Animation Masterclass at VIEW 24 October

This year I'm returning to the VIEW conference in Italy to run an animation masterclass.

VIEW is the 20th International VFX & Computer Graphics Conference that takes place every year in the beautiful Italian town of Torino (Turin).

Character Walks with "Monty"

VIEW is a week long event showcasing the best of animation, games and visual effects, and speakers this year include Paramount Head Mireille Soria, and music legend Hans Zimmer.

I'll be there running a one-day workshop in Maya on Wednesday 24th October, demonstrating some very simple but sophisticated animation techniques.

The class is aimed at complete beginners and requires no prior experience with Maya.

What is this animation class all about?

I'll be hosting a masterclass on character walks on 24th October.

Character walks are one of the most important parts of the animator's toolkit, and I will be showing students how to take a basic walk cycle and, with just a few tweaks, completely change the character's mood and personality.

Starting with a basic walk cycle, we can make a character happy, sad, angry or scared with just a few clicks. It's a great technique that breaks down apparently complex outcomes into simple, basic steps that any animator can master.

To do the exercise, we'll be using the marvellous Monty rig by Raveen Rajadorai.  You can download the rig here for free from HighEnd3D.com.  Monty has no arms, which makes the process of making the walk cycle, and adapting it, much simpler.

You might think that you can't get that much character and personality out of a simple rig like Monty - but you can.  During the demonstration I'll show you how to make Monty happy, sad, angry, masculine, feminine - and even turn him into a goose-stepping soldier. All with just a few clicks.

What is VIEW?
VIEW is the large international festival for animation, VFX, and computer graphics. It takes place in October every year, and the festival gets great speakers - especially from the big US studios.

When and where is it happening?
Wednesday October 25 at the VIEW Conference in Turin.  To sign up, follow this link.

Who is teaching it?
I am. I have worked on over twenty five animated feature films, from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" to "Lion King", The Iron Giant, Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter.   You can see some of my work below.




How do you book?
Follow this link to Animation Masterclasses at VIEW.

See you there!

----Alex

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.