Monday and Tuesday's Things - Animation and Mechanical Drawing

Over the weekend and Monday I learned a lot about animating in Maya and setting up a proper skeleton for animation.  I had a lot of issues figuring out how to bind a skeleton the right way, Maya fools you into thinking you've done it right by behaving as if nothing's wrong... most of the time.  Then it just does something random that makes no sense until you start from scratch.  Thats what I did.  And I learned that I have to go in and literally click on every joint before I hit the "Smooth Bind" button.

From there, I was able to successfully animate the looping sequence for the Batflower as it sways in the light breeze.  The pedals animated nicely and I tried making them resemble fabric blowing around in the wind.  The tough part was the draping buds that come from the center.  I had alot of trouble making them flop around freely.  I honestly sort of half assed that part because this is all going to be seen in what will eventually be a 5 second clip.  I'll just slow the animation down it doesn't seem quite as strong of a wind. 

I've moved on to another part of this little scene I'm building.  I've decided to make it a showcase map just to drop in some props I've made and do a few matinee sequences which I'll record and put into my new demo reel.  So, my next piece I'm working on for that scene is an alien computer terminal.  We made a rough version of it for Progeny during my last semester at SCAD but it was rushed and I was not happy enough with it to put it right into my new reel.  I've decided to redo the concept for it and really flesh it out so I can just jump into creating it without having to do a lot of thinking about it.  This is good practice since it is how professionals work.  Think, plan, and design in 2d.  Then just build it 3d. 

I suck at technical drawings of mechanical objects.  I suck at drawing in perspective.  I thought I knew how.  But I now realize the reason I always do characters is because they're so much more interesting than a bunch of straight lines (which are a pain the butt to draw straight with a tablet).  Its so awkward to draw within the constraints of perspective! I'm not happy about it so, I've been practicing perspective and watching all kinds of lessons on how to get it right.  They all say the same things.  I got it in my head.  But when I get to it in Photoshop, it just feels so un natural for me.  I'm used to making organic curvy shapes and rough textures.  Anyways, this is what I spent the day on.

Work in Progress Mechanical Drawing

I'm using different line weights because it helps the drawing read better.  Here is a video I've learned a lot from for this type of work.

Sketchbook Page and Lighting Study

Tonight, I did some touch ups on the drawings I'm thinking of uploading to my sketches on my portfolio.  I thought they needed stronger lines around the outlines and hard surfaces.  It was a good choice because I thought the outcome made the images look more professional and clean. Heres one of the pages...

I was studying a Caravaggio painting.  Hes one of my favorite old masters.  He tends to use dark backgrounds and his subjects are always lit by a strong spot light, giving them a bright vibrant appearance.  He always uses Earth tones for color.  I tried to mimic some of the effects he creates with this quick study.

Caravaggio Example

My Study

Not too bad for a 45 minute exercise.  But regardless, I think I've got the formula down for using his style.

Animation - Painting Weights and Web Site Update

Today, I spent a good 4 hours flipping through a stack of sketchbooks trying to find some decent new drawings to update my portfolio with.  It desperately needs some better work, especially in the sketches area.  I still have to create the thumbnails for the users to click on in the gallery section.  So that will happen soon.  www.christopherjleblanc.com

I have a second interview coming up at a local marketing company.  They need a graphic designer to help with banner ads, template layouts, and HTML website writing.  I'm excited and hope I can live up to what they expect from me.

I'm stuck and can't make any progress on my UDK scene.  I'm trying to animate a prop Bat-flower so it gently sways in the wind.  I'm at the stage where I've layed out the bone structure and am painting the weights.  I thought I knew how to do this but I can't get the weights to stay put the way I need them to.  When I paint one pedal on the flower, the other pedals also receive some of the influence and I can't stop that from happening.  Its stalled me from making progress on the scene and my new demo reel.  I tried locking the weights in and that doesn't help either.  I have no way of knowing where all the weight lies when working on a single region.

The scene thus far.

I also re-textured this prop from Progeny (senior year game project) which I made my senior year at SCAD.  It came out looking realistic and I'm quite happy with it.

I painted a robot figure for fun a few nights ago.  Spent two hours on it and wasn't really satisfied.  I was hoping to have color and and all the values set up and mostly rendered by the two hour mark.  I would at least like to have more contrast in values, general color, specular highlights in a 2 hour painting.  I'm still working too slow.

Thats all I've got for now.