Even More Industry contacts

So I just had my chat with James from Denki over Skype, as it was over Skype all i have are my notes that I wrote down but honestly he was really nice to talk to so my notes are limited. We spoke for just over an hour and covered all of the topics i wanted to cover and more. While he focuses on 2D animation much of his experiences are very applicable to my own situation. As he is the only artist in a small team he takes on the entire art creation responsibility and so needs to be able to do a bit of everything. I'll put my notes here and try and make sense of them.

The first major point he made was about the maintaining of momentum and how that can be really beneficial for finding and maintaining work in the industry. He was doing stuff all the time straight out of uni be it starting his own company to side projects to joining Denki and he used the analogy of a horse running along side a train, it's much easier to jump from one moving thing to another than try and build momentum.

This led on to a chat about the main points he would look for in a person when considering them to hire. They boiled down to:

• Character - their ability to take and give direction, are they willing to learn, are they willing to teach
• Process - he likes to see the thought process behind shots rather than just them in isolation, give them story (more on this later)
• Momentum - as mentioned, the momentum of a person shows that they want to be doing this, if they choose to do something in their spare time it shows passions for the subject.

We then moved onto team dynamic and I asked him about what it's like working with other disciplines and how easy is it to get feedback, he said that the way Denki works is that they go with whoever has the best idea be it an art idea coming from code or a design idea coming from art, which ever is best they go with which makes feedback flowing between team members, he said they are at the level of being able to finish each others sentences which shows they are all on the same wave length. He also mentioned that the company worked in a way that was like painting a picture, they work in layers of detail with all aspects of the project improving at the same rate giving a well rounded project even if they have to stop working on it early.

From there we spoke about his portfolio and what it showed when he applied to Denki, he'd never done any game work before but his portfolio showed a range of styles from life drawing, realism to cartoony but tried to avoid tropes of design like the scantily clad women in space. He also said he showed a range of polished and process work (feeding back into the thought behind the piece)

I showed him my most recent showreel and he gave me some feedback. He mentioned that the clips were probably a little too long and that showing a second angle on some of them would have helped display it better but that it was solid work and showed good technical side. He suggested that it might be better to structure my shots with story in mind as that would make it more memorable and gave the example of the hippo like creature chasing someone in the scene, it would demonstrate both the technical side but also add a story element that would make it more memorable in the long term. He suggested possibly using a mock screenshot of a game and displaying my work that way (which is similar to something I've been considering doing already).

We then spoke a little about lengths of projects and how that can affect planning and concepting time.

Throughout most of the conversation we kept coming back to the theme of "Art serves the play" which usually means in a project animation can be first to go as often it has less of an impact on how the game plays, this means some of the animation isn't as polished as he'd like but other art elements come first.

Finally i asked him about finding the balance between belief in your work and arrogance and he gave a very good response in that its better to believe in what you want to do rather than focus on skill, skill will always improve with time and effort being put in so instead focus on what you want to say with your work rather than the work itself. He referenced a poster his physics teacher had which said "Aim at nothing and you'll hit it"

All in all it was a pleasure talking with James and he had some very interesting points to make. 

More industry contact

So I've spoken a little to Chris Tarrant via Facebook chat and gotten some advice and also shown him some of my work. He's given me some good feedback on my strengths and weaknesses although the work I was showing him wasn't my most up to date. He's very happy for me to send work to him for feedback and as he's the only animator where he works he's asked if he can send me some of his work for feedback which is nice.

I've also got in contact with James from Denki and have arranged a skype chat with him later on this evening he also seems quite happy to see my work and give me feedback so things are going well in that respect.

More mentors and an update to my showreel plans

 Question:

I am interested to know how the assignments are dished out to the animators? Are you directed to a network file that contains base poses to start from so that everybody is on the same page? What about transition animations, where the character moves from standing to walking or running, is the transition a separate animation?

Answer:
In my personal experience, you handed a character with a list of animations that it is required to do. The basics like run, walk, idle, active idle, 3 attacks, couple fidgets, casting, death, and whatever else that is required. Just depends on the project and the end goal.

