Nicholas Ball - Animation Demo Reel
My 2023 Rookies Awards submission. I am showcasing my favorite animations produced over my year and a half at CG Spectrum. Hope you like it!
Nicholas Ball - Animation Demo Reel
My 2023 Demo Reel
I strive to keep my animations entertaining, whether that's by keeping the audience in suspense as to what happens next or by adding comedic value to the shot, all while paying close attention to detail. Included in my demo reel are 7 of my favourite shots from my year and a half at CG Spectrum.#1 - Alien Discovers Base | My first fully rendered animated character.
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#2 - Underwater Rescue | A group project I did with a classmate, Paige Imperial.
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#3 - Troll Parkour | This was my parkour exercise, animated using reference I found online.
#4 - Animation VS Reality | My winning entry to a competition held by CG Spectrum.
#5 - Weight Drop | One of my first weight exercises displayed a character lifting heavy objects.
#6 - Wolf Walk Cycle | My first attempt at animating a quadruped.
#7 - Dialogue Scene | My final project at CG Spectrum, focussed on facial animations.
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#1
The first animation on my showreel starts with a backstory. A space explorer ventures off from his base to inspect what appears to be a UFO crash site. Upon approaching the debris, he becomes infected by an alien substance, which takes control of his body and distorts him into a skeleton-like state. The now infected explorer returns to his base under alien control.
Having developed the backstory, I planned my shot using reference footage. I acted out several different takes and cut together my favourite pieces of footage to create my final reference piece. Using this reference, I animated an Alien character, keeping the story in mind and showcasing characteristics that tied into the narrative, such as his inability to walk.
Once I was satisfied with the animation, I proceeded to model the environment and texture the door to match the theme of the scene. Finally, I rendered it all out using the Arnold Render Engine.
#2
This was a group project with Paige Imperial, Once again we started with a story
"A lab floods, trapping one of the workers underwater. Unaware of where his colleague is, he dives down in hopes to spot her!"
We planned the animation using a storyboard and broke the animation into two parts in order to share the load. What you see in the showreel was my half.
#7
This was my first attempt at animating dialogue. As with all my animations, I came up with a backstory:
"a man who becomes lost in the woods and gradually becomes psychotic. He stumbles upon a woodchopper and, due to starvation, decides to capture and eat the poor man. However, he lacks the necessary tools to start a fire."
Once I was satisfied with the story, I made sure to gather references, along with filming my own reference. As they are a significant part of my workflow. Using the references, I first animated the main body mechanics before adding the facial animations.
I tried to keep in mind that my character has gone psychotic while animating, by getting him to do counterintuitive things such as reaching the stick with his leg or hopping around as supposed to walking.
I later created an environment for the animation using Quixel Bridge assets, scattering them using a GraphN script.
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