11 Second Club November Draft 01

Link to Video

Just blocking out for now. There will be some background characters that fill in the crowd reaction in the audio.

My interpretation:

The man has just rescued the young lady from the hands of a group of scientists, who were attempting to duplicate her using an experimental machine. The man is to be seen as somehow respectable to the group of scientists, but they stubbornly insist that they are on the money.

A link to my entry is here.

Completed 11 Second Club!

Finally, I completed something outside of work! I'm simply relieved that I can finish and submit something was essentially a lunch time project (plus a late night or two). I am fairly happy with the result, and eager to get started on the next one.

My progress was as follows:

13th: animation draft with default biped in 3dsmax 14th: character models with simple face rig
15th: test facial animation
17st: Camera cleanup.
21st: Animation draft finish
25th: test character model for basic form (body, fingers) and details (clothes, hair)
28th: Animation cleanup.
29th: Damage control. Removed clothes and hair; presentation to focus on animation. Test Renders.
30th: Final animation cleanup: Final Render.
31st: Submit!

I was admittedly cutting it a little fine, but I felt pretty comfortable in the final days, but I was pretty happy with the overall result. I had a decent character workflow; characters in separate files, easy merge process and animation transfer. I would have liked the shot to be complete with clothes, hair and background, but ultimately this submission was about the animation. I also felt the face rig could have been a touch more 'elegant', including better squeeze controls and perhaps 8 lip controllers instead of 4. Maybe next time!

11 Second Club October 2008

11 Second Club October 2008 from Joe on Vimeo.

Two people, suspiciously disguised as naked clones, discuss 'the point' over a couple of beers.

Trying out for 11 Second Club

Amidst the highs and lows of work, I thought I would try out for this month's 11 second club animation competition. My entry is here.

I'm kind of building my bits as I go, and going for some more straight ahead animaiton style, so I am not sure how the forum regulars will react over there. Most commonly I see people using the traditional approach; grab a rig, pose to pose, etc. I want to learn as much about rigging as I do animation, so my entry may be slightly different.

Cornered 3d Mockup

Where did the time go?! Alas, the cornered competition is over! and I breathe secret relief in seeing very few finished entries. But now, what do I do with this thing? I've been so absorbed by work, I had pushed it aside. I am not too sure... I guess time will tell.

Wall-E

It was Great :) From an animators perspective, there was about 6 minutes total of live action that I would have perferred to see in CGI, but I thought it was awesome none the less.

Rogue

Maybe just because it's an Australian creature horror, this caught my eye during it's marketing time. I liked Rogue (I didn't like Lake Placid 1, 2). It was clear, clean and had some fun moments, not to mention some very nice Australian landscapes. Perhaps there isn't enough monster crocodile overall (it's about a monster crocodile by the way), but it didn't have any blurry 0.65 second CGI action shots, which is something I very much appreciate. Only one shot was a little funky on the animation side, but it still looked great. There is a great one of the croc eating a dog, which is pretty enjoyable. That dog was acting very strangely.

The Mist

I wasn't expecting anything from The Mist. It's one of those titles that has you assuming it will be crap, and the special effects shots turn out to be filtered actors behaving like cranky ghosties. But with this movie I was pleasantly surprised; this mist has monsters in it! Terrorizing a large cast of characters trapped in a supermarket. While the monsters are cool, the movie is quite long and heavy, including a drawn out bible bashing segment and an ugly ending. The monster segments work really well to loosen up the mood. And there's a healthy dose of gore as well!

Cornered Goodness!

There is some goodness coming out of the Cornered mini challenge! Digitalwerk, Sandr0, Mellbrix, cook5000; I reckon these peoples are on to something special! It's great to watch, gives me some ideas on how to approach my one. Looking at these entries though, I've got a long way to go!

Cornered 3D Mockup

I haven't had a lot of time to work on this, just bits and pieces over the last couple of weeks. I thought I should try and sort out the overall look with some geometry and lights, before getting into the texturing. I have to finish the modelling once I am happy with it, then do the UV's, then bake the lights, probably play with some other lighting as well, then get started with some more detailed stuff. Below is the wire.

Angel Cop

 

Watching Angel Cop on my VHS back in the day is definitely one of my favorite childhood memories. It really has everything you want in an 90s Japanese anime; a healthy mix of elite police, terrorists, scientists, cybernetic bodies, and rouge psychokinetic agents. Oh, and gore! It's fun, and neatly contained in 6 episodes, taking you from urban action to epic showdowns.

The art style is reasonably consistent, changing only a little after the pilot, and the synthesized soundtrack will glue you to every moment. I'll have to watch it again, even if it's just for the slightly tacky title sequence!

