New Blog!

If some how someone is reading this and is interested in new posts, here's the link to my new blog that I will be posting stuff on from now on.

The blog you are currently reading was used for in-class assignments back when I took a Film and Animation BOCES class. This new blog will of course go into new stuff I've been working on, such as my Animation work at Daemen College and more. See ya there.

Final Blog Post (2016)

1. Why did you take this class?

I took this class initially last year because I thought it was the perfect way for me to get a kick start on my career as early as possible. When I first went to the BOCES presentation at my school I wasn't really expecting much. It was mostly stuff I wasn't really interested much in. But then, I saw the class which was at the time called "Digital Media". As soon as I saw the animation class I knew that was something that I needed to do. Not only would it give me credits, but also I would be spending time doing something in school that I love. And again, this year I decided to take the film portion as well because I thought it would further enhance my skills in of course video production, but Animation as well.

2. In general, what did you like most about this class?

I liked learning a lot of new stuff this year that further enhanced my skills in video making. After Effects is definitely my favorite program I learned about. I was excited to learn about it, as I had never known much about it and been fascinated by it. And now, it's my favorite program to Animate in. I love how good it's compositing tools are. And even for a non animation program at heart, It's so great to use for animating. I also got to learn Premiere better this year, and it is definitely my favorite editing software I've used. While I was already pretty familiar with Photoshop, I still learned a few new techniques this year as well which I now use regularly

3. In general, what did you like least about this class?

The biggest thing I struggled with this year by far was meeting deadlines on time and general lack of time on projects. I'm not really putting the blame on anyone either as film naturally is a bit more complex than animation when it comes to time management in many ways. I also understand that we have to move fast to get to all the projects. But halfway through the year I don't think there was a single project that I 100% finished on the "due date". Even if a few projects where cut out (such as smaller ones like the Video Poem Project) I think it would've benefited everyone in general.

4. What was your most favorite project and why?

I guess I'll give two answers for this one. One project I actually finished, and one I didn't. My favorite finished project is probably my Furry Documentary. I think I managed to be very non bias and well using humor, still managed to make something that could be respected by non-furries and furries a like. I think the script and editing where nice and tight as well. The only thing I wish I had done was use more of my own art/animation and fixed some of the audio levels and color correction. And my favorite unfinished project is a tie between my Evolution video and Fictional Short. I used a new animation style using Photoshop and After Effects in the Evolution video that I came to enjoy very much. And in my fictional short I think I had a good story, humor and decent effects. I plan to finish both of these projects and others in one way or another soon.

5. What was your least favorite project and why?

Probably the Video Poem. I don't hate it or anything, but it just feels like kind of a filler video to me. It doesn't help that it's another unfinished one as well. I do think that I pulled off a pretty interesting style though.

6. Discuss the overall effectiveness of the instructor (for example: preparation, availability, interest, content knowledge, expectations, etc.).

I always thought Ms. Licata was a great teacher and I have very few complaints over these past few years. She always was very helpful to me and answered questions I had even if she was busy with something. She is also of course very knowledgeable in the subjects that she teaches as well.

7. What are the most valuable things you learned in the class?

Definitely learning a lot of new tools that I use in my projects. The most valuable being Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere probably. Also probably a general sense of what a professional work space is like in the field.

8. Do you feel that this class will help you achieve your future academic or career goals? How or why (or why not)?

Definitely. I'm soon going to school in Daemen for Animation and the skills I learned in this class directly apply to this. I want to go into making video games and everything from the environment to the techniques started with this class for me.

9. How could this class be improved?

Slightly adjusting deadlines in coordination to student interest in projects. Maybe have big projects that everyone has to do and smaller ones to choose from. This way students will have a individual deadlines and also have the interest and time to finish projects when they're suppose to. Of course this would be a lot harder to keep track of and grade, But I think it would benefit the class exponentially in the end..

10. What would you tell incoming students to help them be more prepared for the class?

Be prepared for a lot of work, but still be excited. It's not a walk in the park but really would you want it to be? There's still a lot of great people you'll meet and it's just a great environment to work in. Be excited for your own work and to see what your classmates are working on. Always look for ways to improve yourself and take constructive criticism well. No one is trying to put you down, they just want to see you exceed to the best of your abilities.

