Week 18 Comments

And again, We have another nice work week. Which is always accepted in big open arms. What made me happy this week was finishing my 3D Short. It took a lot of work, and it's good to see a few people who have seen it like it. I do wish I could have done a few things differently, like maybe work out the story more and fix a few other weird things. But it's still pretty good in my opinion, and I hope you guys look forward to seeing it. What made me mad this week was getting sick on Friday. I was feeling perfect the whole week and then, BAM! Thursday night I feel completely awful. I'm much better now though, as I'm currently getting rid of the last remaining stray symptoms. I'm also mad it took me out of my time working on my upcoming independent study that I started on Thursday. Which leads me into that being what I'm looking forward to working on in class. It's stop-motion, so it's going to take some time, but I think I'm starting to work it out more. I had a lot of time to think while sick, so I think I'm prepared to get back to it on Monday. Now, link of interest time.

I found this while looking at Corridor Digital's other videos, after seeing their drone video for the previous article. I thought the effect they used here was really cool. I think the video might have been made using drones actually (or a crane maybe). But yeah pretty neat stuff. I thought it fit being my next project is Stop-Motion and all. Anyways, good luck for anyone who needs to finish their 3D Short this week! I look forward to seeing everyone's!

Attack of the Drones

This article was about how Drones will, and are changing how directors make movies. The article starts off with Angela Watercutter telling a story on he's trying to get a good shot with his drone. I should probably go over what a drone is sense I've only mentioned it 3 times now. It's basically an RC Helicopter with a camera attached to it, where you can control the camera motion and what not. Anyways, he's trying to get a shot but failing. And he then learns after that, it's not too hard to fly the things with a little practice. Then the rest of the article he talks about how drones are changing film making as we know it. Never before could we get all these great angles that we do now. There's also already a lot of stuff coming out now using drones. Like Corridor Digital's Superman with a GoPro. And while there where other techniques like cranes, they still have their place but can be done a lot cheaper with drones. I thought this article was good but the story thing at the beginning was kind of dumb. At least all the weird comparisons the writer made. But still a good read on drones, which seem like a cool new thing for new movie techniques.

Your strengths aren't enough

This article was about how the phrase 'Go with your strengths" isn't as good as of a saying as it sounds, and analyzes is it further. Janet Blatter first writes on how what exactly is a strength? Is it your specific style? Is it something you can do, or something you've always had? And how do you know if you even have one if you've never challenged it? Janet stresses that Animators shouldn't change their specific style, but shouldn't limit themselves either. She says how Animators are constantly asking themselves "what if" which leads to a better animation. She then talks about "Self-Efficiency" which is not caring about what other people think, and just doing what you think is right with your strengths you have. This is a bad idea though, because you can't ever accept criticism.
I thought this article had a good point but was kind of boring. It's good to put your strengths to good use, but also to learn new things and apply them. So I basically agree with Janet.

Week 17 Comments

We are rapidly approaching the final days of work on our 3D short. I feel that I'm pacing myself pretty well though. This week was yet another work week but there was still a few things we had to do like a test and discuss the independent study. I'm looking forward to the independent study but I'm still not quite sure what I want to do. I'm pretty sure I want to do Stop Motion, but from what I've heard no one has really pulled it off that well previously in this class. I really do want to try it though, and I think I could really do something with it, but we will see I guess. But the storyboard is due this week so I'll have to make up my mind quickly. What made me happy this week was getting more work done on my 3D short. I know it's kind of a cop-out to use that as my example but I really do feel that way. Even though my Short lacks a bit in the story department, I feel as though it's really coming together and I think you guys will like it when its complete. I can't really think of anything major that frustrated me this week other than general problems in Maya to be honest. But I'm getting less and less problems so that's a good thing. Now onto the link of Interest.

I'm not going to lie, I've been kinda stretching to find a link of interest for the past few comments (Besides for Mr.Go, That was gold). And as of me writing this at 10:54 PM on this fine Sunday night, this is the best I could come up with. It is interesting though to see how this is really the extent of Kevin Jame's acting career. I mean the guy is a decent actor and all, but some one please give him a good script for once. Maybe he just needs to stop hanging out with Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider and find some people willing to put him in something good. But anyways, that's it for this week. Hopefully everyone's week will go smoothly.

