So it finally finished, and I’m very satisfied with the result 
But one step at the time. My next step was add the breakdowns. Breakdowns are used for defining the motion and cleaning up the interpolation between the extremes. Here it is with added breakdowns.
After that I switched over to the Straight Ahead method rather then Pose to Pose in order to add Secondary Action, Follow Through and redefine the Inbetweens. Also I started to work on the Facial animation, not a very easy task I tell you! :S He is talking very fast and at only 24 fps there was only about 2-4 frames per word to work with. But I think it turned out pretty well
But ‘nuf said, here is the end result – enjoy!
Feel free to comment and suggest improvements so that I will evolve as an animator
Cheers Mates!
The blog is going strong, I have TWO confirmed readers! 
So this post is dedicated to them.
My project is moving along nicely and so far every thing is going according to plan. For the last few days I’ve been working on the Extremes in the animation and I’ve refined some of the key poses to what I believe to be better ones By the way, the Extremes are poses that defines direction and changes in direction in the animation. Here is the result with the Extremes added and all tangents in the Curve Editor set to Linear instead of Stepped, allowing me to preview the transitions between Key Poses and Extremes. This makes the animation much smoother and gives a good overview on where I need to create my Breakdowns (os Passing Positions) later on.
Next step will be to add the Breakdowns, refine the Inbetweens and add Follow Through and Secondary Action. And that is lots of fun I’ve printed out a paper with the 12 Principles of Animation worked out by Walt Disney and his animators back in the 1930′s and I have it beside me as a reminder of what to work with. It helps alot to keep track on what to do and improve the animation 
Here is the time schedule
Thursday – Basic Idea and Storyboarding
Friday – Animatic, Key Poses and Rough Animation in FlipBook
Saturday – Key Poses in Maya
Sunday – Key Poses in Maya
Monday – Extremes and refining Key Poses
Tuesday - Extremes and refining Key Poses
Wednesday - Extremes and refining Key Poses
Thursday - Breakdowns and Inbetweens, Secondary Animation
Friday - Breakdowns and Inbetweens, Secondary Animation
Monday - Modelling Props (Alien, Knife and Room), PowerPoint Presentation
Tuesday - Facial Animation
Wednesday – Facial Animation
Thursday – Facial Animation, Final Tweaking, PowerPoint Presentation
Friday – Presentation!
Hope you enjoyed this, see you in a couple of days for more updates.
Cheers Mates!
—————
This was Part 2, don’t miss:
Part 1
Part 3 – Finished Work
We’ve started a new project in school that will be running for two weeks. The goal of this project is to animate in Maya and I’m going for character animation
I’ve downloaded the audio file for last month competition from 11secondclub.com and I’m going to animate a free, pre-made character rig called Max for Maya. So I will spend all my time on animation and don’t bother with character modelling, texturing and rigging.
Here is my time schedule for this project.
Thursday – Basic Idea and Storyboarding
Friday – Animatic, Key Poses and Rough Animation in FlipBook
Saturday – Key Poses in Maya
Sunday – Key Poses in Maya
Monday – Extremes and refining Key Poses
Tuesday - Extremes and refining Key Poses
Wednesday - Extremes and refining Key Poses
Thursday - Breakdowns and Inbetweens, Secondary Animation
Friday - Breakdowns and Inbetweens, Secondary Animation
Monday - Modelling Props (Alien, Knife and Room), PowerPoint Presentation
Tuesday - Facial Animation
Wednesday – Facial Animation
Thursday – Facial Animation, Final Tweaking, PowerPoint Presentation
Friday – Presentation!
So far I’ve defined the Key Poses (the storytelling poses) in FlipBook and made an Animatic/Rough Animation that I use in Maya as a guide for posing my character. Very nice workflow, thanks goes to Jason Ryan for introducing this method to me, check out his webinars here. As well as Richard Williams for his work on The Animator’s Survival Kit, very handy book for animator wannabes 
It is also available as DVDs: The Animator’s Survival Kit Animated.
Here is the FlipBook Rough Animation.
Here is the first blocking of Key Poses in Maya.
Stay tuned for updates, there’s still eleven days to go!
Cheers mates!
—————
This was Part 1, don’t miss:
Part 2
Part 3 – Finished Work
I had a go at fluids in Maya just to check it out. It was a lot of variables to play around with and I found it much more complicating then FumeFX for 3ds max.
I was impressed by the real-time preview in the viewport that was fairly accurate. And it was cool that you can have the simulation running while you alter the variables and see the changes immediately. However I’m guessing that this isn’t the case with heavier simulation, but still.
Here is the tutorial I used to get started http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3d-art/how-to-create-an-awesome-fire-effect-using-maya-fluids/. It isn’t the best tutorial I’ve ever red, it got this “monkey see, monkey do” kind of approach. You are told to punch in different values in different fields without any explanation of what the numbers means, you kind of have to figure that part for your self. But still, it got me starting so have a go if you’d like.
Cheers mates!
Autodesk has posted their Masterclasses from 2009 for free over at The Area. Just sign up (it’s free) and enjoy some tips and tricks from real masters of Autodesk softwares; including 3ds max, Maya, Mudbox, Softimage (nope, it is not called XSI any more), Motion Builder and mental ray. Here is the link; http://area.autodesk.com/masterclasses.
I personally find these two classes to be very interesting, in 3ds max:
Non-Photorealistic Rendering Techniques in Autodesk® 3ds Max® with Gary M. Davis
Giant Robots: Using mental ray shaders to integrate CG elements into real shots with Håkan “Master Zap” Andersson (Swedish guy! )
And I think I have a look at this one as well, its in Maya:
Fracture: procedural, collision event-driven destruction with Kevin Mannens (I do like destruction )
I’ll have a look at the Mudbox class as well if I got the time.
Cheerio!