Hi. I’m Sven. I freshly graduated from the Animation BA at HSLU just this summer.

Up until the LuMAA, I’ve been a 2D Animator. I have opened Blender and I’ve set a keyframe before, but I never seriously approached 3D animation, let alone worked with a proper rig.

However, I have always had a fascination with the medium. Why not combine that interest with my love for character animation?

So when LuMAA came up this year, I decided to take the opportunity to finally take a proper stab at 3D. Follow along as I discover the world of CG animation!

And heyo! I’m Emanuel. I am in my second year and have been animating in 3D for some time now, but I want to grow and learn a lot more about 3D character animation. LuMAA is one of the best courses for growing as an animator, so why not take the plunge again?

Block 1A: Human Walk Cycle

Time and time again I’m amazed by how much I can learn from doing default walks!

Erica Palmerini showed us a blocking approach to 3D animation, where you pose the Character from keyframes to breakdowns to in-betweens, quite similar to the classic 2D approach. Because of this, I felt at home quite quickly. I was expecting my 2D experience to help, but I was surprised about just how well my skills translated to CG.

As for getting used to Maya: We had a small introduction prior to the workshop, which helped a lot to find my way around the program. Naturally, it still felt quite clunky in the beginning, but luckily Erica and the students from abroad were very happy to help. By day three Maya posed no more issues. (The Autodesk gods must have been on my side though, because the program crashed a whopping 0 times in my first week! I learned only later how blessed I was…) 

One thing that I soon learned to love about 3D animation is how easily you can experiment without being destructive. It’s crazy how much the attitude of a walk can change just by slightly offsetting or scaling keyframes. And it’s super fast to iterate!

As the week came to an end, we went down to the REX, the small Cinema of the HSLU, to look at our work on the big screen. Discussing our Animations this way was a great way to end the week, so the REX reviews became a weekly thing.

Block 2: Creature Animation

In week 2 we animated a quadruped walk cycle with Lukas Niklaus. Not only did we have double the legs to take care of, but we also approached it quite differently than in week one: This time around, Lukas advised us to work directly with curves, achieving our poses by changing the interpolation between as few keyframes as possible. 

This was more abstract to me since it was a different way of thinking. Rather than coming up with poses, you would think about the speeds and offsets at which limbs move. 

Once I got the hang of it, approaching animation this way helped a lot with understanding how muscles work.

Working with fewer keys made it slightly harder for me to achieve organic movement. However, once I did, it was even easier to iterate than with the Blocking approach. Another bonus of working this way is that once you’re happy with your movement, you don’t have to smoothen it.

In the second week of the Creature animation Block, we tackled an acting shot. Together with Michael Aerni, we studied animals’ behavior in depth. We combined the previously learned techniques to bring our animals alive. For this exercise, I chose a little Bulbul bird. With its snappy movement it was quite the contrast to the tiger I animated the previous week. It’s really interesting to see how much body size influences movement.

Throughout the week, Michael also gave us interesting insights into previs and cameras inside and outside of animation software.

Block 1B: Lip sync 

By week 4 I started feeling quite confident in 3D animation, as I was slowly finding a workflow that felt natural to me: I would usually block out the most important body parts pose by pose, while tackling more simple movements and adding some follow through directly in the spline.

For Lip-sync week, Ramon Arango and Noah Demirci taught us a lot about how mouths produce sounds and showed us interesting observations about acting beats and subtle eye darts.

Conveniently, Ramon is also the creator of the Apollo and Artemis rigs that a lot of us had been using for the workshop. So not only did we benefit from feedback and lectures, but Ramon could also occasionally perform some Rig surgery.

Going from stepped animation into spline is always a hard step, but I found that for lip syncing, the smooth motion can feel especially jarring. When we talk, the mouth snaps from pose to pose quite quickly. So when we started splining the mouth, the focus was on getting the energy from the blocking back. Applying this I quickly achieved a satisfying, snappy animation. 

