Travis Howe's Animation Blog

Through The Pixl Glass

2011-11-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

My awesome friend Brandon Foster has started a blog that will discuss the making of video games. I am extremely honored to have been one of his first guests.

Please check out his blog -- it'll definitely be a great one to watch!

Through the Pixl Glass

Woot!!!

Interview with Animation Mentor!

2011-10-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

I feel a warm bubble in my chest when I think about Animation Mentor. The school literally changed my life and pushed me deeper into the wonderful world of animation and of animatORS than I ever could have achieved on my own.

So when they asked me to film an interview for one of their newsletters, I was extremely excited to have the chance to "give back."

The interview went very smoothly -- their film crew are total professionals! The final footage was split into two films. The first covers going through school as a new parent. The second covers the shot I did that was used for the AM Student Showcase (a HUGE honor I had been dreaming of since before attending AM!!)

Thank you SOOOO much to Bobby, Shawn, Carlos, the wonderful Animation Mentor film and editing crew, and Dana's rockin' mowhawk for EVERYTHING!!

Part 1:

Part 2:

[Please forgive the lisp... I was killing off the tail end of a lung infection when this was filmed]

The Bay Area's Racoons Have Become Noticeably More Theivius.

2011-06-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

Post E3, I am now allowed to name drop Sly Cooper. We work together :)

Sanzaru is developing the next installment of the Sly Cooper franchise, and I am extremely lucky to be animating Sly himself! Here is a little demo of the game. Despite cleverly crafted and eloquently phrased criticisms such as:

WHAT THE HELL SUCKER PUNCH IS THE ONLY COMPANY THAT CAN MAKE A GOOD SLY GAME UUUUUURRRRRGGGGGG!

...Sanzaru truly is a top level company with three of the best assets a game studio can have: a desire to prove itself capable of reigniting a beloved franchise, the excitement of a young studio, and a refrigerator stalked with free soda.

Okay the third one is give or take :)

More on Mr. Theivius soon!

Colin's Borg

2011-02-15T11:12:00.000-08:00

I had created this animation for Star Trek Online as a tribute to Colin's Bear. Sadly, despite expressed permission from Colin Sanders, the creator of the original animation, the dance was never put into the game. It was fun to make, though!

Coming Up Next...!

2011-02-12T00:22:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about life is its unpredictability. Everyone likes getting unexpected packages in the mail. In fact, J.J. Abrams gave a great speech regarding the idea that a mystery is more exciting than its resolution. I would go a step further: I would say that a mystery is often second best to reflection. When I was hired by Sega (then called Secret Level), I remember the overwhelming excitement I had for the "unknown." I knew what the project was that I'd be working on, but I didn't know what to expect of it. That was extremely intriguing. During production, I had an amazing time, but I don't think I realized I was having so much fun until now, two years later, when I reflect back upon it.

I was recently hired by Sanzaru Games. I will be starting in about a week. The interesting thing is, at the same time that I am once again experiencing the excitement of the unknown, I am already feeling the pangs of missing Cryptic. The animation team I've worked with here has been the best group of friends I've made at any job I've ever had, and I know I'll miss them terribly.

I guess the point is: Life seems to balance unknowns and nostalgia pretty well. I am sure that the day I walk out of Cryptic for the last time will be very sad for me.

But I don't think I'll be able to resist a Breakfast Club-style fist-to-the-air. The mystery behind the curtain ahead is a SUPER exciting one!!

Careful What You Claim as "Yours"! Part 2

2011-02-10T14:47:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in a previous post that another animator had claimed my work as their own.

Today's lesson: Why I am Thankful I Did Not Out This Person, Nor Seek Retribution.

I would like to, first of all, point out that I never once used this person's name, gender, or from which project they claimed my work. I was contacted privately by several people wanting to know who this person was, and to each one of them I said the same thing: This was not about harming a reputation, or about revenge, it was simply about acknowledging that it is wrong to steal the hard work of others.

After sending several unanswered emails to this animator, I finally called them in order to request that they remove my work from their reel. By the end of the conversation, seeing that they simply were not going to do so, I said I would not press any sort of charges, and that I could not force them to remove my work, but that they should remove it for the sake of their own reputation. I thought it was over at that point.

Nothing doing.

I can't give details with regards to the method they used to attempt to take out their "revenge" upon me, as I don't know what is or what isn't considered confidential information. Suffice it to say, they attempted to get me into trouble with the company I am currently at. Thankfully, I have worked hard to maintain a good reputation, and their attempt fell flat. The point I want to make is this: Be a good soul, treat others with respect, and in the face of turmoil show dignity -- these are the things that will prevent cases such as mine from going any further than a pathetic attempt at retribution.

I had not posted anything with regard to who this person was, or what the work was that was stolen, simply because that's not what I believe in: I am not a vindictive person. However, as I have since learned from others who are learned in the law, had I posted this person's name or work, I could have been in serious trouble for slander (or "libel" is I believe the correct word).

The lesson I want to point out here: if someone wrongs you, do not attempt to publicly scathe them. If they turn out to be a vindictive, aggressive person, they might use anything and everything you say against you.

A clean reputation is so very important in job seeking. I have made many friends in this industry -- and apparently, now, one enemy. I don't want to think of it that way, but a person who would attempt to harm me or my reputation, especially after I've gone out of my way to protect theirs throughout all of this, can certainly not be called a "friend."

January 2011 Reel: Now with 200% more horse power

2011-01-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

For a higher res version, click here.

To Download, right-click here and save as.

Confidence Stutters -- featuring a horse named Pete.

2011-01-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

Every so often, I feel like every single blip of information I've ever attained regarding animation has dripped out my ears and left me for good. Thankfully, by using specific tricks I've learned through careful study and training (aka, reading the blogs of better animators), I can usually get my brain to turn over and get into what I like to call "Not An Idiot" mode.

One such occasion happened the other day... I came in to work on a horse trot animation. Simple, right? After all, I had just completed a full-tilt-gallop-to-skidding-stop, which seems much harder.

I think that's where I went wrong.

I thought it would be easy. Any time you get into your head that an animation is "gonna be easy," you're doing something wrong. At least if you're me. Others may find that sometimes animation is easy. Some may find it's ALWAYS easy. For me, the only easy animations I've ever done were the ones that turned out bad.

I worked all day on this trot. The further I got along on it, the more my stomach tightened, and the more I felt like that 22 year old kid with no animation pipeline or hope in the world of doing this professionally.

Over-dramatization? Ya, I suppose, but the point is, I remembered how it felt to be afraid that I really didn't know what I was doing. As the day progressed, my work got worse and worse and worse.

I went home that night feeling pretty lousy. After a good pep-talk from Coach Mrs. Howe, I decided to incorporate some of the techniques I've heard from better animators.

One of these was to change up your work flow. It was an article I read recently, and sadly, can't remember the author. The idea was, try a different animation approach, and thinking about approaching it a different way might help SEE it a different way. It's a technique used by stutterers (man, that's an unfortunate word), to get through a word or phrase they're having a hard time with. A name for example. Having trouble saying this guy's name? Think of his brother's name, or the name of the College you went to together, and his name will pop right out.

So I came into work the next day with my brain in "Not An Idiot" mode, and began this different approach.

The failed approach was the same as in the gallop-to-stop animation: animate the spine and head first, then add the legs in there.

So this time, I decided to try a more "character animation" approach. I found a great reference video on BBC Motion Gallery, and began looking at it as I would a human walk. In other words -- where are the passing poses? Where are the contact poses? When do the highs and lows happen.

I drew out a "formula" for the cycle, including the passes, contacts, highs, and lows:

I also named the horse Pete.

After several hours' worth of what turned out to be one of the most hitch-less days of animating, I had something I was very happy with. I came in the next day, polished it up, and here is the end result.

I find that when you struggle with a shot, it's not your ability but your confidence that is failing you. When such a stutter occurs, try thinking of your shot a different way.

Trav

Motion Study: Horse Gallop to Stop

2011-01-21T13:16:00.001-08:00

With the Animation Mentor's new Creatures course in mind, I was very excited to do some horse motion studies. I was also very heavily inspired by the beautiful horse work done by Thomas Grummt, who's work I greatly admire.

Careful What You Claim as "Yours"!

2011-01-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, it was brought to my attention that my work had been used on another animator's demo reel; work that this animator had absolutely nothing to do with.

While I am not particularly concerned, as I am not using these shots for my own reel, I did want to take a moment to address this issue. Animation is a very difficult field, not only animating, but getting into an animation position. When you steal work from someone else, you risk that animator's credibility. If, for example, I were using these shots, and sent them to a potential employer after this animator did, they may not take the time to consider my work, assuming either that I am a liar, or simply that ONE of us is a liar and it's not worth the headache to determine which. In other words, it's this animator's word against mine, and while I hope that the rest of my reel would reflect ownership of those shots, it is not this animator's right to put me in that situation.

The animation community is a family. If you want proof, go to an Animation Mentor barbecue. Animators love each other, and they protect each other. Stealing work from one of us is like stealing work from all of us -- it will come back to bite you, so be very careful what you call your own.

Respect for the Past

2010-11-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.goodnewsfilmreviews.com/2010/11/respect-of-past.html

I came across this article (or rather, was directed to it through a friend's post) regarding the nature of rebellion turning into conformity, and felt it was really well-put.

It is something I noticed as a youth in Northern California, where the "Goth" movement was really popular in my teen years (Goth being the slightly more malevolent and less soppy version of "emo.") I noticed that the idea was to be "non-conformist," and yet the bizarre hair colors -- which earned them the title "Fraggles" -- leather studded attire, and sad-clown makeup actually became just as conformist as the norm, but in a "Biff has stolen the time-machine and changed reality" sort of way.

It relates perfectly to art. When I was in high school, a fellow "artist," and I use the term loosely, consistently berated my cartoonist style, saying cartoonists were not really artists, but rather sell-outs who didn't know how to be expressive. To me, such a statement is tantamount to spitting on Milt Kahl's grave. Take a look at any one frame of Medusa from "The Rescuers" and tell me it doesn't ooze expression. However, Milt Kahl, known to be perhaps the greatest draftsman in animation history, did not become so by simply "cartooning" his way to glory. His skills were deeply routed in a knowledge of fine arts and the Masters of the craft.

I digress. The point I am trying to make (in apparently the wordiest way I can) is read this article, because it is fantastic, and says everything I'm failing to here :D

(and thanks for sharing, Les!)

Dorothy Gish [Blocking]

2010-11-14T02:14:00.000-08:00

I've been working on this dialogue piece in my spare time at home.

Feedback always greatly appreciated!

Travis Howe; 2010 Character Animation Reel

2010-11-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

Chaos Theory: First Pass

2009-07-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Due to the fact that I've already done the facial animation for "Cant Get Involved," my mentor felt it a better use of my time to try another piece of dialogue. He suggested I think of something that doesn't require much body animation, as I only have 3 weeks to complete the entire assignment.

The shrunken heads from Harry Potter 3 popped into my mind, and I thought it would be really fun to animate the one hanging from the rear-view mirror. I grabbed a line from Jurassic Park in which Ian Malcolm is describing the Chaos Theory, and turned on my Flip camera:

This is my favorite take, but I probably shot it about a hundred times. I prefer to shoot a few takes, watch them, decide what I liked about some of my performances, and shoot again. It usually takes three or four passes before I've got a take I like. More often than not, I don't get "a" take I like, so I scavange what I did like from multiple shots, then stitch together a "final" reference video.

I then go into sketching out the animation, finding the most important frames of the video reference (or thinking up different ones where the reference is dry). In the case of this assignment, I have no scanner and the drawings are simply scribbles, so I'm not too worried about posting them. Perhaps I'll post them later, but for now, here's the blocking:

There are a lot of complicated mechanics involved in this shot... well, actually... one: He's supported by a string attached to the top of his head. This creates some real difficulties with things such as head nods, and every motion has to have an abnormally pronounced anticipation, since he's basically swinging himself around to make any sort of gesture. However, more than a mechanics exercise, this is an acting exercise, so I've blocked out the main performance with only giving minor thought to the mechanics of his support. On my next pass, that will be my primary concern: making sure the mechanics support the acting, not the other way around.

Going into Class 4 (again)...

2009-06-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

... this is where I am starting from on my dialogue shot. I consider it about 90% complete. The main thing that needs work is the left arm, but I'm hoping to get more feedback on it, and perhaps it will require a whole new overhaul :D

Updates soon!

Back At It!!

2009-06-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

The next three months will most likely be the craziest of my life (thus far): I will be back at Animation Mentor for what is said to be the hardest class, my wife and I will be moving across the Bay, and, most importantly, baby Taylor Madison will be arriving.

I was reading Cameron Fielding's blog, and realized that most of what he posts is not vein news about himself, but animation tips and tricks, including breakdowns of some of his super influential work. I recently met Cameron, having been familiar with his work for some time. A nicer guy you will never meet. But the point is, he has a very busy life, and so that will not serve as an excuse for me.

I will be doing breakdowns of my shots as I progress, because, at least for me, that is the best way to learn animation. So check back here soon for my AM breakdowns! -- and some Champions Online breakdowns once the game is published ;D

Cultured and Sophisticated

2009-05-31T23:44:00.001-07:00

Through a weird twist of fortune, my wife and I were able to see two broadway productions in one weekend, which is awesome because we almost never get to do those kinds of things!

On Saturday, we saw The Lion King in Sacramento. It was absolutely beautiful, with incredible sets and the fantastic (if not altogether too familiar) story. I confess the opening sequence was the most amazing part for me, but get some Elton John/ Hanz Zimmer compositions in there and the rest of the show is nothing to shake a coconut-embellished stick at. The costumes, in particular, were absolutely amazing! Very well-designed and creative!

On Sunday, we saw Wicked in San Francisco. I can honestly say I've never been so inspired by a stage-performance before. The actors and actresses were phenomenal. The two leads, playing Glinda and Elphaba, were outstanding. The story was so much better than I could have hoped. I highly HIGHLY recommend this show to ANYONE. It's one I will want to see again (and again)! Maybe I'll luck out and they'll make a Wicked film that I'll get to work on :D

Not much on the animation end, as I've been trying to stay out of Maya as much as possible while on leave, and this weekend was a very nice (and very needed) break.

Trav

Showcase Submission: Drone Escape

2009-05-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hey All!
This is #2 of 3 clips I'm submitting to the AM Showcase! Wish me luck!!

2009-04-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just rendered this out for submission to the AM showcase. I have 3 more shots I'm submitting; Wish me luck!!

New Faces

2009-04-13T21:58:00.001-07:00

Hehehe, you should see the look on your face!

(You know who you are)

Facial Blocking

2009-04-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

Here's the first pass of my facial blocking and lip sync. It's still in stepped mode so it looks a little hitchy.

4 p.m.

2009-03-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is an incredible short, so I had to share it.

BEAUTIFUL hand animation by Mark Oftedal!

