Feels like I'm Alice in Wonderland.

This week in our Maya training we were given a model of a robotarm and our assignment was to pick up a green can with the arm and place it on the box on the right.

It looks simple when you see the finished version - but for any of you who, like me, are newbies to 3D animation, let me tell you that it's like falling down a rabbit hole when you start looking behind the pretty pictures and actually try to build a thing like this yourself in 3D.

This is what my finished assignment looked like:



But THIS is what it looks like on the inside:



All these curves represent movement of different objects and parts of objects in the animation. And the animator spends a lot of time looking at these curves when he is animating.

It's a little like this:



Which makes me feel like this!:


No wonder that I love animation! :-)
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Two not very bouncy bouncing balls

The Maya springboard course is well on its way and I am learning new stuff every day. In this preparing course we only focus on the 3D tool itself - and I can tell you; there's points and dots and curves and tangents and a billion buttons and menus to get aquainted with - behind every simplest tiny little motion. I'm on a steep learning curve here. So I'm really happy to stick to these bouncing balls for another couple of months. :-)

My first scene ever in Maya...!

Hey, this is fun! After a couple of weeks of Maya training we still haven't seen one moving image... And that's really a good thing. There are TONS of stuff to learn in this 3D world, all new to me; modeling, shading, textures, rendering - and a ZILLION of menus and functions and commands.

Luckily I had SOME background in photoshopping and working in 2D... But there's is really more than enough new stuff to take in...

This little scene with Harry going to the outhouse was totally, from top to bottom, made by *me*. :-)

still a couple of weeks to go...

I have been very busy at work these two last weeks... Lots of stuff that just had to be done... I have had some loong days... So there hasn't been much time or energy left for animation exercises or reading in the evenings lately. Maybe I'll find some time this weekend again. I hope so! :-)

What else is new? Well, I just received my copy of Maya (the autodesk education suite) the other day and installed it. Holy baloney - now THERE's a lot of menus and buttons......!!!! Insaaaane! - Haha, no, I'm not too worried really, I have always been a computer geek, I know my way around computers in general AND I'm not completely new to IK and FK animating since I have been doing some hobbyist animation in 2D for a while using "Anime studio Pro".

If there's anything I'll find hard now when we start learning to use Maya, the tool - I think it will be getting out of 2d and into 3D, understanding how to move around in 3D space in the work area. You know, finding the workflow and the understanding of how to move around... before it becomes a second nature how to handle it.
Do you know any store where you can buy a "3D mindset"? Tell me if you do, I would buy it straight away. :-)

I'm really glad I decided to take the springboard class. I think I need it. :-)


BTW, it was nice to meet the fellow springboard students at the recent, first Q&A:s. Looking forward to get to know everyone a little better.