Basically what time card is. Time card is a sheet of card you fill in to get paid every Friday, when you work at Disney Feature. Well, any other workplace call them time card. So the reason I call it time card is because I was the designated reminder for everyone to fill their time card on Fridays. So after I left Disney, I was still text messaging all my buddies who work at Disney as a way to cement our friendship. I'd say, hey, did you fill out a time card? Even though I don't work at Disney anymore. First of all, just like a very simple joke, just a text message. But eventually it grew into a super elaborate, like a movable motion comic book, every week I do. But now it become even bigger, something I'm trying to experiment on. >> How long has that been going on? >> It's been going on since 2013, so about two, almost three years. This is the kinda concept how this is the kind of idea how I design a journey character, because it's a completely different medium. For the longest time me and the art director, we were trying to figure out what the Journey, the video game, the character should look like. So what it end up with we have a lot of really beautiful drawing design on paper. It looks really nice. But the problem is, once we implement it into the video game, in a 3D world, it looks nice, but when you start to move, there's a lot of problems, technically. You have the collision run into each other, and the cloth sim doesn't work very well, because that game is pretty much about cloth and the fabric simulation. So eventually I just started to design directly in 3D space. See what is the most elegant design for a 3D space as a cloth sim? And it turns out, a half-folded paper cup, unfolds itself into a wedge shape, that's the best design. So that become the idea of the Journey character. This is a very good rough, I think so far, I mean, compared to all the professional concept art painters, because they take pride in their professionalism, this is like nothing. But to me, it's good enough to get me started in my own time card production, if I wanna make this into a time card animation. So I would literally take this concept art, in to the 3D program, I would start cutting them in to shapes, and I would fold them like a paper-mache, in 3D virtual space. And then create a very simple low-poly model, and then them very quickly with my universal rake I've perfected for the last three, four years. And then used as a dummy so I can animate them, and then hopefully I push it out before Friday ends. So this is my last time card I did. The idea is, I have this Instagram thing, I will set up an illustration and the people can vote on where I go with it. And then my last one was about to have a battle between characters. So this is what I end up with. >> Hm. >> Usually I do just a comic strip, but every Thursday or Friday I will do like an animated version. But this one is trying to keep the same authenticity of the 2D. So a lot of tricks I used here are very hand-drawn and scanned into the computer. I can show you the UV texture layout. I do a lot of UV texturing. I want to make like a life join and move. So we can see when it moves, all the ink pieces moves as well. This is a composition of the entire thing you can see. And if I hit play, it will just be playing in the loop mode. So now I'm gonna do is just a quick demo on the early drawing we did. So this is exactly the process I would do on time card. So I exported that photo onto my photo. Now I'm gonna email myself. Okay, I'm gonna check my email. Let's see. Okay I'm just going to download this. One thing I do want to do is to make this into a square format, because the Maya when you create a cube, is square. So when you project any texture, if it's not dimensional, it will stretch it. So over the years I just make it square so it's easy for every one. And power by two squares always a computer friendly and maximize all the texture space. Okay we just need a different color here. Save as a texture. Lets call it mars dancetex. Discovering your own naming conventions is always good, because then you can even know who created a file and why. So I'm gonna start making character now. This is the exact process I do with every character. So, I click the button, I always turn off my interactive creation tool, because I want a perfect cube. Just much easier. Autodesk is trying to change a lot of things I like in life. So I prefer the old school Maya. So then I just start cutting it with the legacy cutting tool. If you use a newer Maya you probably need to do a little bit research on Internet, there's a way you can get back the old script, the legacy script, how to cut tools. But- >> You can just save it under a different name. >> But this is just my process, my purpose is to really not to have anyone conform to my process. I'll just show you how I work. So you should always find your own way of working, because we are all different in some way. Only you know what's best for you. I don't wanna take too much of the time to make this, so maybe I just use the robot Hal as an example. Just to show you how this is done. See maybe, a head plus a little bit chest. Let's see, it's a lot of time management. Okay, I'll do half a chest. This much. See, I'm just regionalize all the patches, right now. And this is all about the art of clicking. The faster you can block your target and hit exactly where you are, the faster you can be in this process. This is a process that require years of practice. If you don't, it can be very slow. But if you get really fast, you don't really have to think much. You just put your brain into a semi resting area, listen to podcast, music, and it's very meditative. To me it's like digital tailoring or knitting, I think knitting is very good. Hey, maybe sometimes all the Cal students can get together and form a sewing circle. Just knit the digital pieces. So as you can see, It really helps you to think about something else when you are doing this. If you're constantly thinking, aw I'm just drawing the line, and connecting lines to this line then you will drive yourself crazy. But instead, I'm talking about exploring the world, maybe going to Greece or Rome, watch some interesting video on the Internet. And they're really easy to paint, right? And that's what, really, art is about. We're just here to ease the pain, cuz life goes worse. >> How long do you spend on your time cards each week? >> It's between 20 hours to 23 hours. Cuz if I don't really feeling it, I just do a very simple one, maybe recycle some of the old characters and make some simple animations. But obviously making the character takes a lot more time cuz you're building a new character and you're building a new rig. Usually a simple character takes maybe about three to five hours to build. But it all depends, the more you do it, the more experience you gain. And you understand oh, this amount of shape will take this amount of time. So I build this part out. I'm not gonna build the whole character, because obviously the audience will get bored. So what I do in next step is I'll take this out through, I'll make a duplicate. I will select all those spaces, take out that, deselect that. So end up to be this much. Center, duplicate one more time. This is a process I don't think anyone in the world is doing. and it's probably too stupid for people to do, but I do it anyway. So, I call it. So basically, I will select all the color that belongs to that patch. Again, this is, no one taught me this. I just kind of come up with myself, and this seems to be the most ideal thing to do. So, I have a reference here, and I have this. And I do a projection. I do a create mapping projection and I choose again you can see I click mouse super fast. It's because I wanted to save time, be efficient. Also because I watch a lot of tutorial online that was actually sped up but I didn't know that was sped up. I was like wow. I need to be that speed. [LAUGH] So it kinda could, it's weird, weird illusion of, you can do it. Which means it's very important, in the tutorial, you say, kids don't try this at home. We sped up the video. If you try with this speed, it will break your fingers. Is when using that look it's done. So now you can see this is the rough. This is the rough iPhone painting and this is the time card quality 2D shapes. It creates a very easy way to model. I just unselect the tip badge of it. And then I can, inside I'm creating the shape. And then to create a back, I just Duplicate. And then make this, raise it and make it flip. Make sure flipping normal. I think the new Maya it automatically flips it. But old Maya you have to do on I've freeze and then normal reverse normal. So the other thing is polygon is the essentially the overhead of the 3D software. The higher the poly is, the slower your machine is. So keep your poly low, keep your profit high as a business person would tell you. >> Did you actually here that in your? >> I heard it from like a when I was working in the commercial industry back in 2004, 2003. In the commercial building a bunch of like you know old crusty guys. Like imagine Don Draper from the 60s but a lot older now. Hey son let me teach you a lesson, keep your overhead low, keep your profit high. So I basically translate I can do keep your digital polygon low and then your profit will get higher. Okay expanding the model good place. So this is pretty much, I mean I stream videos on my Twitch channel on autotype.twitch every Thursday night so if you wanna watch more extended video of me making timecard you can tune in. But usually I start very late in Thursday night, so you feel still up? I guess students may be up. I don't know. I mean, I can take the time to sow it back in, but or I can just leave it this way. It has its own charm, right? Like, if I don't like the hole there, I just pick a and seal it shut. Or make them smaller. Then tuck it from so nobody sees. I actually build a bunch of Wreck it Ralph character use this technique. Some of the concept artist really appreciate it because I'm basically keeping the exact proportion. And authenticity of their 2D concept art. Notice all the lines I indicated can be potentially used to be a shape? That's just very handy. It's like you don't even need to build any more than what you have, and the shape will just form itself because it's all there. You have no wasted shape, essentially. So this is how I construct the other half, by taking this, duplicate it, center, freeze, and then go to the axe, make a rotation model. If you really want a symmetry, you can cut in the middle and sew it in the middle, it will just be symmetrical. But I want the robot to appear to be more tactile, or drawn for a kid, as that somewhat intelligent, or not intelligent, this hand quality, so I want to preserve all my mistakes. My randomness, every solution has a better solution. And sometimes you'd be surprised, if you just keep experimenting, you'll find a much better way to do things. But, if you constantly experiment, you never lock down your technique, and you never get good at it, meaning, you are still not perfecting your technique, you're still not a master of your domain, you're just an idea person. So, that's the deal on it. Whether how much you want to invest in the technique versus how much you wanna invest in finding a new technique. Cuz the old technique can be amazing