Walk Cycle

Here's an Edward Muybridge walk cycle of a bison. This will do great for trying to get EL Toro to walk and run around the arena. Since it's pouring rain today, I think I will start the Digital Tutors dvd's on rigging, seven hours worth of them. Take care all!
-Myself
p.s click on the pic to veiw the walk cycle..

Journal entry # 13 7-22-07

I just wanted to express what a great buy the Digital tutors DVD's were.
I viewed the animation disks and they are great. They lessons were on how to aniamate a quad-ped and for that they used a horse. The great thing is that a horse is built very similer to that of a bull, four leggs excluded. Just how simple it is and they did it all in under four hours of lessons. I think the best points were made in using the graph editor which I still dread. The instructor gave some secrets the Nick and Lief did not. Out of the whole 25 lessons that were explained and all were awsome the best was a bonus that went over how move the character foward on a run cycle which I had no idea how to do. Just using some simple infinity and post infinity cycles I could move my character all over the screen, this will save so much time when the bull has to chase Rowdy around the ring. One last tip on the dvd was to study Eadweard Muybridge’s Motion Studies. After some googling I found some studies, the best was that of a Bison running which is very close to that of a bull. There is a seris of j-pegs and a small q-time to use as a referance. Overall I'm very happy with the purchase, next up is the rigging dvd pack. i think that I will puchase a few more dvd's on animation techqiues that will come in very handy. On the thesis front, not much was done this weekend, just watching the dvd packs, That I suppose will accomplish more in the end by saving time by doing the rigging and animation right thr first time and learning some time saving short cuts. The next few weeks the production of EL Toro will be kicking into high-gear. August is almost here and stuff needs to be done, looking at 15 hour days starting up. thats it for this update will post again in a couple of days, I want to do some test animation over the next day or two.

-best Me

Journal entry # 12 7-20-07

This summer is going fast!!!!
Hello all out there. The is a long entry tonight, I need to get updated on whats been going on the last week and a half. seems like I just did an entry but it was two weeks ago, Well First I really put the screws to myself and worked on EL Toro for a week solid. I'm happy to say the modeling of the bull is 95% done!!! ye ha!!!! I need some tweeks here and there but no big thing. The best news I have is that I was really worried about the rigging and animation of a quad-ped, but to my rescue comes Digital tutors. This week they just released two dvds packs. One for rigging a quad-ped which is 7 hours long, and one for animating a quad-ped which is 3 hours long, I think that it's better then sex!!. I have both in hand tonight, I plan on watching them all this weekend, If I can really push myself I can have the bull rigged by July 31st which is a hard deadline I made for myself. Kepping my fingers crossed. The other good news is that I took and existing model that I had and did a lot of tweaking here and there with the geo and the rig and came close to what I want for Rowdies character. the rig is so darn close to what I need that I'm scared. I did a few simple 3 to 4 second test animations to see how the character and rig works and I was very happy. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to use this model, I have two weeks to make up my mind, a few more test animations and I will decide for sure. In ending this long entry, I'm very happy where I'm at this week, I'v cut off a week that I was behind. I would say that I'm only a week behind, but I have put a couple of revision weeks into my production planning so I can catch up there, if this week end goes good I might cut a few more days off, but as of tonight I think I will be looking at the dvd's all week end. On the lighter side I got and email from Nick and Lief at Blue Sky, saying hi, telling me that expect to get my ass handed to me in animation II, Thanks guys!!! well time to go I have posted some play blast pics of the characters and where their at in the production. EL Toro at a low poly stage and at a smoothed stage and Rowdy with his rig. Please post comments on what you think good and bad.. Thanks for looking..
-Best Tom
p.s. get in line for that last Harry Potter book tonight!!!

Bull ride wrecks link

Real quick ya all,
here"s a You Tube link to some bad ass bull rideing wrecks that I having been using and studing as referance. Just copy and paste the link in your browser and wait a few seconds for You Tube to open. In there is some really cool videos of cowboys getting their ass kick!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuLe-MGx7c8

Journal entry # 11 7-2-07

Hey all,
Nothing new on the thesis front, I'm getting sort of stressed out. It's July and I'm behind about two weeks from where I want to be! Any ho this is not what I'm here to talk about , on Saterday night I went to see Disney/Pixar's new flick Ratatouille. I have to say wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 stars. It started a little slow but once it got going it was great. The animation from these guys just keeps getting better and better. The really cool thing is that when the credits come up there are people that you know, it's so cool to sort of be on the inside of these movies. I really want to be an animator!!!! It's so close I can taste it, or maybe thats the taste of fear that I have from my thesis being due in six months. Well thats what I have to comment on tonight, everyone have a great forth and talk to you all later this week..

ps. Don't blow any fingers off this holiday!!!!!!!!!!!