Refining Clash

There are still some stepped curves, sad. I am working 12 hours a day at the chemical plant until March. Here's where I am so far.



Take a look, any comments or crits would be appreciated.

.mov QT 7 Required [20 MB]
.avi [20 MB]

Sword Fight!

This is my latest work, rendered. It's only 2 shots from the sword fight in Condiment Clash. It's basically a test render and I'm not sure about the lighting and shadows. If you have comments on the lighting that's cool, but the animation is what I want you to look at. So please take a peek and leave a critique.

.mov QT 7 Required [3.5 MB]
.avi low quality [3.5 MB]

Blocking Plus

Well, it’s more block than plus, but here’s the progress so far.
Some of the animation is splined, but most is still blocked.



This week I am on my first pass of polishing, so I’ll be moving everything out of blocking.

The acting on the blue guy at the end will change. I wasted a TON of time on the female walk and grab, and ran out of time for blue guy. He will get way more attention on my next pass. Live and learn. 3 characters is a workload, believe me, even though she’s got such a small part, she took up a big amount of my time. It’s the first time I’ve done a female walk.

The sound effects are in (about 75% of them at least) and the music is final. Models are high poly face and body.

Take a look, any comments or crits would be appreciated.

.mov QT 7 Required [19 MB]

.avi [20 MB]

Crude Blocking

I have the entire film roughly blocked out.

I made some big changes, mainly taking the kick to the face out. The bodies of the characters are still proxy models. The faces are full models. There is NO sound effects track either. I had to take it out temporarily because the timing changed so much since my first layout pass.



I replaced the kick with a head to head shot (above) that I think I can get some nice character acting out of.

No, I didn't steal that head to head idea from Chuck Jones either.... I borrowed it, he can have it back when I'm done. Actually it's a shout out to him. His work is a constant inspiration to me. There will never be another like him. Actually, I think Chuck borrowed the shot from an old black & white movie that I don't know the name of. It had sword fighting at a table with a candlestick holder. I don't really remember that much of it. They talk about it on the Extremes and Inbetweens DVD if you care.

As far as the kick goes, it had to be whacked, it wasn't pretty anyway. Maybe I'll release it on a Condiment Clash special edition / deleted scenes. ;-)

.mov QT 7 Required [12 MB]
.avi low quality [16 MB]

Thanks for taking a look, any comments would be totally appreciated.

Condiment Clash Layout

OK so here's what I have so far.



The layout is pretty much final. I have some doubts about the last shot, after the yellow dissolve. Does it work? Should I change it to a shot of the table without the pan out? Does it make you nauseous?

Other notes:
-The music is updated! Thanks to Tony, Terry, Mick and Dave, collectively known as PhD.
-The blocking is early, the poses are all very rough at the moment.
-The major sound effects are in, but most of them will be tweaked in the next few weeks.
-There is no facial animation at this time.

As always, any comments appreciated.

.mov QT 7 Required [13 MB]
.avi low quality [16 MB]

More Short Story Stuff

Here are a few of the posters that are going to be hanging on the walls of "Harry's Hot Dogs" restaurant.

This one is just a quick pose with the Bish.


And this one is actually a screen capture from a Tom and Jerry short called "Smitten Kitten". I might not use it, since I don't have permission. I was watching the short and saw her with the hot dog and thought of Condiment Clash. I desaturated everything but the hot dog and made the hot dog bigger. Then added the Harry's logo. I hope there's not a real Harry's Hot Dogs...



And here's what all the hub bub is about:



I want to thank my super talented and very cool classmate Aja Bogdanoff for the ketchup bottle model.

I textured the bottle label to give Animation Mentor a shout. But, you probably won't get a clear enough view of the entire label in my short. So, here's the only chance in your life that you have to read the full label. Click to enlarge, or don't it's actually not that funny.



Last is a revised version of the Condiment Clash animatic, link below. Yeah, we still haven't finished the music, but it's coming.

.mov [7.8 MB]
.avi (very poor quality) [13.8 MB]

Rough Animatic

Here's the animatic for Condiment Clash.



The music was recorded on a tape player, yes they still sell tapes! It's a bad recording though and I didn't plan on using it. But, it's the only recording I have right now so I had to. The final song will kick ass I can promise you that.

Anyway, take a look. Comments and critiques are always welcome.

.mov [7.8 MB]
.avi (very poor quality) [13.8 MB]

Condiment Clash

Here's the story pitch for Condiment Clash. Yes, I'm an idiot and this is video proof.

Please excuse the bad audio, horrible acting, and poor swordsmanship.



.mov [22 MB]

I have opened up the Condiment Clash Forum. A place where I can post progress and converse with people outside of Animation Mentor. Mainly, the band that's working on a song for the short.

If you want to help me with the story, or see what I am up to, or steal my idea* take a look.

*I have golf clubs and I am not afraid to use them.

Short Story Development

"Now who's ready for some neurological stimulation?"



Bret Parker is my new mentor (Featured Mentor from the Dec. 2005 AM Newsletter)

How lucky can an aspiring animator be? Bret is my third Pixar mentor since I started this journey. She seems cool as hell. I watched a few of her critiques last quarter and was very impressed at how well she gets her point across during her crits. Very clear, very concise.

Bret had a rare opportunity to animate and voice Kari (pictured above) while working on The Incredibles:

AnimationMentor.com:
Who is your favorite character that you've animated and why?

Bret Parker:
My favorite character to animate was Kari, the babysitter in "The Incredibles". How could it not be? It was an amazing experience to be able to do her voice and animate her as well. I think that's probably the closest you get in animation to live acting.

Anyway, I'm pumped and ready to get started. I've got a story to tell!