Animation – Page 2 – MTM College

4 Pioneering Digital Animation Innovations from Pixar

You don’t get very far in any conversation about digital animation, or film animation, before the name Pixar pops up. That’s true even if the chat isn’t about technical innovations.

Many people who are interested in digital animation, from fans of the genre to those who want to make a career , got their first taste of it from the original ‘Toy Story’ movie. Released in 1995, ‘Toy Story’ was the first computer-animated feature film and set the standard of the day for digital animation.

In the over two decades since Toy Story hit film screens, Pixar has released almost one computer-animated film per year, including 2018’s ‘Incredibles 2’. Along the way, Pixar also created many digital animation innovations to keep up with demand for more movies and more realism and flexibility in 3D film animation.

3D Animation Innovations from Pixar

It would be difficult to list all of the innovative digital animation tools and techniques developed by Pixar. But here are three that stretched the envelope of what’s possible in digital animation.

Global Illumination – Lighting may be more important for animated films than it is for their real-life counterparts. Better lighting effects improve realism. Global Illumination uses a group of algorithms to determine not just how light strikes a surface, but how it bounces from surface to surface.
Universal Scene Description (USD) – Imagine many steps in the 3D animation process being able to be worked on simultaneously. Instead of waiting for characters to be animated before they are lit, it could all happen at the same time. That’s the level of animation complexity that USD allows.
RenderMan – Ahh, time to render your 3D animation for a film. Come back later. Unless you happen to be using Renderman, which eliminates the delay between when an artist makes an edit and when the rendered image appears.

3D animation is part of the curriculum for the Classical & Computer Animation & Production Diploma from Max the Mutt. We have graduates who work at many leading animation companies, including Pixar. Contact us to learn more.

BONE MOTHER Screening: a Halloween Treat for MTM Students

On Tuesday, Oct 30, Montreal-based animator and director, Dale Hayward, a graduate of Max the Mutt’s animation program, visited us just in time for Halloween! Dale give our students a talk about his work as a stop-motion animator, and gave a special screening of his new award winning, stop-motion animated film, BONE MOTHER !!

BONE MOTHER Halloween — Bone Mother poster

Film synopsis: “A vain and arrogant youth dares to enter Baba Yaga‘s living house of bones. What emerges will forever fill our nights with terror.”.

Dale was in Toronto for the opening of Bone Mother, as well as for the opening of a gallery show of the props created for the film!

Dale and his wife and artistic partner Sylvie, met while working at Cuppa Coffee Studios in Toronto, and moved to Montreal where in 2011 they co-founded their company, See Creature.

Since then they have amassed years of experience both in commercial and independent animation and have done several projects for the NFB. They’ve produced stop-motion ads for Nike and other major brands, animated TV series, and also worked on features like Le Petit Prince. Dale showed See Creature’s demo reel, spoke about the creative potential of stop-motion, and spoke about the making of Bone Mother from script to screen. This included using 3D printing technology to create the props! Then we all watched Bone Mother, their award winning new film.

At the end of the showing, Dale answered questions, toured the college, and spoke with some eager students.

From See Creature, the film Bone Mother was born !

Co-directed by Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé, and produced by the NFB Animation Studio.

Bone Mother is a must see !!

From all of us at Max the Mutt, we want to thank you Dale for taking time out of your busy schedule to visit us!

We would also like to congratulate both Dale and Sylvie for their continued success and we can’t wait to see what they create next !!

For more on the behind the scenes, the story and the making-of Hayward’s and Trouvé’s film, visit NFB’s blog about the film and for an interview with the co-directors.

For more making-of photos check out the Bone Mother instagram account.

Artwork from Bone Mother will be exhibited at Toronto’s Liberty Arts Gallery, opening November 1 and on display a month, and Dale and Sylvie are giving a masterclass on the making of Bone Mother on Nov 4 at the 2018 edition of the TAAFI Conference in Toronto.