Class 3 Progress Reel

2009-03-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

Woot! Just finished Class 3! On to the next! This is my progress reel thus far. Please keep in mind that on my dialogue piece, the facial animation has not been done yet -- that's next class!

Crits always welcome.

I love you for looking. You know I do.

Can't Get Involved: First Polish Pass

2009-03-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

It's still full of problems, but this is the first polish pass on my latest shot. I'm pretty happy w/ it so far, but of course am always open to critique :)

[Note: we don't have facial controls yet, so the lipsync is not meant to be accurate. Think of this as a pantomime to audio at this point]

My Process (for Inquiring Minds)

2009-03-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yo Homies,
I've been asked a few times to share my workflow, so I thought I'd post it here for simplicity (and flat-out laziness on my part ;)

Every animator's workflow is different. What is intuitive to me may be completely counter-intuitive to you; my method is certainly not the i ching of animation processes, but it works well for me.

I have three personalized hotkeys that come in extremely handy:
alt+x = toggle playback
alt+c = step back one key
alt+v = step forward one key.
[note, these are already hotkeys somewhere, I believe it's < and >, but since alt is also used for camera movement, these settings make the process faster]

I plan like a madman. A lot of people believe in getting one good reference shot; I don't. I shoot reference for an hour. Then I look over the reference, decide what i like, and shoot again, trying to emulate those acting choices. Then I cut together a "master reference" from all of these shots. The shots dont always line up, but I'm not taking it frame-by-frame anyway so I don't really care.

Next I draw thumbnails, but only of the key poses. I find it's easier for me to figure out the breakdowns and what not once I'm in Maya. I mostly just try and find good lines of action.

Once in blocking, I keep it in stepped mode, and I key EVERYTHING. My feeling has always been that CG should be approached the same as traditional animation. It'll eventually be rendered out, and when it is, it's no longer a navigatable scene, but a flat image, so the graphic quality of the shot will rely on your thinking about the shot FROM THE SET CAMERA, and that each pose should be thought of as a drawing. I block out my key poses, and use this time to "finalize" the camera (spline and all) so that I can animate to the camera.

Blocking is when the aforementioned hotkeys really come in handy. I can zoom up and down the timeline this way, doing essentially the same thing traditional animators did w/ their drawings, just flipping thru the poses to see if its working. I'll hit play or playblast to make sure the timing is where I want it, and shift around keys as needed to make it work.

Following Jeff Gabor's example, I believe in blocking until it practically looks splined. I try to put in all the overlap, follow through, etc. as much as possible, because it makes a world of difference once I get to spline.

I try to define all of my arcs during this process as well. I also try to get in the details, such as eyes and fingers. Again, this'll make splining so much easier.

I tend to spline one segment at a time. Lets say I'm animating a 300frame shot, I'll find an area at the beginning that is a nice chunk, anywhere from 10-100 frames, and spline it out bit by bit. If possible, I turn off limbs. I start from the hips, and typically start from y translation, trying to get that to feel as smooth as possible.

Another hotkey that comes in handy in the graph editor is i+middle-mouse-button. If you select a curve and then use this hotkey, it'll allow you to drop keys onto the curve. Super helpful.

The truth is, there is no method I've found that makes the splining process easy. Even w/ all the planning in the world, the initial pass will still look horrific (see the attached video). And then it's just a matter of going into the graph editor and breaking it down bit by bit. It's a painful but extremely rewarding process.

Well, that's basically it -- my process in a nutshell. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have, or be more specific about any of this.

Thanks for reading :)

Trav

This is the initial splined version of my shot, just hitting spline and not touching the graph editor.... yiiiich!

It's "Edward," ya Moron!

2009-03-04T00:03:00.000-08:00

Here's where I am at thus far on my first AM dialog shot. Hope you like it!!

The Dragster Wave

2009-02-20T02:35:00.000-08:00

I usually don't post external stuff, but I just saw "Taken." It was okay, not great. But the song at the end, The Dragster Wave, is one of my all-time favorites, and I wanted to share it because Ghinzu is not extremely well-known:

...and then of course the piano version, which is equally awesome:

Enjoy!!

Drone Escape: Render

2009-02-20T00:56:00.000-08:00

So I know this is in my reel, but I never posted it separately for easy viewing :) This is the final render for my "Drone Escape" shot, with the new V.L.A.D. rig(s).

Hope you liking!

Listening: Render

2009-02-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

I've officially finished "Listening," an assignment I did for AM. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out -- but critiques are always welcome!

Hope you like it!!

Listening: Clean'd Up

2009-02-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is my first polish pass on my shot. I will be doing some more work on it, hopefully soon, but this is where I am at thus far. Hope you like it!

Trav

Listening

2009-01-26T19:30:00.000-08:00

What's up mah crazy animation-friendly peeps?

Just posting an update. This is my newest piece, called "Listening", the story of an employee of S.E.T.I. (The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) who's become a little lax in his duties. Okay, it's not exactly an epic story, but hey, J.R.R. had to start somewhere too, ya? :)

This is a blocking pass. I'm a bit further than this, but I think the transition from clean spline to sharp blocking in a few frames would be too confusing to show.

