My New Website

andrewharkins.com

I started a new web site with my newest 3D animation reel on it. It's still a work in progress, but please check it out. I won't be updating this blog anymore, so all my newest stuff should be on my new site.

A Bar Scene

So I've been working on a new shot this semester, and I wanted to show my progress so far.  I won't get into any of the details, other than I'm really trying to nail the emotion and keep the personality consistent within the girl.  I'm having fun with this test, and it's really pushing me to know my characters.  Here's some video showing my latest pass, along with some videos of my progress up til now:

Here's my latest pass, where I've taken it into curves (it's still rough):

An earlier refined blocking pass:

An even earlier blocking pass:

One of my initial posing passes:

Fall 2008 End of the Semester Wrap-Up (Part 2)

What a fantastic semester. Not only have I seen my work improve, but I've also been fortunate to meet and work with a number of great animators throughout this semester. One of those great animators was my animation instructor, Rex Grignon. With his guidance, I learned so much and felt myself making breakthroughs each week. I learned how to properly shoot reference, block, refine, and polish my animation. I learned the finer points of lip sync, and subtleties of acting. I learned the importance of good mechanics. Rex was also able to give me and my classmates key advice on how to control curves once we passed the blocking stage. Even now during the winter holiday I'm still distilling a lot of the information I learned this semester. As per Rex's advice, I'm taking a week off, but I'll be back soon to get things ready for my reel. For now, here are my tests from the BFA class.

Object Interaction Test

Mechanics/Chair Test

Object/Phone Reaction Test

Fall 2008 End of the Semester Wrap-Up (Part 1)

My 3D animation class was chock full of animation tests, which was great in getting mileage. My instructor, Primo Navidad was super helpful in working one-on-one with me, and in helping me improve my tests along the way. We had a wide range of tests, all the way from a humble ball bounce to a dialogue test. Some are more finished than others, but I wanted to put them all up for display, the good, the bad, and the ugly. What I like about showing each test is that you can see different levels of finish in each test. Each test bears the scars of days and weeks of work, and while there's some I'd like to move on from and never see again, I'm proud of each of them in their own small ways. Eventually I'd like to take some of them to polish for my reel.

Dialogue Test


Expression Test


Mechanics Test


Walk Cycle


Sack Pantomime


Ball Bounce

Acting Test

In the senior class, we're so fortunate to be working with Rex Grignon, a world class senior animator from PDI/DreamWorks.  He has been nothing less than amazing and incredibly helpful.  Over the past few weeks he's given us a challenging test to take on.  In brief, we have a boss-type character who responds to some news on the phone.  At the same time, he reveals part of his character through idle action with an object.  The whole test must be 5 to 6 seconds in length.  Here's my take on it.  I can see that a lot of my motions are still looking mechanical rather than natural, so I need to figure out what's going on there.  After that, my next step is to start polishing and getting in the subtleties and details.  As usual I'm open to any advice or comments to help me improve this.

Biomechanics/Weight Test

We've been working on biomechanics in my 3D animation class, where the goal is to get a sense of weight with our character.  Here's what I've been working on this week.  It has a couple different elements to it, some of which I'm still working on.  I think the basics are there though.  Lately I've been working on getting my overall pacing and timing better by returning to my reference with an eye on more realistic timing.  Any comments/advice is always appreciated.

  

3D Animation Class

This semester is really exciting for both the San Jose State and myself.  With an increased focus and commitment to improving the animation at San Jose State, the department has set up world class partnerships which brings us a world class education.  I just wanted to highlight a couple projects we're starting in those classes.

In order to get better at 3D animation, I'm taking a couple different classes.  The first is focused just on 3D mechanics and animation itself.  We're starting with basic tests but ramping up quickly.  We'll have the chance to go back and fix up the test to get them portfolio ready at the end of the semester which is great because our animation eye will be more tuned by then.

The first  job was the classic ball bounce:

I like how this turned out, but the staging makes it hard to see because I had to zoom out so far to see it all.

The second job was a sack pantomime.  We used a rig off of highend3D and it was pretty good for the most part once we removed the dynamics which tried to animate parts for us.  The knees bulge quite a bit and that's a product of poor knee controls, but the general feel is still there.  Here's my take on the sack pantomime:

There are a lot of funny shapes going on in the turn and the run which I need to address.  I've also gotten a critique on ACME (www.acmeanimation.org) about the weight shift being off so I will address that when I address the other issues.

That's all for now, I'll talk about the other class in the next post where we're working on a 5 week project.

Birthday E-Card Finished!

While the top secret project is still in the works, I wanted to share with you the E-Card that I've been working on for my flash class, and been posting about for the past few weeks.  Here's the finished work.  Enjoy!  (Music: "The Incredits" by Michael Giacchino)