IK-FK...........FK-IK???

Hey every one!!!

The starting of the year has been pretty full of surprises which eventually engrossed me. Strangely got call from few eminent and prominent studios of India, the one in which i applied last 2 last year. :P

Funny but true. I got a call from Rhythm and Hues Mumbai.... Yes The Rhythm and Hues which has been associated with some of the big blockbusters like "The Incredible Hulk"(new one staring Edward Norton), "Alvin and the Chipmunks","The Golden Compass" and list goes on and on..... currently they are working on "Alvin and the chipmunks the squeekual".

They have a pretty hectic, long and scary but required process for selection, which starts with 3 Animation Tests which will show how good your basics are in case of understanding of animation.

The test rig was pretty confusing.... they gave me a man-equine rig (I guess so.... :P i m not fond of that rig. I trust NORMAN rig for animation. My new Love. Before Norman i used 2 trust only Generic Rig also known as

"the Blue Guy"). The half of the controls were not working as they were supposed to work. especially IK-FK blend which i happen 2 use alot. There are few actions which are easily achieved through Forward Kinetics A.K.A "FK". They are also possible with Inverse Kinetics as well but take a lot of precision and time and when you are giving a test.... u have 2 do more of smart work then hard work considering the constrains of time provided by the studios itself.

I am still thinking that why the studios provide such kind of rigs when they can provide world class rigs. I remember when I was a trainee at Crest Animation Studios Mumbai,and we were given there old rigs to do assignments (They were from the shows they have worked on like Bratz and pet aliens) and the rigs had only IK handles to animate. Later on... thanks to Marathon n Jetix Europe, that we had pretty awesome Rig in Monster Buster Club (MBC). Boy it was fun to animate Sam,Cathy,Danny,Chris n some cool aliens!!. It was very good learning experience. One reason for providing such rigs could be that if an animator can produce pretty ok-ok animation using lower level rigs... then they can do wonders with the world class rig.. who knowz!!!

Meanwhile... I also have 2 wait for the results to come from "R n H" and l Have my fingers crossed :P

GR