Heehee! Someone slap me. My dream is coming true!

I forgot about my blog

2008-09-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

Actually, I didn't really forget. I just haven't had much time to write every week. It's been so long since I last wrote a post, that I have already finished Class One!!! Heehee. So, here are my offerings at present. Now that the assignments have become one consolidated lump, I watch it and I cannot believe how fast it has been to get to this point, and how incredibly tough and challenging this was.

I'm incredibly happy with my progress and my experience of AM. It has totally blown my mind. I was hyped about the school at the beginning, and at the end of 3 months, I know this is definitely going to get me moving towards the direction of where I want to go. Put everything you got into it! Jalil was an awesome mentor, and I really learned heaps! Not just from mentors on campus, but the students!

Most important tip I think I have: never ever fall in love with your shots, do not get attached!! Be ready to be able to take those frames that you have slaved over, tweaked... and dump them. Scrap it and start again. If you can do that... you'll be a animating robot genius, but seriously, I think it's really solid advice. I think it's good to get into that mind set, where you can work on something, and if the director doesn't like the shot, you have to change it. Turn that frown upside down, and just keep going!! Haha!

Health & happiness, everyone!

2008-07-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

These two things are important to me, and I hope everyone is doing well. With all the problems far away in the past, I am getting so much better and improving everyday, maybe this is the reason I act so silly sometimes... I am happy to be alive!!

I still got a long way to go yet, but I feel very lucky. Each day that comes is a new and wonderful day, I have everything to be thankful for. Stay healthy and happy y'all!

Bouncing balls!

2008-07-21T11:50:00.001-07:00

Heya... it has been so busy this week. I am diving into this course head first and I'm so happy and grateful I can be a full time student. There's just so much I want to do, and I want to get it as perfect as I can... don't know if that will ever be achieved, haha, but I'm going to try my best for every assignment. When I do finally upload my assignments, I see all the things I should have done to make it better, but the other students have great tips too. I like being pushed and challenged.

I met up with other AMers from London to see Wall.E at the Empire cinema at Leicester Square! Wall.E was wonderful! Absolutely, the story was amazing and very touching. At first I must say I was skeptical, because I love the movie, Shortcircuit. I fell in love immediately with Wall.E as the story unfolded. The movie looks beautiful, and Pixar really made a wonderful film yet again. I was sobbing at various points in the movie, but it's aaaaaall good, heehee. I won't go on and on about the movie as I don't want to spoil it :) Meeting up with the AM folk in London was great! I hope we can have more meetings in the future. Next time I'll give more notice.

As for bouncing balls!

I am still unhappy with it, still needs so much tweaking. I think it looks too light to be a basketball or a soccer ball. It has been described as 'cute'... I don't know how the ball can be cute, but I guess it's really cool to make an inanimate object have a personality! Yey!! As for poses for excitement:

This is my chosen pose, out of all the poses, I think it had a more interesting silhouette. Here are some other poses I made also:

I really like the first pose here in this selection, but I worried that the negative spaces were too similar, as for the last one, I was going for the 'tennis player winning a shot' look, Stu kinda looks angry?

I'm having some difficulty with Maya, the graph editor just doesn't do it for me. I want to be visual, that's what I do, I like to draw. I find it frustrating and a little confusing having to look at a graph to animate (like in the Matrix - all those ones and zeros.... there is no spoon ???), and not look at the picture. I don't think this is my style, so I'm going to have to find a way to use Maya that suits me best, and I think I am getting there. To each his own. I think I would just use it to tweak the ease ins and outs. The ball project was good though, because it was my first ever animation. I don't even know how to make a sphere in the program yet, but I think I did okay for my first animation. I just want to stick my hands inside the screen and move the ball myself, and say, "There!! Se Se! Se på det! Look what I can do", or just draw all over it with a pencil. I was tempted to do the project in 2D, but that's not the point. I'm just being silly. Here is the challenge that presents itself, and I'm going to face it head on, get a big wet fish and hit it really hard in the face. I can do it!!!! Hard work and perseverance pays. I'm making it sound so epic...

Yey! I just handed in my assignment :)

2008-07-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the sketches that I made while I was out and about.

It was really nice to do some drawing again. The assignment was to take these sketches and use the gesture that was captured in the drawing to pose Stu. It was my first time to use Maya, so it took a little while for me to get used to everything. I had to watch the training videos a few times :) So these are my first few attempts, yey!!!

I think the first one looked really stiff, it doesn't look interesting at all, the left arm is lost... as soon as I posted it up in my workspace, I had to make changes straight away, so the second pose was up about half an hour later. The PR system at the campus is fantastic!!! Public Review area is where you can post up what you have been doing, all the students and mentors can take a look and comment, helpful tips to improve your work. It is a really cool place in your workspace where you can get some feedback and bounce ideas around. I think it's a fantastic way to learn, and you can check out other students work, give tips of your own, everyone is contributing so it's a great way to learn. After a few handy hints, my final Stu is this one....

So now I feel I am happy enough to submit it, but again... as soon as I posted it up, I saw so many things that should be changed! Sandy Christensen gave a handy tip after my submission, the top spine is over-rotated, even out the rotations on the spine to give a good overall curve in the spine. Awesome. I'm looking forward to my first Ecritique, I've watched a few so far, and they are good to watch. Everyone can learn from each other :)

First week!

2008-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, that went quickly :) I had my first Q&A, I was really nervous and I didn't think I would be. Straight after my introduction, I completely blanked out and now I have no recollection of what had occurred! My mentor, Jalil Sadool is really cool, and my classmates too! Awesome! I'm starting to get used to the website, and trying to soak up as much information as I possibly can. There is sooo much information and I want to learn it all!! Only I want to know all of it right now!! Haha, I need to take one step at a time, I will have to remind myself this often.

I made my profile, set up my avatar, video journal (I've never used web cam before, it's really weird), and introduced myself to everyone. All the students at AM are so lovely, the atmosphere here is amazing... I really feel that my decision to do AM has been one of the most important decisions I have ever made, and I know that I have made the right choice, 100%. I want to learn and grow as an animator so very much!

I have been drawing some gesture poses for next week's assignment. I also tried to install Maya and the shelf tool, but I've run into some trouble. It's not working!! I wanted to experiment with Stu as well this weekend, but maybe I can do without the shelf tool for now? I'll see how it goes :) I'm sure the tech guys will find the solution to the problem. I've been reading The Illusion Of Life a little too. 'Good stuff' - as my French teacher used to say. Still waiting for my Quicktime Pro to arrive.... ahhh... I'm so happy.

Oh wow! This school is awesome!

2008-07-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

So much information to take in, but it is so exciting. I love the enthusiasm that everyone has about AnimationMentor. I'm going to work sooooo hard at making my ultimate dream come true! Hard work, perseverance and a good attitude! I'm going to check out my class, and set up my profile now :D

School starts tomorrow!

2008-06-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm all set to go, I received my 'Illusion of Life' book in the post, yesterday. My computer is just about ready. I can't wait!

So the blogging begins

2008-06-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, good grief. I have butterflies in my stomach. A few more days to go until school starts. I have been reading stories from current and past students from AnimationMentor, and I thought it would be a neat idea to log this exciting journey too. I wonder how this is going to pan out. I can't wait for Monday to come...