Term Recap

The term has come to a close and Im really proud of the final projects I put together. You can find out more details about them at the following addresses:

Motion Capture: http://glennwinters.com/motioncapture/

Museum Game Experience: http://glennwinters.com/operationdino/

I'm looking forward to sharing a few more things over break. Im going to be working with a fellow student doing a facial mocap study and I'm also attending a Houdini work session in NYC. Feel free to leave comments about the two projects. I would love to hear some feedback. Happy spring.

Fall Term

As always, it has been a busy few months for me here at Drexel and a lot has been going on. To start things off I have been teaching two animation classes and I can tell you that I have enjoyed every minute of it. I really like going back to the principles of animation and teaching to a new generation of artists. The best part is, I'm also reaffirming those principles in my daily thought process when approaching my projects. I feel that we can get lost sometimes in the crazy technical world we live in but we all need to remember to go back to the principles that make stories believable. It has been great to find weekly clips that relate to those principles and point them out to the students. Its best for the students to see these principles being practiced in the real world. There are many times that we hear "Sure, when will I ever use that?" There are reasons that these principles exist. They do work, they help create believable characters and stories we can relate with.

On top of that, I have been doing a lot of my own research and taking my scheduled graduate courses. I have been spending a great deal of time focusing on my research with motion capture and how it's pipeline works. For starters we were able to get a hand motion capture system working. That can be seen here:

This system is much different than the Vicon optical system I have been mainly working with. This is more of a mechanical based system since you need to wear this crazy glove system in order for it to track the motions. It was really accurate to our surprise. For now we just tested the equipment but I look forward to looking to setting it up along with the optical system. Also I was able to work with the virtual camera rig we have at Drexel. You can see the camera in the image below:



This was another great experience. Basically, the "camera" that you see in this picture is the camera in your virtual space. After calibrating the camera you are able to enter the virtual world you created and film it! We were able to walk around the Coliseum we built last term. It was pretty unreal! Along with that I have continued researching the post production timeline by getting my hands dirty with Motion Builder. The software is actually a pretty powerful piece for animators. I was able to learn the best approach to altering data and creating seamless cycles. I'm currently researching how to work with props and also the best way to combine motion. During the gladiator development I was able to come up with a solution but I feel there is a more efficient way to approach this process. I'm hoping that once I get a good feel of this process, I can create a piece for my reel. Should be fun!

On top of that I have been helping a lot with troubleshooting some computer issues, jumping into the basics of the VFX software package Houdini, and reading a lot for my classes. Needless to say it has been busy and things in the next few weeks are going to be quite crazy. I believe our gaming group has come up with a project that can turn into something exciting. I hope to share more details about that soon. On that note, I need to get some grading done! Look forward to sharing more info soon and Happy Fall! Go enjoy some honey crisp apples.

The Summer Continues!

It is hard to believe that the summer term is slowly coming to an end but we are in the final weeks of development. Over the past few months I have been challenged in many different ways between the two classes I am taking. My organic modeling class has challenged me to think about poly flow and edge flow in a whole new way. Its amazing to see what type of detail you can achieve with just spinning a few edges and making sure that all models avoid a dense mesh. I'm currently in production on my final creature project. This character is going to be mainly humanoid but it will be a mixture of a bull, snake, and human. I'm really looking forward to setting the mesh up in maya and then bringing it into ZBrush. I have always wanted to explore the possibilities of that software and this seems like the perfect project to start with.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I am currently working on a gladiator fighting game with some fellow students and it has been a great experience thus far. The biggest "hump" I am trying to overcome is motion capture data. I have been put in charge of the development process for this pipeline and it's quite a learning curve. A lot of people may think it's a simple process but it is far from that. There are a lot of different variables that need to be considered when setting up your models in Maya and also pulling the data in from Vicon Blade. I hope to do a video tutorial once I get a good workflow down.

Thats a small update for now! I hope to get some photo's of the project soon but until then, enjoy the rest of your summer!

Dynamics Ahoy! Pre Production Ahoy!

Already two weeks into the term and I feel like things are kicking into high gear! Im thoroughly enjoying all my classes and Im having a blast jumping into the subject matter. One of the first assignments was to approach dynamics in Maya. Let me tell you that it was quite an experience. I learned quite a bit about how certain things can effect the overall picture and trying to get things to act in the correct manner. The first video I have here was a "Little Big Planet" approach to the subject matter.

I ran into a few issues trying to convey that and overall really wanted to go back into the assignment. After the class critique I decided to head back and focus on cleaning up the actual cause and effect of some things. I apologize for the dead space thats in the project but after cleaning it up, I ended up with a decent amount of it. I needed to speed up certain aspects to help convey weight and speed. Overall I was happy with it but alas I needed to move onto the next project.
We are currently learning the basics of particles and how we can apply them throughout our animations. Looking forward to exploring them this next week.

Below I also have some rough sketches of my robotic character for my final animation 2 project. Im currently waiting for story approval but I wanted to get started on preproduction. I can adjust if alterations need to be made. This will at least get ideas down. As always, would love feedback. Have a great day everyone!

Some Winter Break Fun

Hello everyone!
Winter break has been treating me well. I have been spending time enjoying sleeping in and also catching up on a lot of freelance work. I have also been spending time focusing on catching up on some subject matter that we learned briefly at the end of our first term. I reviewed a basic particle tutorial and an introduction to renderman thus far. Also, I wanted to spend some time focusing on the basics of rigging a character. So I figure what a better model to use than an artist wooden mannequin. I did a quick model this evening. It was actually refreshing to do a quick model and see how things turn out. So after this Im going to play around with rigging the character and doing some basic animation movements. Should be fun!