Transition animations are not really necessary (depending on the engine) because you can rely on engine blending for a lot of the transitioning. I have never worked on any super high quality games though. I am sure they use transitions for idle_To_move and move_to_idle motions. That would be 2 separate animations. Of course. Plus any get up sequences if the character has to fall down from ragdoll physics.

Also got a response from Andrew Innes who kindly answered the questions I asked in the email however his response seemed to indicate he was busy so I've thanked him for the reply asked another question but one that has less pressure so that if he hasn't time to reply then it's not a problem. I'll be looking to find more contacts this week although I think a way of gaining a few would be to get my first pass show reel up and running so I can post it to the 11 second club for feedback. That should help inform decisions on improvements but I need to do it soon so I can act on it.

Today we had a Q and A with Gary Penn from Denki for the presentation module and I've also asked whether it would be a better idea to ask for an introduction to an animator he knows rather than going through him, he said to email him about it as he reckons that an animator he knows called James will be up for speaking to me.

I've also hopefully got a contact through Dave, he has a friend who is currently an animator in industry but we'll see how that pans out over the next few days.

Showreel wise after todays talk from Gary I've been thinking about how i can make it stand out against other people who can animate at the same level or even much better than I can. I thought about producing a mock up of a side scrolling game using the loops I've been producing, this way it would show the work in context and hopefully catch a bit more attention. I plan on running this idea past a couple of people to see whether that would work. I was planning on making the mock up last about 30 seconds and then have another 30 afterwards demonstrating the loops themselves showing that they are smooth and designed with games in mind. I've began to block out timing for it and events in order to figure out what animations I would need to produce.

Update

I haven't posted in a while because of other things taking over but I have made some progress today which I think is useful.

During the last meeting with Ken I told him that I've been struggling with myself to get into contact with people. I have a bit of a problem with thinking I'm going to be bothering people and so convince myself it's better not to ask than waste someones time. I know I need to get into contact with more than just Mike despite the fact his help has been invaluable so far (side note I've sent him another email recently which some more questions that cropped up as being useful during the current group project I'll post if I get a reply)

So in order to try and combat my fears I've been looking to find a way of asking for people who are willing or have some time to talk to me a bit via the forums on the 11 second club and while looking for the right place to post such a request I came upon an article posted by Andrew Innes titled "getting a job in games"

link: http://gamesanimator.com/?p=28

He mentions as part of the article what he looks for in game demo reels:
 "Great body mechanics, focus on real weighty actions. Less emphasis on acting."

also he links to another article which goes into a little more detail from 2008
link: http://fliponline.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/getting-animation-job-in-games.html

This helps confirm information I've found in other places. As he's shown his willingness to offer advice quite recently and currently has 5 years of experience working at natural motion I thought he might be a good person to contact for more advice. I just need to re evaluate my questions and figure out which ones he's already answered in the article but I'm hopeful of a reply.


In other news my showreel is slowly gaining footage that I'd be ok with showing other people which is good, I've readdressed a load of the issues with the fox run animation and am working on a set of animations which would act as an extension to an Idle when the fox sits down and looks around. This is being split into three parts in order to show understanding of the need for quick reactions to player input.

Fox Jump Feedback/Professional contacts

Just a short one really

I've been getting some interesting suggestions on the 11 second club forum for ways of helping to improve its flow. They're suggesting animating two bouncing balls to mimic the front and back of the foxes body, this should help with the spacing between the two and help with the flow. It never occurred to me that was something I could be doing to help inform my animation but it's a great idea. It's almost like a stage of blocking before actual blocking.


As well as sending off another email to Mike concerning content of showreels I'll also be meeting with a few of the artists including the lead artist of Tag games this evening to help me understand how animators work in a smaller company. It should be pretty useful and as it's in person that means it's going to mean a lot of note taking and a write up later this evening hopefully before I've forgotten what my notes mean.