That week we also had a little screening where everyone could show each other projects they had worked on. I was absolutely blown away by everyone’s creativity, skill, and stories. We saw everything from psychedelic journeys through compost bins to silly 80s action movies with bugs and even played a little intergalactic rhythm game. The lovely evening ended with a heated round of Mario Kart in the cinema.

As every Friday, we ended the week with a cozy and delicious barbeque. This time it was also a little farewell for Matze and me, who left the workshop that evening.

The rest of the class was getting ready for their last big task: over the last two weeks of LuMAA, they would tackle more complex, full-body acting shots.

Block 3: Full Body Acting Shot

With the end rapidly approaching for LuMAA we poured all of our emotions into the acting shot. It’s the combination of all that we have learned with more SPECIFICITY. If there is something that our teachers from Pixar want us to remember, it’s this one concept. María Bjarnadóttir (and her partner Alyssa) and Kristen Willsher were focused on this concept and beat it into our heads as it had been drilled into them during their time at Pixar. This “specificity“ is the magic that really makes us see a person within a bunch of moving geometry. It’s the art of holding a look, an involuntary movement, or making specific choices that the character would naturally make, all while achieving the illusion that there is no puppeteer behind the scenes. But to learn more about this, consider joining LuMAA yourself.

Maria and Alyssa were there to help us come up with what exactly we wanted to animate for the following week, block it, and get it to IP (in progress – the stage between blocking and polishing). We listened to dialogue, learned about characters and how people move, and then blocked our ideas out. Meanwhile, they walked around and made sure we pushed our shots as far as we could. “It’s always easier to pull back an extreme idea rather than push a weak idea further“, and so we started with as wild-ass ideas as we could conceive, and pulled back some strings after. 

We had a lot of fun watching Luca together with Maria and Alyssa, a movie that both of them and Kristen worked on. It had become a little bit of a tradition to watch a movie that our teachers worked on during the weeks, sometimes with the teachers present. We also had another delicious Friday BBQ and a tour of the school so that everyone could see the vast number of departments in HLSU DFK.

Kristen was our teacher for the final week, which was all about Polish, her favorite step of the animation process. We also got introduced to splocking, which is a layered workflow, but this time we used it for character acting. With Kirsten’s clear feedback, we all made amazing progress on our shot and pushed it even further – sometimes, it was at the cost of finishing the shot, but on the other hand, we gained a lot of knowledge, experience, and clarity of our ideas.

In the final week, we tried to cram in whatever last activities were still not done yet, so besides a last weekend hike, we managed to go bowling and have a fun afternoon with the game of werewolf. Over the weeks we have done so many fun things together as a group, that helped us bond and connect with each other.

Bundling up whatever leftover energy and emotion within us and pouring it into our animation, we finished our shots. And trust me, the emotions were running high since we all knew that this wonderful time was coming to an end and we would have to say goodbye to each other by the end of the week. The last BBQ had plenty of food and a lot of heartwarming last hugs were given – then it was over. It was a great time and one that I will certainly not forget for a long time.

Once again thank you to Simon Otto, for supervising the course. Michael Aerni, Lukas Niklaus, María Bjarnadóttir, Erica Palmerini, Ramon Arango, Noah Demirci, Kristen Willsher, and Alyssa Ragni for teaching us so much. To the staff at Animation Lucerne for the support and for putting it all together and, of course, our classmates.
See you next year at the next LuMAA.

Another year, another LuMAA!

This time around with air-conditioning. The course and its structure stayed the same, but on hot days, the air-conditioning was a blessing – since PC-stuffed rooms aren’t known for their inherent coolness, temperature-wise. As per usual, we opened the doors of the course to fellow students from partner schools, namely Jirio and Harry from Filmakademie Baden Württemberg, Violette and Robin from MOPA, and Astrid, Sofie, and Liva from TAW. Oh, and us, of course, a rambunctious bunch from HSLU, with first years in the majority.

The location, the PC room of our dear animation department. The students, a wild bunch from all over, eager to learn. The software, Maya, a difficult beast to master. The teachers, a great many with years of experience under their belt, ready to guide us to new heights of animation. So here’s how that went down.

