joe's Secret Lab

Painting with joe

2011-11-26T02:20:00.001-05:00

We've had a couple canvases sitting around for quite a while and my wonderful son has been asking to paint on them. Yesterday we did some planning sketches and decided on a dinosaur for one, and a shark with a scuba diver for the other. He wanted the scuba diver and shark to be "just hanging out, Dad." We tried to think of a scenario where they would be "just hanging out" and here's what we came up with. Even though our paintings are always quick and sloppy, they're loads of fun for both of us.

Another sculpt doodle

2011-11-23T22:25:00.001-05:00

This was also done in Blender. I found a couple matcaps I really like. They have a sheen that's pleasing to work with. I found them on a blenderartists.org post somewhere, but since I've forgotten where, I'll post them here for those who want to give 'em a whirl:

The Doctor Appointment

2011-10-12T00:12:00.000-05:00

Like many artists, I live a happy, nearly math-free existence. The separation of math and Joe is a gooood thing. I tried math once and it literally hurt me...but that's a story for another time.

Everything was going well with this until yesterday's visit to the doctor. I've been having some migraines and my wife has been complaining about my memory, so I figured I go get myself checked out. Here's the recap (for some reason I'm a 12-year-old boy here):

"Ok, we're going to test for the onset of dementia. Just to rule it out."

"I'd like you to count backward from 100."

"Ok. 100...99..."

"Counting backward by seven."

...

"...93...86...78...no, wait! Hee hee hee haw haw haw......"

Dino UV's

2011-09-06T22:24:00.001-05:00

Today in my texture and lighting class, one of my students pointed out that the uv's in the demo I was giving looked like a dinosaur. So I ran with it and made this:

In case you were wondering, it's a head on the bottom and left and right hands on the top. But what I'd really love to see is the day that uv's become...extinct?

Baby Girl

2011-06-22T03:58:00.001-05:00

Ella sketches from various times in the past 6 months:

Something was terribly interesting on the ground.

A couple months later, my how her shape and posture has changed.

Cutie.

Hello world

2011-06-15T22:43:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd post a few renders of the earth assignment I give my students in my Texture and Lighting class at Ex'pression College. This was the outcome of my in-class demo of setting up semi-complex shader networks. The whole setup is a series of shaders that layer over top of 3 spheres. The end result produces clouds that cast shadows on the earth's surface, city lights on the unlit side, and a faked volumetric atmosphere.

You can download the ridiculously hi-res textures I used from NASA here. This earth was made in Maya, although I just found a recent tutorial on doing a very similar setup in Blender here.

Below are a few desktop backgrounds for you to download at 1920x1080 resolution.

Blender sculpt doodles

2011-05-23T22:15:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple sculpts I've made over the past couple weeks in Blender. Even though it lacks the thorough tool set of programs like Zbrush, Blender has very capable sculpting tools. The thing I like best about it is that it's a complete 3d package, so you can model and sculpt at the same time, in many ways making up for the lack of a few key tools. Anyway, the first one is a bit more complete, about 2 hours. The second head took about 45 minutes. Fun stuff.

Here's a turnaround for the model above.

Alameda afternoon

2011-05-21T22:14:00.000-05:00

I hadn't painted anything in a while, so I decided to give this a go. Trees near a park in Alameda.

ASketch app

2011-04-20T13:06:00.000-05:00

Ha, I'm turning into an app reviewer these days, but I've found a favorite app for sketching called ASketch. It's the closest thing to drawing with charcoal I've seen in any digital format. I see from the iTunes reviews that the minimalist UI drives some people nuts, but I love it's simplicity--you just draw. I do highly recommend watching this video on the creator's website, as there were a few features I didn't discover on my own. Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me an iPad to play with I'll let you know how it works on a larger screen ;)

Blocking in the masses... then adding some detail.

iDough app: sculpting on my ipod touch

2011-04-07T02:17:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I like to sculpt to just unwind. My preferred package for digital sculpting at this point is Zbrush, but this past weekend I discovered a great app for sculpting on the go: iDough. I imagine it would be best to work with on the iPad, but with my little iPod touch and a Pogo stylus, I was able to whip up these sculpts in half an hour or so of doodling.

The bottom left image is how the model looks when imported into Zbrush. The bottom right is after remeshing the model and smoothing out a few rough spots, ready for retopology and further sculpting.

It allows you to export your models as .obj's so you can keep refining in whatever 3d package you like. It certainly has its limitations, but it's far better than you might expect for sculpting on a mobile device.

If a developer is reading this, the green UI on a blue background clashes badly, which is why I color-corrected and played with the background here. How about a dark grey gradient for the background and light grey icons for the inactive tools? Any chance we'd see matcaps or the ability to place another light in coming versions?

Plain-o Animation Rigs

2011-02-25T01:56:00.001-05:00

So after a couple terms of testing these rigs in my first year animation class, they're ready for your enjoyment. Male, female and boy, these ultra low poly characters are great for focusing on body mechanics with a minimal amount of controls to deal with.

The base of the rigs was generated with John Doublestein's rigging tools (the rigging behind Andy and Morpheus) which means you get the right-click menu for ik/fk snapping and changing how body parts follow other parts in the heirarchy, on the fly. I don't recommend subdividing the characters, as they weren't designed with that in mind, so they look weird when you do. Just keep it simple.

DOWNLOAD THEM HERE
The 5.5mb .rar file contains the rigs as .ma's, texture template files for making your own custom textures, and a read me for extra notes. Please use responsibly.

Green

2011-01-12T04:43:00.000-05:00

Flour Sack fun

2010-12-29T19:26:00.000-05:00

Over the holiday break, I ran into Yoni Goodman's Dailymation blog. It inspired me to do a few rough tests of my own. Teaching can suck the life out of me if I'm not creating on the side. So nothing brilliant here, but it was fun to pump these out over the past few days. Have a great New Year's!