Fox Jump progress / Professional contact

I posted up that I had submitted my fox jumping animation to the 11 second club for scrutiny and feedback which has been going pretty well. There's a lot of worry surrounding putting work up for feedback on forums as often there are people who will criticize without offering suggestions on how to improve. My experience so far has been a good one. I've received quite a few helpful observations and suggestions and have recently uploaded a second iteration seen below:

Main Feedback followed from these two users

User: J.K Riki - 2D animation but always applicable 
"I think you've got some really nice aspects of the jump so far. Some poses, like the compressed one at the height of the jump, really work well. One of the trouble spots is the it's feeling a bit stiff, which might be because of the model you're using, I don't know. 

Did you plan out the animation in thumbnails? I find that that helps a lot (though full disclosure, I do 2D animation) and it might assist in keeping things a little more fluid here. I did some visual brainstorming of some of the keys on paper:



I'd ignore the final landing pose, it's not very good and I'd need to go back and redo it, but again this is just "visual thinking" and thumbnails are great because you can do them in 20 seconds and don't feel bad if you have to throw one out. Or all of them out, ha ha.

Anyway, what I noticed in the thumbnails I did is that getting the fox's legs extended in the places it needs to be (as he's pushing into the air, and as he's prepping to land) really adds a good flow for the audience's eyes so they can be ready for what's coming. I also think a bit more squash/weight is going to help a lot on the landing, because it feels too floaty at the moment.

You may also want to watch the arc on the fox's head. Something to try would be to isolate JUST his head and see where it moves in the cycle, because I think you'll find it kind of jumps/jiggles all over the place. If you can get that smoother, and then have the body follow, it should all even out nicely. 

Hope that helps! It's a great start you've got going on, just a few tweaks will really polish it up. "

User: Waseqazi 

"Great start! Watch the big pop in the first few frames on the front half of his body. Adding some more drag to the head as he rears back and then shoots up would also help to show the lead of the hips. His tail could use a lot more overlap as he reaches the apex of the jump, right now it stays the same until he starts coming down.

Watch for right at the end when his paws hit the ground, his root stays stuck in the same position for two frames. Try to squash that down a lot more. The more you have him reach with the front paws on the downward part, like in J.K. Riki's drawings, the more organic it will feel, same with dragging the head back a bit more on the down.

Finally, I'd add a few more frames at the end of the loop to allow his head and head to overlap downwards before it starts over. Right now he pops back into going up without having the momentum from the head and tail to end."

I've also had my first reply from an Industry professional. I sent off a request to Media Molecule creators of little big planet and tearaway to see if any of their animators would mind talking to me and answering a few of my questions, they got back to me quickly with an animator named Mike Pang who was nice enough to take time to answer some questions.

My email:

"Hi Mike!

First of all thank you so much for agreeing to speak to me, I know you must be busy so I really appreciate it, I've tried to narrow down what I'm asking because I'm not wanting to overwhelm you with questions but I have so many it's been difficult to choose!

Firstly a bit of a general background of where you came from would be useful, how and why you got into making games?

What do you do day to day?

How involved in other aspects of development are you?

Could you give me an example of the pipeline you use?

Any interesting plugins or tools that are particularly handy?

How do you keep up to date with cutting edge techniques?

What do you like to do to help practice your skills? Any exercises you'd recommend?

I'm currently trying to get my work out there a little more, posting it on the 11 second club to gain feedback and refine my existing skills, are there any other ways of gaining feedback and getting my work more visible?

And a slightly more personal question, how do you know you're good enough to apply? I keep feeling like if I apply with work that isn't good enough it will harm my efforts to find work later on when I've improved.

I look forward to hearing from you and if there's anything else you think would be good to add as general advice that would be great, maybe things that are common mistakes to avoid? As I said I have plenty more questions but I don't want to overwhelm you.

Thank you again!

Robin"

His response:

"Hi Robin,

 

Good to hear from you. I always try to make time for students as I remember how valuable it is to speak to someone from the industry when I was studying. So hope I can help in some way.