Week 1 – Walk cycles with Yves Ruprecht

Beginnings are difficult. Especially if you have never touched Maya before. Luckily, Yves was there to help us newcomers start off on the right foot, so to speak. He recommended a return to the basics–so we all hopped on a treadmill and shot references of each other. Later, we analyzed our walks as preparation for animating our walk cycles. This task was a familiar one—but this time around, we were able to push them further with Yves’ feedback, be it a vanilla walk or one with more personality.

Yves is not only a kind and motivating person, but also a great informant on everything regarding the animation industry and what to expect as we enter the field. One especially important piece of advice: you need patience to find the right job in this industry. But in the end, that patience pays off.

Week 2 – Lip-sync with Ramon Arango and Noah Demirci

In week two, Ramon and Noah returned to LuMAA–not as students, but as the teachers up front. They told us they were nervous–but seeing how passionately they spoke about the subtleties of facial animation, we would never have known if they hadn’t said so. Two pieces of advice stood out in particular. Firstly, blinks can be wonderfully diverse, and very effective in showing the inner world of a character. Secondly, not every sound has to have its own mouth movement in order to feel believable—a hint is often enough.

“No matter how many years of experience you have in this industry, each new shot is a new challenge … and to realize that was eye-opening. “  – Noah Demirci

Week 3 – Creature Anim: Walk cycles with Lukas Niklaus

Due to a scheduling mistake, Ramon was kind enough to teach for the first two days of the week before Lukas took over. Armed with experience working on creature animation at Weta, the studio behind the VFX of Avatar and LOTR, he was the perfect teacher to help us tackle the quadruped’s walk cycle. Most of us animated a tiger, so he was able to concentrate on teaching us in-depth detail and knowledge about how this marvelous creature moves. Thanks to him, we all managed to incorporate even the smallest details, down to the subtle rotation of the core and the squish of the paws. Alongside teaching, he showed us examples of the impressive professional projects he has taken part in–including work from the studio “floating rocks”, which he is co-leading.

Week 4 – Creature Anim: Body mechanics with Michael Aerni

We all know it to be true–everything in animation is a bouncing ball. Armed with this golden nugget of knowledge and guidance from Michael, we made simple shapes move around. Since Michael animates mainly in a layered fashion, we took it upon ourselves to try it out, with great success. Many liked this layered approach so much, they continued to use it in the following weeks. For the uninitiated, layered animation is a method where you focus first on the movement of the character’s core, and then “layer in” the limbs and other secondary elements. Instead of making one full pose after the other, you slowly build the animation from the core. This has the advantage of making the weight of the character look and feel more believable in less time than a pose-to-pose approach. It is a process that takes a bit to get used to, but is certainly worth learning.

Week 5 – Acting shot with Nicole Ridgewell

The week with Nicole started even before the week began, as we were tasked with finding good dialogue–a quest much more difficult than initially presumed. All recognizable samples (those which are already overused in acting shots) were immediately struck out, and we were sent on a search for our own characters and their stories.  That involved daily observational drawing, looking both into ourselves and at the people around us. Adding all of that together, we pitched our shot and got started. Our goal? To reach IP by the end of the week. IP (short for “in progress”) is the stage of production where, although many things are still rough and need to be polished, the central idea of the shot is already clearly communicated and can be built upon with more work. By Friday, we were fully invested in the characters we had built up over the course of the week, and were looking forward to Week 6—when we would finally flesh out the animation in more detail.

Week 6 – Acting shot with Dan Nguyen

Not only did Dan bring his vast understanding of character acting, but also a calmness that perfectly complemented Nicole’s energy from the week before. With his wise words and insightful feedback, we started to polish our acting shot. It takes a lot of time and a good eye to spot which small subtleties require correction, but with Dan’s help, we made great strides in this vital skill. With that we were learning the last lesson of LuMAA, true patience. It takes a lot of time to go from the initial idea to polish. Every curve is cleaned out, all arcs are accounted for, the small deformations of hands are added, cheeks are squished into appealing shapes … all the small details are refined truly bring the performance to life.

