met with Ben, he taught me the timing of the ball, the squash and stretch, and how to plan your animation before producing it.

With the timing and the motion of the ball, you can see in real life that objects accelerate downwards when they are in free-fall. In this animation, Ben told me it's very crucial that I create a larger distance in each frame as the ball begins to fall, showing that the ball will fall faster as it reaches closer to the ground. This means that it will fall slowly at its highest point and accelerate as it falls farther to its lowest point.

In the video of this Ball Bounce, you may also notice that the ball begins to stretch as it accelerates downward, and squash when it comes in contact with the floor. In real life, you would not see this happen as easily. However, exaggerating movements in animation is significant as it helps tell the story and give character. If this ball bounce was not very exaggerated, it would seem to be very dull and boring. This key animation technique is known as the "Squash and Stretch".

You may also observe in the video that the person showed a kind of "template" to the animation. In these templates, they include a motion line to aid the animator in knowing where the object will be in motion. This person also shows key frames which help establish the most significant movements in the animation.

These are all topics that my mentor went over with me today in order to help me get started with my project.

First meeting/discussion with my mentor

Today, I met with my mentor Ben Ridgway for the first time today in his office. I introduced the Capstone Project thoroughly to him for understanding, and he signed my Mentor Agreement Form. I will meet with Ben in his office at San Francisco State University every Tuesday at 4pm while I work 5-10 hours on my physical project at home.

We went over all of the materials I'll need for my animation. I need pencils, erasers, a scanner, a light-box, typing paper, and a peg for registering the paper onto the light-box. I have everything except for the paper and the peg, which Ben let me borrow for the week to use until I can find one.

Ben took me to the animation lab to hole-punch the typing paper, and the room was so interesting to see since I love and want to pursue animation. There were desks with built in light-boxes, animation and drawing tools, computers, and everything. It was really aspiring to see in person.

We went over what kinds of clips I'll be producing. We will go in order from ball bounces, to leaf drops, and then to anticipation and reactions. Through time, we will see how far we can go through that order. Ben went over with me the basic animation principles, such as the squash and stretch, the timing/speed of each frame, and etc. These principles will all help me with my first assignment: the general Ball Bounce. I will work on this Ball Bounce this week at home for about 5-10 hours and hopefully finish by next Tuesday for him to evaluate it.

Time logged for this session: 1 hour
Total time logged: 1 hour

Found an animation mentor from SFSU!

During the course of last week, I've attempted to contact several professors from SFSU. During the weekend, Professor Ben Ridgway emailed me back, approving to become my mentor for the Capstone Project.

Professor Ridgway is available on Mondays and Tuesdays between 4-5 at San Francisco State University in the Fine Arts Building in Room 343 on the third floor.

I am hoping to work about five to eight hours per week at home on my physical project, and have my mentor evaluate my week's work and discuss it as I meet him on a weekly basis.

Definitely looking forward to working on my physical project and meeting with him!

My mentor also has a professional blog/portfolio on his previous work:
benridgway.com

Introduction

Today on September 25th, I've decided to base my Senior Capstone project on animation.

I will try to look for a college professor of animation at SFSU to guide me through this topic.

My presentation will most likely be an animated short in order to demonstrate what I have completed with my mentor.