Week 1
To create a successful animation show reel I need to have an look at existing successful show reels so I can see the standards that need to be reached.
Week 2
The reason I chose to link all of the short animations together is because it helps the piece to flow along and just brings an extra element to the piece to keep the viewers interest. A good example of what I mean is pretty much anything that Terry Gilliam creates:
The Arctic monkeys video do I wanna know is also a good example:
To be a successful animator the twelve principles of animation; squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, slow in slow out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, appeal, follow through and overlapping, straight ahead and pose to pose, need to be kept in mind all of the time. The squash and stretch principle will particularly come into play when it comes to animating the ball in my piece especially as it takes on the roll of different balls; football, basketball and a bowling ball.
There are many different sectors of the entertainment industry that people can get involved in; games, TV, films. Each industry requiring different skill sets. For example, there is little need for a 2d animators in the games industry. Not only that different industries tend to favour different programs, the games industry prefers 3ds max. Maya is increasingly becoming the tool of choice in the film industry.
When researching into what it takes to create an industry standard animation show reel I stumbled across Pixar's list of do's and don'ts which is pretty much a step by step guide of how to create a professional show reel:
"Sleeping ball: (June 2003) Group project; I shaded the
plastic sphere in Slim/Renderman" is a good entry.
"Group project; project used Maya, Slim, Renderman, and
Perl" is less useful.
Put this on the frame before the sequence and again in the
DRB we can refer to. We often fall behind
The first Idea I had for my logo was basically my name with animations at the end. The idea around the logo was the spacing between the wording was to represent the many areas of animation that can be tapped into.
I also uploaded my work so far to several websites, such as; Youtube, Vimeo and 11 second club, to try and gain a bit of feedback so I could improve my work accordingly.
Although I only received feedback from one site:
When researching into what it takes to create an industry standard animation show reel I stumbled across Pixar's list of do's and don'ts which is pretty much a step by step guide of how to create a professional show reel:
For first-timers putting together a reel, here are some
helpful guidelines from one of Pixar's former
interns, who joined our ranks as an employee. This
information is primarily geared towards our
Technical Direction and Animation positions. For people
interested in Editorial, we understand your reels
will be longer in length and music/sound will play an
important part in demonstrating your editorial ability.
1) An application that requires a demo reel submission has 5
parts:
a) Cover letter
b) Resume
c) Demo reel
d) Demo reel
breakdown
e) Online application
(the application contains the Reel Submission Agreement)
The cover letter can (and should) be brief. The resume
should tell us where you've worked, what you
did when you worked, what kind of coursework you've had, and
what tools, languages, and systems you
can use. The demo reel breakdown is really essential (see #7
below). Don't force us to look at a website—
when we're looking at reels, we're all greased and ready to
go with reels, not websites.
(We will look at websites if we're hiring you as a web
designer.)
2) Your reel should be no more than 4 minutes.
Just like a resume is no more than 2 pages unless you've
been CEO or a senator. If you have a
lot of great material, do a 4-minute version, and then refer
to longer pieces on a DVD afterwards
if you get that far into the process. "For the entire
short see the additional
materials section...blah blah blah yakity shmakity."
Don't do a "collage" of your work, with
interleaved random clips from all your different work.
No, no, no. We won't be able to figure out what's going on.
DO give each piece the time it deserves,
no more nor less, and just show it once. Keep it simple.
3) Don't show unapproved work.
Don't show work from other studios if it has not been
approved or we will not look at the demo reel.
4) Nobody cares about music/soundtrack.
We turn off the sound. But sometimes we listen to it and get
really annoyed if we don't
like your taste in music. Keep it basic or leave it off.
5) Put your best work first.
Lead Technical Directors often have 10 to 20 reels to go
through. They might watch the first minute, see if anything intrigues them. If so, they'll watch the other 2 minutes. If
not, they move on. Show your best, most impressive work first—presumably the work you are specifically applying
for. Make it clear on your demo reel, cover letter, and resume what type of position you're applying
for. Don't try to change your demo reel because our website says we only need, say, lighting TDs now,
either. Say what you're good at
and make your reel demonstrate that.
6) Demo Reel Breakdown (DRB).
We want to know what you did on this reel. Here's a shot of
a Luxo lamp jumping over a ball.
Did you model the lamp? Do the animation? Shade it? Light
it? Render it? Write the story? Executive-produce it? The DRB should tell us what we're looking at, what YOU did
on it, and what tools you used.
in reading your DRB; help us keep track of what you're
showing. If you have two dozen entries, number
the DRB and put numbers on the reel, too—we may not know the
difference between your "Sleeping ball"
animation and the opus you call "Lazy Sphere."
7) Include a title card at the beginning and end with your
name, address, phone, and email.
Including the position you're looking for is not a bad idea,
either. The opening one doesn't need to go on
too long, but the end one should last for a while. Don't
make people desperately pause to get your email address.
