Elk Hair Caddis

One animation I'd like to share today is pretty impressive, by the sheer flexibility of the characters, and the nice real life stop motion feel it has. It's a nice dutch piece called Elk Hair Caddis, and features a bear and a frog having some peace and quiet. Kind of.

Elk Hair Caddis from peter smith on Vimeo.

In addition, there is also a behind the scenes video showing how it was rigged, animated, tweaked in post and such. What really grabs me is the amazing detail in the rigs. Everything has a control to really distort those shapes nicely, from the bear's ears down to the exhaust on the motorbike. If I could create rigs like this then I would be a happy chap.

MakingOf_ElkhairCaddis_peter smith from peter smith on Vimeo.

I will leave you all with that as a Friday treat.

Job

A much quicker update this time, so say as of June, I shall be a Runescape animator! It's exciting times, moving to Cambridge, meeting new people, and doing a nice relevant job.

Only other thing I can think of at the moment is that I recommend this book. It is a nice thick compilation of Muybridge's sequential photos, such as walks, runs, and more complex movements to show good shifts of weight. If you want some quadrupedal reference material, there is also a book on animals in motion. I highly recommend these for animators as there's nothing harder than getting good step by step stills of a walk; you just can't fake it on the spot.

Have fun

One month later...

Where has the time gone? It's been a whole month since I posted anything! If I could say that I've been doing loads more animation over that time, then that would be brilliant. However, I haven't.

Saying that, I have been to Cambridge to visit Jagex, the makers of the MMORPG Runescape. I've been interviewed for an animator's position, which is pretty exciting.

From my experience there so far, I can say that I have taken IK handles for granted so much. Naturally feet are just weighted to the floor, but when you don't have any form of IK or reverse foot lock, you have to look at the legs completely differently, as you have the hips and spine, then you work down the leg rather than just whacking a foot down and letting the knee work itself out. Tricky stuff, especially when appropriate weighting comes into play to ensure the centre of gravity is correct.

I shall update when I find out more about this application. In the meantime, enjoy your month, just in case I'm gone again. I'll try not to leave it so long.