A Quick Look at 5 Different Types of Animation

If you’re thinking about a career in animation, you’ve probably done some animating. Maybe you’ve always doodled on a flipbook. Or you might have grown up with a computer animation program. In any case, you have a pretty good idea of what is animation, or you wouldn’t be thinking about making it your career!

But, no matter what animating you’ve done, you’ve probably only used one of the 5 basic types of animation. For example, your flipbook animations are an example of 2D animation, or traditional animation. The work you’ve done on a computer is probably and example of 3D or computer animation.

5 Basic Types of Animation

Here’s a quick look at 5 types of animation to help you have a better idea of the possibilities for a career in animation.

Traditional 2D Animation – One of the older forms of animation, every frame of a traditional animation sequence is created by hand, similar to what you did with with flipbooks. Back in the day, animators used a process called onion skinning. Working on a light table, animators could see previous drawings through the paper so they could draw the next frame in the sequence. Today, even traditional animation is created using a computer. Disney’s classic animated films and the old Bugs Bunny cartoons are examples of traditional animation.
2D Vector-Based Animation – In addition to aiding in the process of traditional animation, computer technology makes it possible to create 2D vector-based animations. In addition to frame-by-frame animation, 2D vector-based animation technology gives animators the option to create ‘rigs’ for a character. This allows the animator to move individual body parts, instead of redrawing the entire character for each frame.
Computer Animation – While 2D vector-based animations are created with computer, computer animation refers to 3D animations. Today, 3D animation is the most common form of animation. Computer animation requires the same understanding of the principles of movement and composition as traditional animation. But 3D animation doesn’t necessarily require drawing skills. In a way, it is more like working with puppets. Once a character has been designed, 3D animation programs give animators the tools to animate every element of a character, step by step, in three dimensions.
Motion Graphics – Also computer-based, motion graphics are not as character-driven as the forms of animation we’ve mentioned so far. In a way, the ‘characters’ are graphic elements or text that are animated in creative ways, often for advertising, promotions and titling sequences in films and TV shows. While motion graphics may not require the same understanding of human body motion dynamics as other forms of animation, frame composition and perspective are key.
Stop Motion – For the last type of animation we’ll talk about today, we’ll go back to a traditional form, stop-motion animation. Using live-action video or film cameras, stop-motion animation is done by capturing a frame of a still object, then slightly moving it and/or changing its shape or other characteristic, then capturing another frame. The process is repeated so that when the captured frames are played in sequence, the object appears to be animated.

If you’re interested in a career in animation, the Classical & Computer Animation & Production Diploma program at Max the Mutt is designed to give you all the tools for success.

What Does a Character Designer Do?

Even if we do say so ourselves, that’s a great question! If you’re interested in character design, you may have designed lots of your own characters. But you’ve probably not come close to doing what a character designer does.

What is Character Design?

It’ll help to talk about character design itself before we get into what a character designer does. Generally, character design is the development of new, original characters for a computer or traditional illustration or animation. Character designers may also be used to design characters for toy manufacturers.

Character designers work from a character definition that might be part of a story outline or script for a film, TV series, video game, graphic novel, or book illustration. Character styles can range from very graphic, like ‘Stewie’ on Family Guy, to photorealistic, like ‘The Incredible Hulk’.

What a Character Designer Does

Character design is firmly based in 2D drawing. Whether by hand with pencil and paper, or with digital drawing tools, a solid ability to draw, particularly human and animal anatomy, is key to being a character designer.

Among other details, the following are some of the steps a character designer takes to design a character from scratch.

Immerse themselves in the story or script to understand the character’s role in it.
Research anatomy, costuming, physical settings, time-related references (past, present, future), specific to the script and character.
Review concept art to understand the look and style of the project
Draw. And draw some more. From initial impressions of the general look of different versions of a character, to showing each character version ‘in action’, there’s lots of drawing to be done.
Give the character personality and believability. While not a separate step in character design, each layout must be more than a visual design of a character. Even if it’s done in stages, a believable personality must be conveyed in the design layouts.
Once characters are approved, the designer may be tasked with creating a model sheet of the character that shows the character from different angles
Some projects may need other layouts showing the character in particular poses, or expressing different moods and emotions.

