Iestyn Roberts' Blog
I decided to focus a bit on body mechanics over the last couple of weeks, and thought it would be a great idea to animate a full body dance.
It was a fun project to animate, seeing as I’ve never animated a dance scene before. The folks over at 11secondclub helped me out a lot by giving me some great feedback, and generally, I’m very happy with how he turned out.
I’ve dedicated this to my lovely girlfriend, Regina, who’s being super awesome to me right now, who loves Parov’s music so much, and today just happens to be her name day - Všechno nejlepší k svátku, Regina! xo
The audio is Parov Stelar’s ‘Catgroove’ and the Norman Rig is the ‘Cool Shirt Norman’ by F.C. Kiral.
If you’l like to see the Work in Progress thread for this, here’s a link from blocking, straight through to the final render: Got the Groove.
Whilst going through my old files, I decided to playblast my Animation Mentor – Term 1 Reel out, and upload it so that I have a reference of it on my website. I’ll render it out someday, so it’s all nice and shinny, but for now, the playblast version is ok. The exercises taught me so much about animation, and it’s good to look back at them now and again. I’ve also included my Baseball pitch from Term 2.
I’ve also created a new page, titled ‘3D Stills‘ which I’ve uploaded my Animation Mentor Poses, along with some other stills of mine. I really enjoyed doing the poses back at AM, I think I’ll start creating them again on a weekly bases, to get some inspiration flowing!
Chaplin Stance
For the last two weeks, the 11secondclub.com have held a mini-challenge based on the theme ‘Sport’s Swing’. Since I’ve just purchased the fantastic Kenny Roy lecture on ‘Cartoony Animation’ I decided to try something in a ‘Cartoony’ approach. (Kenny’s lecture was full of those fantastic ‘Ah-ha!’ moments, and his delivery was really clear – I highly advise you guys check out his tutorials).
I began looking around for some inspiration, and found a pretty lovely short by Goofy called ‘How to play Baseball’. It was full of great little gems, so I decided to use him as my inspiration for my shot:
I’m quite happy with how he turned out. I tried to really push the Norman rig as much as I could (Mod by F.C. Kiral - Cool Sports Norman), by really pushing the poses, but there’s a few poses here and there that I think, looking at it now, I’ve pushed a little bit too much, so I will go back and address them. It was a good exercise, and I learned a great deal, also getting some really great feedback from the folks on the forum.
As for the render – still trying to get my head around it. Been reading up on some great tutorials, and it’s starting to make some sense. For Normal, I’ve faked the back lighting, and used the Illuminati script for the Global Illumination effect.
If you want to see my ‘Work in Progress’ on this, you can check out the different stages of the animation click this link: 11 Second Club, Mini Challenge Thread
Here’s the Challenge Blogpost on the 11secondclub Blog: Give it some Swing
I shall post an update when I’ve corrected some Issues I have with the piece.
I submitted this animation for the awesome folks at Anim Dalies for some feedback, and they’ve just given me some awesome review of my shot, which I’ll be addressing over the next few days. To read the feedback, check it out here: Iestyn Roberts – Cartoony Baseball Swing, Anim Dailies
I’m starting to render out a few of my shots, while working on my demo reel. Since rendering is something that I’m relatively new at, I’ve started small, and rendered out my simple walk cycle:
I followed a couple of tutorials to get the rendering effect, mainly Georgi Zahariev’s and Ciaran Dempsey - faking the Rim light by using the ramp node, and Sampler Info node – really lovely results, with minimal rendering times. As for the light, I simply used the Illuminati rig, which I’m quite happy with – due to my current lack of Rendering knowledge. So hopefully, the next render will be a bit more ambitious! Learning is fun!
Towards the end of 2010, I headed back home to Wales from London for a nice long weekend to see my friends and family, and to go walking a wee bit. (And to test out my new kit!)
On a chilly and windy day, I headed up to Cwm Idwal to walk up the beautiful hanging valley with Neil, John and Del the dog.
We only did a quick loop on this run, starting from the Idwal Cottages below, heading into the Cwm itself, round the lake and up towards Clogwyn y Geifr, from there we headed straight up Y Garn, and down the path that leads towards the Pinnacle Crag, doing a nice tidy loop of the valley.
Whilst ontop of Y Garn, we almost nearly had a full cloud inversion, but the clouds quickly disbursed, but the view towards Snowdon was fantastic.
Here’s a collection of Panoramas taken on the trek:
Cwm Idwal. Tryfan, Glyder Fach, Glyder Fawr. Snowdonia, North Wales
Snowdon Inversion, taken from Y Garn
Cwm Idwal, looking towards Glyder Fawr & Castell y Geifr
God Rays, Cwm Idwal
Climbing in Cwm Idwal
Towards the end of January, a couple of my old co-workers from Cotswold Outdoors, Covent Garden came up to spend the week with me, before I headed out to Germany. On the last day, we headed up to do a bit of the Snowdon Horse Shoe route (only with Larry, as Tariq twisted his knee and was unable to walk much), and I managed to snap a few panoramas while at the top of Lliwedd Bach – looking down into Cwm Dyli and Llyn Llydaw. It was a bitter cold day, but was great to be up on the hills, which I didn’t do much while I was down in London.
Llyn Llydaw & Larry
Looking towards Snowdon, Lliwedd on the left
As I mentioned, over May I attended a course in Aberystwyth, Mid Wales on Freelancing. We covered pretty much everything involved in going Freelance, from Taxes, to Networking, to seeing your Strengths and Weaknesses. For me, it was a brilliant course, funded by the good people of Go Wales, as I learned so much about everything. The tutors were really helpful, with a wealth of knowledge, and I’m really happy I attended.
A couple of weeks after the course, I was contacted by Go Wales, asking if they could do a wee interview with me about the course, what I enjoyed, and if I got everything I wanted out of it, and here it is!
Iestyn Roberts – Go Wales Interview (or click the image above)
