maya springboard is over - now; life drawing and some reading

So, the Maya springboard workshop has come to an end. I learned a lot, met a lot of nice fellow students, got over the worst fears of getting into 3D and I am now really looking forward to march 29th when class 1 of the core program starts. And now I have two weeks time to prepare. What shall I do?

LIFE DRAWING
I am definitely going to give some serious time to more life drawing exercises. I found a local course meant for amateurs like me :)    Just around 20 euros but with access to live models. What a deal! Sadly this course doesn't begin until april, so I have to wait for it.  (Jeez...!  I would like to start NOW!)
Meantime I'll sit at my desk or at some local cafe and draw, I will check out some literature and anatomy books and maybe experiment with some different materials. I like to draw, I think I have a little talent for it, but I have never developed any skills, never been to any art school or anything like that. Still have to get those "one thousand bad drawings" out of my system... Now I have my chance to really do something about it! And I think I'm going to have lots of fun diving into it.

Here is an inspiring site I found the other day when I was googling around looking for inspiration. Go and have look yourself at Mark McDonnells blog site at http://markmcdonnell.blogspot.com/







So I will devote some time to life drawing. Secondly; I will read some books about animation production in general:


ANIMATION PRODUCTION

Part of my aim with my time at AnimtaionMentor - besides the obvious; to become the best animator I can be - is to learn as much as possible about the animation industry in general and especially about the producing side of the business.
This book I recently aquired from amazon.com

Winder/Downlatabadi; producing animation.

I have just turned a couple of pages in it and it definitely looks very interesting. Exactly what I need to get a clearer picture of the production systems of the larger animation industry. I come from live action television myself and I am more used to rather small production units, so I need this. :)

link to amazon.com; producing animation

Slapstick on one leg

Another animation mentor exercise. We were supposed make the onelegger take one step. Only that.
Well, of course I couldn't resist...

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! :-)
.

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*. :-)

Yessssssss!!! ...and nooooooooo!!!!

YESSSS!!! - at last the maya spingboard begins for real. I just browsed through some of the training material. And I already learned a lot from that alone. Awesome!

and

NOOOOOOOO....!!! We were supposed to have our first "meet and greet Q&A" with our Maya trainer today. We, the students, were all there - but the trainer wasn't. :-) Some misunderstanding, I'm sure. We were promised a makeup Q&A ...or something.
Well, better luck come wednesday! :-)

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.

10 minutes to start of winter term...

I am impatiently sitting here and waiting for the AM site to open. Soon I will have the first glimpse of what my three months of Maya springboard will look like. And I still have a couple of days to fully concentrate on surfing the campus and getting to know the place. My day job starts thursday... - So come on now, sesame, open up your gates!

Illusion of life

As a part of preparing for Animation Mentor I am now reading the johnston/thomas book "illusion of life". I have just read through the chapter "discovery 1934-1936" and I am completely fascinated. There is a lot of stuff about the inside dynamics of the Disney team, how the different personalities of the team are banging heads against each other and how they find some kind of a balance finding out who is good at which areas, how they complement each other... Very interesting. And so much of it directly reminds me of my own job environment at YLE, also a team effort making children's live action programme's. All those creative team crashes...
If the rest of the book is only half as interesting as this chapter it will be a breeze to get through the 600 pages.:-)

NOW it begins...!

"Welcome Animation Mentor Student!

It is time to set up your account. By clicking on the link below, you will be able to create a user name and password to gain access to the Animation Mentor orientation campus. "

This message just found its way into my mailbox! I don't think there will be much sleep this night...! :-)