Animated Gibberish

Animation Tech Tip: Frame Step

Like stepping through frames, but hate spamming your undo queue? Change your frame forward and back hotkeys so that they temporarily turn off the undo queue when they run, and you wont have to hit z 50 times just to get to the place where you actually need to undo something.


//forward
undoInfo -stateWithoutFlush off;
playButtonStepForward;
undoInfo -stateWithoutFlush on;

//back
undoInfo -stateWithoutFlush off;
playButtonStepBackward;
undoInfo -stateWithoutFlush on;

Python

I've been slowly learning more python and using pymel. I think it's great, and I'm gradually phasing out mel. So far, the best tutorial I've found for taking the plunge and transitioning from mel is this one written by Chad Vernon.

And I highly reccommend pymel. The more hard-core programmers I know take some issues with it's structure and various under the hood shenannigans, but I don't know anything about that. For me, it lays the groundwork that I think is neccesary to really build a solid and easy to use python library for maya.

Boxcars

Recently took a trip on the train, and we passed by a bunch of identical boxcars with different graffiti. Makes a good slideshow:

Beverly Hills Chihuahua Reel

I'm so slow at posting this stuff. Here's my Beverly Hills Chihuahua animation reel:

These are highlights from the work I did on Beverly Hills Chihuahua for Tippett Studio. I'm responsible for all the character animation in these shots, with the exception of the lipsync on the last one. For that beauty, I only animated the tear.

Phil Tippett at VES

Phil Tippett was recently honored with the Georges Méliès Award by the Visual Effects Society. Here's a podcast of a portion of an interview prior to accepting the award:

Listen
(The interviewer is Millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman)

Norman Online

For reals this time. Get him here:

http://sites.google.com/site/normanrig/

Norman is free to use for non-commercial purposes, as stated in the license. Animate him, edit him, pass him along, and have fun!

Thanks to everyone who contributed:

Leif Jeffers

Peter Starostin

Neal Thibodeaux

Charlotte's Reel

Charlotte's Web Demo Reel from Morgan Loomis on Vimeo.

Some of my work on Charlotte's Web. Most of the other shots that aren't included are either really quick, insignificant, or boring.

No More Pixar Class? Norman, Be Free.

I just saw over at SplineDoctors that the Pixar class has been nixed from the Academy. Andrew Gordon was a teacher of mine, he has a little editorial about it, and the discussion going on in the comments is worth looking at, too:
Academy of Art and the Pixar Classes

I'll just say that personally those classes were a highlight of my education, they were fun and challenging and I learned a lot about animation from the teachers and students alike. I'm not sure I'd be where I am now without those classes, so it's sad to see them go. I feel bad for the students who were looking forward to them. Hopefully the Academy can gain some sense of what they had and how they lost it.

But anyway, this change of events puts Norman in an interesting position. See, the original idea for the rig was to make something everyone could use, but as it was finishing up, the Pixar teachers asked if it could be kept exclusive for the Pixar class. It was never anything formal, but I've personally tried to honor that request. But now he's getting old, and it's time for him to see the world. I've put him online and attached a Creative Commons license to him, since I think he embodies those principles pretty well. So here you go, have fun:

http://morganloomis.googlepages.com/norman

Norman, be free!

UPDATE: Norman has been taken down for now, pending a resolution between myself and his other creators.

Spiderwick Reel

I put this on Vimeo a while ago, but never posted it here. These are my favorite shots from the Spiderwick Chronicles. I'm hoping to post Charlotte's Web work next.

Spiderwick Animation Reel from Morgan Loomis on Vimeo.

Shot Breakdown:

1 - Bird: Responsible for animation of the bird, string and leaves. This shot was a lot of fun, I watched a lot of bird reference and played with the motion blur by sliding the whole animation by quarder frames until I liked how it looked.

2 - Goblin Attack 1: Responsible for all goblin animation. Originally they were getting much more cut up. Oh well.

3 - Goblin Attack 2: Responsible for all goblin animation.

4 - House Siege: Shared shot with Jason Armstrong. I animated about half of the goblins and Redcap. This was a fun shot to work on, it's entirely keyframe animation, and we had to work closely back and forth with eachother to make sure characters weren't running through eachother or twinning or anything. We both spent about a month on it.

5 - Hoggy: Responsible for all animation. Sadly, in the original version he was supposed to eat a bird that he had been saving in his pocket, but then the dialog changed. That would have been fun.

Comic Book Blog

A collegue at work is going to be making a comic book all by himself, and he's documenting the process in a blog. It's a huge undertaking, but he's a very driven and talented artist, and I'm excited to follow his progress. Can't wait to see how it turns out, it should be awesome:

http://williamgroebe.blogspot.com/