New walk cycle

Sometimes the easiest things seem difficult... popping knees for example. Not that a walk cycle or popping knees are easy in itself but there are some handy tricks the dumbest animator should know about: animation ghosting for instance... or if you want a grease pencil on your monitor...

But working this crazy I forgot about this while animating the walk... and that is why it sucks! So, today I read about animation ghosting, hit my forehead, hit it again... and worked 15 minutes to fix the worst popping...

Now you are right when you say that his legs aren't straight (totally) anymore and that would be another thing to address... but for now, check out this much smoother and more beautiful walk cycle... still there is much to be done though.

walk cycle animation 500kb

You know the good thing about animation is that you never stop learning... I think I will learn on walk cycles even when I'm 85 and still animating... so much about my lack of ability this week... I work hard on getting better and I hope to present better work each week...

For those of you who are interested I also uploaded some sketches I did with my new wacom. They show my thought process of this weeks assignment and are still in developement... just to let you know how I work =)

At least I still have faith =),

- Alex

Week 09 - Animation Mentor

Hiyaa! Kazaam!

Hi everyone,

I am at full training! No time for talking! Great animation ninja style to fight! So, here is my latest assignment. Hiyaa! Check... it ... out! Boom. I do not like it though... still much needs to be done. Animoto is full of work and AM assignments get bigger... so, check this out. New strong pose:


And this, new "concerned" pose:


And finally, the masterblow, this: http://am.alexmlehmann.de/am01w09/w09_full.mov (12mb, download fully first)... the knees are still popping and I have some issues regarding arcs... feel free to rail against me and my lack of ability... I will humbly accept your beating...

Now, onto the training... I need to get better!!!! Ahhhhhhhhahhhh! Hiyaaa!

God bless you all,

- Alex

Bug amuck!

Ahhh! I could scream. Do you know the feeling when you are excited about an idea and run around like "Isn't that beautiful?" or "Take a look at this!"... and everyone you show it to just shrugs his shoulders and says "Yeah, it's alright..."? Or even worse: "Nah, I don't get it"... that is the tough part about being in a creative field. You sometimes get carried away with your own ideas hiding them in the closets and once you show it people aren't that nuts about what you did the way you are... (see the old pic one blog-entry below)

This recently happened to my strong pose assignment. I was thinking like crazy of a creative way to show strength without showing heavy lifting or buldging muscles... and I came up with the Mr. Incredible pulls of his water tap without wanting... and know what? 30% liked the idea and 70% said it misses the point of a strong pose. Now the downside: they are absolutely right! This has nothing to do with a "strong" pose... but more with a "strong" gag in a pose... Ben said that and really nailed it. This bugged me all day and I really had to concentrate at work not to re-do the pose right away. Coming home I sat down at the PC without eating until this has been changed...

And there I was again with my problem: how to show strength without adjusting the muscles or lifting heavy weights? I looked at body builders and their pose is dull because it just works through showing their muscles and skin... I finally (in my "anger") found a way that I think works out quite well. You could call it "tough" or "angry" also but I think there barely is one pose that just shows one thing. So, after working it in the PC here it is. Let me know what you think and whether this works. I'm really happy that it doesn't use any props at all... but if this is better you have to decide. If not, let me know. Feel free to ruin my day!!! I want to know it! So, no holding back there!



Oh, one sidenote. I finally ordered a Wacom tablet which is arriving tomorrow and I'm really excited about it... we'll see what's happening with my drawing abilities...

God bless you all,

- Alex

Week 08 - full version Animation Mentor

Hi all,

I just uploaded my final version of the assignment for this week. There is a pose assignment ("strong") and an animation (both in 2D and 3D) and th revision of last week. Well, you won't see all too much difference between the revised and the new version. Both Michelle and Ethan liked it but wanted it to be a littlebit quicker at leaving the ground and landing... I did that and now the jump feels a littlebit more dynamic.

Next there was this pose assignment about a strong character. Bulging muscles or lifting weights are surely and easy way to show this but I thought about a normal situation in which you need strength (or not =). I hope one gets the gag in the end.

The animation hasn't changed since the last post but I added a 2D version of the walk. First of all: it is of model and that isn't good but hey, I'm not a drawing artist (yet?). Second there is this huge mistake in frame 3 and 15 that slides the pushing leg back... I think I'm going to change that soon but I had so much to work on this week that I barely made my assignments in time. Well, anyway, feel free to comment on anything you like.

