2012/01/17

AM - Class 2 / Week 1 - Lecture

CLARITY IN BLOCKING.

Blocking is setting up the foundation for a shot.
In order to sell the idea to your self or the director first you'll need to block it out , blocking should convey your thoughts
on the shot with a bunch of posses, this is the best way for you to know if your idea is working or not.

1 - Things you need to know before you start blocking:
-Understand the shot.
-What are my goals in this shot?
-What dose the shot calls for?
-What are the limitations in the shot?
-What is the duration of a shot?

2 - Once you answered all these questions, you can go a head & find / shoot a reference video for the action you're about
to animate, even if you know exactly what you need too do you still need to take this step because it will help you finding
this nice little gestures in the reference that you can slide into your shot to make it more interesting.

3 - The next step is to draw little thumbnails poses with the help of the reference, its good to accompany the drawings
with frame numbers to know on where each pose will fit in the timeline.

4 - Then you start blocking in Maya with Stepped Tangents keyframes.

5 - After you finish blocking, re time the posses in the timeline

6 - Push your posses further (exaggerate) to get the most out of each pose.

7 - convert your keyframes to liner, at this stage show your work to others ( director, colleague, wife ) to get feedback.

8 - After you're done with blocking here is a check list that you need to double tick:
-Dose the shot reads correctly??
-Are the posses looking interesting??
-Is the animation looking interesting??

If all the above are OK, you can proceed to the next steps, which is Blocking Plus, then Splining, and finally.. Polishing.

Have fun!

2 comments:

  1. i foud your blog by my facebook friend realy i like your work and how you aproche your assignment
    keep up the good work bro ;-)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Youssef, Its really funny because a couple of months ago my friend told me about a site called 7araktoon which has great animations, but I never got the chance to see it.. and now here you are :)
      You have some really awesome work on your site, you are very talented & I look forward to see more of your work in the future..

      Thanks again for your comment Youssuf, we'll stay in touch InshAllah!

      -Manar

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