End of class3

Wow, it is almost over. Only few more days and then three months of break. I am not that happy with what I did this term but on the other hand, I have learnt a lot, and I know exactly what things are problematic to me. Anyway, I would like to say thanks to everybody from my class, you guys rock! I am sure you will do great job in c4. Good luck!

Mac

My showreel

Hey guys,
here is the link to my showreel which shows some animations that I managed to finish:
showreel

Last days

Hey guys,
so far it was interesting week. First of all I was in Warsaw to visit People Can Fly. I met few great people there and saw motion builder in action, they use it almost exclusively for animation. I was quite impressed, mostly because of the realtime feedback in that application. Maya - I hate your playblasts! Anyway, I came back home and started to play with Motion Builder to get the idea how to animate in it, was trying to find similar options that I normaly use in Maya etc. So far I made few basic walkcycle poses in "constant/stepped" mode and I will try to convert everything to splines and refine it. But that will come later, now I have to refine my AM shot, which is driving me a little bit crazy. I am dissapointed with the quality so far of my c3 assignments. I know I can do much much better, I just need some more experience, that's why I decided to do some animations for People Can Fly - to get experience. I am also thinking a lot about the break. I will have three months that I will be able to use for animation. At first I was thinking about redoing entire c2, work with ballie, stewie without arms etc., but on the other hand I already have some experience with full body character. I made the basebal pitch which is not that bad with full Stewie character. So probably I will do all c2 assignments but with full Stewie, instead of ballie etc. Ok, I am going back to Maya to refine my curves. GE I am coming, please don't make me cry today! ;)

Good and bad news. There always must be some contrast

Ok, it is another day I am trying to refine my dialog shot. It is so so hard to do it. Animation is hard, that's so true. I decided to take next semester off. So I am not going to class4, no way. My idea is to redo entire class2 on my own and establish my workflow better. I did really good assignment in c2 when Stewie throws the ball. I was really happy with it, because I was able to really polish that piece. Somehow in c3 I have problems with my assignments. I very often just don't know what to do next, I have few poses here and there, some breakdowns here and there, and just can't go with it any further. So the plan is to redo class2, going back to ballie, and focus on basics some more before I will go to the really advanced part of animation - ACTING. You just can't do acting if you have problems with body mechanics, don't you? Many people told me that I am to hard on myself, but the truth is that I struggle a lot with basics in more advanced shots. I have to be honest with myself, I have 8 months of experience, before I had no idea what animation really is, I haven't learnt everything I should, so I just can't go any further. Glen Vilppu wrote in his drawing manual that you can't skip steps, because that will only slow you down. I belive that is very true. I know that if I would go to class 4 I would struggle even more, and have no fun at all. I love animation and I want to have fun with it, but when you try to bite more then you can chew you are in trouble. Don't get me wrong, it is not coomplaining, it is rather objective self criticism.

Anyway, good news are that I will probably get a part-time job. I will be able to work at home and do animations for "People Can Fly". It is the games company, well known here in Poland. They did Painkiller, I remember that I couldn't play it though because I had really weak computer at that time hehe :). I am going next week to Warsaw to talk with the lead animator from People Can Fly a little bit more about the details, rigs, etc. I am quite excited about that. I also think that this part-time job will really help me to learn body mechanics even more.

Other news is that I am going to draw much more once this AM term will be over. I am going to plan my time better and do everything better. Ok, I have to go back to Maya and refine my shot some more. JUST DON'T THINK, JUST DO IT. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING!