Denny's AM Blog

Poles (Blocking)

2008-11-08T23:27:00.003-06:00

So ive been really busy the past month, so I apologize for not updating this more often. This week's assignment is to have a character jumping on at least 2 poles. We are using the Stewie rig which is a humanoid character with no arms or face. Heres what I have so far...

180 Turn (Final)

2008-11-08T23:23:00.001-06:00

This was my final pass on the 180 turn.

Blitz: The League II

2008-10-14T21:00:00.003-05:00

oh man, im late!!! Blitz: The League II, my first officially credited game was realeased on monday! You should check it out, its actually really fun to play, then look for my credits!

180 Turn (Blocking)

2008-10-11T22:17:00.001-05:00

Hello my friends, and welcome to this week! So last week we had to take reference video of ourselves doing some sort of action that ends up being a 180 degree turn. Heres my blocking for this week's assignment!

180 Reference Video

2008-10-06T20:44:00.004-05:00

OH Gosh! I'm a terrible person to have not updated you on my progress!! Well, Quarter 2 has begun here at AM and our first project is to create a 180 turn using Ballie. I decided to do something more straight forward because I really want to get the mechanics down. Im having troubles uploading, so you shall see my reference video in due time!

Class 2

2008-09-28T17:49:00.001-05:00

BAM! Class 2 begins tomorrow, be prepared for 12 more weeks of animation insanity!

Class 1: Progress Reel

2008-09-15T07:43:00.004-05:00

Well, our time for the quarter has come to an end. Its been a quick one, and I can tell you this much, I've learned ALOT and now I full endorse this school to anyone that will listen. This week we were assigned to compile our work into 1 reel to see our progression throughout the school. Here it is, the boombastic demo reel from class 1!!

In Balance Pose

2008-09-13T14:07:00.002-05:00

Personality Walk (Splining)

2008-09-08T00:25:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone. So we've made it. Its the (next to) final week for the first quarter and the last assignment (next week we put together our class 1 reels). This week we take our personality walk into splining, yay!!! We also have to pose out Stu in an "In Balance" pose, that should be interesting. Well, heres my first splining pass on the walk, the pose shall come soon!!!

Exhausted Pose

2008-09-07T01:14:00.002-05:00

Personality Walk (Blocking)

2008-09-01T22:47:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone, we've moved onto week 10 now, yikes! This quarter is flying by! Our assignment for this week is to do a unique walk that shows some sort of personality. I decided to do something a little different with this one, and give this character something other than the cliche "sad" walk or the "angry" walk. We were also assigned the pose of "Exhausted." Voila!!

Concerned Pose

2008-08-31T12:07:00.002-05:00

Vanilla Walk (Splining)

2008-08-24T22:27:00.003-05:00

So we're onto week 9 now, and this week we continue the work on our Vanilla walk. We have to take the walk out of blocking and make the curves nice and smooooooth. We also have to make a pose that shows "CONCERNED", that will come later in the week... Heres what I have for the walk!

Physical Strength Pose

2008-08-21T00:07:00.004-05:00

Vanilla Walk (Blocking)

2008-08-17T22:23:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone. So we're on to week 7 already. This week we have 2 assignments. The first one is to create a "vanilla" walk cycle (ie a walk at its most basic level) using the Ballie Rig and with a limit of 48 frames (or 2 full cycles, 4 steps in total). Right now, for this week, the assignment is to simply stay in a blocking phase, so it wont be nice, smooth and pretty this week :(. The 2nd assignment is to create a pose that conveys "Physical Strength". Keep on truckin, and by trucking I mean, following my blog :P

Tailor

2008-08-10T23:26:00.007-05:00

whoa, week 7 already, man time is flying!! This week's assignment has us playing with the tailor rig (ie ball with tail) This assignment teaches us how to use overlapping action, line of action and to be conscious of arcs. All the same principles we learned from previous weeks come into play for this one, and man, its a difficult one. I now present to you Tailor in "Epic Fail".

Pendulum

2008-08-04T07:37:00.009-05:00

Hail all my loyal followers. This week, I bring you the pendulum project! So basically, the assignment is suppose to be real simple (ie, comes to a stop, and watch the pendulum part settle, or a figure 8, with the pendulum settling) but hell, I wanna do something fun. I decided to give my pendulum some character, added in rotation and some squash and stretch.

Devastation Pose

2008-07-31T07:10:00.004-05:00

Obstacle Course

2008-07-27T22:03:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone (or the 2 people that actually look at this damn thing)! So its the start of week 5, and we got 2 new assignments. The first of which is an exercise in squash in stretch. We are to have that ball going through an obstacle course while using squash and stretch appropriately. The 2nd assignment is to pose out Stu is a DEVASTATION pose. I have yet to get to the pose, but heres what I have so far for the obstacle course!!

Heavy & Light Ball

2008-07-21T08:27:00.005-05:00

So its the beginning of week 4, and we have received our new assignment! This week, we have to animate 2 balls, 1 heavy and 1 light. The assignment is mainly to learn timing and spacing and the differences between light and heavy. Rather than be boring, I decided to have the balls interacting a bit. Oh, and I love angled walls :P

Excitement Pose

2008-07-16T07:25:00.004-05:00

Well, week 3 is now almost finished. Our next task was a 2-part assignment. The first was to create a realistic bouncing ball (like a basketball or soccer ball) with a 50-100 frame limit. The creativity was up the creator, so see below for my bouncing ball. The 2nd part was to create a pose that conveyed "Excitement". Hopefully I pulled that one off, what do ya think?

Bouncing Ball

2008-07-14T23:43:00.005-05:00

Observational Pose

2008-07-10T08:18:00.006-05:00

Hi Everyone! Well, week 2 is almost wrapped up and we have been assigned our first assignment. We were asked to go out and observe people, and sketch out some of the poses that stood out to you. After sketching that pose, we were told to take that pose into maya and pose Stu out. Heres the pose I ended up with!

AM Begins

2008-06-30T22:46:00.006-05:00

oh boy, its June 30th and AM has finally opened its doors. Theres so much going on, I dunno where to start! Workspaces, Q&A's, videos, tools, AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Luckily I have some friends of mine who are attending already, so I looked like a noob to them :).

I'm excited! I will have classes Tuesday nights from 8:30pm to 9;30pm. It looks like I have a solid mentor as well in Bryan Engram, a supervising animator at Reel FX in Dallas Texas. I look forward to learning from him. http://www.bryanengram.com/

I'm going into this with open eyes and ears, and with the idea of completely unlearning what I already know and getting to the basics. I want to begin as if I didnt work at a game company and build off of that. LETS DO THIS!

NBA Ballers Released!!

2008-04-23T08:42:00.005-05:00

Midway Games has released a brand new game called NBA Ballers: Chosen One on the XBOX360 and Playstion 3. Red Eye Studio supplied some of the insane combo moves seen in the game. At the time we had the work, I was just starting out as a part timer, so I was only able to get my hands on one of the moves. But HEY! I worked on it, no? Take the time out and check out this game, seems like fun!

I've done it!!

2008-04-22T08:57:00.001-05:00

Oh dear, I've entered the world of blogging, prepare yourself!! I made this blog as a place to post my updates from Animation Mentor. Oh yea, I was accepted, and I start June of 2008.