KungFu Panda - Holiday Special

KungFu Panda Holiday Special 2010 from lautdalam on Vimeo.

Dreamworks., KungFu Panda - Holiday Special directed by Tim Johnson, 2010.

The Arctic Circle from Sheridan

The Arctic Circle from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.

Paths Of Hate

Some trailer for a Russian short film maybe?
Looks cool.

PATHS OF HATE long trailer from Platige Image on Vimeo.

Rapunzel!!!

Rapunzel is magical, it brings back the old Disney feel in 3D. Sure we all know how the story goes from the book but Disney interpreted it well. Anyway, here is a technical demo of how they did her lovely tresses.

Animation Food For Thought - Video reference and Stick figures

I know that we may not always have time, especially if we're working on a TV series or short clips that require us to finish under an extremely tight deadline and sometimes we get lazy. We go, "ahh stuff it i can't be bothered shooting reference and/or thumbnailing." Truth is, without first planning your shot, or having no form of reference or research material, it's bound to look nothing like what you envisioned. There's that common saying: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," and animation is no exception to that. You want to improve your quality of work, you've GOTTA shoot reference, do your research and draw Draw DRAW!

Some people say, "ahh but i'm not actually doing any work when i draw or shoot ref. I should just quickly do it and get it over and done with." Truth is many of us feel this way. One of my mentors used to tell my class: "Take it as part of your animation process. Do not seperate it. Planning -> Shooting reference -> Thumbnailing -> Blocking -> Blocking Plus -> Splinning -> Polishing. I don't view the first 3 steps as getting no animation done as it all contributes to the entire clip."

Which is easier? Getting nice poses on paper with a pencil or getting a nice pose on the computer with your rig? I think it's kinda obvious. In the time taken for you to pose out something that you may think didn't turn out so well, you probably would have drawn 30 variations of that 1 pose in paper.

What if you can't draw that well. Hey MANY of the good animators and not pro animators, myself included can't draw that well, but that's not stopping us. Use stick figures, get the shoulders and hips in there and start drawing those poses out. Push those poses on paper so that you know EXACTLY how it's gonna turn out on the computer. If you need a good example of how this works, look no further than Jason Ryan's amazing stick figures.

Video reference is also a good way to find out things about your animation action that you didn't know or are confused about. Never never copy or roto your video ref, unless your job IS to roto then...yeah. We're animators! we make things fun and spruce up the motion, add life, zest and character to the rig. Remember that video reference IS NOT what your clip is gonna end up looking like. It's to help you figure out how you should be going about tackling that particular motion, be it a jump, backflip or crawl etc.

Another good way is to bring your drawings into flash or something similar, so you get even your timing down pretty well there. Han Xiang uses this method and i think it's served him pretty well so far, but like i said, for all those who don't want to "waste" so much time on it, hey! drawing is fast so JUST DO IT!

Love Sport - Paintballing

A lot of animators always tell me that it is very hard to show emotion of the character if it is armless, expressionless, or no background for it to perform in. Well, you can always show emotion through body langauge, rhythm, squash and stretch, etc. True enough, music, sound effect, light and props do amplified the emotion, but try to get it right through animation so that when you put them together, the emotional of the character will be stronger.

I found a very good example of using just pixels and sound effect to show emotion of the character. By adding just squash and stretch, rhythm and sound, you can actually feel that the pixels has a life by itself. Even without sound, You can also tell what is happening in the scene.

Love Sport was done by StudioAKA.

Love Sport - Paintballing from Qoob TV on Vimeo.

Lost and Found

An awesome animation by studioAKA. Lost and Found is the winner of BAFTA for Best Childrens Animation. It has also won a total of 46 international awards to date.



For more info about the company please visit
http://www.studioaka.co.uk

Out of Sight

Since there was a post on Ghibli below, thought I would share this ghibli-esque piece of animation from Taiwan University.

It gets better

No I am not talking about your job or skill as an animator getting better. I guess as animators we are always working long hours at our desks, planning shots and meeting deadlines. So I thought it would be good to share this video with employees from Pixar speaking, that once in awhile we could spare a thought for the things or issues happening around us.

Animation Food For Thought - Manhandling Poses

I'll be honest. I used to animate by first setting up your golden poses then filling in the gaps with in betweens that you may need. The rest is done by the computer when you hit the spline button. By doing so you either find yourself pleasantly surprised or totally shocked and apalled and most of the time it's the latter.

The main problem with this is that you don't have as much control over your animation. Ever feel like, "damn...that didn't really come out the way i planned or thought that it would." Well, the reason is NOT ENOUGH POSES. I'm sure you've heard soo many people say this but when you get down to it, it simply just doesn't work out. Then you go back to your old way of animating and getting all nice and comfy which essentially stumps your growth process. So what exactly does 'NOT ENOUGH POSES' mean? Well it basically means just that. For those who are scared that it'll mess up your animation, it most definately will and that is why you need to keep fixing it and keeping it all under your control.

Letting the computer do your in-betweens is as good as hoping for the best. Take control of those poses, if you have to key every frame so be it. That's how the old skool animators used to do it. Trust me, the computer is a lousy LOUSY animator. Trusting the computer to do inbetweens and breakdowns for you is like animating while having your eyes shut.

In any case this is my take on it having gone down both paths. Is it the gospel truth? I would think not. (Eg. some animators create brilliant stuff with just the graph editor) But for those who are in similar situations like me...try it out! You won't regret it...well maybe on your 1st and 2nd clip when you hit the spline button.

Yay! You've decided to be an animator!

Here's a good forum thread I dug out from long ago. Probably one of the best post about the reality of being an animator that I've read.
Have a "look here"

Cheers,
Yk

Animation Backgrounds Blog by Rob Richards

I found this website while doing reseach for my assignment. It contains a lot of the current and past backgrounds art done by Disney, Warner Bros and etc. It's a cool place to check out if you wanna learn more about composition and layout.

http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com

Cool Facts and Works of Hayao Miyazaki

Although it's all in Japanese, you should still be able to understand most of what's going on. Enjoy! Courtesy of Rae

Disney's latest offering