Noisy neighbours and trying the "Insanely Great"

Living about 4 minutes from work is awesome, but the downside is that in the middle of the city there's a lot of people living above, below and next to - and it's amazing how inconsiderable and noisy some people can be.

Maybe I have a low tolerance for noise, or rather some peoples behavior, but no matter what, it was about to turn into a problem that required a solution.

The solution was this:

These noise canceling headphones, Bose Quiet Comfort, are fantastic. Putting them on is like stepping into another dimension. I also use them at work and it makes a big difference. They're quite expensive, but it's well worth the money in my opinion.

I rarely buy stuff I feel I really don't need, but I gave in and finally purchased my first Apple product ever - iPod Touch.

It's a pretty cool toy :)

To get some practical use out of it (other than playing music and videos), I got some nifty apps like FilMiC Pro, a video camera app that shoots in 24fps (or whatever frame rate I want), VideoPix, a videoplayer that can play video back at any framerate - as well as let me frame by frame thru videos and PhotoSync that let me transfer files to and from my tablet via Wi-Fi.

If anybody knows about other cool and useful apps for animators, please let me know :)

I gotta admit I'm hooked - iMac next!
 

The Making of Toy Story

Short Toy Story documentary - I just love this behind the scenes stuff :)

Enjoy!

PIPA and SOPA - Not Cool!

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Piracy isn't cool, but this is not the way to fight it.

Eric Goldberg at CTN

Tangled Ever After Clip

The Making of Mulan

Merry Christmas

Amazing reference!

Merry Christmas to ya all!

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

"Baby" - Work In Progress

I initially started this a couple of months ago and intended it for the October 11 Second Club contest, but realized pretty soon - that's not gonna happen :) - so I've just worked on it now and then when I had some spare time.

I thought it would be fun to try to do some acting stuff with a lying character and also play around with the Morpheus rig, which I have done before, but never actually animated a test with him.

Blocking WIP:

YouAnimator!

What a great idea!



I signed up and got a good review of my reel. Not too detailed, but good enough to get an idea of what I should focus on and what to change to make my reel better. It was totally worth the 40 bucks they charge for it.

If this site grows into what they intend it to be, which I do hope, it's gonna be an awesome job hunting tool for animators.

Here's my YouAnimator Businesscard and check out the rest of the site at www.youanimator.com

Legends of Awesomeness

 Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness premiered on Nick on November 7.

Read more about the show at Animation Magazine

Malcolm - Free Maya Rig

This rig is great - and it's free :)

CLICK HERE TO GET IT!

Celebrating Steve Jobs

AM Animals & Creatures - Some aftertoughts

It's been truly amazing to be back at AM for the 6 month Animals & Creature course, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, it's been exhausting because I've worked full time on "The Penguins of Madagascar" at the same time. I would actually not recommend doing this course while working - the course is fantastic, but it's just too intense and time consuming when having a full time job. That's just my experience and opinion though :)

I was very fortunate to get two awesome mentors. Keith Sintay and Kevin Koch are both really really good teachers (and super duper nice guys) and I learned tons from them. I guess all the mentors at AM are great, so it really doesn't matter who you get, but I feel very lucky to have had them as my mentors for this course.

The course is built in the same way as the core animation program, where each concept/lecture build on top of each other. They had some super cool lectures that really goes in depth into animal behavior and locomotion. I would say though, that this course isn't that much about animation (at least not from a technical point of view) as it is about intent, thought process, how and why animals move the way the do etc.

The rigs are really good as well and they kept updating and improving them as we went through the course.

My conclusion is that this course is worth every cent and more - it is truly amazing - but it's very intense and time consuming.

To keep practicing, I've started to do some quick cycles with the AM A&C rigs.

Animals & Creatures - Session 212

So this is it! I've completed the very first official Animation Mentor Animals & Creatures class.

Right now I got a bunch of mixed feelings about it. It's been awesome, but I'm exhausted. Working full time and doing this course has been quite intense and sometimes I've felt like it's been too hard. I've learned tons though and I'm confident it has been totally worth it and that it will pay off.

Here's my final of the Dragon Attack shot:


Here's a progression reel from layout to final of the Dragon Attack shot:

Watch higher resolution here

And here's a compilation of the assignments I've done during the course:

Animals & Creatures - Session 211

I continued to polish and went over a bunch of smaller stuff that most likely nobody will ever notice, but hopefully the sum of it will give the shot a more polished feel.

It's kinda sad, but this is the last week we actually have to turn something in. We do get a critique this week, which I'm gonna spend next week to address for sure, but there's no grade or assignment due for week 12.

I also put some lights in and rendered the shot just for the heck of it. It integrates the characters into the shot a little bit more than just a playblast, which I think is kinda cool.

Here's this weeks pass on the Dragon Attack shot:

Animals & Creatures - Session 210

Got to do a toe/leg-pass, a wing cleanup pass, tracked arcs on both characters and kept tweaking and adjusting the shot through the week.

Here's this weeks pass on my assignment:

Animals & Creatures - Session 209

Kept refining and cleaning stuff up this week, especially under the hood, and in general just proceeded refining the shot.

The exhaustion is starting to set in, but almost there :)

Here's the second refining pass:

Animals & Creatures - Session 208

I spent most of the weeks cleaning things up - cleaning up the curves and the poses from the blocking pass.

I also worked a little bit on the dragon flying in and landing, as well as the pulling of the dragon. 3 weeks to go and a looooot of work left. :)

Here's my first clean-up/refining pass:

Animals & Creatures - Session 207

It's been quite a stressful week trying to flesh out my shot and add more breakdowns to both characters. I think I got the main stuff in there now to show the idea and the intent, but it still has to be pushed and exaggerated - lets see if I can get to that next week.

This second class is a bit more demanding than the first class and a lot more hours are required - still fun though and I'm learning tons. 5 weeks to go!

Here's my blocking pass of the Lion vs Dragon shot: