Pandamation

CTN

2011-12-01T09:58:00.010-06:00

Hey guys! I know I haven't posted much of anything for awhile now, been busy. I got a few things in the works though. In the mean time I thought I would share with you all my adventures at CTN! I am not much of a shutter bug but I did grab a few pictures so I figured I would go ahead and share. I did a lot of really cool stuff at CTN. I think I could have done more cool stuff but I had a lot of fun just seeing a bunch of my fellow ianimate students. You guys are AMAZING! I had a lot of fun meeting you guys in person, it was a long time in coming. I also met a few ianimate instructors around CTN and got to say hello which was amazing. They are all great guys. Beyond that I got a few reviews, had my soul crushed. Did a lot of talking. Met a ton of really cool people from all over the world. Bought some art, and heard a couple of really great talks. So, let me go ahead and share the few pictures I took.

I got a bunch of pictures of these little statues which were pretty cool looking.

So this is a bit of a story. The ianimate booth was about 30 feet from the glen vilppu booth. After awhile Angleo Sta Catalina, Darrell Vasquez and I decided to go talk to him. We went over and started asking him about his work and his process for doing his AMAZING figure drawings. He opened up a new document and talked through his process as he drew us an example. It was pretty amazing. We also saw a few original pieces of his. I got a couple pictures right after that happened...

That is Angelo, he is standing in front of glens booth making a crazy face (as usual). You can see glen in the background, he is the older gentleman, he is a great guy by the way, very pleasant to talk to.

This is Darrell holding one of Glens books that he had for sale. Also making a crazy face...seems to be a theme here.

Finally the last picture. This is Me with Ron Clements and John Musker! I had just been to their panel where they had a lot of amazing stories to share and just a lot of behind the scenes info and art to show. After that amazing panel they ran off. I started walking around the booths again and went outside to get out of the crowds and they were just standing outside! I was like OMG! So I asked them if I could get a picture, they were super nice about it and I am very grateful they were willing. Needless to say this is my favorite picture by far!

Pandas animation tricks #12

2011-10-07T23:42:00.002-05:00

In this video I talk about using locked cameras. Basically I talk about the advantages of using locked cameras and how you lock your cameras so you don't accidentally mess up your camera set up. Pretty simple stuff. Hope you guys learn something. Oh and as always if you have any questions please feel free to ask. I always make sure to get back to you guys about any questions.

Random Update: So I am officially going to CTN. If you guys are going to CTN let me know I would love to meet some of you guys. In related news I am trying to get my reel ready for CTN so I am going to be pretty busy for the next month or so. Which means there may not be any videos for a little while.

Pandas animation tricks #11

2011-09-12T16:51:00.002-05:00

In this video I talk about animating weight shifts and the general thought process that goes into shifting the weight of the body. Sorry about the audio quality guys, it isn't nearly as good as it has been recently. Anyway I will try to have another one as soon as I can. I have actually generated a list of ideas now so I can start going through those as I find the time. A couple of the ideas I have are fairly large in scope so those should be interesting to tackle. Anyway guys I hope this helps a few of you out. Until next time!

If you are interested in using Lt Dan you can get it here.

Rio Comparison and some General News

2011-08-08T22:04:00.003-05:00

Password is: education

I found this video over at the 11 second club so I am sure a few of you have already seen it. However it is worth posting again since it is great to be able to see the reference and thought process that goes into making these great, great shots. I would like to thank Jeff Gabor for posting this video because it is going to really get the animation community fired up, I know I am.

Update about whats going on with me.

So, workshop 5 of ianimate ended this week. It was a pretty amazing workshop I must say. I had Mike Walling, who is an amazing guy and a great animator. I wound up doing an old clip I found months and months ago which fit the bill for the workshop. It was actually a clip that was in my "must animate pile" so that was really great. I had a really clear vision as far as the emotions and the beats I wanted to hit and the shots are coming along. I have a lot left to do on my shots before they are finished. I would say I am 60 percent done. I know I am not going to be able to finish everything over this 3 week break but I figure I will get as much as I can done. After I get the shots all splined out and cleaned up I am thinking I am going to post up some videos from along the process. The video reference, The blocking, and the final animation. I think I may even toss the layout in as an extra, so you can look forward to that. As far as next workshop I am going into the final workshop at ianimate, which is pretty exciting. I am going to be working on my reel. I will be polishing up some old work and making a new shot to fill in the gaps that my reel currently has. All in all, I had a great time this workshop and hopefully I have just as much fun the next workshop. As far as the blog goes. I have 2-3 different ideas for the next pandas animation tricks video I just need to sit down and make it. Sadly I have been having technical problems with my recording software so I will have to figure that out before I can add any new videos, so it may be a little while, we shall see. Anyway guys thank you for reading, I really appreciate the support. Reading the great comments I get really makes making my videos worth while so thanks a lot for that.

Pandas animation tricks #10

2011-07-22T11:55:00.005-05:00

On this edition of Pandas animation tricks I am talking about tracking spheres. A quick little trick that can help refine the spacing of an animation in the later stages of spline and polish. Not much to say about this one other than, I hope you find it useful.

In other news I am about to wrap up workshop 5 of ianimate. It has been a great workshop thus far and I have really been enjoying myself. One more workshop to go and I am ready to jump back into the fray.

Pandas animation tricks #9

2011-06-13T21:37:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone. In this Pandas animation tricks segment I am showing how I use the free application screen marker which is a nifty little tool that lets you draw over any application. In the video I cover how I use screen marker when I animate and what I feel that it is good for. I hope you guys enjoy this one. You can download screen marker here...

http://www.screenmarker.com/

Andreas Deja's new blog!

2011-06-07T12:09:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, I just found out about Andreas Deja's new blog. So far not much going on with it since it is so new. It looks like he is going to be posting up a lot of animation work from his own personal collection so I am assuming we are going to be seeing a lot of stuff we might not otherwise ever get to see. Should be quite fun to watch and I am glad that at least one of these amazing animators from the Disney Renaissance/ new golden age are getting into social media if only a little bit.

Tornados and Painting

2011-05-22T20:15:00.004-05:00

So early in the afternoon today we had a string of tornado's come near town lots of lighting and all that good stuff. Nothing major happened except that I didn't want to run my computer with the lightning around. So in that down time I decided to do some painting and sketched out a portrait. This was just something I did of my head, yes the proportions are off in places I know. Just thought I would share to prove that not everything I do revolves around animation. Ha ha I think its clear to everyone I will never become a world class pastel painter but its a good hobby none the less.

Compare your life to pixar.

2011-05-19T21:00:00.004-05:00

I found this awhile ago and it is a bit old. However the message is still very relevant. Its good to remember that a lot of the people we look up to didn't become rock stars or masters overnight. It took them years of practice and study to get to where they are. This is a reminder to myself and everyone else, take it one step at a time and eventually you will get where you want to go.

Pandas animation tricks #8

2011-05-11T08:36:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, in this edition of pandas animation tricks I talk about my method for finding my characters when I start an acting shot. It is a pretty simple video and concept, nothing to crazy going on here. So please enjoy. I am as always hoping to hear some suggestions about videos you guys might want me to do. So until next time guys.

One of these things is not like the other.

2011-04-13T10:01:00.005-05:00

Even though I never draw I got into the mood today and did some bird drawings....and a squirrel. I just thought it might be fun to share some of my sketches since I almost never do that. As for other stuff. ianimate workshop4 is over but I have a ton of work to do on my shots. I have a to do list which is a mile long but what else is new? As for next workshop I have 3 weeks to settle on the piece I am going to be slaving over for 14 weeks. I have a clip which I really love but I figure I might snoop around a bit and see if I cant find something that speaks to me more. It is an unlikely outcome but you never know. Sometimes these things just scream ANIMATE ME! Anyway I am going to try to finish up these workshop 4 shots in the next couple of weeks and do a really nice render for each shot. At that point I will make a video of my shots and post it up for all to see.

