What the man behind the curtain is up to.

How I've felt for so long about working in VFX/Anim industry.

My first project

Done!  After a few weeks of back and forth and interviews I finally landed the job of my dreams, well, for the time being.  Blue Sky has always been on the radar as a potential and it’s finally a reality.  It’s everything I could ask for in an employer and more.

Don’t think that it’s going to stop me from being active on my blog though, quite the opposite!  Well, maybe the first month or two starting now there will be a pause, but after that it will increase.  I’m super excited to learn and share knowledge with people and stay really connected and dedicated to innovating personal and industry wide workflows, tech, and of course animation.  Technical animation and tech art to be specific is what I’ll be working on in the coming months, same as usual.

Thanks to everyone that’s been involved in the process of landing this, you know who you are!  I don’t think they know yet what a valuable asset they just acquired but soon they will find out just how serious I am about the work I do and how inspired I can be!

 

A fellow classmate from a while back, Jeff Gabor, has been putting up these really interesting reels that exhibit the capturing of a performance of an animator and translating that to a character.  We in the animation biz like to call that animation.  Tried and true, it’s the best solution there is to getting characters full of life!

use password: “education”

On a serious note, take a look at this post (link below)  challenging Andy Serkis’ statements that actors deserve Academy recognition at the same time completely disregarding the role of the animation team it takes to make a character lifelike and engaging.  While I think this shouldn’t be put squarely on Andy’s shoulders, He being the mocap spokesperson and Weta both definitely should have something to say about their actions most recently displayed in a making of video that completely neglects to have any footage about animators working hard to translate and polish the performance onto the digital character.

They must have some highly pissed animators working for them. It’s also stirring up emotions of other animators who are or who have been in the same position.   I know how it feels as an animator being left out of credits and getting no recognition working at Image Metrics, again a production run completely as if the software was doing all the work.

Be sure to take a look at the video half-way through Tim’s post.

 

Watch the first trailer here!

People are buzzing this morning about the new trailer released today from Rockstar Games for LA Noire (not sure where the extra “e” comes from), a game that’s exactly what it sounds like, a film “noir-esque” detective drama/police drama and other LA film noir movies like The Big Sleep,Double Indemnity, Chinatown, and LA Confidential.

Read more

 

The guys over at Speaking of Animation blog have a post linking to Brendan Body’s page about animating birds that really boils it all down to a science.  It makes me want to model & rig more flying creatures.  I am definitely saving this page for reference later and keeping Speaking of Animation under my “wing”.

Check out more HD bird reference and of course Brendan’s research:

 

Keep in mind the is made by some STUDENTS in France!!  It is un-be-liev-able!  The rigging and animation are exquisite, magnificent–astounding!!  I love the acting, vivid envornment, and the smart combination of 2D and 3D animation elements.  The design is all very well done.  I honestly haven’t been excited for an animation like this in years.

Check out the artist’s websites, especially E Sousa Vincent’s rigging reel.

This is truly inspirational stuff.  I need to go where they went for school.  I am working on a similar reel myself and I need to research how to make some of the faces as deformable as the ones for their animations.

I can’t wait to see what’s next!  Looks like another short called Meet Buck.

Their awesome website and blog:

http://www.salesmanbuck.com/

http://www.salesman-pete.blogspot.com/

 

Modular Character System – Feature Demo from Jan Berger on Vimeo.

This blows me away.  It’s got a lot of things riggers love plus what animators need.  I believe at first look it’s a strong tool, but may be a little unintuitive for animators to figure out at first.  When it comes to posing, scaling, squash and stretch, matching, foot control, IK, and FK animation, it looks like a breeze.  The rig seems so easy to set up with kinematics built in and readily customizable along any stage of the animation process given its modularity.

 

This is an old colleague of mine.  I am very privileged to call him that because he worked on the original Tron movie as an animator.  We worked on The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons together and he’s such a nice guy.  I hope that my work someday will stand up, or at least crouch next to his.  Anyway, he just came out with another show reel recently and I thought i’d share.

He also animates with his family using his home as a studio which is brilliant. The family that animates together, stays together, I always say. Search for his other stuff including his short on Vimeo.

 

The article is centered around some pretty sick new 3D sculptures by Meats Meier.  If only I could be working on stuff as great as his. 

CGSociety – SIGGRAPH Animation Mother via kwout

Time is definitely not on my side at this point!  I’m working on a short at the moment, but I’m trying to find more time to sculpt vis-a-vis:

Gnomonology – Designing with Digital Clay: Gill-Man via kwout

This tutorial was done by Cesar Dacol Jr. whom I had the recent pleasure of working with at Image Metrics where I currently still work.  He has since left, but his work will influence me for quite some time. 

 

Radiohead, my favorite band of all time, have called upon the general populous to create the next remix of their song “Nude”. It’s a brilliant idea. They’re obviously testing out fresh ideas to make music the music industry a more interactive engaging experience instead of being like a cold hand that force feeds you through a tube.

Animation wise, they have called on animation artists of all types to come up with provocative adaptations called a music video of a song on their new album as well. I hope they continue to do that. You can check that out here. The finals on June 23rd have yet to take place and I can’t wait to see what comes out of this competition!