“If you don’t have that connection to people who are actually doing the job, it can seem kind of abstract and distant.” – Dan Nguyen

Ping pong and other worthwhile activities

Unbelievably, we did not just animate for six weeks straight, but also lived our lives to the fullest. With such an amazing cast of characters, how could we not have fun? (Besides when we were screaming at our computers.) We cooked together, had weekly barbeque parties, and screened each other’s graduation movies as well as inspiring films and series in the REX (the school’s mini movie theater). Some of us got so good at ping pong that they graduated to playing with dustpans instead of paddles. We learned drinking games and had chocolate and beer tastings.

The weather was wild, from very cold rainy weather, where the aircon was our doom (we could not set the temperature, so it got rather chilly at times), to scorching heat, where the only escape was the river. We went swimming often, floating along with the current, and even enjoying a boat ride.

With all these experiences behind us, Maya almost trauma-bonding us together, and just being around each other for six weeks, it was hard to say goodbye. But time marched onward, and the experience ended. For some, school would commence again soon, while others had to start searching for a job, and yet others were beginning internships. Before we all went our separate ways, we promised we would see each other again soon, be it at festivals, in the industry, or—perhaps—even at next year’s LuMAA.

Thanks to Nicole, Dan, Michael, Lukas, Roman, Noah, and Yves, we now understand that a fulfilling life working in film is not only possible, but likely. Great opportunities await us in the entertainment sector, and we are lucky to be a part of it in these exciting times! One thing all our teachers agreed on: they are happy with their decision to enter the film industry. Even after 20 intense years of working on big movies to independent productions, they couldn’t imagine doing something different. We cannot imagine anything else either.

Schon hat die vierte Woche der LuMAA angefangen, und die Konzentration ist nach wie vor hoch.

Woche 3: Creature Animation

Dozent in der dritten Woche war Michael Aerni, der ebenfalls bei Weta Digital in Neuseeland arbeitet.

Zieht euch mal sein Showreel rein, da werde ich ganz kribbelig und will das auch mal machen (:

https://vimeo.com/145841969

Mit Respekt näherten wir uns dem Creature Animation Shot an, denn auch wenn wir auf 150 Frames beschränkt wurden, der Workload war riesig… Ich hatte zwei Tiger, die miteinander kämpften, und schaffte gerade mal, 50 Frames auf einen relativ sauberen Stand zu bringen. Aber ich bin trotzdem sehr zufrieden mit dem Ergebnis, da ich zuvor noch nie eine Interaktion zwischen zwei Kreaturen animiert hatte.

Die verschiedenen Farben dienen der einfacheren Auseinanderhaltung der beiden Tiger bei dieser komplexen Interaktion.

Wie schon in den ersten beiden Wochen hatten wir die fantastische Möglichkeit, uns direkt zu unseren Shots Rückmeldung zu holen; Michael war sehr hilfsbereit und hilfreich!

Woche 4: Lip Sync

Zur Zeit läuft die vierte Woche mit Stefan Schumacher, der uns von Pixar besucht.

Lip Sync und ein kleiner Acting Shot stehen auf dem Plan. Ich habe mir eine wahrscheinlich viel zu subtile Szene ausgewählt, denn ich habe so meine liebe Mühe mit animieren diese Woche. Vielleicht merke ich mittlerweile einfach auch, dass ich schon vier Wochen jeden Tag zwischen sieben und acht Stunden am animieren bin, etwas, was ich noch nie zuvor gemacht habe. Es ist also nicht nur ein Vergnügen, auch wenn es Spass macht! Doch wir beissen uns natürlich durch, denn das Lernen steht im Vordergrund.