if you're very good at it. But then it really comes down to the appreciation to how you do things. I can make a cherry in one take of a breath. But that itself, it has to be presented to the audience in some way. Cuz then, people appreciate cuz that's the effort. That is the showmanship. Maybe one day I'll do that on stage, just to make it cherry with one take of a breath. But that's not what I wanted to do. I have other challenge in life. So once again, you can see here I'm just slowly stretching and forming the shape. Also, always delete your history but never delete your history off your regular characters. See,I just contradict myself, always delete your history but never delete it off your rig! Because once you rig The Riggings data is a piece of history. So now fill a hole. Wait, that took care of a lot. Now I just need to make sure they're not imbalanced by adding some lines here. You can always add to the color patches as well, later. So this is just to make things cleaner. Also, a lot of time modeling and the process of the art of selection. I mean, I can select each one of them individually, like this or I can look in from the side view and drag select. I will select all of them at once. See that just saved you like two seconds there. You might think well two seconds is not much time, but it adds up, when you have to click your mouse five million times to create a character. You don't really need to create a patch. You can just use this as the color palette. I can even use Mona Lisa as my color pattern, if I wanted to. So now I just have a robot head. Gonna put it up here. The robot head is done. And just to quickly make a, actually I was just have this all three parts as a rule. I'll make a body why not? I'll see if I can make it with one tangled breath. [SOUND] >> [LAUGH] >> There you go. >> You got a robot. >> Yep, now we got a robot. So now I have a robot with weird legs. Now I can rig it. Oh, I need one more shape actually. How do I create a little underwear our shape. I can just take that shape, Just take a random piece of geometry, and then mush it into, extrude it into another shape. So just extrude. There you go. Well, the texture. [LAUGH] >> Some fancy underpants there. >> That is a fancy, well maybe that is his, that can be on an Adult Swim show that would probably work right? >> Oh yeah. >> That is just the carefreeness of just have something rebellious. You go the robo bot has like the entire poster on it. Why not? Look like he's wearing a cool speedo. All right that's the robot. Oh by the way I have not saved this file yet, which always save your file. That's a very dangerous act, if you don't save your file. Just hit export, export selection, robot. Name this into robot01, and then make it robot02. And I open that file. At this point it's all become a rhythmic dance, to me. Center. Great, that's a robot. I just need to freeze my transformation in the history, and that's done. Now all I need do is quickly rig it, so this is my universal rig, I use every single character with this rig, so I don't have to, every time I build a new rig for it. You were probably asking what do you do if the character has a very different proportion. What I do is I will model the character to mush it back into a generic universal proportion. Then after I finish the rig I will push the rig out to match the proportion I originally intended. It's called rigging sculpting. You can sculpt to rig. You can animate to sculpt. You can rig to animate. You can animate to rig. So all the discipline can be transferred in some way. So then I just dust out my, there you go. See this does not fit with the rig. Does at all. And just quick and dirty, eyeball it, see if it works and that works. So this is pretty good to me. And now I just need to stretch out an arm. This is the one I'm making into teapose. I don't even need to make teapose. If I don't want to make the arm be part of the body movement, I can just simply distribute all the weight data onto the body, so he just doesn't have the arm movement. Which is perfectly fine if your time card doesn't really need that movement. If you think well what ultimately the robot needs to do, if he doesn't need any upper arm movement, then you don't need to rig it. Okay, now I just need to save this file. There you go. The character's back. So now I just need to save this again. Also this file format saves a lot faster. Now, I just need to open animation I had, like I said, if I felt like I don't want to make a new animation for it, I just use a stock animation from my old times, and for my time card. So let's see, we'll do a classic time card dance. You mean this one. So it's 2013 09 06, so I just open up imaging file. There you go. And it appeared to be all the characters combined onto this, so I need to disable the old Suzanne, which is somewhere I worked at, and I'll do the other two. The proof here. So the dances you're using, are they hand animated? >> Yes, they are hand animated. But sometimes I record my mouse gesture. There is a script in Maya allow you to do that, which is pretty handy. You can time out your performance just with your hand gesture, and then you use that as a beat to hand animate it. I always go through hand animate. I always clean up all the raw datas. But sometimes better to hand animate, because if it's a rhythm based, you can animate it and you can just loop it forever. Versus if you keep recording it, it gets messy. Three robot. Do the dance. >> [LAUGH] >> Now let's put on some music. [MUSIC] There you go. [MUSIC] That's the time card, live. [LAUGH] You like that sound to. It's the bike song. The bike race. >> It's pretty cool. >> Yeah, I love that one. >> Yeah.
