Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Awesome movie

Just like with Panda I wasn't too intrigued once I saw the first promotional image, but just like with Panda I was proven very wrong. I try to be all mature and judge a movie AFTER I've seen it but sometimes it's difficult not to be judgmental early on. But anyway, I really really liked the movie. Funny story, awesome animation, great designs, great look, great voices (the dad was awesome), not heavy on pop-culture references or contemporary comparisons, etc. etc.

All in all, awesome.

The 3D not so much. Must be my eyes, plus glasses on top of glasses is not ideal for me either. At the beginning it's stroby and eye-straining, and the colors are so muted. Still cool effect, but not essential to the movie (at least for me). Once you can enjoy it without glasses, I'm all for it.

Congratulations Sony, very well done! Can't wait to see more!

- pic source

District 9 behind-the-scenes article

fxguide has cool side-by-side comparison pics and more general info about the making of District 9.

Posing

The Animation Resource blog has good notes and links about posing.

Anim Clip - "Looks clear"

After a long break I have finally animated a clip during my spare time again and it was quite a change from what I normally do at work, especially rig and tool wise. Conclusion: I'm spoiled at work.

But first off, here's the clip, I hope you like it:

also available on Youtube, Vimeo and as Hires Quicktime
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For some of the shots I shot reference in order to expand the layout pass and to start playing around with acting ideas. Once I settled on a certain take I replaced the layout with the reference. The shots were edited together in After Effects where I would always replace the animation with the most current takes. So from layout to reference to anim to final it would like this:

My basic workflow is still kinda the same, in terms of blocking everything out using linear curves, with keys on all the major controllers for every major pose, but the amount breakdowns and how I prioritize certain moments and characters changes depending on what type of shot it is, the length, the style, etc.

I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do, plus the reference helped with blocking things out quickly. Some areas of the reference I threw out even though I liked them before. Most of the time because I wanted to simplify the actions and keep it clean. Other parts I liked timing wise and stuck to it pretty closely idea wise and sometimes even timing wise.

The biggest change was the bird. At first I wanted to have two of them in the scene, throwing the middle guy around like White Sharks throw seals around. But I quickly realized that there wasn't enough time to put all of that in there, so I simplified that idea as well. For those who are not bored by seeing a clip over and over in different stages, here a few animation passes of the first shot:

I didn't shoot reference for the very beginning where you just see their heads because I thought I can just whip that out but oh boy, did I tweak that stuff. I'm telling you: plan, plan, plan!!!! Don't just dive into it....

I'm a big fan of detail work (sometimes I just have too much fun with it and waste time... but hey, at least it was my time and not production time), so here's the "fx" pass of the environment (no water splash though, maybe later. :) ).

Here the shot details:

Audio clip: Pitch Black
Rigs: Blake, Olskool, Mr. Brightside, Stinson the Bird
Set from Digital Tutors

Completion time:

About 3 weeks with 1-2 hours of animation a day. So anim would be around 30 hours or so, add another 10 hours fixing technical problems (rigs exploding, render issues, etc.) and about 90 minutes of planning the shot out (car ride to work and back home, listening to the clip and figuring things out, love that part) and an hour of acting stuff out and transferring the material.

But again, man, am I spoiled at work. Good tools and rigs speed up your workflow by so much. I bow down in front of everybody that has to struggle with rigs while in school, I feel your pain. Sure you might run into some problems at work, but the fixes come fast and it's still no comparison. Back in the day at the then-AAC we had Milt, Flower Sack and Hogan and they were pretty simple yet very workable.
But still, a huge thank you to those who share their rigs online for free, it is much appreciated!

That's it! If you have any questions or feedback, leave a comment or email me. Thanks!

First 5 Minutes of Disney's The Princess and the Frog!

Cartoon Brew via SlashFilm points to the beginning footage of Disney's new 2D animated feature The Princess and the Frog. Or watch it here:



Here's another bit:

SOS Animation Workshop #2 now open!

The current SOS Workshop is so much fun that I've decided to open up a second workshop now instead of next Spring! You can never have enough animation!!

If you're interested then email me using signup(at)spungella.com. Just like the first workshop, there is a maximum of 12 animators who can attend (due to room size and time constraints, there needs to be enough time to talk about your animation).

The second workshop is going to start in about a month, plus/minus a few days depending on how ready the animators are schedule wise (if it fills up quickly we could technically start next week). Same location, either Monday, Thursday or Friday evening, 7 to 10pm.

If you have questions about the SOS Workshop consult the F.A.Q. In case you still have questions, just email me and I'll help as best as I can.

Keith Lango's Youtube Channel with Tutorials

I was reading through Keith Lango's post What is content and what is its value? - Part 2 and sadly towards the end he mentions that his video tutorials are showing up on file sharing services and that his business has suffered because of that, to the point where he has to look at other means to support his family.

Come on guys. Pirating his animation tutorials? Really? It's not like it costs $6000. I understand that you can't afford much as a student, but stealing from a guy who wants to help? That's really low. I hope that whoever does that is going to produce a wonderfully animated movie and that people will pirate it as well. There. I said it. Stuff like that drives me nuts. That's like using a cracked copy of Quicktime Pro. Really? Can't afford $30? Really?

Grumpy day. I watched the 100 Greatest Youtube hits in 4 Minutes and sadly I knew a lot of them (but where's Chocolate Rain?). One I didn't know was the first clip with a girl called Boxxy. Going through comments about the clips I got to The Boxxy Story and it's just sad what people do to other people nowadays. Especially using the web's anonymity.

Anyway. Enough NAR stuff.

Keith has now opened up a Youtube channel (yay!) and on it you will find tutorial videos which I highly recommend. I learned a lot from his written tutorials while I was a student and he deserves support for his efforts.