The Visitor

Photomanipulation

So I made a photo-manipulation image. It isn't great, but I'm feeling happy with my first attempt.

Jim Erickson is a man Inspiring

I've never been a great lover of photography. I just don't understand what make a great photographer from a good one - I'm not much of a photographer. Or a potter... pottery and photography.. never really had the knack or understanding. But I know what I like and I like Jim Erickson's work. He is truly phenomenal.

http://www.jimerickson.com/

Tentacle!

Woohoo.. the modeling and texturing are completed. And it looks like a tentacle so that makes me happy - better than a finger in the eye. On to rigging then animation planning.

Goodbyes

I just got home from my Grandfather's funeral in Florida. I feel so drained and I need to go into work. This has been one of the most emotionally exhausting weeks in my life.

Before he died he told me to keep on the right path and to do what I loved. I loved him and he will be greatly missed.

Eyes and Tentacles

Well.. I'm working on a project with a monster in mind.. because "The Goon" movie is coming out and working at Blur on it would be a dream come true. Just testing a rig idea.. putting the beach animation on hold.



And.. eyeball :O



Here goes!

Workworkwork

So..here is a little work on a unity guy.. figuring out this stuff again..sorta.

I know this sucks at the moment.. but I'm working.. so :P

Sick again

Sick again.. I sound like I'm killing a duck when I talk.. I slept most of the day.

Being sick sucks.. you're off work, but feel to bad to accomplish anything.

Head hurts.. write more later.

Set backs

So I'm still having some set backs.. the hair I made just isn't that great for rigging..so I'm trying blend shapes with the rig to see if I can fix this mess... referencing is still a no go so that sucks. Also..the undead have infested the city and my brother and I are trying to make it to Mercy Hospital..

Roadblocked

So.. I'm stuck.. I can't get my Katerine rig to work right... her legs refuse to stay where I put them... luckily I have Thaddeus Parkinson (a technical director at ILM.. sweeet) looking at it. I'm sure between us, things will get worked out.. sucks though to be stuck.

Edit: (futzing around in maya for awhile later)

Weee... I can make it work..but not how I want.

The problem appears to be referencing... or how it is being handled. It is probably a user error (my fault), but I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Referencing is great though.. if it was something you could do in the real world, it would be amazing. Like say you had an object like your car.. referencing lets you pimp your ride without it sitting in the shop for a month. I wanted to get the majority of my animation done and then if I felt like it needed extra polish (like cloth or animated hair.. whatever), I could just edit the base model in another file and then go to my scene where all the animation would still be applied and the character would get updated.

So I'm going to try with no referencing because I want to keep moving(and keep trying to figure it out how to get it to work).

On to blocking

So I worked out a pose... and saved my file (been saving multiple files.. incrementally saving). I quit Maya.. open my file.. and Kat is moved and in a different pose.. in all the saved files. What the hell! Arg..hours of work.. ohh well.. I'll push on and hopefully figure out why my saves aren't working.

Tragic Beach

Here are the characters for the short that I'm working on. Katherine is the dying girl on the left and Tom is her fiancé. These two young lovers have a really bad day at the beach..




As always, special thanks to Animation Mentor for being such a wonderful school and providing me with such lovely rigs. (Animation Mentor Bishop Rigs - textured and with hair) If you have interest in animation and are trying to decide on the right school, look no further than your computer and AM.

Feeling quite a bit better

Hooray.. I don't feel like my head is going to explode (scanner style).

So the project is going forward and back again. We have hair and texturing - and textures that are animating when they shouldn't. I messed with the uvs after the model was weighted.. not a good idea (i had forgotten that). So, back to base models and retexturing..

