Friday, January 28, 2011

Animation Critiques / Venting

I pride myself on receiving constructive criticism, but there is a fine line between that and saying that a person obviously needs to study something. I wanted constructive criticism on a lip sync animation and a person responded. Some of the points were valid while I also quite offended. I am unfortunately a passive aggressive person so I shy away from conflict and vent about it later as I'm doing now and not usually to the person who offended me to start with. (in most cases anyway) 

First off the person starts with how they can't do anything I can do in 3D. Then they go on to say that I obviously need to study anatomy of humans facial movement. They then say that because they can draw well that they believe they will be very good at animation. That sounds a little like someone trying to hard to pat themselves on the back and also somewhat self-absorbed.  So here is what I think of this critique I was given by this person.

1. If you can't do anything I can do in 3D animation, then you aren't the person to be offering constructive criticism. Unless you know animation, the 12 principles, and have actually done it, then you aren't in a position to critique.


2. Don't say I obviously need to study anatomy of facial movement. I read every book I can find on the matter, been through classes about it, and studied myself in the mirror for hours on end. Also, watching the scene over and over again for 4 hours straight to really see what was going on.  Also, it's worthy to note that different lines of dialogue require different kinds of movement. Stiff more stoic dialogue requires stiff and stoic movement. 

3.Just because you can draw well does not mean that you will be able to do animation. Drawing is a nice skill to have, but animation is a completely different animal. If this is a way of thinking, you are in for a rude awakening. Also, there is a flip side to that coin. Just because a person can do animation well does not mean they can draw. There are many talented animators out there who can't draw to save there life.

Now it could be argued that I should not be offended, but I do think I am right in my taking offense. It just seemed to me that this person didn't want to offer critique, but rather be insulting instead. If he really wanted to offer a critique he would not have said that I obviously need to study human facial anatomy, but rather would have said "that's good, you are on the right track." Maybe some closer examination of facial movement would help but what you've done looks good.

I mean really, Am I wrong to ask that much?

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I wanna animate you!!!

So, I joined the 11 second club and they have lots of ready made character rigs for download ranging from stretchy to morphy rigs and I'm just having lots of fun with them. :-)

Monday, January 24, 2011

The Art of Chivalry

Okay, so I pretty much observe everything around me. I tend to watch the behavior and mannerisms of people quite a bit. A person's body language says more than words will ever say. One particular action that isn't really seen much anymore is chivalry. Granted, I'm sure there are women out there who would rather be independent and not have a guy open a door for them and that's cool. I also think women tend to be suspicious of this behavior because they may view it as a veiled way to get into their pants. And this would also be true in most cases. What I find interesting is that some women are surprised by an act of chivalry that they don't know what to do. As happened to me recently.

Yesterday at work I went on my break to a small room with only one chair. A room I jokingly call the "outcast's corner". I walk into the room and one of the girls I work with is sitting in the chair. We banter about nothing for a minute and she mentions how her feet are killing her. I say I know how you feel, my back is killing me. I work a job where I do a lot of heavy lifting for extended periods of time. So she then apologizes and gets out of the chair and says I can sit down. I tell her it's alright, you don't have to let me sit in the chair. She insists. I then tell her, "you just mentioned that your feet are killing you and you've also been sick recently so please sit in the chair, I'm fine where I"m at." She sits back down and then we have a conversation about chivalry. I said to her that I will defy anyone who says that chivalry is dead. I then mention how I held the door open for another girl at work and she just sort of stared at me in disbelief and it wasn't until I gestured with my hand for her to walk through that it hit her that I was holding the door open for her. I find it to be quite sad that chivalry is rarely seen anymore that a girl would stare at me in disbelief as though she wasn't sure what to do.

I am person who feels that chivalry is a very simple courtesy to be extended and it's quite disturbing that it has fallen so far out of practice that some women can't even recognize it anymore. No wonder they seem to view men as insensitive, self-absorbed jerks.  But this just my opinion.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Squirrel Animation

So I've really been wanting to do an animation involving animals for a long time and finally had the idea hit me about doing a little amusing love story between two squirrels. I'm really going for a cartoon type look and feel and think I may be on the right track. This is what I have so far and I'm hoping it looks cartoony even though I know it does, but I've never done anything this cartoon like before so just want to get it right. This of course is just the first render with simple textures. The final animation will look cartoony but more 3d dimensional than it does right now. *crosses fingers*

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Regaining the magic

I have been having a major creative meltdown and I'm glad to say it's over. I discovered why I was having it. I've spent so much time on my animations thinking to myself what would Pixar or DreamWorks want to see when I apply to get a job with either company. This trapped me in a box because rather doing my own thing I was trying to emulate the work of those companies. I realized I can't do that. I have to make the animations I want to make and how I want to make them and the jobs will come. I can't say this animation has to look like UP or has to look like How to Train Your Dragon. Neither company is going to be impressed by emulating what they have done. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but in the animation world, it simply means that a potential employer will look at it and say "that's great, but how much of you is put into this animation?" I have been struggling so much with what I will do for my next animation and I woke up in the middle of the night when this idea came from nowhere and hit me. For the first time in a while, my brain started racing with the magic and whimsy of it all. It hit me all at once. My next animation is not going to be for anyone or anything other than what makes me happy, and that alone will bring the success. It will be a laugh, romantic, cute, and sweet. This is the beginning of me carving my niche!!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

More Art

Yeah, so I've been in hyper artistic mode lately and I love Beauty and the Beast so I wanted to draw this. Granted the line quality suffers cause I got lazy about sharpening my graphite. lol

Artsy Fartsy

A little drawing I did for class during the fall semester. I'm actually rather proud of it considering I can't draw fine art as the instructor called it worth a damn and it actually turned out okay.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I won a contest!!! Yay!