Pandas animation tricks #7

2011-03-19T18:58:00.003-05:00

This series of videos is about lip sync. I have noticed that there aren't that many free resources on doing lip sync in cg and felt I could do something about that. The sad fact is that if you follow the sync examples in books they mostly don't work in cg. I am honestly not sure why that is, but in cg we have our own method. Now I will tell you I am not amazing at sync but these videos will give you an idea of what you should be shooting for and how you might go about doing sync in the first place. A big thing to remember is that reference is king. Get reference of either yourself or someone else doing the sync and use that as your base. Also in sync a good idea is try to use as few controls as possible. Using fewer controls means you have less to fight with and can concentrate on doing good sync. I really hope you guys enjoy these videos, it took me a long while to record them and then upload them. I know its been awhile since the last video but I hope this makes up for it. As always if there are any questions feel free to ask. Oh and sadly I don't have anything to show from ianimate yet. But I promise that soon I will be able to share my new shots with you guys.

EDIT: DJ Nicke has a great post on his blog on doing sync in cg. Has roughly the same idea but is has a few other tips and such that will be usefull.

Pandas animation tricks #6

2011-01-30T00:13:00.003-06:00

In this edition of Pandas animation tricks I talk about eye movements and just share some general ideas and notes about eyes and eye movements.

IMPORTANT. A note I forgot to mention in the video which is very very important is the idea of the 8 frame hold. Whenever we look at something it takes 8 frames for us to register what we are seeing. So when you dart or move the eyes you cant move them again for 8 frames. You can hold as long as you want but that is the minimum time. Granted there is always sway. If you can only manage to find 7 frames it will be OK just don't do it too often.

Anyway I hope you guys find this useful and as always if you have any questions for me about this or anything else just put them in the comments section. If it is a good enough question I may even make a whole segment of panda's animation tricks just to answer your question. Anyway have a good one guys.

PS. I was just linked to this which is a breakdown created by animation mentors tips and tricks section about animating eyes. It also has some good information in it.

The Work! The Work!

2011-01-14T04:27:00.004-06:00

So I have finished my first workshop at ianiamte! Woot! Actually I finished it about 3 weeks ago and I am just now getting to posting this stuff up. I think it is time for a bit of a recap (since its been so long). My experience at ianimate so far has been pretty positive, I must say. I had Tal Shwarzman as my instructor and he was awesome. He was strait to the point and called us all out on any bull we were trying to skate by with, and I loved that. It was tough though, I gotta say my second shot especially was a rocky, rocky road. I only just got it to a point where I feel like I should be sharing it. I still got a couple tweaks to do that will be hard to notice once implemented. At least for the non animation savvy. I have met a ton of really cool people at ianimate and some just amazing talent. Really top notch guys at this place and I have a feeling most are going to be pretty successful in the animation world eventually. As for the site it was a bit of a rough start but the kinks are pretty much worked out now and everyone is settling in. We are starting to get a lot of neat rigs now which is great. Having access to some top notch, user friendly rigs is just an amazing resource. I just Started Workshop 4 last week which is full body acting. That is going to be interesting I have to say. My instructor David Hubert seems like a pretty cool guy and I hope to learn a lot form him. I don't have much to say about him yet just because we have only had a couple classes. Needless to say I have high hopes for my next couple of shots I will be working on and since I have already started my block of my next piece that enthusiasm is definitely needed. I am going to try to post more often than I did this last Workshop. That way I wont have to do a gigantic post like this again....

About my shots for workshop 3....

In workshop 3 we do two shots which are close up acting shots. We can do whatever we want and use whatever rig we want. It basically splits into two shots at 7 weeks each to complete them. Now this was pretty rough on me because of two things 1. I am a very very weak actor. I have been studying more and more into acting than I ever have before. I am very comfortable now with physical motion so acting is the next stage of my animation learning. 2. I am weak with facial expressions. I have a really hard time posing out nice appealing natural looking facial expressions. When you are doing close up facial acting those two areas are kind of important. Needless to say it was pretty rough. But I learned a ton on both shots. The second shot most of all. Probably because it was a female character and I have done so few of them up to this point. Also the whole issue of me not being a female makes it hard to really dig into that mind set. It was an uphill battle the entire time. But I think both shots are OK. Neither are ground breaking in any sense but both are fairly solid and I am proud of a lot of the work I did. Anyway I will stop blabbing. Please enjoy my shots and if you have any comments or questions please feel free to share.