The Peon's Crusade

I've been busy lately! At work we've been discovering the wonders of the infamous 3dsmax motion-mixer, which will undoubtably lead to an animation production that is slightly wonky! I have been getting a hang of all of the issues though, which include character playback offsets, memory leaks, and backwards compatibility (yadda yadda yadda). The secret is: Don't ask too much of it, and fewer things will go wrong! 3dsmax really is a lackluster program sometimes! The memory leak in 8 SP3 is particularly woeful, which eats memory every time you adjust timing until the the program dies. Fortunately mix files are backwards compatible, otherwise the whole thing would have to go out the window!

Corner concept

Am planning on entering Cornered to get my game art practices up to scratch. It's the kind of thing I know vaugely how to do, but am not directly exposed to it at work. In this corner, a giant something lives in the wall and eats people... I'll add more clutter and chaos in 3d, depending on my budget. My entry is here.

Tropic Thunder

Ahh, Ben Stiller. Of course you've seen Zoolander, and of course you know about Tropic Thunder. Personally I enjoyed Zoolander more; it stayed on track, where as TT sets out to explore. I was having a really good time in the first 10 minutes with the over-the-top war movie bits. And then the movie started, changing its tone - I wanted more of the silly stuff. But still, the rest was very fun!

Rod Guen

A friend at work passed on a link to Rod Guen's website, which showcases an amazing collection of girls, superheroes, comics and storyboards. The girls gallery is definitely my favorite.

The Hive

Don't expect alot from The Hive. Terrible editing, acting, cinematography, and dialogue ruin this kind-of-interesting aliens + ants adventure movie.

The editing is guaranteed to make you confused, and the poor camera work is often hilarious. There are lots of ants in this movie, and it doesn't muck around until it reaches it's annoying mid section, where the narrative seems to get bogged. It's laughable, while not intentionally funny, but it is on the line of just plain terrible.

There's a guy with an ant in his brain who flinches 'involuntarily' and starts to go quietly crazy - oddly this doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the ants in the movie; it's just a rogue ant biting brain bits when it feels like it. You'll be confused.

Somewhat redeeming is some of the aliens + ants concepts flying around. An alien is controlling the ants, which sometimes become a physical extension of the alien form - forming tentacles, and even a computer matrix cube thing with electricity pulsing inside. It's cool, and makes you unhappy that the rest of the film isn't.

Watch with beer, and keep a finger near the fast-forward button.

First!

Hello! This is my new blog. Above: A pink squidgy thing.

About Me

My name is Joe Bryant, I'm 26 years old, and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I'm a character animator with experience in 3d animation and 3d character setup.

Experience

Feb 2007 - Sep 2009 (2 years 8 months)
Red Tribe - Animator
Red Tribe is a games studio in Melbourne, Australia. Character animation and setup using 3D Studio Max for projects involving combat, cutscenes and dancing. Worked directly with various outsourcing parties. Assisted engineers with automation tasks. Briefly touched upon Creative Producer role for XBLA pitch title.

• Original IP Pitch (XBLA): Creative Producer, Lead Animator
  Developed existing game design and art direction for pitch prototype, Assisted with project management, Created stylised animations for player, enemy and critter characters, Rigged characters.


• Original IP (Wii): Animator
  Created stylised animations for player and enemy characters, Created scripted animations, Rigged characters.


• Unannounced Licenced Project (Wii): Lead Animator
  Created realistic animations for various characters, Managed outsourcing of animation, Created previs cinematic animation, Assisted with design elements including gui prototypes and level progression.


• Space Chimps (360, Wii, PS2): Animator
  Created stylised animations for player, enemy and critter characters, Rigged characters, Optimised characters.


• Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal (360, Wii, PS2): Animator
  Created stylised animations for enemy characters, Rigged characters, Created effects, Optimised characters.

2006 (6 months)
- Queensland University of Technology - Sessional Academic (tutor) for Animation and Motion Graphics, teaching Photoshop and After Effects.

2004-2005 (8 months)
- WebXpress - Worked as a contract developer for various design and interaction design projects for a number of clients.

2004 (6 months)
- Qantm College - Lab Supevisor (after hours tutor) assisting with queries regarding a variety of software programs.

Education

2006 (1 year)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) (Majoring in Communication Design, Specialising in Animation), Queensland University of Technology

2003 - 2005 (3 years)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Specialising in Animation), Queensland University of Technology

2002 (1 year)
- Diploma of Screen (Animation), Qantm College

Software/Programming Languages

Expert
- 3D Studio Max
- Alias Maya
- Adobe After Effects
- Adobe Photoshop
- Macromedia Flash

Competent
- Macromedia
- Dreamweaver
- Maxscript
- Melscript
- Actionscript

Doom

Tonight I watched the Doom movie attempt for the second time. I found it in the bargain bin at K-mart for $8 - I thought it would be good for a laugh :) I had the same impression as the first time - the monster shots were rushed, its too dark, and just seemed kind of silly.