Oh, there is an ongoing discussion about using personal notes on AM where you could say something about one week's assignment. I think that this would add even more to this wonderful community. This is why I added a little test-PN this week on my new server. It is kind of weird to see my own face talking and I get nervous not to forget anything in a short period of time... but maybe you like the idea as well. If more and more people start doing this it may be integrated in the web-system of AM soon (see my own personal video week 08 here, still in testing phase) and watch the assignment video week 08 here (16MB, loads completely first before showing up on screen).

God bless you all,

- Alex

Week 08 - Animation Mentor - Walks

Phew... walks? I mean, isn't that one of the most nasty things to animate at all? I think it is so difficult because we as humans are able to tell a persons name just by her/his walk from a far distance even. Body language is nearly as well developed among people as reading once face. We recognize even the slightest mistake in a walk and think that this looks weird or wrong. This is why I encourage you to tell me what could be changed about this one: you are an expert already =) by walking for more than 10 years over this planet. - children under the age of 10 should be acompanied by an eligible adult -

Anyway, check this one out. It is just blocked out which is why it looks a littlebit jiggy but finishing is next week so... anyway, it is just 263kb and comes right out of my new(!) virtual 5GB-server! Yehaa, enjoy.

God bless you all,

- Alex

WEEK 08 ANIMTEST (263kb, yes, click here... it is working, did I thank Lindsay already?)

Lindsay...

Isn't that a wonderful community where you post your stuff, someone drops by, sees you're having issues and helps you to stand up again? I don't know why Lindsay dropped by and what made her take the time of writing (heck, most of my friends don't take the time to comment ;) ... but... I'm more than thankful! She was absolutely right about her suggestions and all IE-users should be able to read my blog without having issues anymore. Lindsay, wherever you are right now: thank you.

Oh, about your blog... man, 20 that is still soo young. Being 27 I feel like an old owl already... but 20 - life is just starting =) I hope you'll always meet friendly people from somewhere around the world trying to help you when you're in need - may it be virtual or in real life.

God is great. I love my life.

- Alex

Display issues on Internet Explorer

Hi all,

I seem to experience some display issues on IE with my blog and can't figure out why. If you read this with FireFox or an RSS-reader things might look correctly but IE is making problems. Please open this once in IE and send me an email whether you can see the sidebar next to the text (it seems to be shown below the threads). I'm working on this and I'm really sorry for this happening... hope I can fix this really quickly,

- Alex

Week 07 - Animation Mentor

Hi everyone,

How is life? My one is wonderful. One of my dearest friends has finally found work again after being unemployed for two months, projects in company turn out nicely and I'm still able to study at this incredible online school... so, I'm more than thankful. Let me us this space to introduce you to two friends and coworkers both of incredible talent: Greg Manwaring (http://manwaring.blogspot.com/), has been working for Disney and Amblin amongst others on Lion King, Pocahontas, Iron Giant etc.

Second there is Boris Hiestand (http://borishiestand.blogspot.com/ still a young one but with remarkable animation talent). I recommend both blogs since Greg posts tricks of a trade once in a while (how cool is that?) and Boris shows some of his artwork. I'm sure to meet this guy at different companies all around the world and wait for some animations to be shown on his blog.

To conclude this list let me also introduce Bodil Heinemeier (http://bodilbangheinemeier.blogspot.com/ an incredible young woman with extraordinary talent). Man, I wish I could show you her box of drawings next to her desk. It is full of beautiful drawings varying strongly in their content: space marines, indian women, old people, young kids, fantasy stuff... she really is talented and I'm lucky to have a fairy drawing of her on my wall at home.

There are more people to show you in the next days... so stay curious =)

Anyway, let's talk about this weeks assignment. It was our job to create a jump animation with a one legged ball within 120 frames only. This really helped me to stick with the assignment only. So, I think about going more KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) the next weeks. Here is my planning:

And here is my animation (13MB) - this is exactly the version I upload to AM this week which explains the written explanations in the movie, hopefully. http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w07_an03.mov

Feel free to post some comments. I hereby greet Ndy, Thomas, Franzi, Laila and Kay especially for dropping by, I know you sometimes do =)

God bless you,

- Alex

p.s. If you haven't done yet, go and watch "Corpse bride" and especially listen to the wonderful score of Danny Elfman. You can listen for free to the whole soundtrack at http://www.mp3.com/albums/20061669/summary.html just click on STREAM IT and there you'll go. I recommend especially minutes 0-2, 6-9, 20-24, 27-30 and 40-47. The rest ist good as well but I love this theme (did I ever mention that I just love little musical clocks?)

