Christoffer's corner

Ninja animation WIP2

2010-08-01T01:58:00.003+02:00

An update on the animation.
I did a few changes and just generally put in a few more hours to polish the poses a bit more.
Check it out here, by clicking the picture:

I gave the lighting a shot as well.
Still a lot to tweak, especially in relation to the characters which are underlit, but I'm trying to keep rendertimes way down which is going great so far. Rendering with Maya Software render at around 1 minute a frame in 1280*720 at production quality (no motion blur, though).

Ninja Animation

2010-07-22T11:31:00.004+02:00

It's been a while to say the least.
I finished first year of animation school, and 2d animation is now history - at least for now.
I can't wait to start on 3d!
I think 2d has been a perfekt background and starting ground, and I feel blessed I got a chance to learn animation this way.

I'm still busy with my shortfilm, but after modeling characters for a few weeks I just really need to do some animation, so I started this shot yesterday.
It only a few hours into it, but I think it could be a sweet piece if enough time gets invested into it.

Also first time i try to embed quicktime into a blogpost, so hopefully it works :)

Have a nice day

animation shelf

2010-03-30T12:22:00.005+02:00

Hey guys.

A non-animation update... sort of...
I have an animation shelf in maya, that was populated with a bunch of standart maya shelf icons, for opening different animation related editors, and a few neat commands.

There is really NOT much to it, but maybe someone can find it usefull.
The icons looks like this:

Probably not the prettiest icons you'll ever see, but they are better than the standart maya ones.
It's for Playblast (last settings), toggle on/off playback rate display on screen, open graph editor, toggle on/off frame count display on screen and open dope sheet.

You can download the full pack here, plus the icons, and even the psd in 320*320 so you can edit whatever you want and scale for your self.
I trust you know where to put what ;)

Link

Hope you can find some use to it.
Oh, and the base of the Framecounter was found, I believe, on the 11secondclub.com forums awhile ago.
I just modifed it, added toggle on/off, and based it on the playback speed script.

Cheers

Bernard at bar

2010-03-14T23:39:00.000+01:00

Another animation created about four days with lectures and such.
This time around I chose Bernard from The Rescuers to animate.
I had a hard time keeping it on model, I guess my 3d preference came through pretty clearly ;)

anyways, the story layout was, that the character is sitting in a bar waiting. That's it!
And it HAD to be five seconds. Nothing more, Nothing less. I added a few frames after it was done, just to hold that last pose a bit, so it ended at 125 frames or so.

I had a great time working on it, and got a chance to do some more subtle animation, which I absolutely love to do!
I had focus on not doing to much pose to pose animation. Hiding the keys is probably the wrong way to put it, but floating smoothly through the keys rather than key-hold-key-hold.

'Nough said, here it is:

Bernard at bar from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

More short film concept

2010-03-05T20:20:00.003+01:00

Okay, sorry for the lack of updates.
It's been a while since I posted anything on my short film, Deep, partly because it now has it's own site over at Deepfilm.blogspot.com but even there, it's pretty vague with info and updates.

The lack of updates doesn't mean I've stop working on it, it just means most of the work I do is falls under the pre production category, and those things I'd like to keep for myself and a few selected friends.
To sum up on the production, I've got the character design of the main character pretty much down, but I expect a few changes.
I'm still working on the storyboard/animatic, but it's getting closer and closer for sure.
Then I've done a few colored storyboard panels, to see where I wanted it to go - color wise - and that's what I'd like to show here.

So here you go, four colored story board drawings (carefully selected, not to reveal the story) and a logo :D
Please enjoy, and stay tuned for more updates :)

Cheers

temporary animation reel

2010-02-23T10:07:00.001+01:00

So here is the reel as it looks so far.
It's not finished yet, even one shot in there is only blocked in.

The finished reel should be finished around april.

Temporary animation reel from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Midway test

2010-02-07T14:02:00.004+01:00

This is the first test we have had at school.
No teachers to guide us, only our peers.

The rules were that he should lie down across the door, change mood from sad to determined/angry, get up and try to open the door.
The whole thing should last no more or less than 120 frames (five seconds).

It was quite a challenge, first of all to hit exactly 120 frames, but later on the room we were given, was very small and a big challenge to get him in an interesting way from one side to the other, as there wasn't really enough room for a run.

I shot some reference of my self, and based a few important pieces on that (the was he gets up, and the slide in the end).

he are my initial thumbnails:

And here is the final animation, created in one intense week:

midway test from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Quadroped

2010-01-31T13:06:00.001+01:00

A couple of four legged shots I've animated in my sparetime.
I've never touched (studied or animated) four legged creatures before, neither their anatomy nor their movement, so this was a pleasant break from the usual biped stuff.

These are done in my sparetime.
I take only credit for the animation.

The rigs can be found on creativecrash.com

Running dog, final version from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Scared deer from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Deep shortfilm look exploration.