Simple pixar characters

2010-10-18T01:03:00.000-05:00

Here is an experiment I did to try and paint characters from several Pixar films in a minimal amount of strokes. I used the digital watercolor techniques Lisa Keene demoed the Disney booth at Siggraph this year, so they're done completely in photoshop. Monsters Inc. was the first one I did, mostly because Mike and Sully's shapes break down so simply. It's probably the one I'm most happy with. Feel free to let me know what you think.

quickie

2010-10-15T00:43:00.000-05:00

Mmm, here's a quick doodle of one of my favorite undeveloped characters. There he is, standing in the plains of my mind, waiting. Just waiting. (click for larger version)

Cornell Box!?

2010-09-14T12:13:00.000-05:00

So for something different, I decided to try my hand at lighting a simple Cornell Box, without the aid of global illumination or final gather. The idea is to simulate the light bouncing around inside the box, specifically the subtle color bleed from the walls onto the objects and vice versa.

The image on the left has an ambient occlusion pass multiplied in, and the right image is lit with only standard maya lights.

With AO Without AO

Render time was pretty good: about 30 seconds on my old mac laptop for the latter, with 34 lights. Together the two setups took a little over an hour to set up and get to something I was happy with.

Anyway, it was a fun exercise. Cheers!

Takeout Makeout

2010-06-13T04:21:00.007-05:00

Driving home from Safeway tonight I caught this scene out of the corner of my eye.

There's little in life more romantic than a heavy makeout outside McDonalds after hours. Am I right ladies?

Mr Sketchy

2010-06-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to the beach to fly the trainer kite. Not much wind, but it was fun. As I was walking home, I passed a character you'll see at pretty much every beach in the world: Mr. Sketchy. To my left a group of teen girls were splashing around in the water having a good time, probably oblivious to the fact that they are being watched intensely by a sketchy, middle-aged man in sunglasses. He sits there smiling like Kevin from The Office, staring at the girls.

Lunch break is over

2010-05-29T18:34:00.005-05:00

Here's a painting I started poking at last night. I'm not sure what city this reminds me of, though it seems familiar. Hope you enjoy!

Walk Cycle - Double Bounce

2010-05-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

A while ago someone told me that you can't get a double bounce to read the same way in CG as in traditional animation. I thought that was mostly bs so I decided to give it a shot. Here's my humble attempt at a 1930's-ish double bounce like you'd see on Mickey Mouse.

So yeah, let me know what you think. Oh, and I just ran into this walk cycle post on Spline Doctors. Some great stuff there. Congrats to the winners!

Flying a kite

2010-05-13T04:15:00.000-05:00

So my friend Jon acquired a kiteboarding trainer kite, and for the past few weekends we've been learning to fly it at the beach along Shoreline Drive in Alameda. You can think of it as a stunt kite on steroids. At 3 meters wide, it generates a ton of pull--more than I could wrap my mind around at first.

Here's an excerpt from our last trip out:

I'm still finding sand in my ears, but man was that fun.

So if you happen to drive down Shoreline on a windy weekend afternoon you may spot me in one of the two scenarios below.

Likely Scenario #1:

Likely (but not preferable) Scenario #2:

...sailing off into the sunset.

Alameda shoreline

2010-05-10T12:57:00.002-05:00

I finally got some time to do a little painting yesterday evening. And related to the kiteboarders in the painting, I'm working on a story about flying a trainer kite the other day. I'll post that up here soon.

Walk Cycle - Relaxed

2010-03-21T22:50:00.005-05:00

So a few days ago, just for fun, I sat down and animated a simple walk. Teaching has been keeping me busy enough lately that I haven't had much time for personal projects, specifically animating. My schedule is opening up a little, so I've decided that along with my other projects, I'm going to do some type of quick attitude walk every week or so (fingers crossed) which I'll post up here. For now, here's a basic relaxed walk.

Animation Rigs: Ball 1.1 - includes Tail

2009-12-28T16:44:00.007-05:00

Here's an update to the very basic ball rig for Maya that I put up earlier this past year. The controls, mainly the squash control, have been tweaked to be easier to select. The geometry now sits on its own layer which can be un-referenced to apply a different shader. But the big update is the addition of a splineIK-driven tail which can be scaled and placed wherever you like.

Download it HERE, or by clicking on the image above. Enjoy!

Edit Feb 27, 2010: I've added an alternate .ma download for those who work in versions of Maya previous to 8.5. You'll need to edit the file in a text editor and replace all the lines that designate the Maya version (2009 in my case) with your version, or just delete that line completely. I have no way of testing this, btw, but it should work just fine.

Pondlife and Princess & The Frog and food?

2009-12-09T14:24:00.009-05:00

Hello! If you're like me, you're excited to see the Princess and the Frog this weekend. And if you're in a state that has a Cinebarre theatre near by, you can see my 1st animated student film Pondlife on the big screen as one of the short films they play in their pre-show. Pondlife is a short about two frogs learning to get along in their bog. Seems appropriate to me!

See this...

...and then...

p.s. sorry CA, PA, and MA readers, there are no locations in our states :(

Long ago in a distant land...

2009-11-29T17:32:00.008-05:00

No.
I mean, YES!!

The Samurai Jack movie is actually happening! And it's being co-produced by none other than J.J. Abrams. This could be the third happiest day in all my life! Since it's going to be a “2D/stereoscopic 3D production” I'm curious to see what it's going to look like, but it seems like the right people are taking care of Genndy's baby. Now that Mako has passed, any thoughts as to who will voice Aku?

I think the only way I could be happier is if I was somehow working on this project. Alrighty, back to work.

Check out these links for more info:
http://screenrant.com/jj-abrams-producing-samurai-jack-movie-robf-35322/
http://www.filmjunk.com/2009/11/19/j-j-abrams-producing-samurai-jack-the-movie/

WHA-CHA!

MoCap project: "Swordplay"

2009-11-07T19:11:00.026-05:00

Here's another project I've been finishing up in my spare time. A couple months ago I helped set up and then trained on Ex'pression College's fancy new motion capture stage. During the installation, I got in the spandex suit with the "ping pong balls" stuck all over it and ran around pretending to be the giant monsters or the sexy space-age women which my movements were being mapped onto in real-time.