This is a just a brief explanation of what a character designer does. To learn more, get in touch with MTM College today.

How to Begin a Career in Animation

Maybe you started animating stick figures on a notepad as a kid. Maybe you love playing video games and would like to experiment with animation software. Or the idea of seeing your characters come to life really excites you. If so, a career in animation might be for you!

In any case, you’re in luck. There are lots of opportunities for people like you to make a good living doing what they love. Except the reality is that talent, skill and passion are usually not enough for you to start a career in animation. So what does it take to get a toehold in the animation industry?

The Benefits of Animation Career Training

In addition to artistic skills and dedication, animation studios look for people who understand what it takes to survive and prosper in the business of animation. Among other elements of what is needed to work in animation, animation career training will help you develop the following:

Develop Your Foundation Skills

Young people are often surprised to discover that in this era of 3D films that old-fashioned drawing is still required. Software can manipulate objects but imagination is what drives everything! Begin your artistic education with a strong foundation of perspective, composition, still-life/object drawing as well as plenty of life drawing. From learning more of the basics of drawing and cartooning, to exploring character design and studying both classical, 2D software-based as well as advanced 3D animation, an in-depth education will help throughout your animation career, wherever it takes you. And a broader range of skills opens up more possibilities for finding a position as well as keeping it.

Learn to Be a Professional Animator

The perceived wisdom in the industry is that it takes about 10 years to become a really good animator. When you finish college, you cannot expect to be an expert but you can be ready to have a professional attitude. Being professional in the workplace means being punctual for work and for meetings, being prepared to take criticism and be ready to redo your work and following directions. Having good professional skills and being a good communicator makes for a better team player. Animation is a team endeavour not unlike an effective and winning sports team.

Build a Solid Demo Reel and website

Studios looking to hire will be interested in seeing what you can do; your website and a demo reel will showcase your skills. Firstly, the studio reps will want to see that you can draw and your demo reel will show off your animation skills. If you get called in for an interview, then you can be assured you have the job as far as your skill level is concerned.

A personal interview so that they can assess your professionalism comes next!

Getting ready for the interview

If you have a solid foundation of animation training you may apply for a variety of different jobs that an animation studio may be offering. Before you even apply for a specific posting, do your homework! Research to become familiar with the production work the studio creates and consider whether you will be a good fit for the company. That way, when they ask you why they should consider hiring you, you’ll be ready with a good answer.

The Animation Diploma Program at Max the Mutt not only teaches you all the artistic and professional skills you’ll need for a career in animation, it prepares you for the realities of that career and will help you develop the necessary skills you need to help launch your dream!

To learn more, contact Max the Mutt today.

ERIK SEGRIFF’S SUMMER JOB AT 9 STORY/BROWN BAG STUDIOS!

Tina Seemann paid a visit to Erik Segriff at his summer job Animating and she wanted to share:

“I was happy to visit 9 Story Media & Brown Bag Films recently to visit MTM student, Erik Segriff, who had a summer job animating there.

Erik is an Classical & Computer Animation & Production student who recently completed his 2nd year at Max the Mutt.

In addition to animating classically, our 2nd year students begin their 2D software courses: in the fall term they learn FLASH and in the winter term they begin the first of 3 courses to learn TOON BOOM HARMONY software. At the end of their 3rd year, they complete a 30 second short film so that they might gain employment animating for TV series for broadcast.

Although TOON BOOM HARMONY is the most prevalently used software for television series, these days, FLASH ( used for series like “POWER PUFF GIRLS” back in the day-) is still being used in the industry as well. Learning how to use both will allow Erik to be versatile.

Erik came into the FLASH course having some previous experience which was an advantage.

He took to the content readily and amazed his instructor, Keith Fukumoto, with his final FLASH project which involved a walk and run cycle as well as lip sync. Keith has the students create themselves as their characters which is fun! Not only did Erik’s character do what was required of him- his character even danced! We all got a big kick out of it!

