We Made The Merlion Swim

I don't think anyone has every seen the merlion swim. Except maybe for this video that I stumbled upon while searching for references: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcTsWfPq0Fc

(By the way, another notable style reference is this project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q256NEoJ2o. It's pretty welldone in my opinion.) 

So anyway, the NDP committee paid a visit to my studio early this year, asking if we wanted to participate in this year's Singapore National Day Parade - by animating a merlion swim sequence.

Fast forward a few months later... we spent weeks and months working overtime on weekdays and even sacrificing our weekends to do this project (honestly I think it was all great fun bonding with my colleagues and putting on weight together from all the pizza that we ordered).

It was also a great opportunity for us animators to do some hand-key animation from scratch (since we've been working with motion capture data day in and out).. Even though I think the animation could be very much improved on, I guess the warm response from the crowd made all our effort worth it.

Some stills of shots that I worked on:

(Close up shot of merlion talking)
Body and facial animation done by me
Lip sync done by my colleague, Chris

Animation done by me

It was a great experience working on this project with my animation team because we get to really learn from one another (it's a huge difference compared to when I was a student in 3dsense because I was the only animator in class and there was no one I could compare notes with).

Look! We're even on the news!


(fast forward to 1:30)

"Tooth Fairy" Short Film

At last, my Diploma Short Film is released on Youtube at my alma mater's channel.

The story:
In the middle of the night, when a little boy was sound in sleep, Tooth Fairy paid him a small visit. Most people know what Tooth Fairies do when they find a tooth, but do we ever wonder what value they find in something we discard away? Watch and find out!



Looking back at this short film, it certainly brought back nostalgic memories of slogging together (with tons of fun and learning included) with my classmates back then. Even though it may not be a Pixar-quality film worthy of any Grammy awards, at least it's a starting point for our journey ahead.

Mocap Zap Zap

There's so much to learn about motion capture and while Avatar/Hulk/LoTR made it look so cool and easy, getting down and dirty to actually using the system is really quite...something.
And I can't even say that I know everything there is to know about it. In fact, I may well be one of the least knowledgeable of the technology at work.

But it's been quite an eye opener. Learning to calibrate the system, sticking on mocap markers on actors etc are the baby steps to mastering it. The entire system is so sensitive that any slight movement to the cameras can cause calculations to fail. Wow. *hence the clumsy me has to be extra careful.. talk about stress!*

Anyway, I am really quite excited for the journey ahead. I'm looking forward to see how the mocap data transfers to the 3d characters.. and yada yada yada.

A brief history of Motion Capture: http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/motion_capture/history1.htm

I'm still not very sure how mocap may compare to keyed 3d animation, but I guess as I learn more about the craft, I'd have some pretty interesting inputs. :)

*update* I've been trying my hand at 3d modeling recently as part of my company's training. Maybe I'll post some pics soon.

*update* check out a discussion of mocap vs animation here: http://johncelestri.blogspot.sg/2011/10/motion-capture-is-not-animation.html

A minor update

Hi everyone,

Just a little update on what I've been up to.

My company has been sending us for training in animation (and we've just started in modeling!). Well, there are a couple of shots that I have been practicing on but haven't yet got the time to go polish them. But I'll definitely try to work on those whenever I can (and since I've already more or less publicly announced it, I figure it would give me greater push). Hopefully, I'll be able to upload pictures of my modeling assignments as well.

I'm really quite thankful for my current job that allows for such exposure in different specializations. I must say that I can even paint skin weights more confidently now when I used to be so afraid of them.