I Met Jebba!Ok ok, let me explain. You remember that dog from my last Video Project right? The dog in that video belongs to Bob, my Video Professor. Her name is Jebba (I think that's how you spell it), and he brought her in to class today!! Not only did we all get to pet her, but she kept coming back to me the most so i got to give her the most attention while we sat in class. That was certainly the best video class i've had so far. Pancake Day
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Independent StudyToday was the second week since meeting up with my study group, so you know what that means! Regroup. Once again it went well, as i've made quite a bit of progress in the last two weeks. While i have been busy with my other classes, i've managed to find time to get more of this pre-production done too!
Aaand finally, i started making the actual assets for the animation! Because i'll be making the animatic in After Effects, i prefer making the actual assets first and just using them to get the basic timings down, that way i can use them for the final animation too, which saves time and effort. Not only that, but it also means i can make an accurate mock up of the layout for the environment. Which is exactly what i did! It's a weight off my back to have finally decided on a layout. This is also my decided 2D aesthetic, and while the scene will change quite a lot by the end of it, this is how it will look near the beginning. 3D Class ProgressIn case you haven't noticed, i'm mixing up the blogs format this week. I felt doing one big week review once every Friday was getting a little stale, so I'm trying out a new system bite sized posts! Where i post about a specific class near the day i had it! I think this format might give the blog a bit of freshness, and an escape out of the repetitiveness, as if nothing happens in the class i just wont post about it. I'm sure it'll be interesting to those of you who are late readers to see if i stuck to this or not. But i'll have to wait and see! Anyway, on with the show! So today's class actually got me a bit frustrated. It began good enough, we looked around at everyone's progress and gave critique and asked questions. It was interesting because up until now i hadn't seen anyone else's work. And after seeing everyone's, i can safely say i'm on par both on schedule and skill with a lot of others in my class. So it was going well, i continued to flesh out my environment happily enough.... Until i came to modelling THIS: I think if i ever walk past one of these in the future i'm going to glare at it as i do. Who knew modeling an old English lamppost could prove to be such a hassle. It started simple enough, i got it to appear perfect and began texturing. But every time i added the glass panels, it seemed i'd modeled it wrong so you could see that the sides were 2D, either that or it was flaunting to the world its hollow insides. Not once, not twice, but three times i attempted to remake it but for whatever reason my brain couldn't possibly work out how to do it right. I spent so long on this dastardly thing only to give in and let the lamp win. So this is how it is seen now, hopefully i can render it at an angle in which you cant see my mistakes. Oh and to add insult to injury, the whole reason for me to make a lamppost was to fix the lighting on my character. And of course even that didn't work. So from right now i still need to figure out how to work this thing. Luckily enough though the rest of my scene is looking good. And my classmates like my concept so that's nice.
Video Class Crit WeekSo yesterday my video work was shown. For those of you who have forgotten or cannot keep track, the video i handed in was in the last post, but since i'm nice i'll put it here too.
So all in all i'm happy with today. I just hope Bob's as generous with it when it comes to marking!
A Week LateAs i mentioned in my previous post (Personal post not Academic) i was saving my weekly overview until the beginning of the next week. This is because the only things I've been working on is the work for the crit weeks coming up. So without further adieu here is what I've got so far: Sound For sound my new project is to record myself speaking a poem, and adding music or sounds in the background to add an atmosphere. Due to attending a lecture instead of having usual class, our schedule has been delayed slightly, so my recording will be done later today. It's a bit last minute but due to my dislike of poetry and therefore lack of knowledge of it, I'm still deciding what to read. The assignment is due in next week.