Official eyes&ears award press release

Well, I think it is kind of funny to see Disney put out a press release about work you have done (indirectly) for them, so I wanted to share this with you. Unfortunately it is in German but maybe you'll understand it anyway.

The commercial was all about brother bear characters (the mooses) that are talking about easter. They had easter egss all around their antlers. And they featured their original German voice cast which was hilariously funny for Germans (they had a wonderful swedish-faked accent here full of bad German grammar). I was responsible for creating the 3D animated eggs in their antlers and had a wonderful time doing this.

I was working with the toonshader so that the animation blended in more seemlessly and I also worked on twos so you don't see any difference between 3D and 2D in the animation. It worked pretty well but I think seeing it today I would spot hundreds of mistakes in there. Anyway, here is the press release:


Later =),

- Alex

Week 07 - early feedback welcome

Hi all,

this is an early test on this weeks assignment which features 120 frames of an one-legged character jumping... feel free to send me some comments and ideas about it =)

- Alex

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w07_an01_small.mov

Animoto - a dream job in Germany

Well, I promised to talk a littlebit about my job here in Germany. Imagine a company small enough so that your voice is heard and big enough to get wonderful projects - that is animoto, a great 2D/3D animation company in southern Germany - Munich. I started here in March 2005 while finishing my final exam in university. Animoto called me for a job that actually never happened but since I already got there they put me on another project:

A spot for Disneychannel Germany featuring the elks of brother bear. This was just plain awesome! I had the priviledge of creating 3D effects on a 2D background layer working with an actual ex-Disney-artist right here in Germany. This was like a dream come true. The spot turned out quite well and was very funny if you speak German. Last Friday it won a price for 'best integrated special commercial' from the eyes&ears award (link) which makes me even more happy.

Animoto is small, as I already said, and is changing size every month. Since we were working on a bigger project we had up to 15 2D artist on the spot. I've finished working on animations for Nickelodeon characters playing chess in a flash game last Friday. And we always have some nice character animation going on I'm not able to talk about yet.

this is the desk I'm working on featuring my own laptop and a XSI/Maya-workstation

So, to sum it up, animoto is a dream job. It is not Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks, but is full of fun, good projects, wonderful colleagues and packed with learning experience. Making a mistake is being handled by a team that doesn't blame you... and believe me, this helped me a lot already. Fellow artists here have worked at Dreamworks and Disney on projects from 'Help! I'm a fish' and 'Balto' up to 'Pocahontas', 'Roger Rabbit' and 'Lion King'.

I'm sure that I'm going to go to the States for some time sometime but for now I congratulate myself every single day for being able to work here and even earn money. God has given me this wonderful opportunity here and I hope that I'm going to be a blessing to this company that has given me so much. After all, they even encourage me to do AM... what else could a company do =)

So much for now, their website is http://www.animoto.de/ - like hundreds of other pages we are working so much we barely are able to update the site. We are always watching demoreels so feel free to send in your stuff. From time to time jobs come up that need more artist in a short period of time... so, why don't you just send your reel?

Have fun,

- Alex

Week 06 - Animation Mentor - animation assignment

Hi everyone,

this week could be titled... "catching up". Well, at least I try to. This was a great day today because we got one hour more. Couldn't every day just have 25 hours? I can sleep one hour longer and this way create more quality work during the day.

Anyway, I'm going to read all those hundreds of post I missed during the last week and I have to upload my stuff still. This weeks assignment was a blast and I really enjoyed it a bunch. Finally we got to animate Tailor. You can't imagine how much story you can tell with a ball and a tail. I've seen some awesome animations out there already and it gets more and more difficult to keep up with the good guys.

Ben, our 2D guy, did an awesome animation on paper and talking about KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) - he doesn't seem to know what it means. Haha! Amazing stuff, really. And his animation keeps going on and on. And Martin (my roommate) was a blast, too. He is never satisfied with my work. I think he is never satisfied with his own work as well. So he keeps on pushing me and telling me where my animation just lacks quality. And even though I hate it when he nags on my work... he still is right and after getting over it my animations get better. Thanks, Martin.

Anyway, talking about Tailor. I wanted to animate him soo much and really thought about what to do. I decided on this:


Yes, quite a bunch, I think. And the 180 degree turn almost killed me because you have to overlap in at least 2 directions at a time (talking about "muting" one channel which makes this easier). Well, after hours of planning, animation and tweaking I finished with this version:

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w06_an01.mov (6MB - plays after loading fully)

Since I'm currently animating full time on two 30 seconds spots for television I really had to stick to this assignment only and did not have the time to do any revisions. Michelle told us that revision is just a plus for us and that we first should finish the assignment before starting any revisions. After all, that is what I did.

Feel free to post some comments about whether you like it and whether it looks cartoony. AM is getting better each week and I'd love to have more time to practise... but working is great as well and I love my job at animoto. More about that in the next blog entry coming soon =)

Have fun and God bless you all,

- Alex

Awesome Q&A @ animation mentor

For all of you out there wondering how Q&As at animation mentor look I made a small screenshot. This was actually the end of the whole thing and the frames freezed in - that explains the sour looks on our faces. We had a great Q&A this time without any lags or anything. It just worked and everyone could talk and ask and discuss without delays. Taylor did a great job of cleaning up our queue. Hopefully from now on things will stay like this.

Have fun,

- Alex

Week 05 - Animation Mentor

Hi all,

My animation assignment was a lot of work this week (if you can't work on it 7 days)... there is a lot happening and it takes some time until things look believable. I'm fine to the point to upload it but I know that I won't like it tomorrow anymore... ahh, animation is so frustrating due to the fact you have to finish it at a certain point and still could work on it twice as much...

Well, anyway, here is it:

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w05_an04.mov

Critique is welcome as ever. Have fun,

- Alex

Week 05 - Animation Mentor - devastated

Hi all,

I finished my 'devastation' pose for STU today and put it into a movie file which you can find here: http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w05_STU01.mov (5MB - pleae be patient) - critique is always welcome even though I won't have the time to change anything due to the large amount of work on the bouncing ball assignment. But I'll stick to the comments for next weeks revision.

Oh, here are my sketches for this week, too.

Have fun,

- Alex

Week 05 - Animation Mentor

Hi all,

well, I'm back. I'm certainly interested in how many people read this, so if you'd like to do me a favour and just drop a note below this message saying something like "I do" or whatever... it takes you a minute and that way I know how often I should update this blog... like more daily or once a week. Anyway, for the latest assignment we have quite a lot to do:

1. create a planning sketch on your animation that shows a ball jumping up (it decides to do so) and then be part of a weird obstacle course it is bouncing through.
2. Animate that shot. (This feels like the one million dollar sentence in a script saying: "The house implodes.")
3. Doodle some dynamic poses.
4. Create a pose with Stu that shows "devastation".

Tough enough, I say... and production in my company is getting heavier again... so, whootwhoot! Well, to start at the beginning I started doing some sketches about dynamic poses (mostly sports) and the planning thing for the ball. Have a look!



And I played around with the ball model we got and took a look at some of the controls. This is just a 10 minute animation and it does look that way, I know. Anyway, comments are already and always welcome.

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w05_an01.mov

So much for now, looking forward to hear some comments.

- Alex

Michelle and Week 03 Revision - Animation Mentor

Did I ever mention that Maya is a pain? Man, this program bugs me... I wouldn't complain if I wouldn't know about the 101.562 things that other software packages DO better... but I KNOW ABOUT THOSE! Ahhhh!

Maya even crashes with three bouncing balls on a newly installed 3,2GH AMD with 1 GB RAM and a GeForce graphics card! I mean, it is just three bouncing balls! Enough complaining... I better get my pills... (maybe there is something good about this Alias-Autodesk thing and the earth will be freed one day of Maya...)

Here are my revised poses of last week's assignments. I checked the incredible tutorial on how to setup lights in Maya (thaaaaanks, man!) someone at AM did at 4am to help us non-Maya users... and yes, he did. So, here is my new lighting as well.

Talking about revision I realize I did not write much about Michelle yet. Well, what shall I say? She is awesome and really trying to push us. She is open minded for suggestions and is trying to make this a wonderful experience for everyone (like changing her mic until everybody feels comfy etc.). Someone suggested she might use a grease pencil ON her monitor and she agreed on the idea so her revision get even better!

And though she missed "this hand shows a fist with just two parts" until now she really has an eye on what is missing in your scene. Not only does she try to push our poses even more but she tells us how to do it. And her suggestions are understandable. Well, I hope that people on our live Q&A start to flood her with questions any time soon... because she wants to teach a lesson every Q&A! So much about Michelle... I'm going to write more about her sometimes later...

God bless you all,

- Alex

Week 04 - Animation Mentor

Remember, remember... the fifth of November... just saw the Vendetta trailer at my favourite cinema yesterday night and it features the incredible music of James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer of Batman Begins... the sound system there is awesome and just listening to this music in a big cinema gives me the shivers... uh, aren't movies just awesome?

Well, before I forget it: check out Wallace and Gromit if you haven't yet... it is worth every second. Wonderful humor. We just watched the new movie and all shorts at once in the cinema and it was great. Had a wonderful time. Cheeeeeese!

Back to what the title suggests to find here, my this' weeks assignment: create two bouncing balls of different weights. Yep, that sounds like fun to me =) So, I started with planning something like this:

Well, whoever came up with the idea of KISS ("keep it simple stupid") was a genius... and without AM constantly reminding of this rule and heavy time pressure I would certainly miss this rule everytime I switch on the computer (heck, nowadays, take out a pencil, too!). So, realizing that the sad story of three bouncing balls doing the boogey (s.a.) wouldn't be such a bright idea to finish in time I changed my planning to this:

That's more like it! I liked the idea of making things "believable" and creating little plates for the balls to sit on. So I checked some footage other guys did and there was one fellow mentee that sacrificed his bowling ball and let it drop several times on a street. Man, I'm thankful. If you are wondering why your ball always drifts to the side remember you did these videos, mate!

Anyway, I started timing his movie out and checked the extremes but when I put it into Maya it just looked wrong and way to fast. Took me a second thought to realize that he filmed in 30fps and I work in 24 fps. This is why I created such a chart to retime the action:

Guess what? It worked. Without further ado you can see my this week's assignment here, please be patient since the file is bigger - the revision of last weeks poses is in there too:

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w04_an05.mov (10MB)

Have fun and send me some comments if you like,

- Alex

Week 04 first pass - Animation Mentor

Well... this pass is definitely just rushed in and that is just the way it looks. I'm looking forward to the weekend to do some serious planning and research on both balls. But I think this version already shows where I'm headed =)

http://am.alexmlehmann.com/w04_an01.mov

- Alex

James R. Hull - a 2D AND 3D animation ninja...

Hi all,

you can't imagine my face when I just dropped by one of my favourite animation blogs on the web: www.sewardstreet.com. James R. Hull, an animator that has worked on Pocahontas, Hunchback, Hercules, Tarzan, Spirit, Sinbad, Shrek 2, Madagascar and now Over the hedge, quoted me about 'mentioning his struggle between 2D and 3D' in an earlier post (http://alexmlehmann.blogspot.com/2005/10/link-01-keith-lango-animation-podcast.html).

Actually this could start a wonderful discussion about 2D and 3D finally joining each other after years of 'cold war' between those both sides. It did in my heart, at last. Every animator I know has started in one of both art forms and has begun to like it. There are hundreds of prejudices about the other side whether you are 3D or 2D, doesn't matter. The picture of the 'West Side Story' or 'Romeo&Juliet' came into my mind and I remembered all those different posts that either tell '2D is dead, long live 3D' or '2D is the only true animation art form'. I sometimes get the picture that among animators stop-motion is much better spoken of than 3D will ever experience it. And it is like if something is appreciated by the mass there have to be those 'knowledgeable' and 'different ones' that speak against it.

For me I finally found a solution for this battle to finally end. It seems like I was feeling like this all the time but never saw what was right before my eyes: 2D and 3D have to find peace not in the media, not in the big companies, not in blogs, not out there, but in each and every one of us animators. I for myself finally decided to master 2D after years of working in 3D. Heck, I might even try stop-motion and realtime-hand-puppets! I always loved 2D movies. I watched hours and hours of cartoons every day. And the first time I saw 3D I loved it as well. Knick Knack hit me right in the face and I loved it.

Just because I chose to start with 3D doesn't mean to pick on 2D! No, far from that! That is why I love working in this small studio in Germany consolidating 2D and 3D in one room. Everyone here is so open-minded. I teach the 2D-artists 3D and they teach me 2D. We go to every single animation that's out there and we just love it for the medium it is: animation. Telling stories. Making people laugh. Or cry. Or both. I'm tired of all this fighting and I stopped it where it has to be stopped: in me. Now I approach 2D with a free mind, free of the fear that I could fail in it. And I start to feel complete..!

Once more Jim's website made my day. I love being an animator and becoming one each day more. Period.

- Alex