 

I originally studied traditional animation back in 2001-2004 at the Arts Institute in Bournemouth (I think it's called something else now) back then there weren't many CG courses and if there were they were technical and I didn't have the maths brain to do it. 

 

I graduated in 2004, 2D animation was dying out and not many jobs were out there, I kind of fell into games as EA at the time were doing a graduate scheme. I was one of the lucky hand picked few that managed to get a position. Starting as a concept artist but then I moved over to the animation side after 3 months where they taught me how to use Maya, from then on that's where I met a lot of talented animators and learnt from them as well. So i've been in the games industry for about 10 years now, working at a few companies and tried my hands in feature film as well. But Media Molecule is where I am now and really enjoying it. 

 

Day to day job varies at different companies. Time at EA, once moved over to animation I was solely doing animation, MPC (Moving Picture Company) was the same. At Mm as they're a creative bunch they like there staff to be versatile so as we're in the infancy of the project i'm on currently my job currently evolves around pre-visualation on the animation side and playing around with all aspects of animation with environments to particles. 

 

My involvement in other aspects of development is dependent on how much you like to contribute everyone at Mm has a voice which is great. A lot of the big companies from my experience tends to prefer you to stick with your specialism. You can e-mail out suggestions but not sure how much is taken on board. 

 

The pipeline is pretty much the same in most places. You get a technical guy who'll rig up and set up scripts for you to run the rig. Once you've finished with your animation there's easy tools for you to export your animation into the game. In film it's the same instead you export your animation curves and it's off to the lighting/rendering guys. 

 

A lot of the tools and plugins are in house so can't really share them. Don't worry though you're not missing out it's to help the exporting. A lot of the tools tend to be rig dependent anyway and the free rigs you get online are pretty much similar to the ones in games, but less complicated like the facial rigs for instance. 

 

I tend to keep an eye on most feature animations, the odd indie animations and I love the stuff that comes out of the French animation school Gobelin. The 11 second club is good and I like the critiques that they attach to the winners that's always useful to watch. 

 

At the time when I was looking for a job in film I suppose you practice and cater your reel towards more performance and creature animations trying to create them as realistic as possible. For games it's good to practice your walks and run cycles. The classic box lifting and maybe an acting piece. These all demonstrate your skill as an animator, your understanding of timing, weight and creative ideas. The other animator at Mm is currently doing an online course in the evenings as it's based in US time http://ianimate.net doing the workshop 4 concentrating on close up Facial acting and lip sync. So it can vary. 

 

As for getting your work out there what you're doing is great, I personally haven't done that before but from others I see them posting on Vimeo it has a nice stats page of who's been watching you. Blogs and forums maybe? If you like you can always send me a link to your work. 

 

As for knowing whether you're good enough, you should look online check out other peoples reels and compare yours to them. Hopefully your tutors and people around you are honest enough to give you an opinion as well. Applying to job can never harm your efforts. If you didn't get a chance for an interview maybe ask for some feedback. It's good to get a blog and keep it updated with new animation tests. It shows that you're passionate and that you're continually improving. Keep the reel at under 2 minutes and have your good stuff first and end on a high!

 

I'll try and round this e-mail off now. If you're applying for games it's good to have all those animation test as mentioned before, walks and run cycles etc. It seems like a lot of companies are asking for mo-cap knowledge but if you know the principals of animations this won't be difficult to learn. Spend time on your reel and polish you animation. If you're doing a performance piece get lots of reference act it out and plan your shot. It's so important to get these early stages right as it'll save you a lot of time in the long run and you don't stray off with different ideas. 

 

Sorry this e-mail is quite lengthy, but I hope I've managed to help out in some way. Here's my blog, unfortunately I haven't had the time to update it for some time but it gives a general example.

 

http://mikepangshowreel.blogspot.co.uk

 

As mentioned before feel free to send in your examples of work or upload it to somewhere on youtube or Vimeo so I can see.

 

All the best, 

 

Mike"

I intend to take him up on the opportunity to email him for feedback but as he's busy I don't want to make it too regular.