3D With this assignment not being due until after spring break, i can take more time with it. As such i've been working more on the backgrounds recently. I decided to rework my style for the environment so while i have reshaped the island like i planned, the low poly look has been altered to a more smooth toon like appearance instead. This is still not finished but its starting to shape up nicely if i do say so myself. Independent Study
Since the last review, I've been working over my script to make the improvements i was suggested such as working in more varied animation styles and using less 2D to balance out the hybrid. This is surprisingly difficult for me since i have a very 2D mindset. So further progress on the project will be shown at a later date, first i need to get this script finally finalized. What Happened to the Order?You might be thinking what happened to my weekly review? The weekend posts come after that! If you are thinking that then well done for noticing my posting pattern. But i decided to mix it up a bit this week. Since all the stuff i did this week is leading up to next week, i've decided to do a post for after the weekend. So It will be uploaded shortly. Anyway, on with the show. Shopping!!So after a lazy Saturday laying in, Sunday was our chance to go explore once again. And a free trip to the closest shopping outlet had been arranged by the exchange office for 11 people, so me and Vasilena signed up. Only about 45 minutes away from campus by van, the shopping outlet was a lot of fun. To our surprise our driver for the day way Katie, the same driver who drove the van we picked to ride in for the skiing trip. So it was cool to see her again. On top of that we also got to re-meet a few exchange students we spoke too during the target trip wayyy back in the first week. So the trip was pleasant enough.
Upon arriving at the shopping place, we were all amazed by the size of it. As far as the eye could see were shops lined next to each other. Unlike Carytown they were all main brand stores, a lot of clothing and footwear shops along with the food court and miscellaneous. We all decided that 4 hours should be enough, so we all split up and began doing our own thing. Me and Vasilena had the system of starting at the Vans shop and going clockwise, so that's exactly what we did. By the time we got halfway through the shops, we decided to take a break and get some food, shopping requires a surprising amount of energy, especially since it was above 22 degrees too. Having struggled with finding a decent looking sushi place since getting here, we were surprised to find one here. The windows were all black so from the outside we couldn't tell how nice it was. I'm glad we took the chance because as we entered the restaurant we were greeted by the nicest of waiters, and the restaurant looked so fancy and authentic. Japanese decal everywhere, and we were even given the option to have a table where they cook the sushi right in front of you. We didn't choose it this time, but its something i'd be happy to try one day. Anyway we both agreed the food was delicious, and really filling. Not only that, but the price was excellent for what we got. Afterwards we continued to shop until the four hours were over and headed back to campus, tired and poor. Although saying that, i really didn't spend much. All i bought were two pairs of converse. Yes that's right, i bought two pairs of official converse and still didn't spend much. How is this possible? Presidents Day Sale. which until now i had never heard of. But i'm sure glad i did. With up to 70% off in most stores, lots of big brand stuff was going cheap. I managed to get two pairs of converse for only $30 from the official converse outlet. Not too shabby if you ask me. I even managed to turn my girlfriend to the converse side of the force as she got a really cool pair too. All in all it was a very nice day, we had a lot of fun! Sorry about the lack of pictures, i was too distracted to take many this time. Weekend Adventures: Ski TripSo yesterday me and Vasilena went on the ski trip we signed up for, which is only available to international exchange students. And it was a lot of fun! JourneyIt takes about 2 hours 30 minutes to get from Richmond to Massanutten, where the ski slopes are. And we went in one of the 4 mini buses taking us all there. The journey was actually quite nice. We got to see a lot of the American landscape outside the city, going through small towns, isolated cabins, and even farms with the big ol' red barns just like in the cartoons! Our driver was a senior (third year) who gets paid to drive, and she kept telling us cool stuff along the way. She told us about this driving game they play in the south which was pretty fun. The people on each side of the vehicle are two teams. You have to count as many cows on your side as you can. But every time you pass a graveyard on your side, all of your cows die and you have to start counting again. It worked surprisingly well as we passed many cows and many graveyards on our way. She also told us that the mountains we were heading towards looked very blue (Which they did) due to a chemical the surrounding trees emit, giving the appearance of blue from far away. Learning to SkiOnce we arrived we collected our skis and headed for the