2010-01-27T01:51:00.002+01:00

A new picture is up from my shortfilm.
It can also be found at it's own blog: www.deepfilm.blogspot.com
This time I'm exploring the look of the film, further.

The background is a mixture of a lot of different stuff, but mainly a water color test.

The storyboard of the film is close to tied down.
More updates to come soon!

Get Up old man!

2010-01-23T23:31:00.001+01:00

The next animation assignment I'm giving my self, is an old man getting up from laying down to standing.
I shot some reference, tried to analyze it, find the weight, the force, the motion, the timing, all the small subtle stuff that makes animation come to life.
Find the keys, the breakdowns and so on.
Here is a chart of my Keyframes:

I have set up my maya scene, so it's ready to animate with!
Hopefully I can start blocking my animation tomorrow. We'll see.

Cheers

Oh! btw!
I've open a blog for my everlasting short film project: "Deep".
Check out some pre-prod. stuff here:
www.deepfilm.blogspot.com

cheers again

A couple of character drawings

2009-12-20T14:05:00.003+01:00

The production of my shortfilm is currently put on hold, mainly because I've decided to focus on getting an animation reel ready for spring (march/april), and don't want to "waste" time with character design and storyboarding.

That being said, I still have a few moments here and there, when I'm doing nothing, and I'm trying to use these moments creatively and sketch a bit.
The outcome of some of these precious "nothing" moments is the following:

It's pretty much just character design, on my main character for the "Deep" short film.
I still feel very much for telling the story, and when my reel is done, I'll hopefully have time to continue it.

Cheers

Dog runcycle

2009-12-20T13:58:00.003+01:00

Okay, so I found a rig of a dog that's way better than any wolf rig I could find, so I ended up making a dog runcycle, which fits perfectly, 'cause the poses were actually taken from a dog and not a wolf. I just figured a wolf would be more badass :D
Rig credit goes to: Sudeesh S (http://www.creativecrash.com/users/sudhi3d)

Anyways, here is the result of the 3d animation so far.
It lacks a bit of weight, and the head movement is not as good as it could/should be.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the four-legged animals, how they walk and run. There is a lot to understand and keep and eye on.

Dog runcycle from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I hope you like it, though :)

Cheers

More wolf planning

2009-12-16T22:38:00.003+01:00

Not a big update here.

I just erased my comments on the thumbs, and put 'em one on top of each other, and imported it into a editing app.

Here is how it plays on ones.
I have a feeling it goes at bit too slow, and it is a bit mechanical.
When I pose it in 3d, I will have to push each pose a bit to make it more dynamic.

Anyways, here is the animation test of my thumbs:

run cycle thumbnails from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Wolf animation

2009-12-16T03:24:00.004+01:00

Hi guys.

I've focused my spare time animation on creature stuff atm. and I'm struggling with the challenge.

A LOT of weight distribution is happening all the time, but with some practice I should get the basics, I hope.
The assignment I've given my self, is a running lion, wolf, dog, tiger, or four legged creature of that kind, what ever nice rig I can find :)

Besides this, I've been working on a deer animation, but it's giving me some trouble, so I've desided to move on, learn some more, and get back to it.

Here are the thumbnails for the run.
As I arranged the page in photoshop, I realised I've probably drawn a bit too many, but at this stage, I thinks it's important I don't think I can make up stuff as a go, and prepare myself as good as possible.
Check them out and leave a comment if you please.

I'm not really sure about the 12 frames for the entire run.
So far I've focused on the poses, next up will be the timing of them.

Cheers

Design week

2009-12-14T13:14:00.004+01:00

Once again we had a design week, were we could follow up on last time we had it, and dig even deeper into the seven elements of design (line, shape, form, space, color, value and texture), and how - through contrast - we could make them work the way we want them.

First up, we did a visual representation of Jazz music. Just like last time with strawberry icecream and dark chocolate.
I don't really feel that I nailed it, but here it is anyways:

Then we spend quiet some time focusing on texture and value, how to shade/render an object, to make it feel different than another, to give it texture through value/shading.

We got the assignment to make a fully rendered "final" drawing, of a interior house burning.

That proved to be quiet a challenge.

Here is the lineart:

Then I spend a long night rendering it, trying to make sure the smoke felt diffrent than the fire, the focus point was the right place, the right levels of value, and so forth. A lot of things to keep in mind.

Here is the final result:

Drunk Goofy

2009-12-04T16:42:00.003+01:00

Drunk Goofy from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

A lot of "new" things where tried out in this week.
I decided to do the whole animation in a 3/4 perspective, which ment for the first time, to try and do a walk in perpective.

I also tried to work a bit differently with my drawings.
Instead of focusing on one principle at a time, I tried to incoorporate all animation principles into each drawing, while I did them, thinking of flow, arcs, anticipation, follow through, drag and so on.

Most of the scene is animated straight ahead, but with my initial keys as a guideline for where I wanted my character to go. For this animation, straight ahead animation felt like the best choice, because of the constant weight shift and the extreme drag in the limbs.

The whole animation is done in about 4 days, and just as with the weight lift exercise, with the great animator Meelis Arulepp as teacher, guide, mentor, animator-dude :)
-Always a pleasure.

Cheers

Saturday sketching

2009-11-21T20:48:00.003+01:00

Today a bunch of us went down to a ice skate track to sketch people.
It was quite a chill day, though beautifull and with warmth clothes there was no problem spending a couple of hours outsite.

Here is the result that stands public viewing ;)

Goofy lift

2009-11-13T15:49:00.004+01:00

This week we worked on a goofy animation.

The focus was on weight, as he was supposed to lift a heavy stone.

Here are my thumbnails of which I based my key drawings.

And here is the final animation.
It took about 4 days.

Goofy Lift from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I had, besides the weight, focus on contrast. Contrast in timing and contrast in posing.
Even though I had some major ups and downs with this project, the end result i satisfying.

Design

2009-11-13T15:43:00.007+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a design class.

We talked about abstract design that could give a universal feeling of something, without being too specific, and thereby not as open.

The first picture is a abstract representation of Strawberry Icecream:

The second one is a abstract representation of Dark Chocolate:

It was all very interesting and super usefull for all design purposes :)

Cheers!

Character design

2009-10-29T18:42:00.002+01:00

Hi there.
I've been working a lot on the character design for my shortfilm, and I've come down to this one.
Things might change again later, but for now, I feel I've hit something that'll work.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers

Week 43 drawings

2009-10-24T21:13:00.002+02:00

Here is a collection of drawings I've made at thursday and friday.

We were to develope characters from an imaginary film project themed Clown Hunters.

I designed a few clowns and they looks like this:

I also drew a movie poster :

Cheers!

Library sketches

2009-10-15T19:29:00.003+02:00

Today I vent to the library to sketch people.
I was there for about two hours. Here is the 0.001% that came out sorta acceptable ;-)

Check it out :)

Cheers

visual identity

2009-10-15T01:24:00.002+02:00

Hi :)

Today I tried to do a bit of cg work for the shortfilm.
I'm trying to find the visual look/identity for the film, and of course a lot of will be in the textures and shading as well, bit in lighting and compositing as well.
Anyways, just wanted to throw it at ya!

I rendered a 50 frame sequence with a simple camera move, and a bunch of different renderpasses, which I composited together to get to this result. The rendertimes, even with motion blur were acceptable at this point, which is a pretty good sign.
I think this scene will be the one I will use to find the style, both in look and later in animation.

The lab :D

Feel free to speak your mind and leave a comment :)

Pink Panther assignments

2009-10-12T22:09:00.002+02:00

Hi there.
Here is a collection of the latest school assignments I've done.
They feature the lovely Pink Panther character.

They shouldn't be considered final animation pieces, but as the animation studies there are.
Because of time/skill constraints, they all have severe lacks in different areas, but work okay in the areas of focus :)

Pink Panther Table hit from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Pink Panther Standard Walk from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Pink Panther Attitude walk from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I aplogize for the lack of preview image.
Hopefully Vimeo will add it soon!
Cheers!

Shortfilm updates

2009-10-06T02:24:00.003+02:00

Nothing to show just yet, but some exciting news for sure, though.
I'm still damn busy at school, but I'm still kicking on with the short film.
In about a week I'm going to pitch my film and present whatever work I have done, to The Open Workshop, at The Animation Workshop, here in Denmark. Open Workshop (OW) is housing and support for animated shortfilm projects, both national and international.
This means that a lot of super talented people is roaming the hallways in the building.

If things goes well, I will be able to pick their brains a bit, and get creative feedback on storyboard (story), color development, character design, music/sound and so forth.
This will mean a world of difference for the final outcome, indeed!

This means that now, I'm really trying to get some work done, and make it ready for presentation. What ever I have, I will of couse uploade here on the blog, for you to see.

More updates will follow soon! both from this project and for school animation.

Cheers

Hello mr. Flour Sack

2009-09-24T19:44:00.006+02:00

Time for another update, another school assignment and another go on 2d animation.
This time I've scanned some of my planning drawings, which I'll share with you guys.

First off, here is the animation:

Flour Sack from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

We got a storyboard handed out from our teacher, and the storyboard was timed out, and obviously we were supposed to stick as close as possible to the staging, acting and timing suggested by the board - that was a part of the challenge.

First off, we sketched out a couple of poses for our character (the famous Flour Sack), just to get to know the character and how to draw it.

After that I started planning and thumbnailing. Drawing the background and the motion of the character. Both to figure out some of the key poses but also to make sure they are within the framing.

Here is how they look:

Scene 1:

Scene 3:

Scene 4, part 1

Scene 4, Part 2.

Scene 5:

After that, it was time to put down the keys, test them and time them out, acordingly to the motion and the preset timing.
I added time charts on all the keys, so could sort out the spacing before I went on with inbetweens. Constant changes were made in the timing during the "production", but I really tried to work organised and "by the book".

