Oh! Mighty renderer, how I hate thee!

I'm currently rendering out some shots. I'm using an IBL, and a 90 frame shot has taken 5 hours to get half way! Ouch! Why, oh why, did I decide to use an IBL?

I've been to a couple of meetings with animation studios, and things are looking promising. I've been given some great feedback from the directors, and am currently in the process of adjusting my reel, according to their critique. Hence, my reignited relationship with the mighty renderer.

Hopefully over the next couple of days, I'll have my reworked reel ready to send back to them. It was really nice to hear positive things from professionals in the industry, who aren't my tutors or classmates. Happy face!

Oh, Happy Halloween by the way. Here's the article with my screen shot of my animation from the musical Wicked (bottom right, in the article).

And so, here's a reminder of the work in progress shot I did (in its rough form)...y'know, as it's Halloween and everything :)

Showreel #1 - Done!

I've done it! I've finally finished my first showreel. I'm really pleased, and relieved. It's taken a year to get to this stage...

To see it, check out my website: www.marcgodfrey.com

I would really love to know what you think.

I'm in the process of getting my 2 other showreels completed too. I've done my Animal and Creatures, I still need to complete a Games and Character reel...I'll keep you updated :)

How to Animate a Car...

Well, I'm not expert to assume that I can teach someone how to animate a vehicle...but I did a car this week...it's not bad.

The toughest part for me, was to work out where to put the squash the stretch. Although it's a solid object, you still need to add performance elements to give the overall piece some flow.

The car rig is a nice little piece of kit - it came with a good squash functionality, as well as being able to lift up the bonnet and boot...very nice touches!

I used reference from the gazillion clips that are on youtube, of cars screeching doing stunts and 180 slide turns.

There are still a few tweeks here and there that I want to do to it...but for now, it's not that bad. What do you think?

Animating a Flap Cycle

My last assignment with Animation Apprentice is to animate a flying bird. The flap cycle is surprisingly straight forward, the only complication comes when studying the actual motion of a bird's wing and making sure it's doing what a bird, does!

The rig isn't the best to use for close ups. It's quite geometric and low-poly, but the overall effect is very pleasing if the camera angle isn't too close.

Since the bird looks like a crow, I figured it was appropriate to go gothic with my shot. My murder of crows swoop in, and swoop out towards the moon. What do you think?

More Scorpions!

Hello! Here are the final videos for my Scorpion animation.

I really enjoy creature animation. I'm wondering if that's "my thing". I always saw myself as a character animator, given my theatre background. But it would appear that my art background is helping my observations of creature movement?

 

I've also started a new blog. I've decided to publish all the art from my sketchbooks! I've really enjoyed doing it, I feel like I'm archiving! So please have a look, and don't forget to sign up to receive updates to your email address: Marc Godfrey Sketch Blog

Oh yeah, and always, don't forget to leave me comments :)

I've Been Animating For a Pregnancy!

Don't worry, no one's pregnant. I just logged into my Animation Apprentice account, and I've been a member for just over 9 months - that's a pregnancy! ...and it does feel like I've been reborn, in some sort of cheesy, cliche way.

I've learnt so much. I feel that I'm using my creativity, and I feel very satisfied for it. Before, it was like I was stuck, somehow. I knew where I wanted to be, vaguely, but didn't know how to get there - and because no sails were in motion, I just spent a lot of my time just treading water.

Now, I'm training in a field that sparks my interests, working with like minded people, learning from my peers - I certainly feel more fulfilled than I have done in a very long time. It feels good.

Here's one of my latest animations. I've still got work to do it, but it's getting there. What do you think?

Spider!

One of my latest animations has been a spider. I wasn't too keen when I first got the rig, this beast brought out an irrational arachnophobic feeling in me. So, immediately I turned him bright pink, and that was fine!

The assignment was to animate the spider on a walk cycle and add some sort of performance. I did two. Weirdly, and most interestingly, the two animations are very similar. One appears more playful, one more vicious. It's amazing what colours and additional set items can do to tell a story - or rather change a story.

Here's the first one, Playful Spider:

 

...and here's the second, Vengeful Spider:

 

See what I mean about them both being very similar? The only real differences are colour, lighting and "prey".

