Tag: supply and demand

Animation Supply and Demand

Yesterday evening I finished building the rigs to three different types of hands. I’m now at a point where I can slowly start animating and adding textures, as well as the nitty-gritty of getting deformations right as I hobble along.

I always have a tendency at being over-optimistic as to when I can start showing results, and as a result, I jinx myself. But reaching this point still feels rather big to me. It’s taken about two years for me to hash out this film’s concept, and then two more years just to figure out the style and production of this film. That’s more time than I ever spent on a film, and as a result the process also terrified me in many ways – what if it turns out disappointing after all this time? Unfortunately in art, it doesn’t really matter that much how much effort you put into something, it’s all about the result. I don’t know if this film will be good, but I do know how happy I’ll be when I’ve finished it, and that’s my motivation for now.

But all that said: to finally see a few scenes coming together with some really basic and rough animation is… pretty damn exciting.

I hope that I can show some playblasts pretty soon. And more textures, and renders, and animation, and a film, and and and… 🙂

by Categories: 3D animationTags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Works in progress

Well, one work in progress to be honest. A project I’ve been giving the working title ‘Rube Goldberg’ over the last two years I’ve been researching and working on it.

It’s a strange feeling for me to realise that I’ve been working on this since 2015. It’s the longest I’ve ever dedicated to a project.

But in all honesty, that’s because I only worked on it in my free time. And I never intended for it to become an actual animation. It started out as an idea for an online interactive display, somewhat like the original idea for my Infomaze (that now only exists as a demo video, the site having crashed long ago). I made these little morphing animations specifically for that purpose, before I realised that I really wanted to make a proper animation.

I’m glad I did, the thought alone of having to figure out the coding again was not something I was looking forward too!

I’ve now finally moved into production, but it will still take a while before it’s finished. I’ve learned a lot during my research and in making the many, many little tests I’ve posted on this blog, but I’ll still be learning a ton more. Here’s hoping I manage to get it done by the end of this year!

by Categories: work in progressTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Mystic Meg

I just finished a major hurdle in the Rube Goldberg project. I’ve been modelling a woman’s head that is loosely based on Mystic Meg: the National Lottery psychic in the late nineties whose predictions about new winners always turned out to be wrong. This Mystic Meg is a silent wooden puppet head with eyes and eyelids that can move. She’s ready for texturing, and I just finished giving her eyes a rig, which you can see in action here:

I’m very happy with how her face turned out, and I’m very excited to start giving her colours and incorporating her into the rest of the scenery!

by Categories: work in progressTags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Rube Goldberg

This is a work in progress I am currently busy with. It is going to be an explanatory animation using an animated Rube Goldberg machine.

Part of the Rube Goldberg setup.

Two animated hands that will be used within the machine itself. Rig was made by me, the animation itself is a test to see if the rig is functioning properly.

by Categories: 3D animation, motion graphicsTags: , , , , , , Leave a comment