Whats new?

So, I thought I should update, since I haven't really updated in a while. Well, I'll briefly explain what I have been doing. This term has been intense. This is the term when we take our seedling ideas, and nurture them with the help from our instructors and the visiting mentors from the industry. They help us take our ideas and turn them into something not only doable, but will get us a job. I would like to create an animated short. I came up with the idea about 2 months ago. I have been struggling with it for the entire term. Ive been trying to get the details right, so I have been asking anyone and everyone for advice. This has led to several changes. I finally created an animatic (an animatic is like a story board, but it is 'animated' to show timing and sound), and presented it to my mentor George today. He told me some ways to fix it and some ideas for the ending which I will implement. I have 2 days to finish it (as well as a presentation) for Friday. I'm sort of stressed, but this should turn out well. I will post the entire presentation after it is finished (probably Thursday).

Also, I spoke with some students in the term below me who are Italian, but realized I have difficulty understanding them. They speak so fast and I have such a confused face, that they switch to English. I feel kind of slow. The Japanese feels a bit rusty too...

Wooo!

3 followers to my awesome blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

Short break

So I finished my second term at VFS on this past wednesday. It went by fairly quickly. I got used to being at school all day everyday, so when they officially lock the school and kick us out, I felt like I didn't know what to do with myself! The next term starts tomorrow. I had a 5 day break basically. I suppose that is better than nothing.

In the meantime, I have been preparing for my third term. It is basically 2 months of pre-production work for our final demo reels. I am going to go into animation and although a story is completely unnecessary for a demo reel, it was suggested that having a narrative will give your characters a reason for doing the animations you are trying to show off. It might also help the desire for a more polished, complete look.

Right now, I have a very general concept that I would like to try and make into a short story/animation. I emailed a mentor here at school and discussed my idea. She said to try and pitch it in a sentence. Our goal for a final animation is 1:00 (she suggested closer to 50 seconds actually). It sounds extremely short, but remember, I have until October to finish an animation as best I can. That means I have to create a story, do all the pre-production work, model characters in 3D, texture these characters, create an environment (which will also have to be textured/shaded), set up lighting, ANIMATE, render, composite, and edit everything by myself. Thats a lot of work. I am excited though. So anyway, I need to have two ideas to pitch to the mentors when I see them next week. I will be working on the stories/treatments and character designs today. I'll post some stuff once it is ready.

Here is that Conquistador finished more or less. I kind of effed up one of his eyes, but I don't feel like re-rendering it.

Term 2!!

So my second term has just finished (well almost). We had our presentations this past monday. Our presentations are a way for us to compile all of the "best" work from the term to show to all of our teachers at the same time. The whole class goes into a room with a projector and we watch everyone's twice. On the second run, each teacher gives critiques and makes comments about every little thing within the presentation. Its actually pretty cool, but getting everything ready for the presentation is extremely stressful. So, it would seem like a load is off of my shoulders, but, we still had three assignments to complete after the presentation, due monday, tuesday, and wednesday. I finished them all, but cant seem to properly render my model. You'll see in the video a model of a nude male which we had to complete in a bout a month or so. After that, we had one week to model an entire Conquistador in full armor... Its kind of insane.



Here is a picture of the Conquistador:
One shitty thing is, we had to model the pistol that you can barely see in a weekend. Its extremely detailed, but, you wouldnt be able to see that from it being hidden in its holster. You can see the full thing in the presentation though. This stupid conquistador is irritating me because I cant seem to render out a rotation of it. It renders 1 frame of 250, then crashes... Huhh, oh well.

So here's the presentation: Extra points for those who know the title screen reference!!!




Ok, well, Tell me what you think of everything.

- Michael

Where have I been?!

So its been a while, hasnt it. Sorry about the not posting in two months. Well, I don't even know if anyone is still following this, but thats ok. I had my Christmas break back in December and was home for two weeks. That was a good time. Getting back to school was interesting. The second term started up and the seemed to increasingly consume my time exponentially. What that means is, I have no social life :( Thats ok though! I don't need one right now. I need a job.. hah So my days usually go like this. Get up at 7:30, get to class by 9:00. Have classes until 4 (or sometimes 10 depending on the day) and get back home by 11:00pm. This is on the weekdays. 9-11. Weekends might be 11-1 or some crazy time like that. Ill show the results of the work when I have everything completed. Which should be in a couple weeks. So I appologize if I havnt kept in contact with anyone. I have to start setting an hour aside to go through e-mails and whatnot. Ill post again soon!

Presentation and junk

I had a brief presentation yesterday at school. It wasn't so much me presenting anything, but a video of my work being watched by the class and 2 teachers. I got feedback and critiques on everything I have been working on. Some people were going crazy this weekend from my class (i.e. not getting any sleep over this thing). They had really nice presentations, but in the end, the teachers focused only on our work. Its great to hear what needs work and what is looking alright. I suppose during my 2 week break I should continue practicing.

So as for how our classes work, I am with the same 30 people everyday for my classes. We are like a family. Our class is 3D77. Since I was at school for about 20 hours this weekend (I slept between saturday and sunday, dont worry) working in the lab, I had a chance to meet more of the people from the previous term, 3D76. They are pretty interesting people! Everyone is incredibly nice and it is good to interact with eachother and ask questions.

一人の３D７６の人はYoutubeで、日本のゲーム番組を見ていた。私そこに行って、見ながら、紹介した。面白いことに、その学生は日系カナダ人で、両親は彼に子供のころから、日本語を教えていた。びっくりしたことに、彼も名古屋に住んでいた！なぜか聞かなかったけど、面白いだ！日本語を練習できて、懐かしい名古屋について話せる！いいね。

Ok, I just wanted to practice a little Japanese. I dont feel like translating it though.
So here is the presentation:

Animation! continued

There's one more line test that I wanted to add, I just forgot to upload it. It is a front walk cycle. I like this guy a little more than the others.



Finally, I wanted to give out the links of my instructors. They are all really amazing.

Pat Heinicke My Classical Animation teacher

Emily Nguyen Pat's teacher's aid (who is effing only 20 years old!!?)

Mike West My Character Design teacher. Very talented artist.