Pandas animation tricks #5

2010-10-29T07:12:00.003-05:00

I got a couple of questions from someone who actually watches these videos and made this edition of pandas animation tricks all about the questions that were asked of me. Sorry it took me so long to get this video up for you! Been very busy. Just quickly this is a video mostly about which kinds of curve tangents I use and why I use them the way I do. this was touched upon in an earlier video I did but I go into greater depth here.

Pandas animation tricks #4

2010-10-15T02:15:00.002-05:00

Hey guys this video is about my general maya set up. I also show how to set up your own selection buttons using a mel script and a quick run through of layers and how they can be helpful. In the video I talk about setting up maya to adjust all viewports at the same time but couldn't find the setting in the settings/preferences section. I found it though and to change that setting you go to settings/preferences - Timeline - update view- then select all instead of active. Anyway guys if you have any questions for me about this stuff let me know. Its pretty simple stuff but people were asking so I figured I would go ahead and throw this out there. I don't know what I am going to do for the next one but I am going to try to make it pretty cool. That is enough about this, onto general news.....

So to catch up with what I have been doing for the last couple weeks. I started Ianimate and have been animating my first shot which is really close to being done. I am working on the lip sync and having a horrible time trying to get it to look right. I have done it, started over, and done it again, multiple times. Part of the problem is my lack of skill with lip sync in general. The other problem is the design of the character I am using....giant chin. For you animation friends out there you can maybe see how that might be a problem. On the brighter side I have started planning on my second shot which should be a lot more fun than this last one since it isn't so stoic and strong and a bit more loose. Ianimate in general is pretty cool! I have met a lot of cool guys who are producing some great work. The couple of dreamworks guys I have talked to are super cool and my instructor Tal is a class act all the way and its been a treat to be in his class. Besides a number of tech problems that I have been dealing with, either with the site or the conferences its been a pretty cool experience so far. I have never been in a group of animators who are so skilled and into animation as myself. That change is so welcome I can hardly express it in words. The push to get better is so strong being around animators of that class that I have really started to probe at where my weaknesses are and thinking about how I am going to remedy those and push beyond my current level. That is awesome! Because I haven't had that drive since I worked on stuff for Tart at the Art Institute which was well over a year ago now. As for the job hunt there has been a bit of a dry spell as far as industry work is concerned. I keep seeing the same five jobs which I have already applied for popping up. As usual nothing at entry level and everyone is looking for at least 3 years of experience. I am not going to let it get me down, all I can do is keep working, pushing, and hoping that I will eventually get so good as an animator that people would be nuts to not give me a shot.

Mountain of Dreams

2010-09-23T03:51:00.010-05:00

What makes us happy? As people what makes us happy? I would suppose that for every person it is different. Some people want more than anything to be financially well off, others just want to be loved. I have found as time goes on that money cant make me happy. It can place me in situation in which I can be happy but it in and of itself is unable to make me happy. I could understand how some people just want to be loved, it feels great to know that there are people out there who truly care for you, and want to make sure you are alright. I can understand and have no qualms with that at all.

For me though, what makes me happy is the mountain that is my ambition. I am most happy when I am climbing a mountain fighting with everything I have to achieve a personal goal. Each mountain is different, each has its own hurdles, its own peaks and plateaus, its own weather and own emotion. Working towards my dreams basically is what I am saying here. Working towards my dreams is what makes me happy. I will admit at that many times it can be frustrating and depressing finding just how far you have to go in order to achieve those dreams to, reach the summit. But my god when you hit the peak and look back at how far you have come, how much you have endured, how much you have suffered. The feeling is the greatest of all, it makes me beyond happy, elation would be a better word for it. Ambition in my mind is an extension of love, and a physical manifestation of who we are as people. Whatever you drive towards, whatever it is you work and love for is very telling about who you are.

I am not a man who believes in any kind of god or deity. I don't trust that there is any higher purpose than what we create for ourselves. This post is a reminder, for myself and for anyone else who may be reading this that time is short. Find your love, and your ambition and start climbing the mountain that is your dream. Don't let bills, or the problems of the moment, or yourself! Keep you from working, and climbing, and wishing, and dreaming. Don't let life slide by, don't let time creep up onto you and say "gotcha". Keep your dreams alive, keep your love alive, and find your mountain whatever it is, and climb, climb until your hands are broken, and your legs are sore, climb until you feel as though you are going to fall apart. When that time comes I promise you, that through all the pain and sacrifices you will have more love and happiness in your heart than ever before. Because you made your own destiny, you blazed your own trail, and most importantly because at the summit of your mountain you will be able to see the next mountain, your next big adventure.

Pandas animation tricks #3

2010-09-12T06:55:00.006-05:00

Ok, a 2 parter this time. I break down here how I go about doing a ball bounce. Now please note the important video is the first one, the good information is all in that video. The second video is all technical crap and me sort of just moving stuff around in maya. If you actually are new to animation and maya watch both videos. If you are more experienced you can skip the second video, but give the first video a watch, I think you might get something out of it. Oh I am also doing a bunch of these because I have a feeling once I get going with ianimate that I am not going to be able to make very many of these so that is my excuse for the excess of knowledge sharing.

NOTE::: This video is about a realistic representation of a bouncing ball, However you can adjust this work flow to do just about anything. Timing yourself doing actions is also a very good way of finding your timing. I know a lot of people like to work on Bouncing balls with "character". To those people I would tell you to act out whatever you want your ball to do and get your timing off of that. Take video reference of yourself, or just use a stopwatch but get solid character based reference for your character ball.

On a personal bullshit note I just spent two days searching for audio clips to use for my upcoming animation for IA. That was a bit of hell, trying to figure out how to rip audio off of a dvd, I finally managed it but I dont know why it had to be that hard. Another thing I noticed was the strange thing about AI and IA. what do I mean? Ok I am from Iowa which abbreviated is IA, I went to school at the Art Institute of Dallas or the art institute AI, and I am now going to ianimate, which of course is being called IA...strange, no?

Pandas animation tricks #2

2010-09-09T19:41:00.003-05:00

Alright so on this segment of Pandas animation tricks I am talking about using the buffer curve snapshot and using that to adjust your curves. I hope this is helpful to some people, I don't really have an idea about the next thing I want to cover so if there are any requests for things to cover I would like to hear them.

Pandas animation tricks #1

2010-09-05T02:14:00.006-05:00

Hey guys I am doing a new series of videos where I show you some of my animation tricks. Things I use in Maya a lot and how they are helpful to me. I figured I should put something on my blog that isn't just my work or me lamenting about my work so here you go. Giving back, its a good thing. Oh and per request I went through my blog and put labels on everything so now searching for old blog posts will be much easier for people now....Woot!

New Reel!

2010-08-30T23:28:00.006-05:00

Yay! I just finished editing my new reel together. This reel is based more towards games stuff. since I finished it a few days early I think I am going to try to do one more shot to put into it but for now this is it. I may tweek a couple of shots depending upon the feedback I get from people but this is pretty much the new reel I have been working on for so long. Just a side note I did both the guy jumping the cliffs and the ogre swinging the hammer in 6 days. so it was about three days for each animation. I am kind of proud of that although I feel the ogre swinging the hammer needs a lot more work I am just not seeing things as clearly as I would like. Now all I have to do is clean up these couple of shots and then try to get another shot done before I start at ianimate.net Anyway guys that is my update for now, I feel like I have been posting a lot recently but that is only because I have been doing so much work. So until next time have a good one guys! OH, and wish me luck on the job hunt!

walk into run and other things

2010-08-24T15:10:00.007-05:00

So I just finished up my walk into a run transition. I am OK with it, I think it works, I don't love it to death or anything but its hard to love a transition animation you know? Anyway I have enough time to do one more shot for my reel I think. The problem is that I don't know what that shot is going to be. I hadn't really thought about it yet and I need to figure out what I am going to do and then do some reference for it as soon as possible so that I can get to work on this new shot. It needs to be something physical and I really want it to either be funny or just really cool. I have an idea for a chase scene including a dinosaur the only problem with that is the dinosaur rig I have is pretty weak. Its alright but there are a couple of key functionality things that I really would like it to have that it doesn't. Also I could see doing a creature animation like that taking a lot longer to do since I have never really delved into creature stuff yet. Oh well we shall see what I come up with. This post is really about this new addition to my reel which I think should help me out quite a bit. Anyway till next time you guys have a good one!