Then I watched a few of the bonus features and saw how much the team really got into it. They used lots of prosthetics, it all seemed really well done, and from the interviews it sounded like they were doing a really good job, and they were really proud.

And then in the movie it looks terrible. It’s a shame, because the quality looked really good in the making of; it just goes to show how production values can be wasteful if they are not properly handled in the final presentation.

Kung Fu Panda

I was lucky enough to see Kung Fu Panda at the IMAX here in Melbourne (actually my first IMAX movie!) experiencing 90 minutes of awesomeness. I bought the Art of KFP book earlier, so I was pretty familiar already with what I was going to see, but it was still good :)

If I were to pick gripes, It did seem a little too brief in the story department. Some parts were a little rushed, which seemed to strip some of the deeper meaning, and create a few clashes in the characters. Master Shifu and the Furious Five required some getting used to. Maybe I didn’t like the tone of the celebrity voices, but it just seemed to switch between ‘cool Kung Fu movie’ and ‘kids movie’ from time to time.

That being said, it certainly was a pleasure to watch, with sweet animation and visual style. I can recommend the Art Book also for some excellent drawings of Nicolas Marlet, which includes plenty of great character designs, including the ones who seemed to miss the bus.

Robokill

Take a look at Rock Solid Arcade’s top-down shooter Robokill - Titan Prime, a classic arcade shooter web game with RPG elements (there’s a shop, items and inventory). You basically have to clear out rooms, shooting robots, collecting the wads of cash and items that fall out when they die. It’s simple and fun. The presentation is fantastic. Try it out!

The Happening

I had some ‘out of nowhere’ expectations for this movie and, well, lets just say, it worked for me. It was a pretty simple ‘idea’ movie, which didn’t seem to take itself too seriously. Thats to say Mark Wahlberg didn’t take it too seriously, with the most annoying ‘I’m an eager Science Teacher’ voice ever. The best bits of course were all the death scenes, but, unfortunately, the trailers probably ruined the half the fun for you.

Not everyone thought it was OK though, Grace hated it, and so did Metacritic (aka everyone else), giving it a 35 last time I checked. But hey, it might be worth the ride for you. Although, as a friend at work pointed out, you might not be too enthusiastic about M. Night Shyamalan taking on Avatar: The Last Airbender anymore…

Harvest

Do take a look at the very awesome Harvest - Massive Encounter for your strategic pleasure. The game basically has you mining resources, managing energy distribution and positioning laser towers and other defenses in the path of incoming flying saucers. They look cute, and I’m sure they just want a hug, but you’ll have to kill them. It’s simple representation shows it’s strength when your base design flaws are exposed by your deceivingly slow enemies.

I like to play at double speed :) but I can’t seem to get past threat level 56!

Attack of the Pyramid Squid Monsters!

This has been a little lunch time project of mine for a few days. I know there's a bunch of perspective errors and the brush work is at times a little too many scribbles, but I'm trying to keep my workflow nice and fresh. Drawing the tentacles was a pain, I think next time I will work with vector masks for areas like that.

See in Gallery

The Orphanage

This movie is very good, and is a great guide for efficient movie making! Nice work to director Juan Antonio Bayona and no doubt producer/presenter Guillermo del Toro. The house in this movie did a fantastic job too.

The movie is basically a haunted house story, and is full of creaky hallways, metal clangs, and ghosts. I jumped on several occasions; its the children. I think my memories of the alien in Alien 3 running on the roof kind of mixed with the creepy characters of The Ring and The Grudge, and now I’m just terrified of children in the dark. I think real blood makes me a little wheezy too… I’m so tough!

The Blue Girl With Green Eyes

I was playing with some brush settings in photoshop, and thought I'd follow through with this one. This was a bit of fun! I'm working on a tentacle monster project in the background at the moment, and this kind of gets me back into the swing of things! I actually spent a bit of time on the line work here - although it's still quite messy. I need a better way of controlling the shape of the lines, rather than fiddling over it with the eraser. I like the colours though!

See in Gallery

Showreel May 2008

Showreel - May 2008 from Joe on Vimeo.

This is my character animation showreel as of May 2008.

Skullworm Test

Skullworm Test from Joe on Vimeo.

This was a creature I was testing for a short film project that unfortunately didn't get off the ground. The tentacles are composed of node chains with each segment's child containing the skin link and moving independently. I'll be sure to re-visit this creature when the storyboard is finished!