Enjoy!

Trav

My Rendering Process

2009-01-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

I've been asked to share my method for rendering. This is by no means the "correct" way to render a shot. In fact, I am fairly certain someone will read this and call me out as having "done it wrong all these years," however this is the method I have used to get the result I have wanted in rendering.
It's really just a matter of tweaking some settings:

First, in the plug-in manager, be sure "mayatomr.mll" is turned on.

This will allow you to switch your render settings from "Maya Software" to "Mental Ray"

Open your render settings, and go to the "Mental Ray" tab.

Now tune your settings as follows:

Min Sample Level: -1

Max Sample Level: 1

Filter: Gaus

Raytracing: On

Reflections: 3 (if you have any reflective shaders... if not, dont worry about it)

Refractions: 2 (if you have any objects that are transparent with tweaked refraction)

Motion Blur: Exact (Deformation)

Final Gather: On

Final Gather Rays: 300

Min. Radius: 0

Max. Radius: 2 (Thanks Alper)

There are a lot more fun things in there to play w/, but this is all I use.

Next, select your camera and change its "environment" color to white (Final Gather bases it's lighting on the surrounding color, so this will put a lot of bright light in your scene. Play w/ oranges and blues for some equally nice results, but be careful not to overdo it)

Create a directional light, and point it away from your light source (translation doesn't matter on a directional light, only rotation).

Turn "Ray Trace Shadows" on.

That's about it. Play w/ different lights to get different results. In my latest scene I am also using depth of field (which you can find in the camera settings) but I wont write up on that as I am just playing with it without any true understanding of how it works :)

Hope this helps!!

Travis

Newest Reel

2009-01-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

Here is my Jan 2009 reel. I will have a newer one soon, but I wanted to get it online asap. Enjoy! Trav

The New Face of Oppression... isn't it cute?

2008-12-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hey All,
I had an idea for a character that would work perfectly for my drone chase shot, and so I spent the last two days building and rigging him.

Presenting: V.L.A.D. (Vagabond Location and Acquisition Drone)

The Semi-Finals

2008-12-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Here's the semi-final for the wrestling shot. It still needs some love, but it's almost there :D

I'll have the drone shot up soon as well.

Thanks for looking!

Trav

Mexican Wras'ling!

2008-11-23T14:54:00.001-08:00

Hey Ya!
I'll be posting my rendered final shot for the Drone Escape soon, but I'll first need to change some things around. In the meantime, here's my first blocking pass on my next assignment. If you couldn't guess... the little one's me...

Thanks for stopping by!

Trav

First Pass Blocking -- Drone Escape

2008-11-02T05:38:00.000-08:00

Wheeeew! That was a long night :D But it's finally finished: the first pass blocking of the Drone Escape.

Hope you enjoy it! It was a lot of fun to make, and a really great exercise! Now on to second pass blocking!!!

Trav

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

I didn't make a costume this year, so to make up for it, I put an oven door behind the secretary's desk, along with this delicious recipe:

Sega Employee, a la carte

"3-Time Bake-Your-Employee Contest Winning Recipe!"

Ingredients:
5-7 Strategically-placed buckets of candy
At least 5 dumb employees (12-15 if dish is prepared for party or social event)
Warm, charming atmosphere (such as candy hut or game studio)
Costume (keep 'witch' identity secret at ALL COSTS)
Candy Bar (or fruit-flavored substitute if craving 'Alexis')
8 (six inch) Carrots

Directions:

1. Pre-fatten dumb employees over the course of a month or two prior to event. (Use candy buckets)

2. Get employees accustomed to standing near oven door.

-idea: "Hey Brenton, come watch this hilarious YouTube video I've found..."

3. Keep employees used to seeing your face. Perch near elevator or entryway (or just wander halls randomly talking to people).

4. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) 5 hours prior to event.

5. 3 hours prior to event, hang candy bar in front of oven door (use fishing line -- they'll think it's floating by magic... tee hee!)

6. When employee nears oven door, pop out from under desk and boot them into oven.

7. Repeat steps 6-7 as many times as necessary to fill oven with yummy fattened employees.

8. Bake 2.5 hours.

9. Caution: will be hot! Let cool at least 20 mins.

10. Carrots are for flavor.

11. Enjoy!

Drone Escape, thus far

2008-10-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's still early on, in fact this isn't even completely the first pass of blocking, and there are no drones yet (besides that inexplicable tiny one floating screen left). Thanks for looking! Trav

Golden Axe Reel

2008-10-27T19:06:00.001-07:00

Wooot!

Just finished up stringing together some of my favorite work I did on Golden Axe: Beast Rider.

Feel free to call me out on any lousiness you see -- it'll feel good to say "HA! Don't care... not fixing!"

But how do I REALLY feel?

2008-10-25T12:31:00.001-07:00

This is a test animation I did to get a feeling for how the drones in my new animation will move. This is really rough, but it helped me figure out things such as firing mechanics, path of action, and how to effectively eliminate IGN... err... I meant "how the back flaps will operate"...

For those that don't know, which is probably most of you, IGN.com gave Golden Axe a very biased and unfair (and uninformed) review.