Game reel stuff - Death animation

2010-08-19T19:26:00.007-05:00

So I am working on my game reel right now trying to get it done before I start ianimate.net in early september. I just finished up the render on it so here is the video. If you see any problems let me know please and also let me know if you think the colors are working. I may have to go tweak them because they are quite vibrant. Anyway I am on to my other couple animations I need to get finished in the next week or so. continued later....

So instead of adding a new post I am going to add to this one. I had a grand idea of what my "game reel should be" it was leaning heavily on cycles and the like. I got an email from a guy I know who is pretty cool and he is a game animator and he was nice enough to throw me some pointers. he basically said game animation isnt all cycles. He said a lot of things but the big thing for me was the idea that it wasnt about making a character move in a cycle but what you can do with a cycle that counts. That kind of made me think about my approach in general. I have been for a long time been working on my stuff thinking that if it was technically good then there ya go end of story I should land a job with that. That obviously isnt the case at this point. I see guys getting jobs out there with reels that arent technically as polished as my own but I will admit that their reels are more ENTERTAINING! I can have the the most polished reel on the planet but when it comes time to remember who's reel had the most impact who are you going to care about more? The guy that made you go "oh that is technically well done" or the guy that made you laugh? I think the answer is obvious. But to push that idea farther what if you got the laugh and it was well animated? That is where I need to be. So I scrapped a couple of ideas I had for shots I was going to do and have come up with different ones that should be more interesting and entertaining overall. The death animation is going to stay though cause I think its alright and the feedback I have gotten so far has been pretty minimal so I am feeling good about that.

2010-08-16T18:18:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone just putting up a post because I am excited to announce I am now a student at ianimate.net the new online animation school created by Jason Ryan. Its an online school that is much cheaper than animation mentor with an interesting program. It gives you one on one time with actual animators that are in the industry right now (mostly dream works guys) and they are going to be giving us specially built rigs and stuff which is cool. This is basically going to burn a hole in my butt though because I now have to get a part time job to cover the monthly payments needed to cover the course. I think though given the people involved it will be worth it. I had been telling myself that after I get a job as a game animator somewhere I can go ahead and go to animation mentor because I can afford it at that point. I decided to go with ianimate.net because I can afford it NOW and it will allow me to add things to my reel which will help me get a job sooner. That also means that I have to finish my game reel by the end of this month. That is kind of a tight deadline but hell I have done more with less time so lets do this thing! Oh and the classes start on the 16 of September I think so after that I am going to start having a lot more updates on my blog. it might actually turn into something people will want to read!

New shot and a bit of bad news.

2010-08-10T07:28:00.007-05:00

So I did a post where I showed a screen cap of a new shot I was starting which I was really interested in and was super excited about. The problem was that about two weeks ago my comp got a HORRIBLE virus. I basically lost a week and a half of animation work and completely lost that new shot. Didn't even have the set up shots I made which sucks because I felt like it would have been cool. But anyway no reason to cry over lost animation files. On another note I was skimming through some audio files and I found one that was just SOOO funny I have never seen the movie this comes from but this is really funny and I loved it so much I dropped everything to do a block on it. So here below this post is my blocking of this new shot. I don't know if its going to turn out great but I really really need to replace the dialogue shot I did at AI since it really isn't that good or at least to the level I know I am at. For when I made it it is fine but I am better than that now.

run cycle mayhem!

2010-07-18T21:05:00.005-05:00

this is my new run cycle looking for crits!

