Walt Stanchfield Goodness...

I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but Don Hahn will be publishing Walt Stanchfield's animation/gesture notes from when he worked at Disney(when they were in their prime). The books are called Drawn To life and you can find them here. I sent my order in for them at Amazon books and will be receiving soon. They're very cheap for 400 pages per volume (2 volumes) and I would definitely suggest picking them up. Also, check this link out for about 200 pages free of copyright by Walt Stanchfield edited by Leo Brodie. I'm currently reading this and it's fantastic! You can download the pdf Here

walks and runs

hey guys just stumbled across this great website on walks and runs, which are surprisingly pretty complicated to animate! check them out, esp the ones who're attempting these exercises! http://arcresourcepage.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post_2957.html

Hey guys!

Hey guys, new here to the blog just wanted to say hi and see how this thing works :D Here's an animation I did last month while things were kinda slow at work. Lemme know what ya think!

ice age 3 trailer

Hey folks, New trailer is out for ice age 3.Check it out and sorry for not being able to post new stuff. My internet is down, will be back soon. Untill that enjoy http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=498f0b30-28eb-4ca4-9079-d537fcbe24b0 cheers vinay

the eyebrows!

another great tip from carlos baena! he talks about the usage of eyebrows in acting! check it out! http://www.carlosbaena.com/resource/resource_tips_brows.html

indian animation ROCKING!!

guys these are some of the most HILARIOUS clips i've ever witnessed in my life! and the best part: it's all PAKKA DESI (courtesy: webchutney)!! this is a caricature of the famous pankaj udhaas ghazal "chithhi aayi hai". this is on sholay! this is on ali baba and 40 thieves! u've probably seen these, but what i wanna say is i'm just so glad that indian animation is coming up with gr8 stuff like this! THIS IS WHERE WE SHUD FOCUS OURSELVES! check them out and LYAO! :D

ZV Parent Master !

Monsters, here's a cool plugin for you guys ...will help you solve your parent-child linking problems ...while animating objects, now you need not worry about constraints and all ...just animate and those objects will be animated for you ...even though they are animated by plugin, you get the keys, so that you can modify it accordingly to get perfectly what you want ...see the video above and you will know what I am talking about ! Download it from highend3d ! Enjoy !

"UP" new trailer

Check out the latest trailer of the upcoming pixar movie "UP". These guys blow my mind every time. dammn http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810014785/video/12354991 cheers vinay

ED HOOKS : ACTING NOTES

Hey, monsters ...while browsing net i found these cool tips about acting given by Ed Hooks ...learn and enjoy ! :) 1. Scenes begin in the middle, not the beginning. 2. A character should be "doing" something 100 percent of the time. 3. A character enters a scene for a reason, and he exits for a reason. 4. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action. 5. A gesture need not be an illustration of the spoken word. 6. Audiences empathize with emotion. The key to good animation is in empathy. 7. Comedy is drama heightened, oxygenated. 8. An action pursues a longer term objective. (Smile at the girl because you want to date her.) 9. Short term memory causes eyes to glance upward. 10. Long term memory causes eyes to glance downward, into the soul. 11. The human sense of sight is many times more powerful than the sense of hearing. 12. Humans act to survive. Find the survival mechanism in your character. 13. Play an action until something happens to make you play a different one. 14. A scene is a negotiation. 15. "Actors are athletes of the heart" - Artonin Artaud 16. Anxiety is a high or heady power center; confidence is a low power center. 17. Emotions are automatic value responses. 18. Characters that make steady eye contact for more than a few seconds are either going to fight or make love. 19. The human smile says, "I won't hurt you." 20. Never underestimate the audience. 21. When you animate, you are saying to the audience, "Iunderstand this." When the audience applauds, laughs or cries, it is saying, "I see what you mean." 22. Actors lead; audiences follow. 23. Background characters can be defined with shadow movement - a jiggling knee, a charcter's mouth moving when he reads the paper, biting fingernails and so on. 24. "The Iron Giant" is an animation classic. Every animator should study it, like visiting Mecca. 25. We see things before we hear them; we hear things before we touch them; we touch things before we smell them; we smell things before we taste them. 26. A villain is a regular person that has a fatal flaw. 27. A hero is a regular person that has to rise to extreme heights to overcome an extraordinary obstacle. 28. The "beats" in a scene or script are better perceived as "beads" in a necklace. One bead leads to the next to the next and so on. Put the beads together, and you have a story. 29. The purpose of (character) movement is destination. 30. Acting has almost nothing to do with words. 31. Commercials convey almost zero actual information. They are about emotion. 32. Humans and other animals negotiate status continually. 33. To energize a scene, convert the character's "wants" to "needs." 34. Theatrical reality isn't the same thing as regular reality. 35. Acting is reacting. 36. Animators are not mimes. Mime is a specialized art. 37. A key ingredient of empathy is distance. 38. Old people stoop because their bodies ache. 39. A drunk character tries to counteract the effects of the alcohol. 40. To show that a character is hot, have him try to get cool. 41. To show that a character is cold, have him try to get warm. 42. An "adrenaline" moment is one the character will remember when he turns eighty and looks back on his life. The best movies include plenty of adrenaline moments. (Re-read #24) 43. A character analysis is like a character biography. 44. When a character is faced with a choice, be specific. Avoid ambivalence. 45. Allow your characters to be affected by the atmosphere in a location, the "feeling" it projects. (A car wreck has an atmosphere; a church has an atmosphere; a marriage bed has an atmosphere.) 46. Yelling is a weak acting choice. 47. We speak of memory in general terms, but it is referenced in specific mental images. 48. A character that is listening to another is actually preparing to speak. 49. The camera tends to follow the character's gaze. 50. A scene should have conflict, otherwise known as an obstacle. 51. Trick for suggesting villainy: tilt head forward; eyes peer upward, exposing whites in lower portion of eyeball. 52. Character "personality" is actually character "behavior."