For now, I guess it's so simple, that I could just start at frame 1, and with a clear image in my head, just animate ahead without planning. It might even get more loose and free, but I strongly feel for getting the organised workflow into my system as quickly as possible, so when some more advanced stuff comes along, it will be second nature.

After that, breakdowns were added and finally inbetweens.

A lot of hours were invested in the shot, and most days were from 9:30 AM to 02:00 AM, so looooong days, but when it's as fun as this was, it's all worth it.

In the end, I think it got a little messy, which I'm regretting a bit. I keep telling myself to keep it simple, but somehow simplicity seems to be the hardest thing to achieve.
I tried to stay loose and sketchy with my drawings, and I think it worked out alright - drawingwise.

Anyways I don't think I've forgotten anything. If there is any questions what so ever, or if you just feel like saying hallo, or have a comment on my animation, please feel free and welcome to comment on my posts :)

Cheers and have a good evening!

Christoffer

Robber Ball

2009-09-20T16:17:00.003+02:00

Another school assignment.

I think this turned out okay. It was hell to inbetween the drag of the money bag, but other than that, I felt good about it all the way through.

RObber ball from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Storyboard Sneak Peek

2009-09-16T01:15:00.004+02:00

Wow, the updates are blazing through in here!
I finally got to work on my storyboard again. It's still not final, but I think it's getting closer.
It's way better (and longer, running time 4:57 atm.) than my first version, and I feel like I'm a lot more familiar with the story, characters and everything now.
No matter how it turns out, or even if it never finishes (god forbid), you can't argue it's not thought through ;)

So, like I said, it's still not final. My good friend Henrik has offered to look it through. He did that with the first draft, and came back with some excellent ideas and comments.

I would like to share some of it, even though it's not finished. It's picked randomly across the film (and ordered randomly as well), and the colorscheme is only for clarity, not the final artistic choice ;)

I'm still a bit unsure of how much I'd like to show of this early process. I don't think I'll post a lot of wips, but final milestones will be here, no doubt about that.

'Nough rambling, here are some pics from the storyboard - eight to be exact!

Have a nice day!

Croquis and first 2d animation

2009-09-15T00:41:00.004+02:00

Hi guys.

So, little progress on my short film. I simply don't have time atm.
On the other hand, I get to do a lot of drawing and animation all day long, so I guess it's pretty cool anyways.
Today we showed our first 2d character animation.
It's been quite a pleasure to work on this, although it was some looooong hours in the end.
A LOT of things are wrong, but here goes for nothing:

Fly and Frog from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I also got a chance to go to croquis after school for the first time since march, so I'm more than rusty, but I collected a bunch of them, to show here anyways. Some of them works okay, others have something that works, but figured they'd be interesting to look at.

Tease

2009-09-02T20:16:00.002+02:00

Okay, gotta be time for another update, mainly on my (forever) ongoing short film project.
I've finally started in school, which also means less time for personal projects, but hopefully also more effeciency and skills ;)

I changed my work in progress title from "Departure" to "Deep". I think the name is way cooler and a bit smarter. The name is obvious in the sense it takes place partly under water, but also i concern to the characters and their feelings.

I'm still working on the storyboard and design of the film, but it's coming along okay.
I've got some concept art done, but I'll need a little bit more then I will post it here.
As I said, the design is still in progress but also moving foreward.
I think the film will be around 5 minutes long which is by far the longest film I've made, but I believe it's a pretty decent length for such a story. It is after all pretty slow paced so 15 minutes would be boring. 2 minutes would on the other hand be way too short to tell the story with enough emotion.

Anyways, here's a little teaser for you all (my self I guess :D)
I've locked on to a pretty solid color scheme and hope you like it.

Cheers

Rainy august

2009-08-02T16:05:00.005+02:00

Figured it'd be time for an update here on this rainy sunday, in the beginning of august, in the lovely country of Denmark - yay!

So, no pictures today, just words. I'm in a pretty creative process right now, working on a short film. The designs are coming along, after a couple of months of agonizing and frustration.
I've started on the storyboarding which I have a pretty ambivalent feeling about. On one side, it's such an amazing tool where you are forced to think about even the smallest detail in a very visual and concrete way.
On the other hand though, it's just so extremely difficult and tough. There is no cheating, no short cuts no nothing. Everything has to be crystal clear and figured out.

But at the end of the day, you just gotta do it. There is no way around it, and a nicely fleshed out storyboard is just invalueble for the rest of the process.

That was it for the short film. On another note, it just got very official that I'm accepted into the bachelor line at the Animation Workshop, so as of september I'm officially a animation student. To celebrate my self (lol!) I decided to buy two books, that I really think will help my.
They are both titled Drawn To Life, one about humans and one about animals. They are based on the learning material that was made availble for the disney animators in the 1980'ths and still today (I think). I cannot wait to get my greasy hands on them, and learn a bit about how to draw for animation.