The training culminated in recording a session with myself and another student actor which became the 30 sec bit of animation featured below. I took the raw data and cleaned it up, fixed glitches, merged different takes, finessed poses, and hand-keyed the hand and facial animation to bring the characters to life.

In case you're wondering, I'm playing the skinny character with the white shirt (screen left). And check out the photos below for more silly goodness.

(be sure to watch in full screen)

Original Mocap to Final Result Comparison:

...just chilling

...showing my feminine side

(this is what happens if you step out and then back into the volume)

...and students mocapping...a T-Rex?

College Lacrosse 2010 - game trailer

2009-10-09T12:17:00.004-05:00

So you may have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. This has been due largely to a project that I have been working on for the past few months in my spare time.

A while back I got a call from a Lacrosse coach in Pittsburgh who was looking to make an indie video game. I knew nothing about lacrosse, but the project sounded exciting, so I jumped aboard. I worked with only one programmer, and for almost all of the production I was the only animator--only artist, really. Two lacrosse players came in at the very end to help me out with a couple animations in the crunch period. But basically this is a video game made by two people in only a few months. It'll be available in the next week or two on Xbox Live. When the game releases I'll put up some behind the scenes stuff, and a better showcase of my animation for the game.

Until then, here's the recently released trailer for you to check it out:

And here's a link to the Facebook group.

DIY iphone/ipod touch stylus

2009-09-19T17:03:00.015-05:00

Ok, sure, there are a bunch of articles on the topic of making a stylus for your touch-screen devices. So what justifies this one?

Good question. I wanted to see for myself if these things actually work. Answer: YES.

Now, most people don't need a stylus to get the most out of their iPhones. I find it useful for sketching, doodling, and thumbnailing animation. I also have fingers of great girth. So if you have your reasons for wanting one, but don't feel like spending $15 on a fancy stylus that comes in pretty packaging, read on.

To compare, I have two types of home-made styluses. The first one is made from an exacto-knife which cost about 4 bucks at Walgreens. Just screw off the blade portion of the knife and use the base--done. What you need to make sure of is that it is a metal handle, since the iPhone/Touch is sensitive to the electricity transfered from directly touching the device with our skin. Also, check to see that you get a flat, smooth end so it does not scratch your screen protector. You need a little more than 1/4'' of thickness for the device to recognize the contact.

The other stylus is made from things you probably have around the house. I took a standard ball-point pen and removed the tip and ink. The other end I sanded smooth (optional) and covered with a piece of tinfoil about 2'' up the sides from the bottom. A piece of tape will hold it in place, and you can rub the covered tip and edges on a piece of paper to smooth out the foil. Voila, a nice, light weight stylus. In the end, I am surprised at how well they work.

This concludes part 2 of my series of useful things you can make with tinfoil and 60 seconds of your time.

Take a second and let me know if you found this helpful.

Cliffside Drive

2009-09-13T16:36:00.006-05:00

I finally had a chance to rekindle my love affair with the straight line and work in the low-poly + ambient occlusion style that I love so much. Here's a piece that I did for a friend recently. I'd love to take this set and animate a chase sequence with it some day. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Tales from the Crib: moved!

2009-08-01T00:10:00.013-05:00

Yeah, it was starting to eat up my blog. So the good news is that it now has a location all to itself--no other fish in the tank to eat. Yay! And you'll find the new address at the end of this post.

I like tumblr's slick themes, as opposed to most of blogger's, and there's a Random button that will show you a random episode (makes sense for this/is neat). The only thing I haven't quite figured out is if it allows for comments on posts, as I love to hear from my readers. Anyone know about this? So head on over to the new location, add it to your reader of choice, and enjoy!

All previous episodes now live HERE.

Animation Rigs: Juicebox

2009-07-08T03:11:00.014-05:00

Click image above to Download

Here's another rig of mine, made in Maya for my Animation 1 classes at Ex'pression College. I wanted to give the students an alternative to the Luxo Lamp rig they have used in the past for the inanimate object assignments.

It has the ability to rock back and forth on it's base, squash and stretch in the mid section, and an IK/FK switch for the straw. It's a fun character to animate with...kinda the 3d equivalent to the traditional flour sack idea. Enjoy!

New Website

2009-06-17T13:25:00.004-05:00

Every now and then I take a look at my website and notice how terribly designed it is, so I crumple it up, throw it in the trash and start over. It's kinda sparse right now, but the thing I like about the design is that it'll be easy to add more content as needed. Take a look and let me know what you think! Here's the updated JoesShorts.com

Trek

2009-05-09T02:26:00.003-05:00

Yes. Yes. And yes. More to say later.

Doodles

2009-04-28T02:54:00.005-05:00

The internet presented me with this free app for the mac called Paintbrush which is similar to the old MacPaint or windows users could relate it to MsPaint. It takes me back to high school keyboarding class where I used to doodle images like these. Ah, nostalgia.

Animation Rigs: Eyes & Brow

2009-04-05T20:12:00.004-05:00

Click image above to Download

Another simple rig for Maya. This one is great for practicing eye and brow animation. There's a lot that you can do to change the spacing, size, and shape of the eyes and brows, so download it and check out the ReadMe for usage notes.

Here's a very quick test I did with the rig to see how it animates. You have to be careful to maintain volume in the brows as you pose them, but it's a fun rig, if I do say so myself. Enjoy!

Animation Rigs: Ball

2009-04-05T15:14:00.008-05:00

Ball Rig 1.0

Click image above to Download

Here's possibly the most simple rig ever. For the bouncing ball assignment in the animation class I taught this term, the students worked with a rig that was...well...lacking. So after looking around a bit, I decided to just rig up my own. It has one control to move, rotate, and scale the ball, and another control to squash it.

This rig was made in Maya 2009, but will work in previous versions. Check out the Readme.rtf in the .zip file for usage notes, and let me know if anything breaks. Here are a couple screen caps of it in action!

My Son's Favorite Book

2009-03-30T00:54:00.004-05:00

For some months now it's been hard keeping baby Joe off of our counter tops and out of our bookshelves. He enjoys turning pages gets very focused on the images, sometimes laughing at this or that. But there's one book in particular that is hard to keep him away from.