pantomime + gearchange

hi guys i'm sort of done with my pantomime /gearchange exercise! it was GR8 fun!! however i STILL have to tighten up a few things here and there. i'll also slowly be putting textures and adding details to it. but now i gotta get on with my FIRST EVER DIALOGUE!! ooooh man cant wait for it! ^_^ btw i guess one of the BEST (& safest, lol) ways to take revenge on a REAL b'lore traffic policeman for his CRAPPY traffic controlling is to ANIMATE him!! that way he'll atleast be IN YOUR CONTROL! lol :D do give in ur c & c! p.s. vinay, kasana i tried to incorporate the changes u guys gave me, but while i was doing that, unfortunately i realised my deadline was rather speeding up on me! so i had to let them go... sorry guys! :(

animationmentor newsletter

Hey folks, Mentor news letter is up and this time we got loads and loads of goodies to take away. guess what, tips and tricks volume 2 is up. Check it out http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/0309/ cheers vinay

Animation is not a birthright !

Hey Guys, here is a nice article by Bill Miller about why there is whining among Indian animators when they are compared with there western counterparts and why that's absolutely wrong ! :) The Link on Animationxpress

BLAKE "just awesome"

Hello monsters...hope everybody is good...i just came by and i guess all the monsters r taking rest...bwhahehe!! very few ppl r active ahhh...i wonder what happened ^_^ allright guys here is the deal, the new rig in town...and let me tell u, norman is out very good news but just check this out,U will go Mad....amazing,this Rig is just amazing..check it out guys BUt the rig can be used only in maya 2008 and higher T.T http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIH2hw6zxpk&feature=channel Rig features: * Multiple appearance options and clothing accessories * Stretchy IK back with advanced twist controls * Stretchy arms and legs with bendy elbows/knees * FK/IK switching with FK/IK Matching for arms and legs * Space Switching for arms and legs * Clavicle controls * Elbow and knee pole vector controls * Full Finger Controls * Multiple foot pivots * Breath control * Ear controls * Stretchable head and neck * Scalable from the Super Mover * Full Osipa style facial rig highend3d Enjoy Maadi Cheers Harish.k

House of cool

Hey folks, Man i just love this studio. Check out their work and get inspired http://www.houseofcool.com/ cheers vinay

pixar's UP! (latest trailer)

guys pete docter is gonna SMASH our brains for sure!! check out the latest trailer of UP. we're going on an unusual journey this summer INDEED!! pixar ROCKS!

pantomime + gearchange (full blocking)

hey guys i'm done with the blocking of my pantomime! got one week to open it. i hope the clip is not too fast, esp the cartoony run!! i'm also a li'l confused abt the layout, i dont want the traffic pedestal at any point of time to hinder with the cop's silhouette, which is happening right now when he walks to the right! plz suggest some changes. also do pour in ur c&c. btw prasad, i tried to give him a bored attitude, but it didnt really work out. seems like he HAS to stay alert all the time!! lol :D any more changes are more than welcome!

NORMAN IS OFFICIALLY FREE!!!

hey MONSTERS!!!! great news! now the rig is FREE!!! WHICH RIG U ASK!!! (of course you all know if u read the title :D ) Norman is Free!!! heres the Site http://sites.google.com/site/normanrig/ Happy Animating!