That's it for now. I might post a small teaser on the storyboard later on, but for now, I'll keep it all off web.

Cheers.

Final Weight lift exercise

2009-07-18T16:51:00.003+02:00

Here is the final rendered version, animated in maya, rendered with mental ray, with rendertimes around 30 sec. on a super crappy laptop.

I've really tried a new way of animating (the Jason Ryan way), so I feel I've learned a lot, which is probably the most important thing.
I'm fairly happy with the results, although I see troubles a couple of places. I can't really be specific about it, so I can't really make any changes.
Maybe in a couple of weeks I can see all the flaws :)

Weight Lift exercise from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Cheers

Finalizing Weight lift

2009-07-16T14:47:00.002+02:00

Okay, so I've continiued to throw down breakdowns, untill I've got the motion I want.
Now I have let the computer fill in the blank frames with inbetweens and I have polished the motion a bit. I can still smooth out a lot, but I'm also afraid it will get too soft and smooth, and end up looking floaty and cg, which I why I did all the breakdowns in the first place.

So with all that said and done, here is what it looks so far.
I can probably still iron out kinks here and there, but overall I'm pretty happy with the result.
Here it is:

At a later point, I will upload the final version and a nice rendered version as well.

Stay tuned for more.
Cheers

Weight lift exercise

2009-07-13T01:03:00.007+02:00

Hi there.
So between character design, storyboard and frustration, I decided to take time and do, what I really love to do: ANIMATION.
I actually havn't really tryed any of the known animation exercises, such as bouncing ball (just few for fun), lifting heavy box, and so on, so I thought I'd try that out.
I've been reading and studying animation, way more than actually animating, lately, so I figured an actual animation exercise would do me well.

First I did some video reference, of me lifting a somewhat heavy box. It's captured with my super awefull mobile video camera, so the quality is horrific. But it gives a good idea about broad posing and timing.

Next I choose the most important poses, and sketched those down on a piece of paper.
I havn't got a scanner with me, but once I'll have that, I'll scan it in for you.
Then it was basically just a matter of taking those poses, and put them into maya.
I roughly used the timing the video reference gave me, but as you might notice, the timing changed a bit from the reference, to the blocking and into the breakdowns - guess you could call that refinement ;)

Then it's time to do the breakdowns. This is - to me - the most difficult part. Going from the keys to the final animation is very hard. I struggle with keeping the life and snappyness throughout the breakdowns. I've really tried to work with as many breakdowns as possible to minimise the risk of floaty/bad computer inbetweens. I've keyed on every second frame, througout the first half of the animation, and it's pretty clear when it stops.

It's still a bit rough though, but once I get it refined and let the computer fill in the blank frames, it should be all smooth and nice.

So this is where I'm at now. Hopefully I'll find time to finish it, and add in breakdowns for the last half of the animation, get it refined and smoothed out.

So far I've worked about 5 hours on it... on and off, but with msn and facebook, that's a lot off ;)

Btw: the rig is from this dude named Jason Baskin. Make sure you check them out, they are AWESOME!
LINK TO HIGHEND3D

Cheers and have fun!

Concept sketches for Departure

2009-07-03T15:02:00.005+02:00

Okay, I guess I should update again with some more concent from my short film project.
This is a nother quick drawing I did yesterday with a black marker on some cheap-ass paper, slapped it onto the scanner and threw in some faster colors.

It's basically four different elements from the film drawn into one page/composition/whatever.
I hope you like it, and that it gives a small clue on where I'm going with this one.
I'm still working out the designs and stuff like that.

During juli I hope to get the storyboard completed, so I have a clear idea about what it will look like, and what obstacles I will face.
I guess I'll post a board or two when I'm done.

Cheers

Departure first glimpse

2009-06-22T11:44:00.004+02:00

Hi there.
Since my last acting shot, I havn't really shown anything, but that doesn't mean I've been lazy :)
I have started production of a new shortfilm. I feel the story is better than any other I've come up with, so hopefully if I can find time to finish this off, it will be pretty decent.

I'd like to share a concept picture of one of the scenes, to get you into the right mindset, and then write a little bit of the story.

The story is about an old man and his loss of his lifelong wife, how he copes with being alone and his desire to meet her again - on earth or beyond.

Happy face

2009-06-09T12:06:00.004+02:00

So, a big happy face huh?

Yep, a great big one indeed!
I just found out, that I'm accepted into a animation school here in Viborg, Denmark.
It's called The Animation Workshop and it has an amazing rep. throughout scandinavia and europe.
The line I was acceped at is officially labeled:
"Bachelor of Arts in Character Animation".

I simply can't wait to get started. The teachers here are amazing. They come in from all over the world to teach us for a couple of weeks, then they leave again. This maintains a up-to-date level, which is important in a business like animation, and it gives us a lot of cool contacts to a lot of the cool studios all across the globe.