You should also be able to see how much more professional the second animation is? This is because it was the first animation I did as a proper render! From trawling various animation forums, I found a link to this really smart app called "Zeitraffer". Basically, it takes images and puts them together a your desired frame rate, and makes a movie clip. It's so simple. Best thing is, it's FREE!

Righty...off to do more animation now. I love receiving comments, so please let me know what you think...or just say hi!

Thanks :)

Run Horsey, Run!

We had the Grand National at the weekend (thank you very much TeaforThree and Oscar Time), so thought it was a good time to post my latest animation, of a running horse!

I've really enjoyed doing the creature cycles. I find them quite straight forward, surprisingly, I mean they look really complicated right? As long as you have good thumbnails, they're really not that bad!

What do you think...?

I'm getting to the stage where I need to start putting together my show reel, which I'm really excited about. If anything, I'm excited to have a professional looking, quality reel. Playblasts (which this is, a kind of moving screen shot) are good and all that, but the final render is going to look super cool!

My Trotting Horse

Here's the latest installment in my Animation learning. My 22nd assignment with Animation Apprentice was to take the horse rig, and make him trot. We've done the walk cycle, so now it's time to make him move a bit faster.

What do you think?

Horsey Horsey

On the Animation Apprentice course we're learning about Horse locomotion. At first, fear careered through my body, it looked REALLY fiddly and complicated, but I'm pleased to report...Tweren't at all bad, twas it not!

Once I got my head around the rig and understood the controls, it was really about making sure all the curves looked good and the cycle was working smoothly.

Here's my Walking Horse. What do you think?

My mind is constantly drifting to the dreaded question: How am I going to get a job? The end of the course with Animation Apprentice looms, which means I need to get my showreel up to scratch and good enough to show to a studio, and prove why they should take me on. Lots to do. CV and Linkedin profiles to sharpen!

And above all else...I need to come up with an idea to cohesively put a showreel together. Watch this space!

Some Mental Ray Renders to Salivate over...

On Wednesday, I posted a playblast of my latest Animation assignment, with Animation Apprentice. I've had a look at some renders, and have come up with these.

Don't they make the whole thing look so much better? When the scene is fully finished, I'll render the whole thing out properly, but until then, I'll leave you to drool over these...

My Popular Post...

It's been a while since I posted anything, mainly because I've been working on this.

It's not quite finished, but here's a playblast of a lipsync exercise. The extract is Louise Dearman, singing "Popular". All comments welcome :)

Draw!

Alex, my tutor at Animation Apprentice, is a very inspirational guy. He, along with many other animators, are passionate about drawing. Which as an apprentice, passionate about drawing too, is a very affirming thing to know; that your tutor trusts the very core skills of an animator, drawing, especially as a creative outlet. It doesn't matter if you're not very good at drawing, the most important thing is that you do it.

This blog, which he added recently solidifies this idea brilliantly: In Praise of Sketchbooks

How's the Animation Training going?

Me, where the Animation dream got
reawakened, back in 2009.

Things have been moving on for me at a nice pace! I must say though, being honest, for anyone that doesn't have a lot of experience in VFX, doing the Maya course with Escape Studios and doing another course with Animation Apprentice is a lot of work...especially juggling a regular job at the same time.

I've nearly finished with Escape Studios now (it's flown by), only 4 weeks left, but still have a good few weeks left with Alex at Animation Apprentice. If I had to do it all again, I would probably start off with Animation Apprentice, and maybe do a self-learning online Maya course, in my own time to up my skills.

The tutors at Escape are really lovely, and incredibly talented. However, some classes at Escape were, dare I say, I tad boring as we were learning things that bared no resemblance to anything I actually wanted to do with my career (of course, they were useful things to know about, but felt like teaching a drummer how to play the guitar)...but more recently, at Escape, we've been looking at Animation, it's not a patch on what I'm doing with Animation Apprentice. I recommend the course with Alex at AA, 100%!

I'm not phased by what the future holds...yet. I know jobs are few and far between in Animation, but I'm positive and optimistic. I really enjoy Animation, and feel that I'm being true to myself by taking the bull by the horns and retraining to do a completely different career in something I longed for as a child.

I'm leaving work in a few weeks...eeeek...although I will be back and forth, and doing some hours to tide me over, until a job opportunity comes up... I need to take the step and spend more time on my animation and show reel and really focus on landing that dream job! Very exciting! Kinda nerve-racking! Definitely fulfilling!