New software = hardwork

So today has been a bit of a up hill start, every stage of development has been met with a hiccup of some sort. After getting past the ordeal of learning how to navigate Maya having spent years on XSI  I have spent today just learning some very basic stuff. Simple constraints of objects to characters shouldn't have felt such an epic task. But after giving up and finding a nifty little script I then dragged out the task of installing it... In the end I Youtubed it and found a quick demo of how its done.
The script was up and running, but wasn't working on my custom model *sigh. I proceeded to faff about with other failing methods before having another punt at using the script...which worked!
Anyhoo, I did manage a couple of hours of posing characters, I just need to iron out my warm up blunders such as forgetting to key, or keying the wrong frame. Always a pain when you spend ten minutes correcting a pose, to the flick through frames and realise 10 mins later your going in circles. Ah well, the ground work is down now I can drop In Some major poses, shame I have work tomorrow...

Day one: 11sec club March

Yes I know its technically day 4 or 5, but I've just started. Anyways, I remember one of my lecturers telling me that animations should be at least 70-80% planning. Which for me is true enough. Otherwise I would find myself sat with an open scene file in full on zombie mode. After a day of thought, a few sketches and a scene setup later , here is a screeny of my initial idea in scene.

As with my previous entry (attempt) I will be using the morpheus rig, not only because its awesome but because the author is constantly working to develop the rig, so any bugs or what have you have long since been ironed out (i hope). This rig offers a great 'customgeo' tool which allows quick alterations to the character, so my rig should at least look different from anyone else who is using the same one and there usual is.
Ideally i would have gone for the other set up for the scene. But since I spent half my setup time yesterday getting to grips with the new Mac setup and magic mouse, I'm going to put my simplistic scene layout down to my current lack of knowledge of the software. Later projects should yield a more interesting scene. Or at least more than four walls and a prop, yes I know I am focussing on my animation and putting any time into anything else would be a pointless deviation from my discipline but other entrants have put some great scenes together and some of these guys get the low ranks too. I've got all the time in the world to learn that stuff and anyway, its time to crack on!

Lets try this again...

Ok, new computer , check, lets have a crack at the 11 second club again. In all honesty I can't remember just how many times I have attempted to do an entry. Granted I've never spent more than a couple of 3-4 hour sessions on one for one excuse or another but its been at least three or four times over the last few years.
My goal isn't to win one, nope its to develop my 'pipeline' or workflow. Currently it kinda sucks, that is to say that theres a lot of pauses in my process where I sit and umm and arr as to what I should be doing next. So with any luck and a couple of entries I should be well on my way to developing a decent workflow and a faster pace. I do have my own projects on the shelf waiting to be dabbled with, but until I have a better method of approach and understanding of keeping a project moving I'm going to proceed to use the 11second club as my 'Client' whom I need to get a project done for without fail.

Anyhoo heres a quick sketch of the two ideas for this months scene. In it I have just dropped a few lines to indicate a bar of some sort for two people to sit and converse at. The other is a similar bar or cafe situation where a customer mumbles to the help.

I'll keep updating my progress day to day.





Paul out.

Money well spent:

So Animex is over for another year, along with some souvenirs I've picked up a lot of helpful tips and tricks! Mainly from the Ed Hooks workshop I attended on Wednesday but also from a few of the guest speakers. Aardman attended with a model from their latest film Pirates, though I havent seen the film, I was very interested to see the processes that went into the film, especially seeing the Pirate captain model in person, they are brilliant! I found myself wanting to make some more models of my own again, unfortunately I already have enough on my to do list. But thats the beauty of these festivals, you find yourself inspired to have a crack at everything after seeing them on screen. For now id be best of pushing one discipline if Im gonna make myself a saleable asset.

One thing I will definitely do is draw more, one of the quotes that was mentioned went something like this " It takes an artist to produce 1000 bad drawings before he produces anything good" So what have I taken this quite literally and decided to crank out these 1000 pictures numbering them as I go. These will be no masterpieces but I need to get them done and preferably at faster rate then 1 a day unless I want to take 2+ years over it.

I'll share more on Animex and my workshop with Ed Hooks later!

Paul Out.

"Im gonna Wreck it!"

Woop! just met Rob Dressel of Disney animation studios, Lead Layout guru on the new Wreck-It Ralph movie! Pleased to say hes a really friendly guy to speak to. After wading through the atmosphere of fellow nerds orbiting him I snatched the earliest opportunity to ask for a signature, it was luck that Forbidden Planet happened to be present and selling the book and it just iced it off having one of the artist around to sign it.

I usually dont have anything to say to most of the industry experts at Animex, but I found myself asking about production roles in the industry and how to go about getting one. Lets face it there isn't a hole lot you can put on a showreel to show off your producing skills ... anyhoo, he told me it was best to email them directly and ask to speak to someone for help. Disney are offering internships for the summer, so i'm going to apply, unfortunately the deadline is 1st of March and with no showreel for to provide for the animation side of the application , my failing hardware has provided me with another kick to the ribs. There is always next year, but its got me thinking to apply to Disney! which I've never done before. Rest assured they shall be first on my pester for a job list.
The internship programme offers a choice of three disciplines, so I think i'll be choosing Layout artist, animator and production assistant. Even if nothing comes of it, I've got another year to develop and apply again!

A while ago I found myself thinking of the quickest way into the industry so that I could then train in what I wanted to do. But now I have seen so many things I would love to do and find myself positively less picky about what I would or wouldn't do. I figured it cant hurt to ask for a little advice form them. I've already emailed them..twice.

Stuff the PC "I'm a Mac"

Well it's long overdue, my pc has been limping along for far too long. So I've liberated any files that may have value and condemned the tower to a dusty corner awaiting a time when I see fit to harvest its useful pieces.

Fair well old friend, it was interesting. Welcome to my new mac, no more cumbersome, vibrating virus magnet of a tower for me... No just 27inches of awesome sauce.

Animex 2013

Its that time of year again and for the first time since 2010 I can actually attend Animex. Technically I was there 2 years ago but sneaking into the social, stuffing your face with free food and promptly leaving hardly counts.
This time round I was that excited in anticipation that I booked my ticket back in November. I see some familiar names on the speakers list and some i havent seen before, will have to wait till closer to the date to get the confirmed final list.
Already on there is Ed Hooks though and i have missed opportunities to see his lectures before. He is doing a Workshop on "acting for animators" which will do me nicely! Another name I recognise is Stuart Sumida, I saw his online seminar on the anatomy of a fight last year so it will be interesting to see him in person again. He did a talk in 2010 on the Disney film "Bolt".
Stuart Sumida's talks are usually on anatomy of characters, how characters should be built and how they would move, considering my past years experience in rigging it would have been brilliant to go to his workshop of anatomy of characters but sadly its on at the same time as the one im already going to. Now that Im focussing on animation its best i doubt miss out on the workshop best suited to me.