On another note, I slowly started pre-production (storyboard, concept art, sketching, reference gathering and so forth) of a new short film. I'm pretty excited about that as well! Stay tuned for more...

Ohh, and a final note. The acting piece I did not that long ago, ended up as no. 65 out of 191. I guess that's alright considering the vast amount of noobish mistakes I did during the production.

Cheers

Final update on acting shot

2009-05-27T18:56:00.003+02:00

This might be the very last opdate on this animation.
It's due till sunday, but I only have tomorrow to work on it as well, and with a render time added on, I don't think I'll change anything.

I learned a couple of "dos" and a hell of alot of "don'ts"!

Anyways, check it out, and hopefully you like it.

Finalizing acting shot

2009-05-21T22:30:00.004+02:00

I think I'm getting fairly close to finishing off this shot.
I still have some tweaking to do here and there, but it's getting closer... and so is the deadline... damn you deadline!

Cheers

speed sketch

2009-05-16T19:12:00.004+02:00

Another digital drawing, done in photoshop.
It's drawn for a speed sketch contest at cgtalk.com.
The timeframe was 45 minutes, and I used every second of those :)
The theme was "The Passenger".

Check it out.

Cheers

2 environment drawing

2009-05-15T19:44:00.003+02:00

Okay, I'm still seaching heavily for a story to build a short animated film upon, and a big part of this search, is sketching and drawing random stuff. There is a big chance it leads to nothing, but maybe it sparks another idear, that leads to another one, and suddently it's all there in front of me... naaah, I'm dreaming.
Anyways, here are to small environment drawings I did in photoshop. Very unclear, not even sure my self what's going on... lol

Horton and random drawing.

2009-05-12T16:18:00.004+02:00

Today I strolled around the town of Viborg, and found Horton Hears a Who on DVD.
I remember I watched in the theaters when it came out, and I absolutely loved it.

The dvd looks really great as well. It has a nice set of bonus features containing animation tests, blockings and stuff like that. Interesting stuff for sure.
If you pass by it, make sure you buy it. You wont be disappointed.

I also got a quick idea of drawing a cigarette, based on a thread at www.3dmaxer.dk about a cigarette as a character. It was drawn, scanned and colored very quickly (like 15 minutes all in all), so the quality is so-so, but figured I might as well show it here.

Spline Pass 2

2009-05-08T00:30:00.004+02:00

Time for update, ehhh?
It worked some more on the spline pass. Still not really satisfied with it, but it's coming along okay.
I've tried to add some snappyness into it, and working on contrast, both in posing and in timing, all of which should help getting rid of the nasty floaty fealing, cg animations often have (mine at least!)

Check it out.
I guess the ending need some touches and probably some other parts as well.
Lip syncing will be the very last thing I do. It HAS to feel right with out it as well.

The image above is a render test I did today. It's about 2:15 minutes to render, in a resolution of 640*360 which is what I will deliver in (640*480), so that is acceptable.
That's like a good 8-9 hours, which will be easy to do in time.
I don't want the light to be noticable, it should show the animation in a nice way, nothing more nothing less.

-Update will follow :)
Cheers

Spline pass 1

2009-05-05T10:50:00.002+02:00

I got to a point, where I was pretty comfortable with my blocking.
This time around, I worked far more with the my blocking, and sat a lot more keys than I have done previously, which ment less work in the graph editor, when it's converted to splines.

I can still take my work with the keys a lot further, and it's something I will work more on in the future.
In the video below, you can see my first spline pass. The body is pretty much like I want it, but it still need some changes and refining.
The face and hans comes in, when the body works exactly like it should. Lip syncing very last.
It is supposed to work entirely without lip sync, so I think it'll be a good test, to wait with that.

Blocking phase 1

2009-05-03T23:52:00.003+02:00

I spend a quite a lot of today (thank god for rainy sundays!) blocking in the animation.
There a still some things I'm not happy with.
It does seem a little unclear in some parts, and the whole "throw over the shoulder" act is not working like it should.

I'll spend the next couple of days, getting it all to work, and adding more keys.
Here it is so far:

Cheers

Animation planning

2009-05-03T01:12:00.003+02:00

Okay, on to a new and exciting project.
This will be animation over a sound track (speak), which is something I havn't done in a year - last time was march, 2008 - so it's about time to start on that again. Plus it'll be a nice update to a future animation reel.
The animation will be created, for a contest at www.11secondclub.com and the soundtrack is delivered by them. It can be heard here: Soundtrack.

I have a month to do it, say I'll be taking my time, and take all the necessary steps.
First up is the planning and idea phase.
I have recorded some reference video, and sketched out some poses and thoughts.
It's always nice to get the ideas out of that place in your head, where everything sounds cool, and into reality where it might not hold up.

Anyways, here it is so far. I think it is a fairly solid base but I'll things usually change for me, when I block it out in maya.

Anyways, I can't wait to start block it in. I have a lot of ideas of motion in my head, so hopefully I can transfer it onto the actual animation.

