This Week's Lecture

I'm not usually one to complain about the lectures at AM, but I have to say that this week's lecture was incredibly dull. I realize that it is important as animators to understand shots, and how to edit shots together if we ever want to rise above mere animator pawns, but I was expecting far more visual examples from AM.

-end rant-

Intro to Acting Class : Assignment 2

I've begun work on blocking my second assignment for my Intro to Acting Class. It's an audio clip from the Firefly series, taken out of context, and used in a bar scene.

Classes begin

Start of the 4th term began this week: Intro to Acting. I'm completely psyched about what's going to be taught this term.

Contract's end

So I'm back on the job hunt now that my stay with Treyarch is over. Had a blast creating the game and would love to work with their team again.

That being said, I'm glad to be back in Dallas. Classes start next week and I'm settling down while I look for work and get back into the fun grind of character animation.

Long time no Post

So a lot has happened since my last post. A personal crisis has arisen, but hopefully we can work it out, or we'll settle it civilly.

Put my AnimationMentor on hold while I do a contract job at Treyarch, working on the new CoD game. So far it's been a blast. California is great. Treyarch is awesome. Can't say anything about the game, yet. I've met some cool people out here, visited some fun places, and more or less enjoyed myself.

AM classes should be starting soon, and I look forward to that. I've also begun to refocus on my company. I just finished the basic design of the site, and now I'm looking to fill it with content. After that I'm planning on purchasing the licenses for mental-ray, and begin hosting the common free renderers.

Side note: I am migrating to a new website hosting service, so my site may be down... meaning that if you don't see this message, chances are you hit my site when it was migrating.

Class 3

Class 3 is Advanced Body Mechanics, and the assignments are based off of one of two themes that we get to pick : AnimJam (with a theme of our choice) or AnimExercise (where we pick a new theme for each exercise). I picked AnimJam withe a theme of climbing

The first animation will be of Stewie climbing over a wall, with Tailor making a cameo appearance. I'm not sure if I want to put Tailor cameos in each animation, but I'm definitely thinking about it.

The second animation is going to be of Stewie climbing a ladder onto a rooftop.

The third animation is still slightly up in the air. I'm stuck between having Stewie climb a Cliff, a boulder, or a tree. I think climbing the tree would be fun, especially with Tailor making an appearance. But climbing a boulder/cliff would be fun too, and definitely with unique motions. The deciding factor will probably be how complex the environment (cliff/boulder/tree) will be.

Busy Week!

So this week I'm wrapping up our new assignment: Stewie changes direction while running. My plot for this assignment was to have Stewie run and then skid to a halt and scramble to avoid falling blocks. So far so good.

Last Thursday (3/11) I took TeamBondi's animation test. I'll admit, I don't think I did that well as I had some timing issues that I couldn't quite nail down before I ran out of time. I'd chalk it up to inexperience working in 60FPS, but I've worked in 30FPS and I should have known what to do.

Last Friday (3/12) I received my animation test from Gearbox and I have to admit, I've been looking forward to it. While the test has to be taken in Max *inward groan* I have found relearning the program to be enjoyable in the fact that I'm reaquiring some software skills. I get to animate the Skag from Borderlands, and I have to admit this is what I was hoping the test was. 3 Animations: Run cycle, Warning before attacking, and a Melee. I have them all planned out in my head, but at this point I feel I may be a tad behind schedule as I have only blocked out poses on one of the animations. Back to work with me!!

Sticky Gum Wrap Up

Wrapping up the sticky gum assignment this week. Finishing some timing issues I found at the last minute.

Submitted planning for next week's blocking assignment: running with sudden direction reversal.

Sticky Situations...

... in more than one way. I successfully blocked out this week's assignment. Though there are some poses that I think need more refining, I'm happy with the overall outcome; but we'll see how Martin feels about it (he's my Mentor for Class 2: Body Mechanics)

Had a domestic slip up. Won't happen again as I am on Day 2 of my "punishment" and I am already regretting it.

Now on to more fun stuff...
I started relearning/reteaching myself C++. I bought this kickass "Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours" book and I am impressed so far. I'm on hour 5, which is still a refresher for me. It won't get difficult until I reach classes and OOP.

I wrote a concept document for a iPhone game that should be transferable to anything with tilt sensing.

This past Wednesday I went to my weekly rock climbing MeetUp and had a blast climbing and at Brain's (Climbing Buddy) bday party afterwards at Fridays. Looking forward to Melissa's bday later this month.

This Week

So I have almost wrapped up my gapJump animation assignment from AM. I need to make 2 small tweaks and I'll submit it as finished. Part of this week's assignment is to prep for blocking of a shot next week. I've chosen to try and combine three actions from this week's picklist: hopping up and down on one leg, losing balance and falling over, and stepping on sticky gum.

I was originally going to do a parkour animation, but I think it will not look nearly as interesting with no arms. That's right. This week's Stewie character has no arms in the rig. I know I can go in and find them, but I'm afraid it might break the rig.

No arms is going to limit my choice of motions. I had already planned out a shot in my head before I looked at the rig, but unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to replan.

Animation Test

For the last week I have been taking a nerve wracking animation test for idSoftware. Don't get me wrong, the animation is fine and the actual task of animating was a blast. No what's nerve wracking about it is the waiting; the anticipation; the fear of "It's just not good enough."

The cycle, which I have been told is a primary reason most people fail this test was, I thought, fairly straight forward. Only now that I've put it aside for a few days to work on the second part of the test, I see and have been told that there are more than a few things I could improve on... I fixed the major hiccups in the animation, but the feet are a whole different matter all together. I just can't seem to portray the feeling of weight in them. This of course being a test, I will not ask someone "Hey, how do you do this thing I'm having problems with?" Curse you morality and work ethic! I'm planning on turning in the test tonight. Wish me luck!

January Update

Animation mentor term started this week. I can already tell from the lecture and assignments that I'm going to learn a ton during this class.

Render Farm Update : Hardware is ready to go. I have however, hit a snag on the software side. I have thus far been unable to turn my ubuntu computer into a controller that will netboot (pxe?) my render nodes. Hopefully this get's resolved soon as I'd really like to clean up the kitchen table :)