Weekly, photos on Flickr

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Weekly Challenge_153 UMT v.24 Jailed Johnny by Cookie's Crafts

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The week ended. People were leaving their offices and were going home or some place else to unwind. Me, I was still at work, not that I was rushing something. It can wait. I was just stalling, hoping for the week not to end immediately.

Weekly world news. by kenkantor

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Weekly Wears by Katie Shelton

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Weekly Deliveries & Pickup by Darth Ray

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This weeks deliveries and pickup:

* Hasbro - Vintage Collection Return of the Jedi: Speeder Bike & Scout Trooper

* Hasbro - Black Series Dark Force Rising: Mara Jade

* Hasbro - Black Series Doctor Aphra: Doctor Aphra

* Hasbro - Retro Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indiana Jones

* Jazwares - Micro Galaxy Squadron: Republic LAAT

weekly stills by lookseebynaomifenton

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Weekly drawing by Anna Wolf

Weekly Trashed for August 2, 2007 by Go Green Charleston

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Weekly Wears by Katie Shelton

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Weekly Diary by hardeep bharath1

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Week 1

Course progress: Today was the first day back at university. Since it was the first day an introduction was delivered explain what was expected of us and the objectives we must achieve. Once we were clear as to what our aims were for this module we went on to some simple animation. We had to animate four scenarios in which a pendulum swings, an arrow hits targets, and a ball bounces of a target and a ball splats on a target. The main objective behind these was to animate them using as little key frames as possible and using graph editor.

Homework progress: The homework for this week was to continue the three animations; however I was able to do so in the lecture so I did not have anything to do that week for next week’s lecture. I then decided to just work on my character ideas.

Animation Progress: I started my animation work this week by basically collecting various amounts of research based upon my decision to make a trapeze artist with emotion of sadness. So I researched images of sad characters, circus tents and interiors and male athletes. After all my research was collected I went on to create concept designs for my model, I went through a variety then decided upon creating a more cartoony character rather than a life like human being. Once my concept designs were done I decided upon what I wanted my scene to entail. Finally after I had the idea in head I went on to create my story board. I was then ready to begin working on my model the next week.

Week 2

Lecture progress: During today’s lecture we went through looking and body language and its applications to an animation. This was an extremely important lecture for the simple fact that our animations were to be based upon a selected emotion. Body language is extremely important when trying to display emotion. During the lecture we had to research the emotions we had chosen at an earlier point mine being sadness. Even though my character was too being cartoonier as opposed to being human, I still also looked at human emotions. The main reason behind this was so I could fully comprehend the midpoint between over exaggerated emotions and very subtle ones. After doing some research we were then given a model to animate and practise our emotions on. This was a great way to apply what I had just learned in the lecture to animating.

Homework progress: For homework I had to continue with the animation I was given. Due to the fact that I was able to finish all work in the lecture I was able to go straight onto the next homework set which was writing about my favourite silent character. For me one character came straight to mind and that was ‘Snoopy’, I decided to go with that character based on the simple fact that he is a character which exaggerates his body language to the fullest to prove a point and I was able to get many tips from the character.

Animation Progress: For my animation this week I was still in the modelling stages. I had come to a small stand still deciding upon whether I wanted to make my animation comical by having an old man do the amazing circus act. However I then decided against that due to the fact that my animation was to be based around a sad person. So I felt adding humour would ruin the animation. Once I had decided on having a young person, the idea then came to also give him a more athletic body to match the act. I was now able to fully begin to model. I had gone onto the internet and looked at images of a strong male. Although I wanted to make him look more like a cartoon I still based the body around a strong male and I then decided I would later modify it to make it look more like an animated character rather than a human. By the end of the day I was able to make all the body parts, however they still needed a lot of work and to be merged together.

Week 3

Course progress: in today’s lecture we basically continued looking at emotion but with a deeper perspective. By this I mean we looked at how characters interact with others as well as other inanimate objects. This lecture was extremely beneficial to me for I had never thought so deeply into the way a character moves when speaking to another. For example I had never thought to also include small feet movements to show a sense of urgency. So today I had left the lecture with a much clearer understanding on displaying emotion within a character and its bodily movements.

