other images

I just want to put some thoughts on this blog that are impressing upon me. Every year there are hundreds if not thousands of eager animators graduating from universities around the world. The industry is only so big and there is little know- how to actually break into the highly skilled and sort after passions in the industry. Today It’s still very much done by word of mouth and ‘a-friend-of-a friend’ type of scenarios. There are several industries that do accommodate the skills of animators other than feature films such as advertising studios and game studios as example. So it really depends in what direction the animator wants to go into.

How can the voice of one individual are heard in the deafening noise from this growing number of qualified animators. For me as an animator who has finished a degree in animation this problem is a big question. I have read books, listened to Lectures, Workshops, Industry people and internet forums about this. The best way I have is to get out there and market oneself. Marketing is not taught to animators or artist. Marketing I think is the one thing that artist and animators a like don’t fully comprehend. Marketing in this sense not the stock market and selling shares but is the ability for an artist to display and sell their talents to a client or a possible employer.

The best and cheapest way is getting your work seen is using the internet. Signing up to multiple art forums, posting you work for people to see. Some even have an option to sell you art on line. This is great way to see the interest in your art. Starting your own website and selling from there in another popular option. Also starting a regular blog and just keep a general online presence. I got firsthand experience at this. I got a paid design project from someone overseas that saw my work on an online art profile of mine that I only started three week previously. The project went on for several week from concept to final design. You just never know who might see your work!

MUDBOX instead of ZBRUSH

ok I have tried using Zbrush and i have found it not that easy to pick as a program. Its very powerful and great results but with the time I have to make this film I will have to not use zbrush. Im using Mudbox instead. I found it a lot faster to find tools and exports maps. here is a re- sculpture in from mudbox into maya.

blast the playblast

Here is a playblast of the animation for the first shot. this is the pre-rendered quality. This is not the final quality. the playbast is handy to quickly render out the scene to see preview the timing of the animation. this is really handy when you have been staring at the same run cycle for hours.

desktop

Here is a desktop design i did for myself....so much to do in so little time.

contrast symphony

I went to this art group session. There was a great turn out for a first time event. at one stage there was about 30 people. click the image to go to the blog of the event.

Butterfly is Alive

I have actually have not done barely any development of the butterfly. Maybe its because I have a strong idea from the start on what it should look like. Her I have made a set driven key and cycled the flapping loop. In the need scenes I will attach it to a curve and get a smooth action.

Jiggle All The Way

I just followed a tutorial in the Learning Autodesk Maya 9 to create a jiggle deformer. I find everything hard to do in 3D programs and for once this was something I read and completed something new by myself. Here I applied a deformer to make the tips of the head to wobble after the head has moved. this creates interested secondary animation.

Character progress

Okay this looks different to the previous turn-around video. Some more renders of the main character in its generic pose. It looks kind of boring just standing there but it is necessary to build a 3D character to make sure that both sides of the character are working symmetrically. Once everything is set the rig can move the character around freely.

expressions

Here is an expression sheet that I made to see how the characters face would look like in various expressions. I could use this to inform myself while I'm animating the 2D shots and might help with the 3D as well.

Progress Illustration

This was an image that I found that I made earlier this year for the short film.

Here is the main character I made as a small clay sculpture. I did this to visualize the form and shape of the character. This has helped me a lot and I use this sculpture as reference while I modeled in Maya.

zbrush to 3ds max

Here are some test renders that I have made of my models so far. I made a low poly model of the head and exported it into zbrush. I then used 6 sub divisions and sculptured all the needed detail. lumps and bumps veins etc. The hard bit which took me a long time t do was getting the zbrush information into 3dsmax. I emailed people from my two internships about my problem and watched tutorials on the internet. I finally got it. It was a displacement map applied to the low poly and the iteration can be turned up to 6 subdivisions. this means that I can animate at the low settings with out lowing the PC down. When Im ready to render I can get all the detail i need. Im still trying to get the zbrush polypaint to work. I have a image here of it not working yet.

more work

character turnaround

Colour Study

This was mainly a colour study for the film. It could still work. The main character is reddish or orange and it could be a nice complementary contrast to the entire green environment.

Maya Paint effects

I am having a look at the Maya Paint effects. I dont know much about it but the library of 'brushes' is huge. There is grasses, trees, shrubs, etc. Here I had a go at 'painting' some trees. They look really good.

Trying out Zbrush

I have been learning this new program called z brush. It is like sculpturing in 3D. It is a lot of fun. I wa thinking this would look great if I could put it into my short film.

3d flower test

Here I painted the flower textures with ink on paper. I then scanned in the images cleaned up in photoshop. Then the flower and leaf were made as separate textures in maya.

Test renders for animatic

Test renders for animatic. These are not in chronological order.

Internship

I am currently doing an internship at Valhalla Studios for the last few weeks. I am helping develop a fantasy fighting game for the XBoX. My tasks for far have been model texturing and character rigging and painting weights. I hope to do some character animation before I finish my internship. I have not disappeared and more blog post will continue soon about my short film project.

quick renders of a possible character for my short film.

week7: scholarship

I was successfully accepted for the Apple University Consortium.

Here is the link to their website.

http://www.auc.edu.au/Honours+Scholarship+Recipients+2009

week6: ink characters

week6: colour study

week5: character design