Wie schon die Dozenten vor ihm hat Stefan uns sehr viele nützliche Tipps gegeben, zum Beispiel in welcher Reihenfolge man am besten die grosse Aufgabe des Lipsyncs angeht. Auch in einem eher simplen Rig eines Gesichts hat es viele Controller, von denen man sich nicht einschüchtern lassen darf!

Stefan nahm sich sehr viel Zeit für unsere einzelnen Anliegen, was sehr angenehm war und uns wahnsinnig weiterhalf.

Wir gingen auf viele Details ein, zum Beispiel welche Teile des Gesichts sich bei einer Änderung von Emotionen zuerst bewegen oder wie man Denkprozesse eines Charakters rüberbringen kann. Faszinierend, was man alles mit kleinsten Bewegungen universal lesbar ausdrücken kann!

 

Text: Rhoda Berger
Fotos: Leoni Dietrich

Seit zwei Wochen ist nun die LuMAA am laufen, und ich sage euch, die Geschwindigkeit und die Ansprüche sind hoch: Ich lerne so viel animieren wie nie zuvor! Lasst uns doch kurz rekapitulieren, wie die beiden Wochen waren.

Woche 1: Walk cycles

In der ersten Woche kamen K.C. Roeyer und Simon Christen den weiten Weg von den Pixar Animation Studios in Kalifornien nach Luzern, um mit uns an den Grundlagen des Walk cycles zu feilen.

Als Modell diente uns Norman, ein etwa 10 Jahre alter Charakter mit viel appeal. Mit grossem Detailgrad wurde uns der Aufbau eines Walk cycles, also dem auf-der-Stelle-Gehen eines Charakters, nähergebracht.

Es war äusserst hilfreich, diese Grundlagen nochmal aufgefrischt zu kriegen, auch weil Simon und K.C. die Sicht von Pixar vermittelten und wir so einen anderen Ansatz gezeigt kriegten als im Studium. Auch Tricks und kleine Geheimnisse, wie mit einem (nicht permanenten!) Marker direkt auf den Bildschirm zu zeichnen, um Abstände und Arcs sichtbar zu machen, wurden preisgegeben.

Es wurde diese Woche die pose to pose Herangehensweise bevorzugt, in der, wie der Name schon verrät, die Schlüsselposen mit allen Controllern gemacht werden. Danach fügt man die in betweens, die Zwischenposen, ein und arbeitet sich so voran.

Natürlich kam bei all der Arbeit auch der Spass und das Kaffeetrinken nicht zu kurz (;

Woche 2: Creature Walk cycle

Die zweite Woche verbrachten wir mit Lukas Niklaus, welcher gerade von Weta Digital zu Industrial Light & Magic gewechselt hat (Glückwunsch!).

Mit ihm schauten wir uns die eher realistische Seite der Walk cycles an, nämlich einen Tiger für VFX. Wir studierten viel Referenzmaterial und lernten einen anderen Ansatz als in der ersten Woche kennen: den layered approach, die “geschichtete Herangehensweise”.

Dabei geht es darum, mit dem root controller zu beginnen, und das Modell wie eine Actionfigur im Raum zu platzieren. Langsam fügt man dann eins nach dem anderen die Füsse, Hüften, Brust und Kopf dazu, bevor man schliesslich in die Details geht, wie zum Beispiel wie die Zehen auseinander gleiten, wenn der Tiger auftritt. Entsprechend waren unsere Diskussionen auch angeregt:

Vielleicht noch mehr als letze Woche war das Vermitteln vom Gewicht der Kreatur unglaublich wichtig, da ein Realitätsgrad angestrebt wird. Wenn die Pfoten des Tigers durch die Luft schweben, ist die ganze Illusion dahin. Mist.

Kurz:

Die Zeit rennt, wir animieren uns die Hände ab, haben dank Ventilatoren nicht ganz so heiss und kriegen die seltene Chance auf Feedback von äusserst grossartigen Animatoren, welche so ganz nebenbei auch noch wahnsinnig sympathisch sind. Nicht die schlechteste Art, den Sommer zu verbringen!

 

Text: Rhoda Berger
Fotos: Leoni Dietrich