Thanks for looking!

PS. Color scheme is totally up for critique!

Golden Axe: Beast Rider FTW!!!

2008-10-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Wooo hoooo!!! I'm officially published!!!

Okay, so I was credited for Iron Man, but I didn't take great pride in that credit as I only worked on the game for 3 weeks. However, I have poured heart and soul into Golden Axe: Beast Rider for the past year, and I am super excited that it has been published.

Now, while I know you are all going to run right out and buy it and look for my name in the credits, there's something else in the credits I'm even more excited about! My wife Nikki has a credit in there! Her first credit EVER! She's under Special Thanks. If I have my way, you'll be seeing Nikki Howe in the credits of a lot more projects in the future!

Trav

Here's one of my animations from GAX. I'll be piecing a reel together soon! A little intro to this animation:

Jeff Cooperman and I shared what I consider to be the coolest part of Golden Axe: the Twins. One has metal boxing gloves (we call him Mituunz), and the other has spiky leg-armor (we call him Buutz). Jeff did most of Mituunz's animation, and I got to do Buutz. They wanted something to distinguish the two when they do brutal attacks, so that when the player fought against both at once (which does eventually happen), they could tell instantly which boss they just got attacked by strictly by the move. For Mituunz, Jeff decided a throw made the most sense (it's a really funny animation where he plops a hand down on Tyris' head, then picks her up by her hair and tosses her. hahahaha!). My thinking was that if I were that size and I was fighting someone the size of a chihuahua, my first instinct would be to just punt that thing across the field. And it worked well, because Buutz was supposed to have mostly foot-attacks, so a kick fit right in.

Hope you like it!

AnimDrone 1.0 (mission classified)

2008-10-16T22:52:00.001-07:00

This is a turntable for the "opened" and "closed" stages of my yet-to-be-textured-and-rigged Animation Drone, which I'll be using for my next AM project. Hope you like it!

Trav

Updated iPendulum

2008-09-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

I was really fond of the iPendulum idea, and was very disappointed w/ the final result. So I spent the week we had off working w/ it, trying to get it to a point where felt the same way about it as I do about the Tailor animation. I am extremely pleased with the final result. It's not quite to the same level as the Tailor, but it's also a far more complex piece, so I'm okay with that :)

I hope you like it!

Trav

Class 1 is finished!

2008-09-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

Whoo hooo! Finished Class 1! I couldn't be more excited, but at the same time, I hope I get lucky again w/ my mentor (I got a really great one this last term).

Anyway, here's my demo reel from Class One. I'm still reworking the "Scared Walk" and the "iPendulum," so I'll post updates for those later, but for now, enjoy!

Trav

The Work Thus Far

2008-09-06T11:20:00.001-07:00

Hey All!

I have one more assignment for Term One, but thus far, which is to clean up the startled walk, but this is where I'm at thus far in AM. Hope you like it!

Startled Walk Blocking:

Vanilla Walk:

Tailor:

...You've already seen the pendulum, so I'll wait until I've finished polish on that before posting...

Obstacle Course:

Light/Heavy Ball:

Soccer Ball:

The other Tailor

2008-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

After much deliberation I have decided to simplify. Here's my new Tailor piece. I do hope to finish the other, but I decided to focus on the basics for this assignment.

Hope you like it!

WIP Springing the Trap

2008-08-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it looks like this week I'll have to do two animations. I really want to do this animation of Tailor outsmarting a mousetrap, but I don't think my mentor will go for it; too much going on, he wants me to focus on the basics. So I'll be doing another simpler one, but I wanted to post what I have thus far on "Springing the Trap."

iPendulum

2008-08-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

One of our assignments is to do a pendulum animation. For mine I decided to get a little advertisement for Mr. Jobs out of the way as well.

Moral of the story: Kill Two Birds with One Stone. It may be mean, but you'll be the life of the party!

Stupidly Famous...

2008-08-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

A'right so I'm not one to brag or boast, but... I am now stupidly famous! Here's the scoop:

So we've been finishing up on Golden Axe: Beast Rider (Beast Wars and Beast Master were taken... ho hum) and so we've been putting a bit of work into helping out Sega Marketing. The art dept. came to me and asked me to whip up some character and creature poses for them, and just render them out w/ lamberts (I'll post the original renders soon). After I finished, about a month and a half went by and I didn't hear a word.

Then today, one of my fellow animators came and says to me, "Dood," he says, "I just opened up Play Magazine and spotted your ad." So I dropped my mouse and ran to Borders. Lo and behold, there in the very back page of the August 2008 Play Magazine was a two page spread of the poses I'd created! Woot woot!

Oh, and I've recently created another set of poses which should be showing up in a three page centerfold in some magazine somewhere some time soon.

Sorry for the lousy picture, our work scanner is junk so I took these w/ our home camera!

2008-08-01T12:48:00.001-07:00

I'll post the finished ball bounce (and a whole other one) when I get a chance, but here's what I've got so far for my obstacle course:

Hope you like it! Crits always welcome!