Homework progress:-

Animation Progress: My original plan for today was to create a head for my character. However after hours of failed attempts at making a fully proportional head with enough detail, I decided to return to working on the body. I had gone back to my individual body parts and fixed them so they looked more organic. This involved a lot of patience because my models were very poorly done at this point, however after a few hours I was able to complete my body parts. I then put all of them into a single file and merged all pieces together. I then returned to attempting a head and this time was more successful I was able to make the simple head shape. At this point I decided I would carry this on next week.

Week 4

Course progress: today was a very interesting lecture. Today we were shown how to animate more like an animator rather than a movement technician. The reason this was so interesting to me was because I had never realised that I myself think more as a movement technician than an animator. I was always basing my animations around where I felt the appropriate movement should take place, rather than how the model will react and what looks more organic. I had taken a lot away from this lecture and am excited to put this knowledge into practise.

Homework progress: For homework this week we had to animate a rocket ship. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do and the rigging was perfect for this model so I was able to complete my rocket quickly with ease.

Animation Progress: with a full body created I was feeling I was on schedule at this point. So I returned to the basic head I had modelled before and started giving it features like cheek bones and lips. At first this was a struggle for I was very confused between the poly view and the smoothed view because both results differed, however after a few hours of practise I started understanding how changing the poly section would affect the smoothed section. At this point things were getting much easier and I was making a lot of progress with the head. After a few hours I was left with a fully formed head with no eyes or hair, however everything else was there and I felt I had accomplished a lot this week.

Week 5

Course progress: In today’s lecture we learned how to stop from exaggerating movements too much and concentrating on subtlety for certain emotions. Due to the fact I was attempting to make my animation more of a cartoon I was basing it around more over the top actions, but I was able to pick up a lot in terms of how subtle acts also make a difference even to over the top animations. We then went on to peer mark each other’s work. It was very exciting to see the different stages people were at and what images they had in their minds and how they portrayed them. Seeing some of the works inspired me greatly and the fact that I was given feedback on my work further helped me understand what work I need to do to make my animation look more professional.

Homework progress: - homework this week was to simply continue with my animation.

Animation Progress: This week I purely concentrated on the head of my animation. I had to create eyes and hair. Due to previous years I was already quite confident with creating eyeballs so I managed to achieve this quickly with very little hustle so I felt I was making good time. However then it came to creating the hair and this is where the issues began. I was not too sure about how to go about creating hair so I went online and looked at some tutorials. I first attempted to use n-hair. However this function was too complex and the problems that came with it were not worth me risking my model. So I went online to look for a fix and I then myself realised I could simply extrude the section I wanted and manipulate it into hair. This method worked extremely well and I was able to make my character with hair which matched that of my concept design.

Week 6

Course progress: Todays lecture was a continuing of the last. Once we had reviewed we continued onto perfecting a character walk. This was something I really needed to learn for the simple fact that I have been struggling with a characters walk cycle for a long time. We had a deeper look into moving the joints and best method to make a character seem like it is genuinely walking. This lecture was extremely useful to me and at a great time as I was beginning animating soon.

Homework progress: The homework this week was to continue with the model ready for a group evaluation the next week. I felt quite confident I would get to a level where I would be able to show my model for critiquing.

Animation Progress: now that I had a fully made model I decided to rig it. I went online searching for a matching rig; however every rig I found was either to complex or would involve too much editing to the model. So I instead decided to create my own rig from scratch for I felt it would save me time. By the end of the week I was able to make a fully rigged character.

Week 7

Course progress: this week we put creating walk cycles into practise on given characters or our own models. This allowed me to demo my work and see if everything worked out. My model worked to an extent however I had learned that lesson that I would need to weight paint my model to stop it from morphing in positions. Right away I knew what I would have to do this week to my animation.