SHAIHEIM'S UCA YEAR 3 BLOG

 Previz is basically problem solving. It helps to have a spot light to focus on one specific area, so you can adjust the hardness of the shadows while the directional light makes the whole scene lit, you can have both but for zoomed in scenes sport lights are better, even if dim. To save lots of time in animating, making a separate file of run and walk cycles that you can import to rigs will be really helpful. At the same time if the character is holding something and the walk cycle has the arms flapping about then you'll have to delete the arms animations, but a 20 frame by frame on the scene you're working on is good if you don't want to import and delete constantly.

When finishing the blocking it is important to know that it's acceptable to use [placeholders] like characters to get the best camera angles, as you will know in the edit when to cut them out.  A ramp goes 0 to 1. The smallest a partical can go is 100. Contrast and infinity means if you have a bunch of grey squares and the lighting makes everything grey, the lighting is consistent, with more tones it has greater visual intensity, therefore contrast. This is the aim for most shots as it makes the scene more interesting visually. an infinity is similarity, and too much similarity causes boredom in your shots, lenses, compositions, angles and lighting. A good book is 'the visual story by bruce block' A common animation mistake by newer artists is animating only what's on the camera. For instance a character walking, the animator may decide to do a medium shot, so as the legs won't be shown, they won't be animated, but a supervisor may want a wider shot and u now ha...

 Anything that does not fit in a master file, like lights for instance is better suited for work files. When you want things to disappear in the same scene you can keyframe their visibility, like broken windows, for example.   Pointing is a very bad action in animation. When a character points it shows no: body language, the movement of the camera, the composition of the scene, or cinematography skills. All these should be used to tell the story without pointing. Pointing is a lazy shortcut that means you lack artistic vision. A left-to-right screen direction is great for action as it is how we normally read in the West, and by keeping it consistent it makes the camera less chaotic. The more scenes you block out, te easier it is to see how they compliment each other in the sequence. It just helps with new shots and improving existing ones. Cutting is great also, like angles, inside a place when it's normal, outside what changes it and inside again to show the new state, this m...

 This tutorial was all about finding special effects to amplify the scene. One way of doing this is using green screen effects on YouTube, importing to After Effects, dropping a key light which falls the green automatically and adjusting the alpha. This can be put in a card on Maya like plane/image-plane.  If there are many types of the same effects you like, you can offset them so they go off at different times to make a new effect. Tiff or PNG work when exporting FX from AE. If an effect needs to be cut in terms of length then Maya's graph editor allows such changes. You save the effect as a Master File/ Maya ASCB to be imported into your scenes.

 In previz the camera is the most important part, especially when you are blocking out, adding facial details like expressions will occur further on the production line, so in essence, it is a waste of time to focus on polished animation at this stage such as torso movements, it's better to move the base CTRL instead of just the waist, a previz artist is building the foundation and are not the final animator, it is essential to remember this. Another critical tool to remember is space and perspective, to make the character focus less colour/detail is used so they are easily readable.

 from today till further change I’ll be away from my blogger 

 The line of action or 180-degree rule is one of the most common rules to be broken. This means if a character is on the left, they always stay there as they're on the right back and forth is natural, like their constantly switching places with the other frequently. You chose to pick top or bottom and all the camera's stay in that area. These rules can be broken if your genre is unsettling like horror for instance, but generally, these rules make the camera more organic. Having 3 camera's is good, over the shoulder per each character and one in the middle for profile, too many may be confusing. For rule of thirds it's best to place the action in the crosses and to use 4 boxes for the motion or placement so the action is not always directly in the centre. For the scene's direction, you can do left to right or right to left. Say there's an alien spaceship chasing someone, it could be in the top left corner diagonally going left to right, so would the laser shootin...