Aimee Hochstein - Animation Demo Reel

Introduction

Hey everyone, 

My name is Aimee, I'm 20 years old, and I recently completed my first demo reel. I tried to give a detailed breakdown of my workflow and thought process for each project.

Dragon Animation with Flycycle

Description

My goal with this animation was to showcase my skill in animating heavy-weight creatures. Many experienced animators have told me that this is an important skill if you want to work in the industry. I wanted to convey weight shifts and since I had already worked with this rig during my training at Pixlvisn, I was familiar and comfortable with it. The rig also has a quite complicated flight mechanism, which can be challenging to animate at the same time. I knew right away that my project would not be complete without this dragon. So, having the rig ready, I started looking for references. During my search through numerous dragon movies and series, I stumbled upon a scene from "Game of Thrones" Season 7, Episode 4.

Reference

I found many more good main references for my demo project but ultimately decided on this one. I blocked out the entire shot and soon realized that this amount of animation was not enough for a demo project. Simply animating the same shot was not a huge challenge, so I had to think of something else. My plan was to extend the shot to the back and let the dragon fly away. So, I started animating a flycycle with the help of bird or bat references.

Animation Process

When I tried to attach the flycycle behind my blocked animation, I ran into several difficulties. I had problems creating a smooth transition between my hand-keyed takeoff and the beginning of the flycycle. Then it hit me. I would let the dragon jump off the cliff so that for a brief moment it would be completely out of sight and I animated this part by hand. Then the dragon would epically soar over the cliff and this dragon would be animated in the cycle. I looked for more references from all kinds of creatures that can fly and plunge to have better examples of how this dragon might tumble down the cliff. I decided to work in two Maya scenes because my scene was very slow due to the dragon rig. One scene for the takeoff and one for the flycycle. I put the cycle on a motion path and adjusted the animation to it.

I first blocked out the environment. As my animation slowly moved towards detail polishing, I initially laid out the environment. With the finished environment, I was able to animate the dragon's claws so they properly clung to the rocks. It was also very important to have a finished environment to avoid intersecting with the ground when animating the tail. I set up a lighting setup, shaded the dragon rust-red to create a contrast to the rest of the environment, and rendered in Maya Arnold. Lastly, I added a simple comp over the shot.

Baby Groot

Description 

My Groot project was simply a passion project. I've always been a bit in love with little Groot. During my training at Pixlvisn, I saw a Groot sculpture by one of my classmates and was immediately curious. Although it was too early to think about a demo project at that time since I hadn't yet delved deeply into body mechanics, I immediately had so many ideas for a cute animation. So, I discussed with my classmate about starting a joint demo project in a few months, and he was immediately on board.

In an animation demo reel, it might not hurt to show some rigging skills, so I considered rigging the Groot myself. I began creating a basic rig but quickly realized that it would be too time-consuming to create a good rig that could do what I needed for my animation. I decided to hand over the rigging part to my classmate, Till Pfarr, who specialized in rigging.

I collected some ideas and looked for references. I always find it a bit difficult to use other references when I have a precise vision of a planned animation. Therefore, I took my own references to have exactly what I wanted. This allowed me to view my movements from various perspectives, understand how balance is distributed, where the center of gravity is, etc. Since I didn't want to fall on my face multiple times, I chose to use internet references for this part of my animation. 

Reference

For this project, it was particularly important to me to convey the mood that Groot usually portrays—playful, clumsy, mood swings, etc. With my ideas and references, I was very confident that I could achieve this. 

The butterfly was created and textured by Linda Petersen. Since I wanted a small rigging project in my demo, this was perfect for me. So, I created a simple rig for the butterfly and I'm very satisfied with the result.

Animation Process

Due to our good work distribution, we could all work on the project in parallel. So, changes to the rig or model could be updated quickly and easily. I started by blocking the Groot with a simple, plain rig. Since I generally work in splined, my animation soon looked quite substantial after posing. I was super hyped. Once the blocking was complete, I animated the butterfly reacting to the Groot. As in my reference, I pretended there was a butterfly, so I had to adjust the blocking a bit. Over time, I got even better rig versions, which allowed me to go into more detail with my animation. For polishing, I regularly got feedback from Rodrigo Costa. He had already worked on some Groot's shots and was therefore the perfect mentor for my project. Once most of polishing was done, I animated the face and then moved on to the roots. Each root had many controllers to animate them as intricately as possible. When bending arms and legs, the roots intersected a little bit with each other. So, I went ahead and fixed this frame by frame.

I kept my camera setup quite simple since the environment artist of this project didn't had much time, and the field of view therefore needed to be kept rather small.

Lion -Quadruped Walkcycyle

Description

This animation is simply a basic walk cycle. I wanted to express my understanding of quadrupeds and showcase another cycle.

Animation Process

For this walk cycle, I approached it differently than usual. Normally, I start an animation by blocking in poses and polish everything at the end. For the walk cycle, I first animated one foreleg in the cycle. Using a tool from AnimBot or the Studio Library, I mirrored the animation to the other leg. I did the same with the hind legs, the paws, and the jiggles for the muscles. Mirroring the animation saved me a lot of time. After mirroring everything that could be mirrored, I animated the rest of the body and cycled the whole thing. Since a walk cycle isn’t the most exciting project, I added a yawn to perhaps add some variety to the cycle.

For the presentation, it was important to show the cycle from the side as well as from the front, and I thought it would be a nice idea to simply put two lions in the scene. In hindsight, this was a bit annoying since, as we all know, the final file is never the final file. So, I had to make changes to the animation for both lions. For the environment, I didn't want to do anything too elaborate, so I took a simple lookdev scene and changed the lighting.

Lion Lipsynch

Description

During my lip sync project, I realized how much fun I have animating expressions. I enjoyed this animation immensely. Initially, I was a bit nervous as it is a challenge to apply human movements to an animal, in this case, a lion, because their faces function completely differently.

How did I even come up with the idea? While searching for references for my earlier dragon project, I came across a scene from the film "The Hobbit." In the scene, a dragon-like creature named Smaug spoke this particular part. Right next to it was this nearly perfect reference of Benedict Cumberbatch.

Reference:

Animation Process

First, I needed a good rig, and since I was already familiar with the lion rig from previous animations, I knew it had very good blend shapes. First, I animated the lips with the most important sounds like o, u, b, p, or m. Then, I polished that and continued with other facial expressions. My most important tool during this animation was a mirror. It helped me see how the face moves and what changes in the face occur while speaking. It's amazing how often I went through this sentence and looked at every single angle of my face. Another helpful tool for lip sync animation was holding my hand under my chin. I could feel how differently the mouth opens for various letters with each word.

For the camera, I made sure to position it slightly looking up at the lion. This imparts power and conveys strength. Finally, I laid the lion down and added secondary animations like breathing or clawing into the ground. For the environment, I didn't want to do anything too elaborate, so I took a simple lookdev scene and changed the lighting to reflect the mood of the animation. For the environment, I used the same lookdev scene as in my walkcycle project but changed the lighting slightly to match the mood.

Thank You!

Thanks to everyone who supported me on this journey. I’m so thankful for my talented teammates, Till Pfarr responsible for the Groot rig, Marc Otten responsible for the Groot model and environment and Linda Petersen for the butterfly model and textures.

Special thanks to Philipp Willer, Tom Pinon, Tom Herzig, Fonzo Romano, and Rodrigo Costa, who supported me during that time.

Thanks to everyone who made it this far! I hope you enjoyed viewing my work.