8) Show work that proves that you know what you did.
If you've done a sequence, show it at several stages of
production. If you've done shading, show the basic
color pass, the procedural shading, the painting, and a lit
version. If you wrote clever software, include real
work that was done with the software and include on the
title card something like, "Implemented simulation of Segway dynamics" in addition to everything else you did. Don't
show screenshots of people using the
software or screen grabs of C++ code.
9) Take the time to polish.
It seems silly, but people get in such a rush to get the
reel out the door, they lose sight of the big picture.
THIS IS HOW YOU WILL GET A JOB. And since it's a job in a
visual industry—it should LOOK really, really good. Don't use clashing colors. Make sure your shaders are
anti-aliased. Make sure your lights aren't blown out too bright. Make it clear what we're looking at. Don't use confusing
fonts. Keep it clean and simple!
10) Show it to other people.
Have other people critique it. Not necessarily the work on
it, but the way you're presenting your work.
(Though getting critiques of the work on it is a great idea,
too.) If a bunch of people are working on their
reels at the same time, have a Reel Showing one night.
11) If you really don't have stuff to put on a reel,
don't send one.
Well-presented still images can be as effective as moving
pictures.
Make sure you apply online, understand the submission
process as defined
in the job description, understand the submission guidelines,
and upload any necessary files if applicable.
Reference videos:
Reference videos:
Week 3
Logo Ideas:
The first Idea I had for my logo was basically my name with animations at the end. The idea around the logo was the spacing between the wording was to represent the many areas of animation that can be tapped into.
I tested this logo on a few blogs and it wasn't very well received. I then tried again with the company name of adverse camber, but it was suggested that adverse is a very negative work meaning unfavorable and so had no real place in a company trying to secure a job. I then decided to go with Allied Camber to reference how to over come.
I decided to go with the logo underneath because it is friendly and welcoming.
I also started to create the character I will be animating on for my show reel. I decided to make the model in 3ds max rather than Zbrush because I don't want the model to be too complex and it will save time not having to create the topology.
Starting with the head, I created a sphere and made it an editable poly so I could manipulate the vertices into the shape of a head, then deleted one half of the head. This is so I only have to build one half of the character, I will mirror the one half and the weld the two half together later.:
using the bevel and extrude tools I created the eye socket and the nose.
Week 4
Using the same techniques as before I created the ear.
I then created a cylinder for the body and one for the arm, made them editable poly's and manipulated the vertices to create the shape of a body and the shape of an arm. Not forgetting about where the arm has to bend. I then welded the two cylinders together.
Week 5
This week I have been using the same tools and techniques as before to create the hand (using a box) and the fingers and thumb (using cylinders) making sure to manipulate the topology to ensure the digits can bend properly.
I also created and welded the leg.
Week 6
This week I created the foot and the welded it to the body, then the body to the head. I then mirrored the half of the character I had created and welded the two parts together.
To create the eye i just used two spheres one slightly larger than the other. (one for the eye ball and one for the eye lid). I beveled the center of the eye ball sphere to create a gap for the pupil. The Eye lid sphere, I clicked 'slice on' in the modify tab and played with the controls until it overlapped the first sphere like an eyelid.
To control the eyelid I added a slider manipulator, under the helpers tab. To connect the slider to the eye lids I simply changed the value accordingly and connected them up in the parameter wire dialog part of the wire parameters under the animation tab.
and as you can see my rig now blinks whenever I move the slider.
Week 7
This week I created a rig for the character, using the base human CATrig within 3ds max.
I then edited the envelopes and weighted it accordingly.
I have also been working on a new CV this week:
Week 8
I decided to add an extra scene to the begging instead of the scene with the dog because the rig took me so long to create I didn't think I would have time to create one for a dog too. The added first scene shows the character kicking the ball in:
The next scene showing the kick ups:
Week 9
the basketball tricks.:
I also designed a few business cards and a DVD cover and uploaded them to a few graphic design blogs in order to get a bit of feedback:
Week 10
The bowling scene:
I also uploaded my work so far to several websites, such as; Youtube, Vimeo and 11 second club, to try and gain a bit of feedback so I could improve my work accordingly.
Although I only received feedback from one site:
Where it was suggested that I spend some time looking at the weighting of the character and the movements of the ball.
Week 11:
I started creating some additional animations for my show reel a run and jump:
and an angry walk:
After receiving feedback from a company named SR Creative, I was able to progress with the designs that were working and dismiss the ones that weren't. A few suggestions were made like a change of font and just attend to a few issues with the orientation of things.
After receiving feedback from a company named SR Creative, I was able to progress with the designs that were working and dismiss the ones that weren't. A few suggestions were made like a change of font and just attend to a few issues with the orientation of things.
and the finished card:
I was also told the line on the DVD case looked too clumsy across the letters so I took it out:
Week 12
Lighting the scenes and rendering out the different passes.
Finished product:
