Travelling tipits - FMX 2014: Second Day

"Action >Obsticle > Objective"
Ed Hooks' acting for animators 2, fueled more animation ideas in the morning, with crazily important theories and tips for better story in animation. Trust me, if there's ever a talk presented by him go to it, he's fantastic, and has loads of ideas for people to learn from!

-Thumbs to come-

This lunch time was when I discovered a lush pizza place, with huge slices... VERY YUMMY... and great for a pizza fan like me.

Then I spent the afternoon in simulation, which provided insight into areas of animation I previously had very little knowledge about.

Frozen: Simulation was presented by Rajesh Sharma and Lawrence Chai, they dicussed snow and clothes mostly. The snow simulation fascinated me because of my physics background, Sharma and Chai discussed the equations that were used. Here's, more or less, most of that discussion in this video.

 But they also talked about Technical animation, and how that department takes simulated scenes and corrects them... I am now researching that area some more, as they seemed to be the department that pulls the final pieces of animation together, as they still were creating arcs and appealing movement.

Pixar's talk by Samantha Raja, consisted of loads of simulation examples dubbed 'motion that is calculated by software because it is too complicated to animate by hand'.. I wouldn't say too complicated to animate by hand... just tons more work for an animator to do, (but 2D does it)!

Either way, this was another interesting talk that I loved again for the subtle, appealing look of it. Mostly talking about clothing and how it interacted with the clothes in Monster university! FANTASTIC!

 In the evening I attended the afterparty with Remco van Dongen, and managed to speak with loads of people. Gave out as many business cards as I received, so I think I did well there! Met many people from different segments of the industry, all with different roles... Some roles I would not have thought about in the past. So overall amazing experience!

Managed to crawl back to the hostel at 4am.... Ow!!

Travelling tipits - FMX 2014: First Day

So I have been and sadly left FMX... Sad times, had such an amazing experience there, would recommend it for any animator!!
So now to catch you all up...

Day 1:

Travelling -
A lengthy but relaxing coach ride all the way from Cardiff to Stuttgart! Was crazy, but, if I am honest, most of us slept through the majority of the trip. However we all did get up and out on the underground, and played catch... Which was funny seeming the small space! The ball did go under the coach a few times, thankfully though we managed to get the ball, and its pursuer, every time.
Must've been asleep when we came to the German border, as I remember reading french, falling asleep then waking up reading German :)

AT FMX:
First thing, the building that Fmx was hosted in was gorgeous! Second thing, oh I was so hungry when we got there!
So the first thing on the agenda was setting up the stall, which we all did in double quick time- before heading over to 'The art of animation: Advancing Visual Effects in "How to Train Your Dragon 2"' in the cinema....
Which was basically a huge tease for the awesome animation, as well as including some sweet testers of fire effects and other nice visuals (snow for instance) used in the movie. I needed to see the film afterwards, but its still not out yet!!!
Then we ran back to the main building for 'Concept art: concepting for film', which was a lovely insight to some painting techniques and workflows.

For lunch we discovered a Subway like place... Which had some yummy sandwiches.

Then we came back, watched 'Frozen: The Art of Lighting', which summarised the films lighting with saturation = a tense, sad... Negative scene, whereas bright and vivid scenes were happy, or dramatic.

Then there was Ed Hooks' lecture on acting for animators! A fantastic way of thinking, that unfortunately has come too late for 90% of my final project... Although I have some ideas to incorporate it. Future projects though will not just contain animation, but also a motive for the movements in the character, even if it's body mechanics!!

After all that, we tried to hunt for food, failed, were taken to the hostel... Setup base there. Then went out for hunt 2... Found a local restaurant, had chips then had a larger... Got to admit was not fond of larger prior to the trip, now however I do drink the stuff!

Summary:

So much travelling. 

Awesome art,

Amazing animation tips ,

And discovery!

See you all later,

Claire