So there is a website called Indiana Uploaded that is geared towards the CG community in Indiana and they hold contests all the time. One particular contest was a themed contest titled "Dark Side of the Mind" and I decided to do something for this contest and I actually won. I never won anything in my life so I'm pretty happy that I did. It also adds further confirmation that I actually have made the right decision with my career choice.

This is the the work I did for the contest and also a link to the website to show the other contest entree's.http://www.indianauploaded.com/

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Projects and what not

So I've been planning and began production on several projects and I"m really undecided as to which one I'll finish first. I had the idea of an alien attacking a secret military installation known simply as "Area 62" but do to limitations of my computer I'm concerned that the rendering due to all the effects necessary for the animation would be extremely long. 

The next one on the list is a mad scientist in his lab trying to bring a freakish creation to life and having it fail miserably. I thought of having the mad scientist be a ring tailed lemur mainly because I want an animal for a character and also because I really want to do something with fur even though this would also drastically increase render times. It also bothers me a bit because it is not really very original.

Thirdly is a story taking place in a morgue although this one is confounding me because I don't really know what kind of a story I could tell in morgue that would be humorous. 

Something else that is on my mind is that I was supposed to be the 3D modeler for a student's thesis and it's been over 4 weeks since his last email and I now think that has turned out to be nothing. I'm a bit disappointed because this could have been a good opportunity to get work seen and also have something great for a demo reel. Mostly I'm disappointed because I've really been wanting to do a collaborative project and still have yet to see that happen.

On another note, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with internet communication. I often find that things like email and instant messengers are completely devoid of any real sort of human connection. Granted cell phones aren't much better but I thought it would be an interesting experiment to just randomly post my cell number on the internet somewhere just to see how many people would actually call or text it. Will I really do it? Probably not. I'm pretty guarded about who I give my number to and the end result probably would not be to my liking. Still though, it would be interesting to do none the less.

And now a little something that always brings a smile to my face...

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I can't think of a title

or really a way to start. I guess this past semester at school left me a little bit drained. I did well during the semester... very well in fact. It was just very exhausting and feel like I came up short even though I walked away with A's. I could be being very hard on myself but who knows. A great deal of the disenchantment came from my animation class. Not because I don't love it, but because I felt like my imagination turned off during the class.  It also bothered me because I am a much better modeler than what I did in that class and I felt like sticking to the syllabus was hurting me creatively. Granted, I know there is a reason why the students were being taught to do the modeling the way we were, but my mind kept saying I am beyond what this class is teaching as far as modeling. The animation part of the syllabus I really did need to learn and also the learning to rely more on procedural textures as opposed to painted textures was nice to learn.

Because of this disenchantment, I have decided to start work on my next project that will be a part of the next class about a little alien attacking a fictional "military base" that is meant to be humorous. This raises another concern of mine of whether or not I spend too much time at my computer improving my animation skills that I'm missing the bigger picture. I am constantly in fear that if I spend too much time doing this that I am heading straight for a burnout. I mean really when I'm not at work, I'm at computer. I don't really do much else.

I also have these feelings creeping in that I am going to be 32 this year, am not married, am showing no signs of ever getting married and all that other stuff life brings. I've been engaged before, which obviously and thankfully didn't work out. The most amusing thing about that is why it all came to an end. Not only was the girl not the right one for me, but she kept saying how I had no drive or passion for anything. I kept telling her that I didn't know what it was yet, but was I knew I would be doing it and nothing would get in my way. The real point of is that there were so many times when she and I would sit down and watch animated movies together and the signs of my love for animation were starting to show, and I can't help but wonder sometimes if only she could see me now. Hmmm... I guess I am currently in a bit of a state of reflection at the moment. So yeah...

Saturday, January 1, 2011

First blog of the new year. first step... health

So to say I have had my own slew of medical problems would be an understatement. Never in a million years though would I have thought that wisdom teeth could be a severe problem especially after some of my much worse medical issues. After placing an emergency call with my dentist and doing my own research, it now appears that I have an infection resulting from unknown impacted 2nd wisdom tooth erupting into the original wisdom tooth that came in years ago on the bottom left side of my face.

The only course of action now is to have the affected teeth removed which can't be done until the infection has cleared with the help of antibiotics. This is something the dentist wants done soon as the swelling from the infection can cause my airway to close and the infection itself can also get into my blood which like the airway closing can be potentially fatal. The dentist is also concerned about the infection due to my already existing TMJ disorder further complicating matters.

This really sort of puts thing into perspective a bit for me now as I never really viewed wisdom teeth as being something that could cause such an extreme problem. In all honesty it just feels like I have a bearable yet painful case of the flu. This also worries me because I have heard the horror stories about how wisdom teeth should be removed at a younger age because the older a person gets the more lengthy the recovery process takes. One of the things that bothers me the most was my orthodontic surgeons decision to not remove these teeth when the upper wisdom teeth were taken out. It really could have saved me a lot of pain and worry. So here's hoping that I can have this problem resolved without it getting any worse.