Class 2http://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/en-US2010-02-09T11:52:10ZSquarespace Site Server v5.9.1 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Assignment 3. Back Flip off of a Benchhttp://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/2009/3/31/assignment-3-back-flip-off-of-a-bench.htmlZane Kohler2009-03-31T00:49:51ZBelow is the final version of my assignment. I decided to choose a back flip off a box/object. 

It is the first one that I rendered. There are still a few small tweaks left to finish if I get the time. Otherwise it was good to turn in. I learned a ton on this particular assignment. Things seemed to just click this time around. Lets hope they stay clicked!

 

Above is one of many for my reference video I found on YouTube (assuming it has not been taken down).

Below are my sketches based off of studying the reference video. It was tricky trying to get this to look right. 

 

When studying the path of action for the hips and head you'll notice them moving in a crazy way you would not think it should. Trying to nail that and make it look natural was a challenge for sure.

 

 



I had a very strong start in my first week of blocking. The best so far of Class 2! The only weak part was the ending. After Stewie does his back flip he raises his hands in celebration. It was very generic and repetitive. While I was well aware of it being

lackluster it felt incomplete with out it. The main problem was I added it in at the zero hour and it showed. I do think I was better off leaving it in if nothing more than to indicate to my mentor something needed to be there. So this round I went about doing it up proper by filming reference and sketching up key poses.



 

 

 

 I got great feedback to work on as I transition into the blocking plus phase. Because I had a great start I was able to get more specific feedback with the small things that help polish the over all performance.  At this point I was able to switch from stepped to spline mode. Because I had so many keys set there were not too many areas in need of fixing. There was the usual foot pops and rigid arcs caused by the conversion.  However after a few hours of tweaking around I was able to get what you see at the top.

 

 

]]>Assignment 2 - Jump onto then off a boxhttp://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/2009/2/28/assignment-2-jump-onto-then-off-a-box.htmlZane Kohler2009-02-28T01:14:58ZAssignment two I chose to have an armless Stewie jump onto then off a box. Like the last assignment this was a four week assignment. First week was again all about planning. First thing was to film or find your reference. In this case it was easier to film it myself. Next was to study the reference and start to thumbnail out the key poses. The next week was to start blocking in the rough animation and eventuall move to blocking plus where you start to spline. The last week it should be splined and polished as you can. The arcs kicked my butt a little on the first pass. After some great direction from my mentor and fellow students I was able to get it flowing a bit better. Over all while there are some little things left to work on I am pretty happy with it...for now anyway ;) .

 

Finished animation

 

Me attempting to act out the shot.

 

Planning Sketches

 

 

 

]]>Assignment 1 : Weight and Balancehttp://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/2009/1/27/assignment-1-weight-and-balance.htmlZane Kohler2009-01-27T21:24:17ZThis projects main focus was about weight and balance. This whole project spanned the course of 4 weeks. It started with a list of several actions to choose from that we would have animate to show our knowledge of weight and balance . I decided to have Ballie (the model being animated) do a big step to the side. For week one of this project I had to film reference of a bi ped side stepping. Then from this reference I had to create thumbnails of ballie that represent a thoughtful approach to planning the animation.

 

Week Two of the assigment was to start the blocking process. Once the thumbnails have been approved by my mentor we use the key poses sketched above to start animating in stepped mode.

Stepped Mode

 

Week Three we should be in a stage that is called Blocking Plus. By this point we should be out of stepped mode and have it splined. While the animation should start to look smooth by this point it will still have a floaty feel. This where we do a lot of changes via the graph editor. To get start working with Slow ins and outs. This will start to give it a more organic feel to the motion.

Finally the last week is to finish the animation. to fix any outstanding errors like knee pops or fine tune the arcs of motion. Below is the finished assignment. I did get some feed back from my mentor on some additional revision to make it better that I will try and get to when time permits.

]]>First Day for Class 2http://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/2009/1/9/first-day-for-class-2.htmlZane Kohler2009-01-09T00:21:00ZWe had our first class today. Unfortunatly our mentor due to internet problems could not conduct a normal class so it was postponed. Next week we will have a double session. Otherwise it was great chatting with fellow classmates and getting to know them.

]]>Class 2 Progress Reelhttp://www.zanekohler.com/class-2/2009/1/7/class-2-progress-reel.htmlZane Kohler2009-01-08T06:23:00Z

Class 2,1 Progress reel from Zane Kohler on Vimeo.

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Below entries will start at the beginning of class and move chronologically by date entry.

 

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