Keith said that Erik was among the best students he’d ever had in his FLASH course.

” He was very quick to understand the complicated concepts and when he had questions,he always made sure to ask. He was an inspiration to all his classmates and even to myself.

He hit all his deadlines and was a pleasure to work with! ” Keith said.

Christine Huot, the Recruitment & Resourcing Specialist at 9th Story echoed Keith’s experience with Erik. His demo reel caught Christine’s attention and he was invited to come in for an interview. Erik confessed that he was nervous when he came in for his interview and a FLASH test.

“He was prepared and he asked intelligent questions-” Christine said. ” He is very professional in how he conducts himself which is great. We’ve had more seasoned animators apply for jobs who didn’t work out half as well. From the start, Erik fit right in!”

Erik Segriff summer job animating — Erik animating for ‘DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBOURHOOD’

Erik is thrilled to be animating on 9 Story/Brown Bag’s pre-school series ‘DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBOURHOOD‘.

“He’s a nice character and I have grown to love him!” Erik said. ” I can’t believe that I am actually animating on a series! They give me a scene, I rough out the poses and then show it to the director. I like doing little ‘extras- things that would make kids laugh. I made a character dance around and the director approved it, so it stayed in the scene!”

Best of all: this isn’t a summer internship- Erik is drawing an animator’s salary!

Erik Segriff summer job with DANIEL TIGER — Erik with DANIEL TIGER

Christine knows that Erik will be returning to Max the Mutt to begin his 3rd year in the fall.

We value the fact that she knows how important it is for him to finish his education at MTM.

He begins his MAYA training in year 3 and in his final year he will be part of a 3D simulated production experience wherein he will be part of a production team along with his classmates.

Knowing how to animate classically in both 2D & 3D will expand his opportunities in the future.

Apart from knowing the software, having a professional attitude already puts Erik in good stead. Being a good team player is vital in any studio environment.

Christine said she’ll be sorry when the summer is over and Erik will have to return to his animation studies.

Christine said, “Erik knows he has a place here when he is finished!”

3 Sources of Inspiration for Artists and Animators

It’s bound to happen sometime. You might be the most prolific artist ever; you might have the best creative brief ever authored. But you simply can’t seem to get a start on your illustration, piece of art or the first frame of your animation storyboard.

First, you’re not alone. Creative blocks are common for creative people. If and when one strikes, the first thing to do is reassure yourself that you’ll get around it.

Sources of Inspiration for Artists and Animators

Back in the day, like the last century, artists and illustrators kept physical ‘idea’ files. These were stuffed with magazine clippings, the work of other artists, brochures from gallery openings, photographs, and more.

Idea files were a place for artists to store anything they found inspiring. Then, when they sat down to put pencil to paper and drew a blank, they could look into their idea file for inspiration.

Of course, today everyone can have access to the largest idea file ever, the internet. But the internet is so vast with so much inspiration, you may not find all the places where your particular inspiration lurks.

Here are just a few of the different places you can find inspiration for your work, beyond doing a straight google search.

1. Blogs

Sure, you probably follow a few blogs you like, but if you look more closely, you find inspirational blogs in some unexpected places. In addition to artists’ blogs, and those from design agencies, Adobe offers a graphic design blog that highlights artists, trends and news.

2. Podcasts

It might seem counter intuitive to get graphic inspiration from an aural medium but podcasts, like The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast, can help point you in directions you might not have thought of before for inspiration.

3. Other Artists

Websites, YouTube videos and social media are great places to display your art and that makes them great places to find inspiration. And, again, in ways you may not have thought. Can you pick up any pointers for concept art and/or illustration from graffiti artist Omen514’s Instagram feed?

Here’s one more. You can always visit Max the Mutt’s Alumni Portfolio page!

The Psychology of Colour in Art and Animation

Whether it’s in animation, concept art or illustration for sequential arts, the psychology of colour might play as much a role in a viewer’s impression of your work as just about any other aspect.

