Animating a Quadruped Walk CycleTutorial: Samy Fecih

Samy Fecih has a long history in the animation industry. He is currently a Lead Animator over at Dreamworks India and has put up a tutorial on animating a quadruped walk cycle. It's a great insight to his workflow and some great tips in there as well.

Quadrupede Walk Cycle Tutorial from SamyOddjob on Vimeo.

Always great to see workflows!
Enjoy!
JP

found via lesterbanks

Happy Harry's HuHa Two How Tos

Stumbled across these Flash Animation Tutorials on Youtube by Harry Partridge! It's a series of 12 tutorials based in Flash but not just all about Flash. He explains many principles in them and I have to say can be enjoyable :) You will learn a bit about flash along the way as well. I've posted his intro and one of the episodes below for examples.

So have fun and look around!

Enjoy!

JP

found via flooby nooby

The Secret of Animation

Another fun little exercise coming out of The Animation Workshop, by Giovanni Braggio.

animation tutorial part. 1 AKA "the secret of animation" from giovanni braggio on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

Walk Cycle Video Tutorial: Kyle Balda

A nice walk cycle tutorial by Kyle Balda. It's a look into his 3D Animation Master Classes that you can find online here.




Kyle's description:

"A real time demo of how to approach animating a basic 3D walk cycle using Maya. This is primarily intended to suggest a methodology for getting all the channels of movement worked out before doing the final polish and mix."

Enjoy!
JP

found via Spungella

Amazing New Animation Tutorials

Ok...I've been holding off on this post till the both of them were released and today is the day! Both Ken Fountain and Jamaal Bradley released Video Tutorials found over in the STORE section of the jrawebinar site.
They are  both Ianimate.net instructors and I had Ken for my first block of classes for Ianimate and it was a great experience. He is super insightful when it comes to acting and dialogue...he is an extremely talented animator and multi-talented in the arts. His lectures always made me think about my acting choices and pushed them to be the best. It doesn't hurt that he has some improv acting in his background, so I have no doubt that these video tutorials are going to be great! I have also recently bought Jamaal's tutorial and well worth the time and money. I never had him as an instructor but within Ianimate I was able to watch his lectures and critiques all the time. He definitely stood out to me right away with his passion for animation. He really pushed the animators to get the best possible work and was always super thorough and clear in his feedback. Watching his process of breaking down an acting shot, I found super detailed and informative and picked up some new tips of how to improve my own workflow. He is an industry vet that has always prided himself on doing great animation work and it shows!


"...from Planning to Polish..." Promo Trailer from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.
"...from Planning to Polish..." is a 3 hour,  3 part video that takes a shot from planning to final presentation.  Using 8 steps, the videos demonstrates one of the workflows I use when I am working.






So head on over and check them out!
Really Enjoy!
JP

Posing and Body Language by Samy Fecih

Just saw this post on Posing and Body language. Samy really breaks this down from anatomy to appeal, composition and the different types of action that result in the poses we get.

 

Posing and Body Language

It's a three part read

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 1

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 2

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 3

Samy Fecih's reel

Have a look great tutorial

enjoy!

JP

 found via chrisboyoko.blogspot

 

New Round of Jason Ryan Webinars

I wanted to write a quick note to let everybody know that there is a new round of Jason Ryan Webinars starting this month. I have participated in all of them for the last year and let me just say that it has been an amazing experience. It only cost 100 bucks and is probably one of the greatest investments that you will get throughout your animation career. The last year has been invaluable in terms of learning process and workflow. Jason Ryan's webinars have both taught and inspired me to keep animating and always strive to get better. If you are weary of spending the money he has plenty of resources online to help show you what he is about before you commit to it. First you can check out his tutorials. Then you can go to his webinar site and he has free Rampup downloads which will help you understand what he is about. You can also view the highlights of the entire year of this last round of webinars here. You might ask, "What if you can't make the webinar?", well I then would say that he makes all the webinars downloadable when you sign up. He also provides resources with the shots to help make it easy if you want to go ahead and try the shots yourself. Check his site out and even get some free goodies like wallpapers. It has been a great ride so far and I am truly excited to see what is in store for the next year.



Enjoy and I'll see ya there!
JP

Animation Tutorials and Webinars

It's been about a year since I stumbled onto this site. I first began with some of his tutorials and then was introduced to his webinars. I began watching the way that he animates first in 2D in Flipbook and then brings that into Maya. For me it put alot of the animation principles into perspective in ways that I had not been looking at them before. These tutorials seem to help me realize the complexities of animation and how to break them down so that it is not just what I am focusing on but also to remember why I animate. Why do I spend all of this time consuming my life with all things animation? For the passion! While following Jason Ryan's site it has brought with it... passion. I actually have fun learning new ways to animate and always trying to better my workflow. Of course everyone is going to have their own BUT, if you can learn something new it will only help your animation. So take a look check them out and maybe even try one out.





So enjoy your animating!

Lip Sync Basic Workflow

I came across a video via cgchar that nicely articulates the basics of lip sync work flow for 3D. While I think he over simplifies the finer details a smidge, I definitely think it will get you in the ball park faster.

http://animationsalvation.com/free_tips/