Any guesses?

The Illusion of Life, actually. Of the hundreds of book he has to choose from, almost every time he will crawl over to my animation book section and pull out the huge hardback and (with my supervision) flip through the pages looking for the illustrations. I finally caught him on film, so there's the proof.
'At a boy!

busy teaching

2009-03-01T23:41:00.001-05:00

So posts have definitely been sparse lately, both on this blog and the starfish blog. This is a direct result of me preparing for my new job! Saturday was my first day teaching animation classes at Ex'pression College in Emeryville -- just down the road from Pixar. For the next five weeks I expect to be swamped with both working out the fine points of the lesson plan and teaching the classes. For now, here are a few videos showing off the "Stromotion" technique developed by a company called Dartfish for use in analyzing an atheletes technique. For the animator, it's a pretty great for analysis of timing and especially spacing. (follow that link in quotes to see all the videos on Dartfish's site.) It seems this technique has been around for a couple years, so maybe this is old news but it's new to me. Enjoy!

Wordle.net

2009-01-30T13:55:00.008-05:00

So maybe this is old news, but today I discovered Wordle. Be prepared to lose hours of your day making word clouds of your favorite blogs, sayings, and whatever random text you can find.

word cloud for artofjoe.blogspot.com

I was most impressed with their slick interface for changing just about everying about the layout and design of it, including the ability to exclude words and rearrange with the current settings. Go. Play. Waste time.

Here's one for a bay-area food blog that I contribute to. Apparently we like "good chicken" most of all.
And here's Cartoon Brew:

Portable Sound Booth

2009-01-29T16:57:00.012-05:00

A couple weeks ago, my friend Dave came over to help me with an idea that we have had for a while: to make a portable sound booth to record audio for animation projects we do in our spare time. I set out to make it as cheaply as possible, and the grand total of this setup was just over $30. ($6 for the foam from a craft store, $25 for the mic from Radioshack.)
Basically we took a couple diaper boxes and cut and hacked at them for a couple hours until we had whittled them down into one smaller 5-sided box. So, yeah, two boxes to make one smaller box.

A piece of foam was adhered to each piece side of the box and the pieces were "designed" to fit together in a puzzle-like configuration that could be disassembled and packed away. As it turned out, the pieces didn't really stay together nicely, so I had to tape it together so it would hold.

But it sounds pretty darn good. And I feel very MacGuyver-ish.

p.s. since then, i've found this article on making something very similar that looks a little more professional.

Christmas Sculpt

2009-01-12T14:32:00.006-05:00

For last father's day, my wife got me a figurine of a man holding a tiny baby. I looked for something similar for her, but couldn't find a decent mother and baby son that I liked. So for christmas, I sat down with some Super Sculpey, tinfoil, and wire and made this.

To keep it nice and smooth I probably should have spray painted it instead of applying acrylic paint, but oh well. Next time :)

Whale of a Tale

2009-01-01T15:06:00.008-05:00

I've been updating my reel recently, and found that I was lacking in lip-synch animation. So I grabbed a few rigs I had lying around and made this.

In case you don't recognize the audio, it's from the 1954 Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It's one of the first films I can remember seeing, and while the effects are dated, it's a great story and fun to watch. Love that sub:

HD - Youtube vs. Vimeo

2008-12-30T14:04:00.003-05:00

vs.

For my starfish project, I pulled out an early test of caustic lighting which I had rendered in 720p HD (it's pretty ugly, I know). I was curious to compare Youtube's new ability to upload high def videos, to that of Vimeo.

While this test is far from conclusive, I uploaded a file that met the recommendations for both sites (1280 x 720 24fps h.264 .mov file at highest quality), and the results are pretty apparent when viewed fullscreen:

HD test - Youtube
HD test - Vimeo

Youtube's "HD" mode is barely better than the normal resolution, while Vimeo is nearly crystal clear. In Youtube's defense, there is some really sharp-looking hd content on their site, so there might be a way to get nice results. If you know how to do it better, leave a message in the comments. For now I'm sticking with what works.

Man Tears: Vol. 1

2008-12-12T22:39:00.005-05:00

MAN TEARS are those that are shed in the presence of events or actions which are totally awesome, ultra-inspirational, or just down right manly. These tears are typically disposed of as fast as possible, unless by doing so the man unit in question would bring attention to the act thereof.

Today I came across a clip from a movie which inspired me to start this series of postings. I'm not saying I teared from the coolness of this clip, but I will say that if you have, I understand. I'm talking about the speech Captain Ramsey delivers to the crew of the Alabama before they ship off in Crimson Tide.

While this certainly isn't at the top of my list of awesome movie moments, or even the best speech before a battle, I hope you'll agree that there's something fantastic about watching a bunch of guys standing at attention in the pouring rain while their leader inspires them to give him all they have. Great acting, great score, great movie.

If you've seen it, I hope you enjoy watching it again. If you haven't seen this movie, do it now. Fall out.

SFN: the Starfish Ninja!

2008-12-01T16:32:00.004-05:00

Get ready, 'cause he's on his way. Some of you know of a project I've been developing for a couple years now: the Starfish Ninja. I've decided to let you all track my progress through a blog dedicated to the project. You can expect all sorts of behind the scene goodies, updates at least once a week, and the upcoming teaser trailer no later than mid 2009.

So head on over to the SFN blog and get your ninja on.

When I can't sleep...

2008-11-30T03:23:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I putz around with a little sculpting. The subject matter of this sculpt was inspired by Pixar's upcoming movie UP. Can't wait till May!

I wouldn't call it a finished piece, just a doodle.

Change of Seasons

2008-11-19T11:17:00.003-05:00

Here in SF the seasons do change. In the summer it's cool to warm, and it rains mildly in the winter. However the most significant change I notice as we head toward the rainy season comes with daylight savings. From April to November when I get out of work and begin my commute home, I get to see the sun beginning to set over the Golden Gate Bridge, the city is beautiful, and I can actually see when I need to get off the bus in the east bay. Now I get a totally different view as I leave my office and head for home. Here's to you, Mr. Daylight Savings.