In terms of art and animation, the psychology of colour involves the mental and psychological effects that the colour in your work exerts on viewers.

But colour psychology is at work every day in everything we do. For example, the colour red has been shown to trigger increased heart rate, and a subsequent increase in adrenaline, in many people. As such, interior decorators generally won’t recommend a bright red for bedrooms, often opting instead for blues and greens, which are more often associated with calmness.

Keeping the Psychology of Colour in Context

It’s important to note that no definitive studies or series of studies exist to show that any particular colour will consistently trigger an emotion or psychological effect in everyone.

But, especially in marketing, analyses have shown results in how colours can generally affect a consumer’s brand perception, and even inclination to buy. The takeaway here is that colours shouldn’t be relied upon to instill any particular psychological effect, but should be considered as potentially having a psychological effect in the context of your work.

We can look again at the colour red for an example. Yes, red can generate excitement, but it may also produce feelings of anger, or engender a sense of romance.

Sticking with red, cultural influences can also affect the psychology of colour. Red is considered lucky in Chinese culture.

The Psychological Effects of Cool and Warm Colours

The psychological effects of colour are commonly noted around two main categories of colours: warm colours and cool colours.

Cool Colours

In color theory, cool colours are considered those in the blue-green and blue-violet ranges, including most grays. As mentioned, blues and greens tend to induce a sense of peaceful calm and relaxation.

Warm Colours

Reds, yellows, browns and tans are considered warm colours. Generally, their effect is to arouse and stimulate. There’s a reason why so many restaurants use red in their branding – it’s actually been shown to cause some people’s stomachs to growl.

Nature always has a balance of cool and warm. In your work, a lack of warmth will make a piece seem lifeless. Too much warmth will appear garish.

As you get more sophisticated about the use of colour, you’ll begin to see that there are actually warm greys and cool greys, and with red pigments and yellow pigments there are also warmer and cooler reds and yellows. Nature does a dance between warm and cool changes that can be very subtle and when we mimic that in our work, it sparkles. That’s why a well chosen palette will include warm and cool blues, yellow and reds. The potential for colour mixing, while not as great as nature’s, gives artist’s many expressive possibilities.

The Importance of Still Life Drawing

Before we discuss the importance of still life drawing, it helps to clarify just what is is. Interestingly, still life art typically depicts everyday natural or man-made objects that are inanimate and, in contrast to the name, generally lifeless.

But it’s the depiction of what may be a lifeless (actually including dead animals in some cases!) object in a way that draws in the viewer, almost as if it was somehow ‘alive’, offers the first clue to its importance.

Whether you’re considering a career in 3D or 2D animation, gaming graphics, fashion design, advertising art, or any graphic-related profession, the importance of learning still life drawing shouldn’t be missed.

1. Creating the Illusion of 3D in 2D

Even if you want to jump straight into 3D animation, understanding how to make a two-dimensional object look three dimensional gives you a practical understanding of what you’re doing on the screen.

2. “Animate” the Inanimate

The art of still life drawing is depicting objects that we might never notice day-to-day, other than for practical purposes (like a can of tomato soup!), in ways that lets the viewer see them differently, see different aspects and even different meanings in them.

If you can do that in a drawing of a bottle, you’ll be better able to do it in any graphic art form.

3. Setting the Scene

Still life artists take time and care to choose and compose their subjects before composing their drawing. It’s like sketching with the objects of your art instead of with pencil and paper. And it helps your ability to compose any scene, whether it’s on paper or digital.

4. Capturing Colour Theory

In addition to composition, still life art can rely heavily on colour theory to add meaning, mood and dynamics to the subject. All of which are valuable tools for every artist and animator.

5. Adds an Interesting, Unexpected Dimension to Your Portfolio

In addition the your areas of specialization, still life drawings add a sense of versatility and depth to your portfolio.

Still life drawing is a major component of the Fine Art Portfolio Skills Class at Max the Mutt College of Animation, Art & Design.