Archive for the ‘animation’ Category

Just wanted to share some lighting and texturing for “Cinna-Mon” (a piece originally created for Pepper Films).  I animated/rigged this several months ago. And just recently, I re-did the lighting/texturing.

The still above is a frame from that animation. 

The last several months has seen an upturn in work.  Maybe this recession is finally starting to turn around.  Currently, we are in production on three commercials.  At the same time, the number of bids have increased substantially.  Hopefully, this is not a short lived phenomenon.

I’m also in the midst of editing a new directors reel for Toonstruck that will be placed online and shipped to those that have asked for it.  Finding time to do it has been difficult.  However, it is very close to being finished.

I’m happy to announce that just recently, the paperwork was signed to have my short film, Till Death Do Us Part, distributed by Ouat Media.  Their sales team will be making efforts to get the film shown on television, cable, airlines, the internet, and more.

This is pretty exciting.  The more people that see it, the better!  The bad news is that I won’t know ahead of time when it will be on!  If for some reason I do get fair warning, I’ll be sure to let it be known here.

If you see it, be sure to let me know!

Much of my work over the last so many years is locked away under NDAs.  While it is great to work on these projects, it can be a real problem when I’m trying to load up my reel with new material.

The obvious solution is to animate a few things on my own so that I can stick them on the demo.  The problem with that is just finding time to do it.  So, the answer was to take a few moments and animate something short and sweet.

I gave myself a weekend.  The result is the animation posted below.  All in all, it took me around 20-25 hours to complete (not including lighting, rendering or rigging).  For those of you familiar with the 11 second club, you may recognize the audio.  I went to their website and grabbed last months and used that.

Animation Weekend #1 from Rick May on Vimeo

Download a brighter HD version here.

The model came from one of those freebies you can download for Maya.  Unfortunately, the body rigging had some issues, so I spent some time and re rigged it to my liking.  The face rig was left as-is and worked pretty well.  If I have more time someday, I may re-rig it too.

The video was uploaded to Vimeo.  Mainly because you can send them/view HD res video.  Unfortunately, the video is darker when viewed on their system.  Lucky for you, you can download the HD quicktime if you’d like to see it a little brighter.

I plan to do another “Animation Weekend” before too long.  Next time, I may try for something a little more physically driven instead of dialogue.  We’ll see.