New Yorker Cartoon

2008-10-27T01:21:00.003-05:00

Possibly one of the funniest single drawings I've ever seen. I saw this in a New Yorker during a long plane flight, and it made my day. Still makes me chuckle. Illustration by Pat Byrnes.

Omnomnomnom

2008-08-14T21:05:00.010-05:00

It's amazing how busy you can be with a 6 month-old child, but I promise I have material for a couple more posts coming up. Today's post will be all about my son. It's wonderful to watch him grow and figure things out, both as a parent and as an animator. It truly is amazing to see him experiencing things like solid food for the first time. There's nothing he can compare the sensation to, and no understanding of what he's supposed once the food goes into his mouth.

This video is a bit messy, and a couple months old, I think, but check it out and see what you notice. One of my favorite bits is the take he does about two minutes in.

Joe's 1st Meal on Vimeo.

Another thing that I notice now when I see babies animated in reels that really bothers me is when the baby is treated like a very animated yet tiny adult. The reason it looks wrong is because babies don't move like adults, or even drunk adults. They really have little control over their muscle contractions, especially in the fingers. And there's practically no muscle memory yet because there's nothing for the muscle to remember.

Also, you can read their intent several seconds before any action is made. For instance, when little Joe 5 decides he's going to put something in his mouth, his eyebrows raise and his mouth opens as he slightly leans forward, revealing his intent. He'll usually pause for a moment to see if anyone is watching and then quickly bring the unlucky object to his gums for a good chewing. When he's trying to be sneaky, he holds in that leaned forward/mouth open pose as long as he can and brings the desired thing to his mouth as slowly as he can. Makes me laugh every time I see it.

Oh, and I totally appreciate the scene in Incredibles where Helen is feeding Jack-Jack dinner. I don't know how many times I've caught myself chewing along with him muttering omnomnomnom...

You Can't Touch This

2008-08-02T12:47:00.005-05:00

Hello all. It's been a while, but some neat things have happened recently, so I thought I'd share. As some of you know, I work for the folks behind Meez.com, the avatar/virtual world site based in San Francisco. Recently, I animated a MC Hammer dance for a deal with DanceJam, a site with entertaining videos of tons of dances. (and for us animators, some great dance reference. check out this one. note the knitting grandma trying to ignore her bizarre offspring.)

But I was not prepared for the special visit to my workstation on thursday. Around 3:30, in comes the Hammer. We showed him the animation I had done, to which he replied in his smooth, deep voice, "Yeah, I saw that online the other day. Nice, real nice." I was stoked.

Now to let you all down, I must say that he was not wearing parachute pants, and he did not bust into the room with a boombox on his shoulder playing Can't Touch This. He was just a real neat guy who happens to be MC Hammer.

Oh, and before he could leave, I pulled out my sketchbook and had him sign my animation thumbnails. Check out the bottom of the image:

All in all, a pretty good day!

I was voted most square

2008-06-11T02:32:00.003-05:00

(painting by OTO the cleaner)

My submission to the 10 cube challenge at blenderartists.org entitled Run Indy, Run! (from previous post) finished first place. Woo hoo! Check out the other finalists here. And while that was pretty neat, I was also honored to accept a painting by one of the forum's moderators, OTO, as the first place prize. Here's a link to his website . Thanks, OTO, and keep the art coming!

Cube Modeling Challenge

2008-05-10T03:38:00.007-05:00

Here's sushi...in 10 cubes. This was 1o enjoyable minutes whipping up an entry for this modeling challenge on the Blender Artists form. The idea is to make something with 10 or fewer cuboid forms, with the default grey shader and simple lighting. Fun stuff.

I couldn't resist doing another. I imagine I'll end up doing a few more.

And some more...

Digital Camera Tip!

2008-04-10T20:05:00.019-05:00

If you're like me, you prefer not to use the flash on your affordable (i.e. low-end) digital camera because of how the images get blown out with terrifying head-on lighting. So what do you do when the lighting is too dark to get a good image? You would either deal with the ugly flash, or get a blurry, grainy photo. That's how I thought...until my son came along.

As a first-time father with a week-old baby, I spend nearly all of my time outside of work with my family or cleaning the apartment. Oh, and of course, taking pictures of the little man. The other day he twisted into this reeeeally cute pose, and I snatched up the camera. The lighting was far too dim for a good exposure, and I didn't get the shot. And then I got an idea.

If I had a pretty nice camera, it would have an adjustable flash. That way I could tilt the flash up and bounce light off the ceiling to get better light. Sadly these little digitals lack that ability. So I retrieved a business card from my wallet and held it up to the flash at a 45 degree angle. The result was definitely better, but some of the light still shone through the card. A mirror would be better, but I don't have one small enough to fit against the camera and not get in my way. The solution: take an old drivers license or credit card and cover it with tinfoil. Yessssss! Here was something I could slip into my wallet or the tiny camera case for those indoor low-light emergencies.

I experimented with the angle you hold the card away from the flash and found that in most cases, 45 degrees will bounce just the right amount of light at the subject. Too great an angle and it's not as effective, and too shallow an angle bounces light away from your subject.

Here are some comparisons I got from experimenting with this idea. About 90% of the light in these photos comes from the flash alone. It should be noted that I am by no means a skilled photographer, so forgive the weak compositions. It's also worth commenting that there are some limitations to this technique. For instance, it works best in a room with a ceiling of average height. But another plus to bouncing your flash is that it eliminates red-eye. At least I think it should.

(taken in a room with no lights after dusk)

(left: normal, right: bounced flash)

(left: normal, right: bounced flash)

(left: foil card angled too shallow, right: angled at 45 degrees to flash.)

Hopefully you found this interesting and useful. If you did, or have other suggestions, let me know. That's all for now from the secret lab.

Aw, come on! Another Joe?!

