Jason Ryan goes live!!!!

Just got the mail that Jason Ryan Animation is going live this Sunday!!! wooohoooo.... time to pester my dad a lot more..coz i really need to get my hands on those tuts..so i think ill hav to postpone the tablet for the time being..lets see..
pray that i can get my hands on them pretty soon..
god bless you..
adios

sideStep

wooooohoooooooo.. m sooo excited to finally get into this.. hav been thinkin of doin thins since february.. but then i realised that i need to work on the basics before i get into these..Yesterday i decided that i need to put Squirrel in his tree hollow full of acorns, for the time being, though..hav spent an entire week tweaking him..but his tail..oh man..anyways let me not digress..spent the entire evening yesterday looking for a stretchy ball with leg rig.. want to kill Naveen now..he said Lt. Dan is not stretchy, n i took his word..ooh boy..but i got quite some interesting rigs and links..also searched for some reference and good examples of the step..both a cartoony side step and a vanilla one..ill do both in 10 days or less..thats wat i hav decided..Ill start with a vanilla, no fancy stuff from the beginnin..coz i hav thumbnails of it, dated february..although ill make fresh ones after 10mins..will take a vid as reference..had a lenghty conversation abt side step with Moush, n she laid emphasis on weight shift of the hip
moush82: basically just remember that the hip will shift on the opposite side of the foot being lifted
so lets get to work.. but first ill brush my teeth :D..
will upload the 1st shot today..
Steppy Step here i come..

Update..10th May 5 AM
Just woke up!!!left the computer on n fell asleep!! hehe..this is so exciting..i took a reference for this one.. oh boy.. taking a video n then see the poses n then understanding stuff makes its all the more exciting n interesting..loved every moment..apart from watching my life reference i looked a good hard look at Jocelyn Cofer side step..then i sat n drew the thumbnails of ALL the poses , not just the keys..did it twice!!then finally good ol Lt. Dan started moving..even after the reference it took some time..strangely though the reference video that i shot is around 500mb..dont know y..plus i cant convert it using total video converter! Anyways i thought i wud try to stick to a workflow in this one, so i wanted to do blocking of it first..but i cudnt help myself n went ahead n added a more poses inbetweeen..here take a look

side step blockin from arien1986 on Vimeo.
n here's the AVI

Naveen, Prateek, Ratul n Ranbir had a look at it, n almost everyone had pointed at frames 17-18, so i hav added ib's over there to make the movement more natural..anyways that wudnt come under blocking, i suppose, so dat will b there in the next update..Ratul suggested a subtle overlap at the end and pointed an unbalanced pose on frame 27..so ill fix that aswell..
Prasad hasnt seent his yet.. After quite a while i posted my work on a forum..coz m hardly getting any crits from anywhere..donno y..so i posted it on
11 Second Club..
havnt got a reply so far..so i guess ill post it in the other forums aswell..
here it is on
AWN
Strut Your Reel
Cg Tantra
11 Second Club
Animation Lounge

Posted it up on Cg Soceity aswell, waiting review..Still having problem with posting on Cg-Char Animation so now ill get back n finish the 1st pass of the step..

Update..10th May 11.45AM
worked on the side step..added frames to it.. made changes to the rotation of the hip on the ibs aswell as the keys..playing around wit the files made me understand what i sud hav had taken a shot of..i mean wat sud hav been in the reference.. so i guess ill remember that next time..made the micro antic more subtle.. sud it be more subtle??removed a few frames.. n worked on the timing more.. how the arc overall?? lemme know wat u think..
here it is

side step ref from arien1986 on Vimeo.
n here's the AVI
cheers !!!
thanks a lot..
P.S. Time to get some sleep!!

Update..11th May 6.15 AM
Hey folks, this is so awesome.. i got awesome critz over at strut your reel by Marc. He is always been a great help in all my thread over there.. Thanks a lot Marc.. so here is the crit..

Hey Chetan, just saw your updated anim. The overall timing looks good. I've done an exercise like this before and what I found that helped me was not necessarily to have the character on the ground. We had him move from one box to another. Something to consider, but take it as it is. Few things stood out to me, 1. your pre-antic when i look at the screen he moves a little to the right before doing his antic, I don't think is needed. Right now it looks and reads as if you didn't clean up your keys in the graph editor. If you want to keep it, then keep it, but make it more intentional. If you did do the pre-antic you could raise him up and then as he's going to the left dip him down and come up as he is in his antic pose, could give you a nice little arc there as well. You could also push the rotation of the body a bit more too to show the bearing of weight in the antic pose. See image.


2. your arc of the body as he is moving during the step could be pushed more, and you will probably get a better look out of it. Also watch the rotation as he's doing it, right now it seems like there is none at all. See image.


3. As he finishes up and is on the other side when he is getting up and his left leg is bearing all the weight his body should show that with rotation in x. See image.