P.S. - Puppies are awesome..but so tiring :o

Sick..sucks

I'm sick.. it sucks..

hear hurts with fever.. no fun

this is cool though

http://www.guerrillacg.org/

Go learn

What happened to Spiderman 3

So Sarah and I popped in 50 First Dates tonight and it had a preview for Spiderman 2. Spiderman 2 is awesome (and the poster looks like my friend Thad, even though Alfred Molina does not) - it is such a fantastic movie. So what the hell happened to Spiderman 3? It pisses me off to think about the movie.. we both left feeling disappointing. The story felt disjointed.. Venom was a weak character.. the Sandman angle was just wtf? When I think of it I get all mad..

I know this post is a year too late but I guess I was repressing the feelings.. it is good to let it all out.

So I just thumbnailed out my new scene.. blocking out the poses tomorrow. I still don't quite know how I want to stage all of the scene. If it is successful (on completion) hopefully you'll get a bit teary watching it. Here's hoping.

Hooray for Walking

I made a vanilla walk cycle tonight - more animations to come. It is all coming back to me.


Hmm.. I need to buy quicktime again so I can compress these.

एनीमेशन फूं

Last night I completed a walk cycle for hips & legs (no upper body on the character.. I'm moving on to that tonight). It is coming back to me.. it feels good. In more good time fun news, I've been hanging out with my brother online. Also good time fun - Drew is great. He is a genius and hopefully one day build robots or an evil AI that enslaves humanity or creates a utopia. I'm trying to talk him into going to MIT to study awesomeness (it is part of the curriculum) and hopefully pick up a Boston/Texas hybrid accent that turns his speech into a music of sorts.

More to come and videos to post..

Bound and determined

Woot.. blog post!

I am going to become a professional animator. Right now I'm an animator (because I'm animating again!!) but no one is paying me for it. I think the path to becoming a professional animator lies mostly in the later half of the title. I need to eat, sleep, and drink animation. I want Sarah (my lovely wife) to say, "Scott, you're not spending enough time with me and the dogs because you're animating too much." or "Why do you take a break from animating and come eat."

Last night I animated a quick Taylor jump (Taylor is the Animation Mentor equivalent of a squirrel.. he is a ball with a tail) and started a lower torso walk. I plan on jumping onto the next animation session challenge in Cgtalk and working working working.

I'm fired up about being fired up.

I want this blog to live up to the title. I really want my life to become better though cg & animation. I've vested all this time in my life into studying animation and art. Time and money. Apart from our abysmal credit card debt that we are paying down (no more plastic.. hooray for budgeting), the majority of our financial burden comes from my student loans. And am I paying it off with animation makin' money? Nope. So screw trying to look for other jobs that might pay more than my current one (I really love my job at the moment, but not as much as I would love to be an animator.) If I spent half the time I play Team Fortress 2 or online poker on animation.. well.. I would be animating a lot.

In other news I'm working on an art project with my buddy Clint (www.knrpg.com) for his new game. So far I've painted many shotguns.. I'm frustrated as hell trying to design a character (I rely really heavily on reference and I can't get reference for what I want to do.. hopefully this will make me grow by not having a crutch to lean on). I'll get him done and post sexy pictures of him being rebellious on here. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm painting, drawing, making art, modeling, or animating with my time, I'm on the path to my goal.


ROCK!!

Birthday fun

Sarah will be officially old in two days. Hooray!!

I other news, I've started playing Dwarf Fortress. If you like both Dwarves and Fortresses I highly recommend it. But don't take my word on it.

And if you think.. hey.. I might like it. Read this.

In recent news

Smallville!!! Poker!!! Juggling!! All these things rock.. and I'm now obsessed with all three.

So.. Lex Luthor is awesome. Smallville is Buffy with Superman - how great is that? I know I'm in a geek time bubble, but appreciate this. I've just watched the first series for the first time.. I'm in love! Geeking out is great.

Poker!! - Online poker is such a wonderful diversion. I'm a big fish right now but I'm getting better.

And Juggling!! Check out http://www.expertvillage.com/ . If you want to learn..well.. all kinds of fun stuff via video, go see. What a great thing.

Anyways, I'm going to work my way back into blogging. So.. hooray for life.