2008-04-08T22:45:00.008-05:00

I'd like to introduce you to my latest endeavor...my son. My wife did an amazing job pushing out this 9 lb, 9 oz little man on April 2nd after 22 hours of labor. Little Joe the 5th is adjusting to life outside the womb nicely, and we couldn't ask for anything more. Check out some pics of the little guy here. Or view a slide show below:

Facts about the Joe 5000 upgrade:

Birth Weight: 9lb 9oz
Birth Date: 4/2/08 at 4:19pm
Length: 21.5 inches
Happiest Spot: in the car seat
Super Power(s): unknown

MyToons bumper contest Winner

2008-03-16T23:13:00.003-05:00

So a big congrats to my good friend Dave, whose short animation "Furnick" was the super star winner in the mytoons.com bumper blastoff contest. Check it out!

Berkeley Life Drawing

2008-01-16T01:45:00.000-05:00

Here are the highlights from two different sessions at the UC Berkeley saturday life drawing class.

Actor or Character?

2007-11-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

A few months back I was talking with friends about movies and actors, and the discussion turned to how we identify people in movies. In our small group, all of the guys generally knew an actor by the different roles he or she had played. ("He's the guy that voiced Kronk in Emperor's New Groove...") Whereas the girls all thought of the actor's name first, characters second. ("You know, that's Patrick Warburton...")

So I thought this discussion was interesting enough to post here and see what people reading this blog think. In general, how do you identify with the people who appear in films or on TV? Which is it, actor or character? Let me know, I'm curious to hear what you think.

On Animation

2007-10-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

I was thinking today about my growth as a young animator and started to form a description of what animation is to me and what I've learned about it recently. If you're expecting brilliance here, let me warn you that you're better off heading to the blogs of others more qualified to speak on this topic. Try the usual Cartoon Brew, or John K's blog.

I thought about how animation captures the essence of life, gives a viewer the experience of connecting with characters that don't physically exist in a way that no other art form can, and that it provides a unique type of mirror for society, our values, and our own selves. I thought of the brilliant work of the Disney masters, and satisfaction I get from watching the crisp timing in episodes of Samurai Jack. Concepts like caricature and contrast came to mind, both of which have taken on new meaning in recent weeks. (And of course there are the principles of animation.) But the closer I came to a cohesive definition of what animation means to me right now, the further I felt from anything meaningful.

And then I thought of a sunset. The glowing red-orange ball disappearing below the horizon. The changing colors of the sky on its journey into night. Still, one thousand pages cannot begin to do justice to describe what a sunset feels like.

Both animation and sunsets contain a lot of iconography in our society, both cliché and sincere. We remember listening as bambi's mother was shot. And chances are that we have a dear memory or two based around sunsets we've experienced.

I can't tell you what it is about this art form that so enthralls me. And nothing I could describe would convince you of either the value of animation, or the power of a sunset. The best I can do is to leave you with this:

To me, animation is like this sunset I once saw...amazing.

Ed Catmull's Talk...Watch it!

2007-10-17T15:09:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to pass on this talk Ed Catmull gave at Stanford in Jan of this year. I downloaded RealPlayer and put this video on in the background this morning at work. For the very few who follow my blog (no matter who you are) you should really go watch it. A lot of common sense and quite a few nuggets of gold, interspersed with stories of Pixar's past and present.

Here's the blog post where I found the video. Enjoy.

Digital Sculpting Tutorial

2007-10-08T03:31:00.000-05:00

FREE CLAY! - Tutorial on sculpting with digital clay in Blender (version 2.45)

about 1.5 hrs of playing (click image to view larger)

Introduction:
Here is a tutorial on a technique I discovered for making modeling with Blender's sculpt tools and multires objects feel more like working with real clay. And the best part is that since you already have a computer, you save a couple of bucks by using digital clay since Blender is free! Shut up, I know I'm cheap.

I stumbled onto this way of working while trying to come up with a simple way to quickly block out a character for sculpting, similar to ZBrush's ZSpheres. There's a script someone wrote with the same basic idea in mind, but I wanted something faster and more intuitive.

This process should be friendly for those who are more comfortable with grabbing a chunk of clay and forming it with you hands, rather than selecting vertices, extruding, cutting edge-loops, and other such processes. My real hope is that a talented traditional artist friend of mine will be able to use this tutorial to quickly learn cg sculpting a make some really cool stuff for me to drool over. That said, I do assume that you have a basic understanding of how Blender's interface is laid out, how to create and transform objects, and a wacom tablet would be helpful as well.

Getting started:
To begin, open a new scene in blender. Let's clean up the scene a little by selecting the lamp and camera in the scene, press M to move them to a different layer and click on the fifth layer from the left to place the objects. Go back to layer 1 and delete anything else. You may also want to do is get rid of the grid by opening the View Properties and turning off the Grid Floor and X & Y axises.

To block out our character, we're going to use an object type that is probably the least used/useful of any known to man. Give it up for...Metaballs!

Meta blocking:
Go into the top view (important), press Space and add a metaball. Metaballs are a nifty, ancient piece of 3D technology that is useful for creating blobs. (Similar to lumps of clay, eh?) You create simple primitive shapes and scale and rotate them to block out your character's shape. When the primitives come close to one another, they bleed into one another the way water droplets merge when they touch. Cool.

Remember that Blender jumps out of Object mode into Edit mode when you create an object, so press Tab to switch back to Object mode. You won't be able to scale your Meta primitive non-proportionally in Edit mode. In Object mode, you can change these options for the entire Meta object, while tabbing into Edit mode gives you more options for the selected meta primitive, such as changing the type from Ball to Tube, Plane, Cube, etc. and you can also make Negative metas . Press Shift-D to duplicate the Metaball and place it where you like. Continue blocking out your character, building enough blobs to represent the limbs or forms you will need to sculpt your masterpiece. Don't get carried away by putting in too much detail at this stage, use as few shapes as you need. This is supposed to be quick and fun, after all.

Meta mess!
Now that you've got something that resembles what you're after, select all the Metaballs and (object mode) type Alt-C to convert it to polygons so you can actually do something with your blob. Delete any of those black rings left over from the metas and select your new polygon mesh. If you Tab into Edit mode you will see terrifying ugliness instead of nicely gridded mesh. "Certainly, we can't be expected to create anything useful out of this!" you shriek. Take it easy, my friend. It's time to add a Decimate modifier.