4. As he finishes up you have him takes what looks like a balancing step with his left foot, I'd make that a bit more intentional, right now it looks a little messy. And you also got some sliding issues at the end where the feet move a bit, just check your graph editor or it might be an artifact of vimeo.
Otherwise that's all I got at the moment.
Good start, keep at it.
Hope that helps

such crits get me pumped up..feel like animating.. n my sleep just vanishes..oh m so glad that i saved the images on my drive, coz wen i checked the thread once again, dis mornin the images had been removed from the thread, i dont know y.. anyways m just glad that Marc was so helpful and made so many points clear.. i hope i do justice to the crits wit my animation..
thanks a lot Marc.

Update..12th May 5.45AM
phew!! Marc critz took more time than i thought they wud.. plus i experimented on my own a bit.. need to get the idea of weight shift clear..made the pre-antic very prominent..checked the arc.. i didnt hav a frame in the middle of the step where he's going down..it made much more sense once i tried it out..thanks Marc..got the weight now?? still not convinced..need to read a lot more on that..any hints or reference anyone?? fixed the sliding issue at the end..

OHH N YES! ALL THIS IS IN STEPPED MODE.. I AM NOT MESSING AROUND WITH GRAPH EDITOR AT THE MOMENT..


side step ref from arien1986 on Vimeo.

AVI

P.S - From frame 51 to 57, u think there should be more frames?? n in those frames he sud be moving down?? will try that out now..once that i hav finished working on Marc's critz..
Note: Vimeo took 2 hrs to upload this!!!

Update..12th May 2.10pm
Daam vimeo!! Another two hours n 15mins..
Got nice suggestion from Nate at 11sec... so i reduced the intentional pre antic n while i was at it, i made the settle more subtle..yippee..wanted to upload it..but vimeo was at it again.. gave this for upload at 12..was getting uploaded till now..man!! check dis out..

side step subtled from arien1986 on Vimeo.

AVI

worked more at it by the time vimeo was uploadin so i made a few more changes..just adding two frames gives it a snappy feel..


Update..16th May Noon
got various comments n crits from the forums..here'z how the step looks now..the major difference this time is coz of Animated Ape over at the awn forums..

sideStep finale2 from arien1986 on Vimeo.

AVI

is it slowin down a bit fast in the end??

keep the comments coming guys..
thanks a lot!
cheers!!

squirrel

hey all.. this is what i am doing at the moment..working on the hops at the moment.. i went pretty much straight ahead on this..n then saw the timing was totally wrong.. so i had to make quite a few changes.. i need to get a perfect blend of straight ahead and pose to pose.. anyways here's the video.. the actual plan is for the character to go out off the screen.. will do that once i am satisfied with the movement till this part..
take a look..

squirrel from arien1986 on Vimeo.
here's the AVI

this isnt the first attempt though, i got valuable crits from Prateek and Naveen

ooh n yea one more the thing.. wat do u think the character is doing? let me know.. wanna see if i am being able to convey the message i want or not..leave a comment.. that would b helpful..

P.S. Naveen got his blog ready.check it out.The link is on the right side.

Here's an update dated 3rd May..

squirrel got weight.. from arien1986 on Vimeo.

And the AVI.
i played around with the squirrel and completed the action of the action of the body.. got awesome support from Naveen..mades changes in all the jumps..added frames to the second jump to slow it down a bit..add squash and stretch to all the jumps..understood quite a few things and about weight..cleared a few doubts in my mind aswell..worked on the end aswell..kept it pretty simple in the end..Thanks to Mr. Stephen Gregory for writing abt Strobbing..And especially to Mr. Cameroon Fielding for the nifty little article n melscript on taping the timing..saved a lot of time n energy..
thanks a lot..


NEWSFLASH... UPDATE...DATED 5th MAY..Ive been trying to add a tail to this fellow.. at the moment.. it looks like a my squirrel's genes came from a feline.. a panther or leopard or a cat!!! hehe.. the tail is moving like a cat.. so m hunting for some reference..n luckily i just hit jackpot..all this while i was going thru live reference.. now ive found scraty SCRAT.. here the vid that m using as reference..SCRAT Music Video Just the stuff that i was looking for.. going thru it frame by frame reveals interesting movement..lets see wat i can do.. will finish this bad boy before midnyt..n get to SIDE STEP.. wooo hoooo...
till then.. sayonara..
over and out

UPDATE.. DATED 8th MAY..5AM..
Adding a tail to my Scrat was a painful task..and maintaining the weight of the tail even more difficult..the two youtube videos helped a lot..but i still havent been able to finish it..the frames where he makes those 3 hopes to gain momentum, is something that is making me go crazy..at the moment i hav done till he lands after the big jump..the weight is constantly changin..i feel i sud get my mind on other animation while i work on it inbetween..coz i need to start the side step now.. so for the time being ill start the sidestep with good ol Lt. Dan..n then, hopefully, ill come back to my Scrat.till then peace out.
P.S. Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs is set to release on the 4th of July next year.. yay!!!

adios..