This time I've got have more patience in the blocking, than I usually have.
I always ends up, going on to splined interpolation, with a half finished blocking, which leads to lots of fixing, and hazzle in the Graph editor. I've got to spend more time with blocking, working almost 2d like.
I'm up for the challenge, for sure.

Cheers

Spiderman walkcycle

2009-05-01T17:01:00.003+02:00

Spiderman Walkcycle from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Not a lot to say. A standart walkcycle.

Next up is a animation for the 11 second club contest - yay!

random characters

2009-04-26T16:55:00.003+02:00

It's about time I update something else than spiderman animation.
The thing is, that I really want to start a new shortfilm project (animated), but the sad truth is, that I have no idea what so ever, what it should be about, what kind of character I want and all that stuff.

I'd also like to team up with someone, so I don't have to create everything on my own, and I can concentrate on the animation... but not sure either...
Anyways, untill I decide what to do, and what I'd like to tell I'm just gonna keep sketching random stuff, like I've done the last couple of weeks.

Have fun

Cheers

Aaaaaaaand spiderman again.

2009-04-23T21:08:00.002+02:00

Okay, long time no update!
It's about time.

Here is the latest update:

Spiderman render again from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

More spiderman

2009-04-10T18:55:00.003+02:00

Okay, I decided to continue the work on this animation, even though I still haven't got the live action plate, but hopefully I'll be able to transfer this animation straight onto the final scene, but no matter what, I've learned some cool spiderman moves, that I'll be able to use in the future.

spiderman animation from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Spiderman Blocking

2009-04-03T10:36:00.002+02:00

Spiderman blocking 02 from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Okay, spend a couple of hours on this one.
Like I've said before, I don't have the live action plate yet, but I couldn't help getting started, so I made up my own camera angle.
It's still VERY rough, but I think I'll wait to animate more on it, untill the backplate comes in.
I need the camera locked down, in order to work with arcs and clear posing/silhuette.

Animation planning scheme

2009-04-01T23:31:00.007+02:00

Just finished some planning schemes for my spiderman animation.

At this point I havn't yet seen the actual backplate, but this should work for pretty much any "swing through street" scene.

I've tried to get a lot of contrast in this, as it seemed to be the main comments I got from my last shortfilm.
Where the movements seemed to be a bit monotone and even.
Here I've tried to go from broad slow movement (as slow as it gets, flying in the air, that is) to compact snappy animation.
I hope it'll work out.
The frame numbers are wide guesses, and I cannot imagine they will end up at those frames,
but they'll give a foundation to start blocking out from.

Posing

2009-03-29T12:02:00.005+02:00

I finally got my rig finished off, and to test out how it was to move around, I did a little posematching with the famous Spiderman poster:

They aren't completely identical, but for my purpose it's alright.

I also did some thumbnailing, trying to get a grip of some of his poses. I tend to understand them a lot better after I've tried to pose or draw them myself.

I really love the way Hancock moves in the air, so I'll see if I can get a little bit of tumbling in his movements.

Cheers

Spider rig almost done

2009-03-28T15:11:00.005+01:00

So I'm pretty close to finish off this rig.
I just need to fix some controls around the shoulder area, and set up my 3 shelf buttons, so they will make me able to select the entire rig, Key the entire rig, or reset the entire rig with a single click.

I can't wait to animate this bad boy, flying through the streets of Copenhagen!

Spiderman rig

2009-03-27T14:44:00.006+01:00

Okay, about time I update my blog.
I did some crucial changes in the anatomy which made it far more accurate, and I'm happy with the result. After talking to the guy who is gonna shoot the live action plate, track it and later composite the whole project (Morten Christensen www.two-penguins.com, we decided to move on to rigging.
So this is where I'm at right now.
It's still in progress but the rig is super simpel. I alsmost only animate in IK mode, and since his is constantly gonna grab something, I'm making a pure IK setup on both arms and legs, while keeping ik FK on the spine, neck and head.

I'm trying a new bone system, that I'm looking foreward to see how turns out. Normally I would just put a single joint in the knee and elbow, but I can see other setup artists use a setup with a joint more to prevent collapsing in the knee/elbow. So now I have a joint at the knee, but also a small one above AND below.
I havn't bound any geometry to the rig yet, so I havn't tested this new system yet, though.

The model might undergo a few minor changes, but as it's not bound to the rig yet, I can make all the changes I want, as long as the anatomy stays the same.

On the image, all the black parts of the geometry (the wire color) are sliced up and linked to the joints. The yellow-ish arent yet.

Still A LOT of work to do, I havn't even started the unwrapping yet, which I'm sure gonna cause trouble, when trying to create his suit...
It's a bit frustrating, when all I really want is to animate, but I don't really want to use a free internet rig, animating test scenes of guys pushing heavy boxes. I'd much rather integrate what ever exercise I might be doing, into something cool project, with a more personal a unique look that the trvivial internet rigs offers, so for the moment, I'm just gonna suck it up, and work harder :)

Cheers, and see you soon for an update.