Travis

2008-07-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Hey all!
Just a quick update of my first animation assignment. The end still bothers me, but I'm restricted to 100 frames... sigh...

First Animation First Pass

2008-07-14T04:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is early on, but I just want to keep this site extremely up-to-date, so here goes:

The assignment is for a ball bounce, preferably a soccer or basketball. In my case, I'm using a volleyball for reference.

This is in it's earliest stage, only spent about an hour on it. I hope you like it so far, and please feel free to critique!

Travis

Assignment Numero Uno!

2008-07-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

So this week we had a pretty simple set of assignments: go somewhere public and draw the people we see:

...and then use "Stu," one of the AM rigs, to pose out our favorite (I chose #22) and add a little flavor to it:

Let me know what you guys think!

Travis

First Day of School! First Day of School!

2008-07-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

Whoooo hoooo! I've officially had my first day of class... Standard "Meet and Greet" kinda thing, but my class seems really cool! Another Ex'pression Alum is starting at the same time (Mai Van) although we have different mentors.

Watch this blog like a hawk now, things are really going to start ramping up soon! (Hawks are big into blogging, fyi)

Travis

Starting Next Week!

2008-06-24T07:05:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone!
I'll be starting Animation Mentor next week. Sorry I haven't posted recently, I've had a lot of stuff to take care of outside of school, and nothing exciting in the animation department... well, at least nothing I can show right now. Once Golden Axe ships, I'll be sure to post a "Best Of" reel, which has a few pieces I'm really excited about.

Nikki and I went to Disneyland at the beginning of this month, and while there, I got Mr. Incredible curious about my stylish Animation Podcast shirt. If you've never been to The Podcast, check it out at animationpodcast.com It's definitely one of the best resources I've found! [Special thanks to Jonathan Sakimoto for introducing me to the Podcast! Thanks Jon ;) ]

Riddlin'

2008-05-05T09:21:00.001-07:00

Travis

Just another animation test in preparation for Animation Mentor. This one is a gag I was thinking of as part of a short I'd like to do. The bullet holes were all created using booleans, although next time I may use textures, as booleans can cause serious geometry issues. Worked pretty well for me here tho!
This test was also a chance to take my new rig, Larry, for a test drive. In the hands of a more proficient rigger, he would've been much easier to control, but he works well enough for my needs.

Enjoy!

2008-05-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

I finally have my first published title! Iron Man (the game) came out yesterday. While there are versions for the psp and the Wii, Secret Level (my studio) was only responsible for the PS3 and XBox360 versions.

Here's the trailer released at this year's Comic Con.

Strangely, this trailer was never released publicly, and, in my opinion, it's a much better trailer than the ones that were released:

http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=rFYTVR3jwQM

And as a bonus, it has four (maybe five) of my shots in it :) Yay for getting onto Youtube (which is mostly controlled by 12 year old American Idol hopefuls with webcams)!

Here's a shots list:

-Directly after the Fighter Jet shot, there's a quick slow-to-turning shot of Iron Man with his air break wings out.

-(I think the shot directly following this of Iron Man flying down into the camera is mine, but if so, they tweaked the timing to look cartoony... BOOOOO!)
-Directly after he takes out a helicopter with his pulse blastin' chest, there's a shot where he does a barrel roll.

-Directly after it says "In Air or On the Ground", this is a sequence of the final boss battle Cinematic I did.

-Directly after it says "You are a One Man Army", when he flies past the camera, this is another clip from a Cinematic I did.

Hope you like it! I'm just excited to have been a part of such a great game! The movie's DEFINITELY worth checking out in theaters! It's so awesome!!!

Pocket Bike Concept

2008-04-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post, but I have an idea for a simple acting piece I'd like to do, and it involves one of those funny little motorcycles called "pocket bikes" that grew to incomprehensible popularity for about a week and a half a few years back. I spent yesterday coming up with my own version. I'll be modeling it soon, but for now, here's the concept!

Drowning with James Cameron...

2008-04-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Here's the other test I did over the weekend. Just a simple clusters test for a dialog piece I'm thinking of doing, based on a really intense sequence in "The Abyss." Hope you like it! Again, please be forgiving of the proxy animation, this is simply a test:

Time to Kill...

2008-03-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had a bit of time to kill, so I thought I'd get a jump start on some things I could use for AM. The first is a "proof-of-concept" test I put together. I have been watchin AM reels for a while now, and I know that one particular assignment is to do a ball with a fox-tail bouncing across the screen. I've seen people do some really clever stuff with it, and I wanted to think up something original that would allow me to do the ball bounce while still putting my own creative twist on it. There's a longer idea to this, but in short it involves a mouse trap. I built and rigged the mousetrap, and then couldn't resist giving it a test run. Hope you like it! (Again, just proof-of-concept... the animation's a little crappy, please be kind ;)

Then my wife came home, and had to do some homework, so I thought I'd do some more Maya-ing. I've seen a lot of box lifts through AM, and while the animation's usually very impressive, there's still something boring about a Lambert cube. So I thought I'd build a pumpkin to use for my lifts. I'm going to give it clusters and whatnot to make it feel inside-heavy and "fleshy." This is just one render (ignore the "hay," I was bored) of how it looks, but I'm decently happy with it! Hope you like!