Note I have been getting a lot of really good crits lately so soon I should have a good solid finished version of this done and then I can move onto doing a transition between a run into a walk. Since my walk is already done I got a lot of the components under way.

quality vs speed

2010-07-15T02:01:00.005-05:00

So I thought I would throw up a post. I haven't done all that much the last few days other than play and beat red dead redemption. The main reason being is that I find it very hard to sit at my desk and concentrate anymore and beyond that it has been so hot recently that sitting at my desk for more than a few minutes is torture. But even when I am not working I am thinking about animation. I have realized that on the animation spectrum of quality vs speed I am listing WAY too far towards the quality side. To clarify I am not saying that I need to get less quality into my work but what I am saying is that I strive for quality of work above speed and have done so for quite some time. The problem with that is that my body of work hardly ever changes. I am thinking that I need to take active steps towards getting faster at animation. I can do shots now to an alright quality, not amazing, but good solid stuff. What I need to do is try and work towards making my shots just as good but do it a lot faster. It is something I have just realized, and its so important. If I did get a job right now I would be hard pressed to meet the regular production deadlines that I would have to meet because I am just not used to dealing with a schedule like that. The shot I have done so far with the fastest turn around was my April 11 second club entry which was 11 ish seconds of animation *not finished by the way* in 7 days. Now to finish that shot all the way and get it looking really nice would require another 10-12 hours for all the pretty subtle stuff. That just isn't cool I need to be able to blast through these animations far more quickly than I am working right now.

Sub idea - dashing my hopes

I read an article today from a guy online who was talking about looking at animation reels and hiring people and he basically said this. I don't care where you went to school and I don't care who taught you what I only care about what you have produced outside of school and how good that work is. Now on one hand I can appreciate that. On the other that SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME! I mean I have NOTHING at all to my name besides school stuff. If the basis for landing that job is my reel plus what I have done after school I am royally screwed.

OHHH and I LOVE this video!! so great!

New shot under way

2010-06-24T20:01:00.004-05:00

So I have started a new shot, spent last night doing the set up, have a background and stuff so I had to actually build a couple of things in max. Which took awhile because I had to access a rusty part of the old brain organ. I actually was thinking about making a short film there for awhile and I think I have decided against it. However I did storyboard it out and there were a few panels that I really loved and thought would be really cool to do so, I decided to shelve the short and just do those couple of shots on my own. They should work out of context and be pretty cool to boot. I posed out one of the main poses so far and decided it was worth sharing just to give you a flavor of what is to come.

Finding the love

2010-06-20T02:10:00.005-05:00

I came to a realization the other day that I had come to not like working on animation. I still liked watched it and I still read up on it and studied it but I wasnt having any fun at it, in a word animation had become work. I realized that and just stopped. I put my mouse down and said "this isnt right" and went outside to sit down. I sat and thought that I still watched animation but I wasnt engaged in it. I wasnt being entertained I was disecting it, and examening it, learning from it. I read up on animation not because I really was curious about the process and because it was fun to learn I was trying to find ways to improve my process. Animation had become a job, it was work, it was cold and it was technical. So I have stopped. I got into animation because I really loved it, I had a passion for it and enjoyed just the thought of getting to be a part of the animation world. Through all the stress and the sweat and the axiety I wasnt getting anything more than stress and axiety. I wasnt gaining anything more, I wasnt growing, and I wasnt developing into anything more than a tool, a machine that animates. So I have decided before I animate again I am going to find my love of animation. I am going to watch animated films and just be entertained by them, I am going to go back to the shows of my childhood and love them again just because they are funny and should be loved. I am going on a hunt to ignite my passion and my love for art and animation and stop myself from becomeing an animation bridge troll before its too late.

Got 30th.....sadly.

2010-05-05T19:25:00.004-05:00

So I finished up my animation for the 11 second club for April 2010. The votes were cast and I got 30th out of 177 entries. Which sucks to be honest. I figured I was going to grab at least a top 25....bleh. Oh well just have to do it better next time. Doing a self critique I can see that I just didn't get the emotional resonance I wanted too with the final look for the female character. I really should have pushed the camera closer to her face as well as pushed the emotions she was feeling. I also feel like I could have polished a couple of moves, one in particular. If I had to do it again I would have reconsidered the leaning on a table thing. That was just a technical challenge across the board. Having to make sure that the arms and hands and fingers don't clip through the geometry was a bear to handle and took a lot of time which I could have spent elsewhere. I was also relying too much on my animation to convey what I wanted to. Though that is my primary function, it isn't the only aspect of animation, there were a lot of things I could have pushed and improved in order to have pushed my entry farther up the voting charts. Such as working on better textures and lighting, going through the trouble of finding real clothes and hair. Doing the little details such as adding some kind of text on the document the guy slides over. All of these things would have pushed the shot farther if not the animation. Overall I think its an OK little piece. It sure isn't reel material by any stretch of the imagination but its OK.