Final Animation Project

Sorry I have been gone for the past five weeks. Things have been a little crazy with my final project and pulling things together. I learned quite a bit of information over the past few weeks and I can truly say that I really love learning this medium. There is so much that can be done to add to several storytelling factors. First off, I created a rough cut and pulled some of the motions and timing together. That can be seen below.



After the rough cut I decided to work on a couple camera angles and the timing of some of the actions of the main characters. There are several things I need to work on over the break before I begin Animation 2. One of the main things that I need to focus on is lighting. It is such a crazy art form in itself. I look forward to my CG modeling class this winter to explore those facets. Also, I would like to focus on procedural textures. I believe this will help with my render times big time.

So with that. Below is my final animation project. I look forward to sharing with you some of the project over break and also getting ready for animation 2 in January. Have a great holiday and a happy new year!

Environment/Lighting Update

Hola all. Lack of sleep here! And loving it! :) Below are updated environments and lighting. Still some slight tweeks I want to do with the light but need to get moving towards the animation. Hope you enjoy and as always would love feedback!

This should be fun

I learned a lot approaching this coo coo clock. Certain things to extract from a shape and others to just have as a separate object. Also stumbled upon the bridge tool. It was one of those oh my god this is going to save me tons of time moments. Im sure there is more of that in the program. The design is overall final. Still thinking of working on the pendulum a little more. Now onto the fun part of separating the UVs tomorrow. OOOiiii! LOL

More Photos

Not much text today because I would probably type worse than I normally do. (I dont think thats possible) Enjoy and let me know if you have any feedback. This week I will be busy working on the environments! (Please note the textures are for placement only.

UV and Texturing Madness

All textured and UVed for class tomorrow. Its coming along.

Main Characters

Below are the base models for the main characters in my final animation project. More photos to come once I apply textures and UVs. What could it be?!

Two for the price of one!

Im going to do my best to keep this going over the next few weeks but believe it or not, next week is already mid term! (Mouth drops) I will keep you up to date as many projects are coming together as well as the new website. Should have that set to go soon! Anyway I wanted to share two pieces that I worked on recently and really had a blast working on.

First is movement along a path. Here I had some fun figuring out how to work the camera within a first person point of view. I did use some inspiration from a game style I was a fan of called Mirrors Edge. The trailer for that can be viewed here:



Now obviously, there was no way I was going to pull off too much in 20+ seconds but I wanted to try on focusing on the basics. How a person rocks back and forth slightly but also keeping thing in sight. How a person may land and stutter close to the edge of something and look down before turning to the next location.

Final product can be found here:


The following is my most recent work that I have to say was the most frustrating yet the most fun. This was the beginning, I mean just a taste of character animation. The challenge here as to just create a scene of a jump. I pulled inspiration from all the famous adventure seeker type scenes from film. The difficult part was getting the walk down. If we just focused on the arms and legs swaying back and forth, it would look too robotic. Also its important to focus in on the ease in and ease out of motion to make it look natural. Had some fun with this one and I hope you enjoy!

Motion through Bouncing Balls

This past weeks assignment was a lot of fun exploring a pretty basic subject matter, three bouncing balls. The concept was to take three balls of different weights and sizes and apply them to a scene. Now for some reason I immediately thought of this video I saw awhile back:

First off, that guy is extremely talented! Along with several other people on you tube. Check out amazing soccer kicks sometime, it's crazy! So I immediately thought of focusing on this event and two other sports with balls that have varying weights. Those being bocce and a game called cornhole, which apparently isn't as widely known as I thought. So I started doing some research on slow mo capture videos of balls being hit or thrown against the wall. I have to say its pretty wild! Check out a few that I came across:

The golf ball still blows my mind! Now obviously, to the human eye, we can't see that movement until it slowed down with a camera. This does not mean that it doesn't make a difference in animation. In order to get the correct feel of a ball rolling or bouncing, we need to think about the minor details in its movement. How does the ball move when its coming in? How does it react when it hits the ground? Is their a slight bump to objects? Also, how do those objects react? Its amazing the questions that just go into three bouncing balls but it helps make the most convincing arguments. Therefore, I have always felt it necessary to analyze what your working on and break it down into segments. In this case, focus your segment on the timeline editor and then analyze the graph sequences. This will then allow you to manipulate the curves and its effects on the ball within the environment. I spent a lot of time focusing on the bocce balls and how they would slow down at different moments and also how movement would lead into another event.

It is important to keep the viewer intrigued as to what is going on in the scene. Originally I had a stationary camera without a slight change at the end. The main comment I received in critique was "Whats going on in the background?" Therefore, I decided to move the camera and give it a nice subtle zoomed in shot to help focus on what was exactly going on in the back. I tried to have something bleed into the next portion of the animation. Meaning, the plank of wood falls around the timing of the ball entering the scene and the bocce ball slows down as the hackie sack enters. Then a quick movement of the camera. Its amazing what a camera set up can do to a scene but that is another topic I can spend hours discussing!

The following was the result after a class critique:

I do apologize for the darkness. It normally is a bit lighter before being compressed. I hope to figure out some new techniques in lighting after catching up on some of the lighting effects. Overall I was happy after adjusting the animation after the critique. There are still some minor things I would like to have finessed such as the garbage can movement after the soccer ball hits and the angle of the bocce ball.

It was interesting to explore textures with this project. Though, I have learned to approach texturing in a different way. Hopefully I will be able to pull that together for this weeks assignment.

Happy 10-10-10! CRAZY HUH!

Punt!

I swear this will have more relevance by tuesday. Who knew a garbage can could have so many vertex points, edges, and more! A lot of clean up to do this still along with the rest of the scene. Its gonna be a busy weekend!