Nash Lin, Author at Learn to Animate!

Student’s Animation Portfolio

by Nash Lin | Aug 5, 2013 | Animation

I had a student, Tom, who had recently completed his animation portfolio. I am very proud of him and I would like to acknowledge his effort in this post. Over the past 2 years, with consistent 2 hours weekly of contribution to his animation skill, Tom started out learning animation from zero to newbie animator. Tom began learning animation as a hobby as he likes watching anime. Even if it is a passion for him, it was not an easy journey because he tends to get confused very often. Every week, he stretches and challenges his capability of doing things that he is not comfortable or familiar with. He starts to realize that short cuts without much prior planning do not really produce good results. Thorough understanding of a subject is very crucial in learning. Without a clear fundamental understanding of the learning subject, we might not build a solid and stable foundation for our building. Over time, Tom got used to such stimulating exercises that makes him search and try different solutions to overcome his technical problems. When an approach does not work, doing it repeatedly will never produce a new result. Be open and learn to find new solutions to any problem. Eventually Tom becomes proficient in his animation skills and he is able to handle most of the basic animation exercises on his own. Most importantly, he did not give up whenever he meets a new challenges. It takes time for one to be good at anything and giving up is never a solution. Giving yourself time to reflect and time to learn is more important than...

5 basic tips to creating realistic animations

by Nash Lin | Jun 23, 2013 | Animation

Realistic animations are what fascinates the viewer. The audience is able to fully enjoy the content and the story behind the animation because the motion is believable. One way to make our animations realistic is by adding force in the movement. Applying appropriate timing gives a realistic indication of the object's speed. When an object is going to travel 1 meter, the time it requires to reach from point A to point B indicates how fast the object moving. If the object takes 1 minute to travel from A to B, that object might be a snail. If the object moves from point A to B within 1 second, it feels like a fast rolling ball. When we animate, we think about what exactly do we want this object to be. If someone animates a bullet flying across the room using 30 seconds, that might look like we are watching The Matrix. If an object starts to move from stationary, it takes time for the object to travel fast. A car that moves on green light will move from slow speed to a fast speed because the car needs to accelerate. A heavy truck will take more time to speed up while a racing car takes a split second to be traveling fast. Take a moment today to observe when you are on the road today. Observe the difference between the picking up speed for different cars. When an objects is coming to a stop, it takes time to slow down too. For example, when someone switches off the fan, it does not stop immediately. The fan's blade...

4 main types of animations to enjoy and learn to create

by Nash Lin | Jun 16, 2013 | Popular, What is Animation?

In the current creative industry, there are 4 main types and style of animation you can learn to create. Expose yourself to these 4 genres of animation so you can better understand and appreciate animations in different form. Exclusive Bonus: Get 'How To Start Learning Animation' Tips 4 main types of animations to enjoy and learn to create Flipbook animation is a very primitive way that creates animation purely with pencil, eraser and a stack of drawing pads such as post-it pads. This style can be very experimental and creative as you can draw any thing you can think of. Pros: It is cheap and readily available at all stationary stores. You can make use of your existing drawing skill and you can start almost immediately. This methods gets you to churn out the rough idea you have for animation very easily. Cons: You have to be prepared to erase and redraw when you make mistakes because you do not have an undo button for this style. Adding in details such as color and shading can be very time consuming because details have to be added in each page of your animation. Industry: Seldom do creative house creates flipbook animations mainly because it is not easy to create quality flipbook animation. As flipbook animation is a very old technique, it is not efficient to create one. An example of a flipbook animation: Here is a quick tutorial on how you can create a flip book animation by yourself! Click & Share! Stop motion animation makes use of figurine and physical objects to create animation. You...

Ironman’s Chest Plate Modeling with Maya (Preview)

by Nash Lin | Jun 10, 2013 | 3D Modeling Tips

This is a sneak preview of modeling Ironman's chest plate tutorial. Low poly modeling technique is applied in this video to encourage the fundamental idea of sculpting in 3D software. 3D Modeling is very similar to drawing. When we draw, we can choose from various grades of pencil from H to 2B or 6b and etc. There are many tools available in the software but we must learn to use the right tool and right approach to create the result that we aim for. We first start with using reference image modelling approach in the software to guide us on scale and proportion. This is a crucial stage because the design image is our goal and it serves as a guide for us. Our favorite tools for modeling are mainly translate/move, rotate and scale. 80% of our production make use of these basic tools to manipulate the shape of our model. These tools are usually good enough for beginners to learn how to sculpt their models in the virtual environment. This video tutorial models out the chest plate of Ironman and this is a good practice because these surface are suppose to be hard edges and easier to understand. I hope you will like this video preview as I am very excited in sharing my skills with you! The 21 short videos on Ironman 3d modeling will be available for you to learn and create! The video tutorial, I not only share how to model and sculpt, I'll also share my approach when I'm modeling. Many beginners learn to use only the tools and not the art behind modeling. I'll...

Animator’s Starter Kit – Ebook progress

by Nash Lin | Aug 28, 2012 | Animation, What is Animation?

It’s been sometime since I last posted and yes, I was busy. I’m busy writing out a e-book, titled Animators Starter Kit Learn to Animate with Observation. The name is not confirmed yet but feel free to give suggestion if you have a better name! I’ve given a lot of thoughts for this book as I really want to share my ten years experience in becoming an animator from scratch. This ebook is going out to help friends or animators wannabes who wish to learn and create their own animation from the fundamentals. This is the juice of the book but that is easily available on the net! Thus, I’ve also included topics that even animators themselves sometimes do not learn in school. Ten years back in school, I wish I had learn all these topics in school on top of learning digital animation in softwares. Topics such as observation skills, self assessment, motivation, etc. From what I can recall from memory, my teachers basically teach us how to draw in Photoshop or Flash without basic understanding of drawing. Worst, we were not taught how to generate concepts for our topics and our assignment grades us on our creativity. Is this still happening to you? I certainly hope not but for some unfortunate students who has this experience, I really hope to give you more insights and depth to your animation and the creativity within. For a start, here are the contents I’ve included in my e-book and it is still under construction. Much of the contents has been written and is still undergoing polishing. What...