11. Additional Comments:

I'll always look back on this class and be so happy I did it. It really did make High School so much better for me and I would strongly recommenced it to anyone with an interest in animation and video production who wants to improve there abilities. Also, I liked it.

PluralSight Evaluation

The PluralSight Course that I decided to do was the course "Construct 2 Fundamentals by Jeremy Foster". I decided to do this course because I have a strong interest in making video games and have been interested in the program for awhile. So when I saw that it was one of the course available I decided why not try it. I watched about 2 hours of the course. This was enough to finish the game and I watched that much because I decided to do the tutorial as well as watch it. There was no available sample files for me, at least for my membership level, which is fine because I didn't feel like I needed anything at any point. As for PluralSight itself, I was thoroughly impressed with it. It was pretty easy to find a course I was interested in and I didn't have trouble navigating the sight. The only thing is I wish there was a list of programs that there's courses for. The Website also had a nice look to it, very pleasant to look at. The tutorial that I watched was very good as well. There was a few parts that the instructor that while some people might find educating, I thought we're a bit unnecessary though. He went into talking about how to go about your market and the various ways you can sell your game but I just wanted to learn how to use the program. The actual course itself was helpful and clear. Sometimes he went by a bit fast but I just backed up a bit in those parts (If only you could do that in real life). I personally would definitely prefer doing these video tutorials than packets. I find that a lot the packets can be very confusing in their wording. When you see a person do it and follow along it's a lot easier to follow along with whats happening. It's also just a lot more engaging in my opinion. If given a year access to this program I would definitely be happy and take advantage of it. I'm always looking to learn more programs, and more about ones I already use. So for me it would be very helpful. Like if I ever wanted to for example learn a music producing program or something similar. So in all, I definitely enjoyed learning this way. It's pretty cool that you can learn about new programs this way. It makes everything much more accessible and nice. Also here's the game I made if you want to play it yourself. It's pretty hard though so good luck.

How CGI Works

This video was about how computer programs and math dudes were able to come across the various obstacles of creating realistic lighting and rendering through computers. Math and science are deeply connected to this video as all of the problems that needed to be solved such as shadows, reflections and refractions needed to be solved by using math equations that can be put into a language that computers can understand. So basically coding.
The first method used was Rasterization. This technique involved using projections to shoot through a grid system (being pixels) to detect where shapes were and to delete empty space to produce and object. This is different from Ray casting as that involves sending light through the pixel holes and looking for intersections. Rasterization was good at figuring out shapes but wasn't that greatest at actual lighting.
 This is were Ray Casting came in as it was able to find what objects were in front of the camera and which one were behind. The three major problems with these methods though were creating shadows, reflections and refractions. This was solved when ray casting evolved into Recursive Ray Tracing. This sent out different projections when collisions where made and depending on if it again made a collisions would decide how to shade the pixels based on lighting. The problem after these methods were in effect was figuring out Indirect vs Direct illumination.
 While Indirect is decent at creating the general lighting it does not account for the other sources of lighting, because in the real world light bounces everything. While rather direct lighting accounts for all the other various sorts of lights. This creating an issue that wasn't overcomed until an equation was made by James Kaiyja to combat this. This equation basically had to figure out which lighting factors would be affected by what. While this equation didn't handle transmission and sub surface scattering that well, it was still a start of a better representation of physics which is still be improved on today.
 There are also two laws that were hypothesized because of these advancements in computers. One was Moore's Law being that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled in about every 2 years. This meaning that rendering sees a sizable improvement give or take in this time frame. Then there is also Blinn's Law being as tech advances rendering time stays constant. While this might seem obviously false at first what it really means is that the better our tech becomes, the more we push the limit of what it can do, further and further.
 These two laws relate heavily to the topic as advancements are being made constantly in the CGI field and the people at the helm are never going to stop pushing it's potential.
CGI is a massive tool that isn't slowing down at any point soon. But even though it's amazing what it can do, I wouldn't say it's that different from any other art form. When it started it was very foreign territory and it took talented people to push it to the main stream. And it's still being pushed to this day to reach it's full potential. And I think any art form is like that being that there is a constant flow of new people trying to figure out mathematically and scientifically what can be done to improve it.

Week 38 Comments

This week was nice but a little busy. We had an ok amount of work days but had to worry about presentations/papers. What frustrated me this week is not getting a lot of progress on my poem. The Poem is due in a few days and I haven't made much progress yet. But I can wine about it all I want. In the end I brought this upon myself by procrastinating an worrying about how I would pull what I want off. So I'm going to finish it by the deadline and I'm going to try a few interesting styles to achieve that. What made me happy this week was think of an idea for my next video. I decided to the evolution contest and I thought of a good idea for it too. It's going to be an animation and I can't wait to work on it. I'm currently looking forward to working on that and I hope things go as smoothly as I can make them in the days to come. Anyways link of interest...

This is the trailer for the new Lego Batman movie. I really liked the Lego movie when it came out in 2014, and this movie looks like everything great about that movie now with Batman! I love the art style they do for these movies and it also looks very funny. Also funny enough it looks a lot better than what Batman V Superman was... ughhh.  I personally didn't really like that movie that much, The stuff with Batman was good and Ben Affleck was honestly one of my favorite on screen Batmans ever, but the rest of the movie was just really boring and nothing really made sense. But this movie looks like they are attempting to add some sort of joy to the film.

Drawing people that look some what real

This article was about a few techinques to draw more real looking people. The first tip is to draw around a line of action. If you don't have this, your characters posture could look weird and not focused, almost like a robot. It's important to draw a line of action so you have a certain flow to your character. The next tip is to do a head count for your characters. By this it means drawing out how many circles (being the size of your characters head) tall your character is. A smaller more cute like character might be a only a few circles tall, but a taller more heroic character might be a lot more. The next tip is about keeping in mind how broad your characters shoulders are. This might seem like a pretty insignificant detail at first but it really does change the look of your character. The wider and broader your characters shoulders are, the more strong and heroic he will look. Similar to the last technique. The next technique is keeping in mind where the parts of your face go. It's important to keep in mind that eyes are pretty much dead smack in the middle of your face. Meaning you should start with the eyes and build off of that, being how tall the forehead or chin should be for example. The next tip is keeping the next straight but not too straight. You shouldn't draw the neck as flexible as a noodle, but it should be shifting a little bit in some direction just so you don't look like a stiff robot. The next tip is to make sure smiles go from ear to ear. Smiles can look really awkward if you don't do this, so make sure the outlines of the mouth are almost like a bridge between the ears. And the last technique is to think inside boxes. This technique is to draw 3D boxes and then construct your character inside these boxes. This technique is especially useful for drawing in perspective.
I found this article very useful. Most of these I had heard before, but I hadn't thought of using the box technique before. I usually construct my characters from lines and circles, but I'll defintaly try out that in the future.

Reverse Shot

This video by Every Frame a Painting is about the art of reverse shots in film. Reverse shots are shots that are one after another that some how mirror each other. This video specifically focusing on the Coen brothers way of using this technique. The Coen bros. typically put the camera in between the two actors while dialogue is going on. This way each character gets separate shots, and unlike other films you don't see the backs of the other character. The coen bros. also use a closer lens so you don't as much feel as though you are spying on the characters but right close to them while the action is going on. This fits the Coen bros. common theme of isolating the characters, with shots and plot. The lens. And finally the Coen bros. use a certain rhythm with their editing. There's never any long pauses unless they are obviously intentional. A lot of other directors tend to be a little more realistic with pauses between two characters talking, but the Coen bros make the dialog go back and forth very fast which gives it a nice feel.
I liked this video a lot, as I am a fan of this channel. One of my favorite technique that the Coen uses that I try to use regularity as well is there fast editing style with dialog. You definitely have to pay attention to that stuff because it can really bog down the rest of your video. In my own work, I try to get a certain rhythm to it as well.