Giuseppe Candido Freelance Animator

Giuseppe Candido at graphicchameleon.paintmine.com

Giuseppe Candido completed the Maya core and animation short course here at Escape Studios a few years ago.

Today, Giuseppe is one of the many Escapees who has built a successful career as an animator and 3D generalist, working on many and varied projects for a wide variety of clients.

So, what does it take to be a successful freelance animator?

Giuseppe Candido Animator at Touch Surgery

Many congratulations to Escapee Giuseppe Candido on his new job as an animator at Touch Surgery, a London (and New York City) based company that specialises in medical animation - bringing surgical procedures to life, helping to teach the next generation of surgeons their life-saving skills.

Horse Run Tutorial at Our Vimeo Channel

In this latest animation tutorial at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel we demonstrate how to animate a quadruped running. The tutorial is based on a horse, but all quadrupeds run the same way (allowing for anatomy).  Every animator should know how to animate quadrupeds in motion; these are the basic "scales" of animal and creature animation.  This tutorial can be applied to any four-legged creature, but the easiest way to follow the tutorial is to use the free horse rig - available for download from the Mothman TD website. 

Crow in Flight Tutorial at Vimeo

We've got a new animation tutorial uploaded to our Vimeo channel; showing how to animate a crow in flight, and the basics of avian locomotion. The tutorial also covers motion paths, set design, cameras, and basic lighting, teaching all the basic elements of the 3D animation pipeline in Maya in one exercise. The tutorial is aimed at beginners and no prior knowledge of Maya is needed.  You can find it here at our Vimeo channel. 

Wolfdog Rig

Wolfdog

We're liking this Wolfdog rig, available for free download from highend3d.com. Wolfdog is loosely based on the character Balto from the movie, and has a good range of controls and even facial expressions.

The rig does have some limitations, especially in the way the wrists and feet have been rigged, but you can get some really nice character work out of Wolf dog.

Leopard Rig by Truong

We're liking this Leopard Rig by Truong, available for free download at Gumroad. It is an attractive, well-structured rig with simple controls, and it's pretty easy to figure out how to use it.

In order to get real-time playback in your viewport in Maya, you need to go into your Animation Preferences (bottom right hand corner of the screen) and then Under Settings/Animation/Evaluation change Evaluation Mode to Parallel.

So, how do students get the most out of this rig?

Horse Run Tutorial with Marc Stevenson

We've uploaded a new horse locomotion run cycle tutorial by Marc Stevenson to our Vimeo Channel. 

Learning to animation quadrupeds is one of the key skills animators must master. Much of the animation done in the UK is animal and creature work; such as the stunning animation of Disney's re-make of The Lion King, completed at MPC in Soho.

Marc's new run tutorial adds to our growing number of animation tutorials at our Vimeo Channel. 

Horse Locomotion Tutorials at Vimeo

We've uploaded a new series of horse locomotion videos to our Vimeo Channel, teaching students how to animate a walk, a trot and a run. 

We already have a series of quadruped locomotion videos, by Escape Maria Robertson, but this new series is specifically focused on animating horses.

Learning to animation quadrupeds is one of the key skills animators must master here at Escape Studios. Much of the animation being done in London is animal and creature work; such as the stunning animation of Disney's re-make of The Lion King, most of it completed at MPC in Soho.

Spider Animation Tutorial with Raa

One of the rigs that we recommend for learning creature animation is the Raa Spider Rig.

Raa is free, and can be downloaded at highend3d.com.  He is an eight-legged arachnid, perfect for learning creature locomotion.

You can find the complete Spider Animation Tutorial at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel here

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7543710

Meet the Morpheus Rig

Morpheus by name, and by nature

Morpheus is one of our good friends here at Escape Studios, and one of many free rigs available online for learning animation.

Created by the very talented Josh Burton, Morpheus has been extensively road-tested by students of animation looking to polish their skills and get better at their craft.

Morpheus is an excellent rig but, like all free rigs (and, frankly, like all rigs), it does have a few quirks. Below is a guide for student animators to some of the main problems that we have come across, and how to fix them.

How Do Animators Use Live Action Reference To Create Believable Animation?

Horse in Motion by Edward Muybridge

How can animators use live action reference to create believable animation?  Back in the old 2D days of hand-drawn animation, rotoscoping (as it was called) was a legitimate, if much criticised, method of achieving a realistic look and feel to your animation.

Today, the technology has changed, but 3D animators still need to study live action to help inform their animation.  This is especially the case when doing complex animal or creature animation, of the kind that is much in demand in VFX movies.  So how, in practice, does a MAYA animator use live action reference to get a great result? Below are some techniques for making it work.

Meet Rhett!

Rhett The Clydesdale. Free at StockCG.com

Rhett The Clydesdale is one of a handful of excellent free rigs we recommend for learning quadruped locomotion.

Created by Noxlabs and available for free download at StockCG.com, Rhett is perfect for equine animation.

One of Rhett's great features is what he doesn't have - a tail. Not having to deal with overlapping action frees you to concentrate on the main event - quadruped locomotion. However, like most rigs, he does have some odd quirks.  So how can our students get the most out of Rhett?

Quadruped Leopard Walk Locomotion Tutorial

Leopard Walk by Melissa Coarezza

We've uploaded a new video tutorial at Vimeo on animating quadrupeds, a "Leopard Walk Tutorial" using the free Leopard Rig by Truong CG, which is available for download at Gumroad. 

The Leopard Rig is built along the same lines as Truong's other quadruped rigs.  The locomotion tutorial is password-protected - but available to all our current students and recent Escapees.