11 Second club cont.

2010-04-29T04:07:00.004-05:00

So I am getting along, Animation always takes longer than I anticipate which is annoying. Its just the fact that the little things take longer than you think they should so I am getting bogged down by that. At this point right now I have 44 hours left to finish up my piece, which includes not just animation but lighting and rendering and uploading the final video and all that. I am going way slower and I would prefer and at this rate I wont finish on time to the quality that I would prefer. Of course I started significantly later than I should have but I knew what I was getting into when I started this thing. I think this entry is going to get a better rating than the last one that I uploaded to the competition which got 70th out of 204 which is alright since I did it in about 3 days, and as more of a lark. This though I am actually investing some time into I am really hoping for something more significant. I dont anticipate winning this time around though since the quality just isnt going to be there, the acting is going to be there, the movement isnt going to be there, the rendering wont really be all that impressive, and compared to what I have seen win in these other competition I foresee a few dark horses coming out of no where to nab up a pretty big victory. I didnt get any of the emotion or subtext that I was looking to get into my shot but I am hoping that somehow it will still manage to radiate through by the time I finish but I just dont know, anyway wish me luck I could use it.

11 second club April

2010-04-23T04:55:00.007-05:00

So I am doing the 11 second club this month, I got a pretty late start so its going to be a sprint to the finish on this one. I am trying to get the emotion to work on this scene before I go to spline because if its not working in the blocking it wont work in the splined version. I am really trying to do something more based in reality here as well as trying to do more with texture and varied timings. I have noticed that I want to gravitate towards a singular timing every shot that I do and need to break myself off of that, so that is what I am trying to do. Anyway if anyone has anything to say feel free to yell at me because I could use any input that I can get on this one.

2010-03-15T18:45:00.006-05:00

heads up on an update. In a couple of weeks I will be putting up my updated reel which is hopefully significantly better than the original reel I graduated with. I will go ahead and post up both assuming I can find the original. I have been working on these different shots for over a year now trying to get that as good as I can. Granted that year had a lot of other things going on besides just working on this stuff but its still been a year in the making. I sure hope that at the end of this long road will be a good job waiting for me and the chance to really finally get good at this animation thing. But I am just throwing a heads up that in about two weeks this whole thing should be done, or so I am planning. Then the job hunt begins!!!!.....AGAIN!

2010-02-26T04:20:00.004-06:00

So to just kick this thing off I am working a couple things at the moment. The most important thing I am working on is my portfolio which has been in the works for a LOONNGGG time however I am coming to the end of that particular journey as far as my school work goes. The other project I am involved with is called Devils Angels and Dating. Its a short film being made right now that I am animating on. I have a shot that I working on which I will post at the bottom of this post and will post up the final as well. I am having a bit of trouble with this shot for a couple of reasons but whatever. Anyway the other thing I am working on is that I am going to be spending the next week animating in stop motion for a tiny spot within a tv show called extreme home makeover. I don't know what kind of shot I am going to get but I am jazzed to get the chance to get my hands on a stop motion project that is something I thought I would never get to do. I am probably not going to get anything great out of the stop motion thing but I don't care its the experience that I am more interested in. I really love what I do.

New location same old tricks.

2009-12-15T07:51:00.003-06:00

So the need for a place to post and get feedback has become apparent. Since I graduated school more and more I have been secluded into my own little world away from any good solid animation critiques. Realizing that I decided to post up this blog. As I work on various animation I will go ahead and post videos up here to share what I am doing. If I do a good drawing or some kind of comic or something that will go up here as well. To start off I will go ahead and post up the link to my website you can go see any of my current stuff up there. glassanimation.com