Spiderman project

2009-03-22T23:13:00.003+01:00

I started a new cg project, where I'm gonna create a digital spiderman model, and animate him to some kind of live-action backplate that are gonna be shot by Morten Christensen at www.two-penguins.com

Hopefully it's gonna turn out great. I can't wait to start animating.
But before that, I need a model, and here is how it looks so far:

I hope you like it, and if you have a comment, don't hesitate to leave it here.

Drawing portfolio done

2009-03-14T22:06:00.000+01:00

So this pretty much marks the end of a couple of months (hard) work.
Some minor things might change, but my portfolio for the animation bachelor at www.animwork.dk is pretty much final.

Below the shortfilm on the right side of the screen, there is a link to the portfolio.
Check it out if you have a minute or two.

Cheers

portfolio sorta done.

2009-03-11T02:02:00.000+01:00

Okay, I feel I should update with some actual content, and being pretty tired here 2 am (the time on the post is wrong), I don't feel like uploading all 16 pages, so instead I'll just link to them.
Here it is:

www.doffer.dk/portfolio

It's not completely done, but it is sure getting close. I hope it'll be done by friday... it should.

Cheers

No updates

2009-03-08T14:19:00.000+01:00

Hi all (if anyone actually reads this blog).

I havn't updated in a while, but that doesn't mean I havn't worked on my drawings.
The deadline for the portfolio, for which the drawings are gonna be used, is in about one week, so it all suddently feels very real and stressfull.
I'm working my ass off, and hopefully it will be visible in the final result.

When I have the final portfolio ready, I'll upload it here of cause.

While I'm here, I can just throw in, that my short film (Steampunk, Icarus) recieved a "HONORARY MENTION" at cgtalk:
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4936&page=3 (Buttom of the page)

A big congrats to all the winners, they all did a fabulous job!

Cheers and see you soon... I promise.

Rabbit

2009-02-27T13:08:00.001+01:00

A page for my portfolio.
It contains the "final" rough 7 key poses, as well as the planning thumbails.
Finally I've uploaded to animation as well. Since there are no inbetweens it looks kinda rough and jagged, but it was never intended to be a animation, just the picture, so it'll do the trick

Soldier

2009-02-22T17:40:00.000+01:00

I've been working on this character for a couple of days.
I'm not used to draw on the computer, so it's been a mixed pleasure I've gotta say.

New drawings

2009-02-16T22:24:00.001+01:00

Some more drawings for my portfolio, they are all in very different style, where to four "pretty" drawings are between 5 and 12 hours a drawing, the sketches come in at a couple of seconds.
The blue character poses are about 10 minutes or so...

Long study

2009-02-08T12:51:00.000+01:00

Four longstudy drawings I did at The Drawing Academy. I think they are all made in november and december 2008.
The timeframe of each image is between 5 and 10 hours, or so.

Character sheet

2009-02-07T21:07:00.000+01:00

A character sheet of a character I've been working on last this week.
Contains both final poses, sketches/thumbnails and shape overview of the character (the red).

Animal sketches

2009-02-06T01:14:00.000+01:00

A couple of animal sketches I did today.
The pose of the bear is a bit awkward, and the running pose of the cheetah could/should be a bit stronger as well.

Production images

2009-02-04T23:16:00.000+01:00

Some production images from my shortfilm.

The top left if the rig of the machine. I did some minor changes with the way he is strapped onto the machine, but its pretty close to what you can see here.

The top right is the final rig of both the character and machine. This is how the fresh clean scene looks like, when I'm about to start a new animation. I did add both characters under a main controler, though.

The buttom left is the final rig of the man. He is very simple, since he didn't have that much freedom to move anyways. Pure IK rig on both arms and legs, because I'm pretty lazy, and because like to create the arcs my self.
FK on spine though.

The buttom right is the concept art for man and machine. I liked it, and it got a few laughs from the people I showed it to, so I tried to stick closely to this, when I translated it into 3d. Especially the curve of the machine. I made it straight, the first go I had at it in maya, but it just got way to stiff, so I ended up just copying the concept art I did, and make it curved over the back of the man.

Storyboad

2009-02-04T23:02:00.000+01:00

The storyboards for my shortfilm.

They are not very well drawn what so ever, but they are pretty clear in their expression, and that's the main purpose of them.

Good drawings can come later :)

Short film

2009-02-01T21:16:00.000+01:00

Okay, this time I thinks that I'll actually publish some content.
I'm thinking of moving my website www.doffer.dk over to this blog, as it is a bit easyer to manage a blog.

Let's start out with my recently finished short film.
I did all the work on it, from storyboard to final composite.
I hope you like it:

Icarus Short Animation from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

First post!

2007-03-18T16:28:00.000+01:00

Yey!
So, finally the technology came to me too, and I thought I would check this blog-thing out, so here it is. My own blog :)