I had one more project this weekend (besides rigging an accorn, which isn't very exciting) but sadly my connection's not letting me upload the video, so I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for it! Until next time!

Back to School...

2008-03-30T16:44:00.001-07:00

I've officially been accepted into Animation Mentor! Yippieeeee! Pending finding the financial means, I will begin classes June 30th. That gives me a nice long time to sit on my butt... Actually, it works out well, as Golden Axe is currently in "crunch" mode, and things will be crazy until around May or June.

So from here on in, this blog will be solely dedicated to my progress through AM. Things'll get a little nuts, I imagine, so I may not be able to post as frequently as I'd like, but we'll see what happens!

Wish me luck!

Introducing Bambalina!

2007-11-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've been planning a short called "The Magnet Vendor" for a little over a year. I'll give a synopsis a little later, but I wanted to show a bit of the progress. I've begun modeling one of the key characters, Bambalina (Italian for "Little Girl"). She will not be introduced until the last segment of the short, but is very important to the overall feel, and I wanted to start her before the title character, as I feel she'll lay down a lot of the groundwork for the short's style. Here are a few renders of her head thus far. Enjoy!

Fold This Paper!

2007-10-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

A talented animator I've been mentoring sent me the following email:

I was just looking at the playblast you sent to me last weekend. I stepped through it frame by framed and noticed that it seems you keyed your blocking on 8's and 4's. It looks good and I am curious as to why you use that approach. When you have a moment, could you please talk about that a little?

In my response, I realized that this was a habbit of mine that I have been incorporating for years, and it had been a long time since I thought about why. When I typed up the email, I was forced to dig from the back of my brain (a place into which only the boldest dare to venture), and even to drag down my copy of IOL from the dusty top-shelf, and found that as I responded, I was preaching to myself. With that in mind, I decided to open this blog, to post to anyone who would like to listen in on my self-preaching in hopes that, along with you, I will learn things that I had either forgotten, or can now think of in a new way, having garnered much experience since the last time I cracked open Frank and Ollies legendary work.

Yes, I do tend to animate on fours (4, 8, 16, and so on). There are a few reasons for this. First of all, [the animation my friend is speaking of] was my rough blocking pass, on which I'm trying to get a basic idea for the timing. Had I felt the need, as often has been the case, I will bring it down to even a 3 or a 2, or a 6, or whatever feels accurate, but in the rough blocking, fours keep everything organized, and a frame or two from final timing is close enough. It is recommended in The Illusion of Life (IOL, 230) not to take it below "4 frames apiece and no more than 24." This keeps everything simple (an acronymn thrown around a lot in this industry is K.I.S.S.- Keep It Simple, Stupid) and allows you to see whether your poses are working, whether they're "strong enough, or too strong, and if the amount of time allowed for the scene is going to be right" (IOL, 230) . That is reason number one.

Reason number two is based on something talked about in The Illusion of Life, although I'm making a liar of myself, as I can't seem to find it anywhere in here. Should somebody know the page number, I'd be very appreciative if you could send it my way (It is entirely possible that this was actually from The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. [Frank and Ollie, or Richard, perhaps] mention that they tended to animate in such a way that it broke things down for their in-betweeners to much more managable segments. If, for example, I was to animate a ball bounce, and I started on frame 1, then I did the key poses, and handed it off to my assistant to take care of the 'tweening, but I keyed it at 4, then at 7, then at 10 (on threes), he's now got TWO drawings to make instead of three, which is not a good thing, because it makes it more difficult for him to decide where those poses go. Imagine taking a piece of paper and being told "Fold this into thirds or fourths, to make 3 or 4 equal-length rectangles." Given the option, chances are, you'd go with fourths. Why? Because it's easier to fold it in half, then in half again, than it is to estimate where one-third of the paper is. The animator (who has an assistant) has created the paper. The two ends of the paper represent the keyframes that he/she's set, and the assistant now has to break it down. If the animator set those keys at 1 and 4 (or 0 and 3, in our case), they've told their assistant "fold this in thirds," because they've only got 2 frames to figure out the 'tweening, or two "creases to make in the paper." On the other hand, if they set those keys at 1 and 5 [0 and 4], they've told their assistant "fold this in quarters." That gives the assistant 3 keys to play with. A central key on which to base their timing, and one on either end.

*EDIT* In reading this myself, I think I oversimplified something: When you are animating, your poses will not be directly at half-and-half. You will seldom have a shot where in between frame 0 and frame 5, 3 is exactly halfway. You must, of course, incorporate easing in and easing out, overlap, follow through, and a dozen other principles that will sell the shot. My "fold this paper" analogy is meant strictly to demonstrate how it's easier to break something up by having a frame that comes at halfway (time-wise).

Now, obviously, in our case, we don't have an assistant, but the principle still holds true: if you break down your shot in such a way that you're allowing yourself to "fold this in quarters" down the road when it comes time for cleanup, you're making your own life (or the life of whoever might take over the shot) a whole lot easier. Si?