Why you should shoot video every day

This is an article by Izzy Hyman about how you should record video everyday for multiple different reasons. Izzy gets right down to it with his first reason on you become more familiar with your equipment. He mentions that he doesn't have to flip through his camera manual because he knows exactly how it works as he uses it everyday. Next he talks about how practice makes perfect as the more you use your equipment, the better you get at it. So when you move on to a big project, you're more than prepared for it. Next point is on how it encourages you to experiment. The more you film stuff, the more you are more willing to step away from your comfort zone and try more things. Next is on how you identify your strengths and weaknesses. The more you mess around you can see what you are really good at, and really bad at. And you can work on really pushing on what you're good at, and improving what you're not so good at. Next is that you will build a habit. This meaning you built a habit of doing something good already, so maybe you will do that with good video making as well. And his final point is on how searching for stuff inspires you. You try to do more new things, and really find ways on how to do stuff that hasn't been done before. I thought this article was severely okay. I mean it's not a bad idea to do this type of stuff but I didn't really like the way the article was written overall. It's a good idea to build good habits but you shouldn't force yourself to do this type of stuff everyday if you don't want to.

Animation as Visual Music

This article was written by Carlos Baena, an animator who previously worked on Cars, Ratatouille and Toy Story 3. He explains throughout the article on how music is strongly related to animation in more than a few ways. The first example he gives is how animation relates to timing. Like how a note can be timed perfectly to a tune, movement in a character can be timed perfectly in animation. And it's interesting to put the two together, to see animations timed to music. The next point he makes is about Pacing. This basically meaning in music how fast the tempo is in a song. But in animation how fast or slow the animation is. And in animation how fast timing can change can create a jarring/humorous effect. Next is Repetition. Any one who's made a walk cycle knows how this relates to animation. But it also relates to music too as there's many parts in music where staffs are repeated over and over again. Repetition is all part of rhythm, and that definitely plays a big part in Animation. The next point he makes is on posing. This meaning acting out body positions to represent different sounds or instruments. This especially works in cartoons as you can really draw any body movement you want with complete free range. The example they use with Bugs Bunny is a great example on the exaggerated look. And the last example he talks about is about using music as inspiration for a character. This is about how you can visualize a character in your head when listening to music. It's interesting to hear different music and thinking of which characters pop up in your head. I thought this article was pretty good. I think music is defiantly a big part of inspiration in animation. All the ways listed can lead to very good animation.

Week 16 Comments

This week sure was productive. It was mostly a work week again with few interruptions in between. I spent most of it trying to create most of my assets for my short, But I did finally start to work on some animation towards the end of the week. I think I'm pretty on track so far to finishing my 3D Short on time, so that's pretty good. What frustrated me the most this week was trying to rig my main cat model. I finally figured out how to weight paint (to an extent) but I just couldn't get the arms to work 100% no matter what I tried. So I just had to settle for 70%. But that's ok because the animation is still coming along. What made me happy this week was voice acting for an Animation. I always enjoy Voice Acting, and I'm glad I got to do it again for Gage's Animation. My Short doesn't really have a lot of voice acting in it this time, So it's nice to get to do it for someone else ( unless I get cut out you heartless man).  I'm also looking forward to seeing everyone's 3D Short the most I'd say. I always love the big critiques like these ones because it feels like a mini premiere almost. Now onto the link of interest.

This video is about how artist Artsy Omni, created a fake Super Smash Bros. character leak. The whole thing happened a few weeks ago, but had a lot of people including me think it might be legit. But after a while the guy revealed it as fake with this video. It's just really fascinating how the guy went about doing it, creating the fake character select screen and the art for Rayman and Mew-Two. But anyways, thanks for reading my weekly comments. Hopefully my 3D Short as well as everyone else's is top notch.

Bouncin Light

This Article/Video was about how to bounce and reflect light for your shots, to provide the best lighting possible. The first point he makes is directing your light a little bit off screen, to make your lighting seem more natural. But then he brings in the reflector. Now with the reflector in play, the light is now not the actual light source. Kind of like the sun rays bouncing off the moon, to provide light at night. he shows how you can position the reflector and adjust the light, to provide the best lighting for your shot possible. And the last point made is how you can aim the light at the ceiling to make a more natural look in your shot. I thought this article was pretty useful, especially for film students. While watching it, I was wondering if maybe I could create some of the techniques digitally in Maya. But I don't know if it would work that well. But never the less, I thought the video was very interesting in creating different ways to light your scene.