The Decimate modifier will do two things for us. It's primary job is to reduce the poly count of a mesh. A pleasant side effect for our purposes is that it will begin to rearrange the topology into a more manageable heap of triangles and quads. Keep reducing the Ratio slider below 0.5 until it becomes as coarse as you can stand. You want the lowest polygon base you can have that still maintains enough detail in the limbs and shapes you made with the Metaball phase. One thing to watch for is that this process sometimes creates holes as it does its best to simplify the mesh. I find that usually you can slightly change the Ratio to fix the problem, but if you're still finding holes, check out the Tips & Tricks section at the end. So as you can see, this step greatly reduces the Face Count, which will be good later. Next we need to get rid of those triangles as much as possible. Click Apply (in the modifier panel) and Tab into Edit mode. Press A until all of the vertices are selected (turn yellow) and hit Alt-J to convert the faces from triangles to quads, which will subdivide better. Now you should have something we can work with.

Beginning to sculpt:
Right below the Modifiers section is the Multires panel. A multires object has the options to add numerous levels of smooth subdivision to a mesh. While you can use the sculpt tools on any polygon or nurbs mesh, the great strength of sculpting with Multires is the ability to jump back and forth to different levels--quickly changing gross form at lower levels, and adding finer detail at the higher levels. Add the Multires and Add a level. We're ready to sculpt.

In case you haven't noticed, Blender's different modes offer different tool sets and options. To make the sculpting tools available you need to be in Sculpt mode, accessible through the Mode drop-down in any 3D window header. You'll see two new tabs next to the multires panel, Sculpt and Brush. Sculpt has most of the options you'll need to begin shaping your mesh. Note that most of the different brushes in this panel have hot-keys which will save a lot of time(G=Grab, D=Draw, S=Smooth, etc.). Most important here is changing the brush size and intensity. Pressing F and dragging the mouse will resize the brush, while Shift-F will allow you to adjust the Brush Intensity. You can also turn on Symmetry to paint, for instance, both sides of a face at one time. This can speed up tasks tremendously, as long as your mesh is aligned to the axis properly.

The Steps Overview:
-Create Metaballs, duplicate, move, scale, rotate
-Convert to Polygon via Alt-C (delete original)
-Apply Decimate modifier
-Quads via Alt-J in edit mode
-Apply Multires, add a level
-Switch to Sculpt Mode and sculpt away!

Conclusion:
I think that's about enough to get started with your new-found free digital clay. Check out the links in the Tips and Tricks section for further exploration. Let me know if you find this tutorial is useful. While I've used many 3d packages over the past decade, I've only been using Blender for a few weeks, so I'm certainly not an expert. If you really want to learn blender's tools, go through the tutorials and user manual at wiki.blender.org and happy sculpting!

~joe

TIPS & TRICKS

Repairing holes from the decimate modifier:
Holes happen. Here's how to fix them. If you've already added a multires, go back to level 1 and click Apply (you will loose any sculpted detail on higher levels). Tab into Edit mode and select 3 or 4 vertices on the hole's edge and press F to create a face across those verts. Continue the process until the hole is filled. Type A to select all the verts and then Alt-J to convert to quads. Problem solved.

Need more subdivision!
Sometimes you just need more subdivision in specific areas like the hands and face of a character and don't want it everywhere. A simple way to add some more polygons to those areas is to drag a selection around the verts in question (B key) and press W. From the menu that pops up, select Subdivide Smooth. Tab out of edit mode and move on to the Beginning to Sculpt section of the tutorial.

Tools that will make your entire life easier:
-Alt-B -- commit this to memory. It allows you to drag a box around an area of mesh to isolate a specific area. This is great for getting those hard to reach places inside a mouth, or for adding detail to an area while keeping the redraw time down.

-Partial redraw -- here is an option in the Sculpt menu that I switch on at times when I'm working with really dense mesh, it works it's magic to draw really dense mesh more quickly. Yay.

-Set Smooth / Set Solid -- these buttons are helpful. I usually sculpt with the edge normals set to Solid so you can really see the changes you're sculpting into your mesh. Set Smooth will remove the facets and give you a better picture of how it will render.

Videos & Tuts:
-Check out this youtube video to watch a head sculpting screen capture.
-Here is a Tutorial containing info about adding texture to your sculpt brushes.

FJORG! at Siggraph 2007: "Spaced Out"

2007-08-13T01:01:00.000-05:00

Three of the Commandos (Dave, Jed, and I) participated in the FJORG! Iron Animator competition at Siggraph this year. The 32-hour event was focused on creating the best piece of character animation possible within the tight deadline. We had loads of fun, met a whole lot of great people at the event, and produced a short film we are pleased with. There's nothing like staying up for nearly 40 hours straight to create a short film.

Anyway, here are some links regarding the competition:
See all 15 films from the competition.
AWN Media Center - watch "Siggraph Netcast #4" to hear my thoughts on abrasive Techno, and check out "FJORG! A Documentary"

And here's our film Spaced Out.

Driving to San Diego

2007-08-11T04:12:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Jed Mitchell, a great friend of mine from the east coast, came to visit. We had a blast catching up, reminiscing, and discussing atrocities in animated film making while we drove down to San Diego for the FJORG! competition at this year's Siggraph conference. (The picture above may slightly resemble Jed on the right and Dave on the left, my teammates at the competition.)

My lovely wife gave me a portable watercolor kit on the day of our departure and I managed to scribble and scratch at the paper until I produced these sketches on our way down Route 5.

Making of: Dance of the Seasons

2007-08-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

During college, I was fortunate to co-direct three 24-hour animations along with a good friend of mine Jed Mitchell. Here is some footage I just finished cutting together of us creating Dance of the Seasons, our third film made in one straight day. And here are the blogs/websites of the other artists involved in creating this piece.