Spongy Bits

This article was about was how Animation Studio Lloura, brought the 3D sequences of The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water to life. They first explain how when building the characters, they didn't want to look too realistic, but also not to look like toys. So all the characters have slight textures to them, to prevent it from looking too weird. They also used sub-surface scattering to make their skin look like...well, skin. Next they talked about how they filmed the live action portions. They used stand ins too help the actors react to the "later to be added" cartoons characters. Next they discussed the animation. They explained how they studied the show and how the characters move. They discovered that they move snappy and fast, so slow movements would look awkward. And for the ice cream shot, they had to take many measures to create "wet-maps" to make the ice cream look very realistic and scrumptious. I thought this article was pretty interesting. I saw this movie about a month ago and really enjoyed it. I was really impressed with the 3D Animation in it as well. I thought it did the show justice, and look very impressive. It's interesting to see all the work that went into making it look so good.

Week 15 Comments

Wow! It's almost been a whole month without a Weekly discussion. Well I just get right into it then. This week was another work week with barely any real instruction ( which are always nice ). What made me happy this week was getting 2nd place in the class competition project. I was a little surprised because I thought that I would get 3rd place if anything, but I was pretty excited. I'm glad I got 2nd place though because I thought that Patrick's animation was clearly the best one, and I would have felt bad if he got snubbed for 1st place. What made me frustrated this week was texturing, riging and weight painting my character for my 3d Short. What's great about my 3d short is that there's really only 2 unique character rigs I have to make, as the differences between the characters are purely textures. But it took me a long time to even figure out how to do my textures to begun with. But once I figured out that, Weight painting smacked me right in the face. Basically it sucks and I hate it, but I will figure it out eventually. But I recently found out about Automatic Mapping in Maya which basically does UV Mapping for you. I almost pee'd my pants when I found out about this, and I'm so relieved now because I always hated UV Mapping and Now I'm re-doing my textures in a much more realistic way. I'm looking forward to continuing to work on my 3D Short, and finding out the best way to do things in Maya. Sorry for rambling, On to the link of interest.

Yesterday I found out about this Gem. It's a Korean film about a Bat Swinging Circus Gorilla who ends up playing baseball for Korean Basball Team, The Doosan Bears. As soon as I found out about this movie I immediately had to see the trailer and oh my god, it did not disappoint. It looks pretty action packed and epic. The whole movie can be found on YouTube here. I Strongly suggest you check it out in the near future, I know I will. But in the back of my mind watching this movie, I'll probably be thinking of this the whole time. Anyway Thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to finishing my 3D Short and seeing what you guys think about it.

What is good editing?

This Article/Video was about what makes good editing, and what makes bad editing. In the video we see some veteran editors like William Goldenberg ( The Imitation Game) Joel Cox and Gary Roach ( American Sniper). One of the main points that they address is that the best editing is the editing you don't notice. If the viewer can watch a Film and understand the story perfectly and not getting bored at all, the editor has done their job. But bad editing can be where your brain notices something weird and has to think about it, breaking the emergence. Also if there are too many scenes, cutting them completely can be a bad call. Try to edit in a way that keeps as much content as you can in without being to long and essentially, boring the viewer to tears. I thought this article was informative, especially to some one who is interested in editing like I am. But I couldn't help but feel they went over the basic details without actually explaining what makes editing good. Watching the clips they provided I really couldn't point out what made those particular shots have great editing. But that's probably because I don't have a masters degree in Film Editing. But they do. I would have liked to see some good examples on how to edit your shots to perfection, but this video on its own did bring up some good points and I thought it was still good never the less.

Why you need creature animation in your demo reel

This article was about how important creature animation is to put on your demo reel. Shawn Kelly, lead animator over at Industrial Light & Magic discusses some points of why this is.
First he discusses how creature animation gives you a much better chance at getting a job. Variety is important, and nothing says variety more than creature animation. Speaking of variety, the next point is on how variety is never a bad thing. Most animators didn't start out miraculously at Pixar after they graduated from college. They worked they way up at different studios, until they could get the great gig that Pixar is. Basically, don't set out to work right away at a top dog company. Get some experience first and when you're ready, you're ready. And the last point is about how there isn't a Creature Animator or Feature Animator, only an Animator. Most animation companies are looking for a certain thing, like Pixar primarily looking for more character animation than super realistic debris falling from buildings. But any different style can help you out no matter where you are applying for. It all comes back to variety. And the last point that Shawn makes is that there is only one type of Animator, an Animator. No matter what you do for what company, where all the same.
I thought this article was pretty good, and brought up some good points for animation students looking to make a demo reel. Although I thought a few of the points kinda blended togethor. But never the less a good informative article.