Brittney Lee
Dave Suroviec
Bill Robinson
Nathaniel Hubbell
RJ Pena

SF SketchCrawl 5.19.07

2007-05-21T18:45:00.000-05:00

So much fun. Thanks to everyone who helped organize the event. Here are a few highlights from my sketchbook:

The Ferry Building, where the crawl began

A jazz musician having so much fun

Coit Tower

Somewhere in Little Italy

The Sketchcrawl ended in Chinatown. We passed around our sketchbooks and got to see all the great art people had made. Can't wait for the next one!

Go fly a...Jet?

2007-05-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

yes, please!

2007-04-10T13:56:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling the need to do some speed painting recently. So here's an hour or two of playing around. Yay!

a couple of Layouts

2007-03-28T01:11:00.000-05:00

Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I figure I'll toss up a couple of backgrounds from the freelance project I'm working on.

Rotoscope

2006-10-24T23:44:00.001-05:00

Hooray, rotoscope! You are ugly. Look at this rotoscope, it makes you beautiful.

CLICK TO PLAY!

There you go, now you are beautiful.
Hooray, rotoscope!

Cutout Assignment

2006-10-19T23:09:00.001-05:00

Here is what I turned in last week in my 2D Computer Animation class. The last animation class I'll take at RIT. I'd much rather be animating in 3D or on paper, but what can you do. Anyway, it was done in after effects, with a design you may recognize from one of the 24-hour animations I co-directed with Jed Mitchell. Enjoy:

< Click Image to Play

My Online Portfolio

2006-09-24T23:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, check out my portfolio at:
http://josephsdaniels.blogspot.com

that's all.

half-nude chick

2006-09-14T14:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a piece of CG art I dug up the other day, which I am particularly happy with. I'm sure I'll be coming back to this style some day in the future.

Illustration Friday: "Farm"

2006-09-11T00:34:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I've wanted to do something with ants for quite a while.

under the Sea

2006-08-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

Ah, painting is so relaxing. I should do this more often.

starfish concept

2006-07-23T19:35:00.000-05:00

Here's an early concept of a character i'm beginning to develop in my spare time...hah! Anyway, he's a kickin', punchin', badass starfish with anger issues. :)

Oh Gendy, why did you stop making Samurai Jack episodes?
(long sigh)

Thesis Animation

2006-05-25T22:45:00.000-05:00

So my thesis animation is up on Jed and my blog. One year's worth of work produced a 6 minute story, and I can't image a better way to spend my senior year at RIT. I just want to say thanks to all of you who helped us throughout the creation of the film, I appreciate it. So go over to our thesis blog and check it out!

Ah, pixels...

2006-02-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

Now that I've got a week or two before classes start up for spring quarter, I've been taking a little time to relax and decided to create some pixel art. I've always been a fan of simplicity in art, so this style certainly appeals to me. Hope you like it!

(you'll have to click on the images to see them correctly without antialiasing)

"On The Edge"

2006-01-18T21:57:00.000-05:00

Here is a short animation I made after my freshman year at RIT, during the summer of 2003. Because it wasn't for any class and I could do whatever I wanted with it, and the fact that I enjoy the music, this is probably one of the most pain free pieces I've made. It's the story of two rocks trying to enjoy the view from the edge of their cliff. Click here to watch.

"Pondlife"

2005-12-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

So, since I am using this blog thing instead of a website, here's a film I made in the spring of 2004 at RIT as part of my degree. It was a 10-week project and a heck of a lot of fun. Enjoy!

View it here. (10 mb .mov file, requires quicktime 7)

colors!

2005-12-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

So here is a quick composition I threw together with the color pallet we're probably going to use in the wedding.

"I now pronounce you..."

2005-12-11T18:03:00.000-05:00

Hey, all. For those of you who will be part of Em and my wedding this July, or just want to check it out, we have put up a blog with all sorts of information about the date, place, and many more interesting things relating to the wedding. So, check it out and let us know if you have any questions. Enjoy!

Art of DOTS

2005-11-14T13:31:00.000-05:00

So as promised, here are some more concepts and stills from "Dance of the Seasons" the 24-hour animation challenge. Hope you like!

Dance of the Seasons

2005-11-13T20:31:00.000-05:00

Here's the latest 24-hour animation challenge that Jed Mitchell and I directed. 7 people worked on this film, 5 of us animating, to create over 1200 frames in under 12 hours. The process of producing the film was a blast--probably the most fun I've had with animation to date. When the seven of us showed up to make this thing, Jed and I had chosen a piece of music. Everything else would follow in the course of one day. With 20 minutes left on the clock, we ran out of paper and had finished all but one or two shots. Over the next couple weeks Jed and I assembled the animation and today we screened the piece for the students and faculty of RIT's School of Film and Animation. I want to thank everyone who worked the long hours and lost sleep to make this happen. Take a look and let me know what you think:

Dance of the Seasons - Large (16 MB) recommended

Dance of the Seasons - Small (10 MB)

I'll add some more images from the film asap, but for now check out the picts on the blogs of animators Brittney Lee and Dave Suroviec. Also, Bill Robinson, our boarding and layout wizard has some pictures of us all working on the film. Nice pix, Bill!

And here are the first two 24-hour animations we directed:

Frostbite - Click here!

"Jack" and the "Beanstalk" - Click here!

Abstraction Assignment

2005-11-10T07:04:00.000-05:00

Here are several pieces I made for an assignment in Nancy Beiman's Character Design class where we had to illustrate an abstract idea. From top to bottom, they represent danger, humor, and peace. I had a lot of fun with them, so i'm sharing them with you!

flipbook!

2005-11-06T19:19:00.000-05:00

Check this out! A website that allows you to make flipbooks in a small Flash window in your browser. Pretty cool.

Here's one I made really quick.
Click here to make one yourself.

Thesis Blog

2005-11-03T23:29:00.000-05:00

So Jed Mitchell and I now have a blog for our thesis animation. Preproduction is slowly wrapping up so we'll have a story reel to post soon. Let us know what you think of the stuff we're starting to put up.
mantisanimation.blogspot.com

And So It Begins

2005-11-02T13:26:00.000-05:00

I told myself I'd never make one of these blog things, but...here we are. And since I have always been less than diligent at keeping up a website, I think this will work out well. Some time soon I'll start posting animations and artwork of mine for all to see. Hooray!