slopes. The ski slopes consisted of real snow going down the side of a mountain, which they kept there using cool fans and the natural temperature. Despite this it was surprisingly warm, and if we weren't crashing into the snow it would've been t shirt weather. Me and Vasilena opted for the classes on how to ski as neither of us had done it before. However we arrived at 4, and lessons began at 5. So we went on the beginner slopes for an hour to try it out. Suffice to say we definitely needed the classes to tell us how to brake. My first attempt had me hurtling down the steady incline right into a ditch at the bottom. My obvious embarrassment did not stop Vasilena from laughing profusely. After many more attempts and falling, i started to get the hang of it. The not falling over part, not the stopping. I was relying on physics and luck to get me to stop. If you have never gone skiing before, note that it's surprisingly hard to get up once you've fallen over. Especially if you're too stubborn to un-clip the skis from your boots like i am. When it came to the lessons, it took us 2 hours but we finally had some control of our speed, and ability to turn which was good. Vasilena more so than me. But at this point we had about evened our falling over score. Feeling cocky, we decided to go for the next level slope, a much steeper hill. We got on the ski lift and made it to the top. I got a little impaled during the process of letting the chair scoop us up due to Vasilena's attempt to balance herself while getting on, but we made it off alright, if not a little terrified of the height yet lack of seat belts. As we looked down the slope from the top, we debated skiing down it or not. But we went for it. Suffice to say we did not attempt it again, instead heading back to the first slope again. As i hurtled down this much steeper slop, i established swerving right to left was a lot more necessary, and upon realizing it too late, i tripped and slid part way down the mountain. After a quick thumbs up to the rescue stretcher guy, i got back on and skied the rest of the way down, once again gaining too much speed and if it wasn't for luck, i would've hurtled right into the fence at the bottom too. Vasilena also had a rough time, but i'll leave that to her blog to describe. Overall it was a really good day, we both had a lot of fun, and would definitely come again if you had the opportunity/ money. Please excuse the brief summary, but it's hard to describe the whole day in detail without going on for pages. It really was that much fun. So much fun in fact, we needed a whole day afterwards to recover!
Class UpdatesI haven't posted until now this week because nothing much has been happening aside from work, so here is the usual post of what i've been working on this week, and how my classes are going! Just like the posts on this blog, i've been here long enough for a routine to have started forming for the weekdays. I go to class everyday, then outside of class i work on what needs to be done, and hang around the flat relaxing afterwards. Occasionally making a trip to Walmart or Noodles & Company for food. I'm not complaining because i enjoy it, its nice getting into the rhythm again after such a drastic change in environment. In fact the only thing i'm not liking is the classes themselves for the most part. But anyway, here's what's been happening.
3D Class And now it's time once again to talk about the class i'm actually enjoying. And no, it's not because it's the only class i have with my Girlfriend thank you very much, i'm genuinely enjoying what we are learning and doing in class. This week, now that we have completed the dog rigging, we were tasked with designing and modelling our own characters, So that's exactly what i did. And as an English man in a foreign country, my natural instinct was to go patriotic, and so this is the character i designed and modeled. Not only that but he is also fully rigged and ready to move. Even his little cape moves like fabric thanks to the physics effect my teacher James showed me how to do.
Independent Study What's this? I'm finally talking about independent study? Yes! I am! Today i had my second meeting with my overseer Pam, and my other three class mates. We caught up on how we were getting on in our projects, and everyone's ideas are shaping up nicely, we're all about ready to start working on it so in a week after next when we meet up again, we all might have started on our animating. But today I presented two things, a more finished script, and an unfinished character sheet. Its unfinished due to my script still being changed, so some characters are just added and some are removed. But here they are. The feedback i did get was that the script was good, only i need to make it less 2D oriented if my goal is to go with a more hybrid look. And that i need to make the hand movements more consistent with what's being made, as opposed to it being rather vague. I will work on that in the next draft. Next to do is storyboard once they're completed.
And that's it for this week folks! Tune in the next coupleof days to hear how our ski trip goes!. CarytownSo today marks the second tourist place me and Vasilena have visited on the weekend during our stay here in Virginia. Today marked the day we visited Carytown. Located about 40 minutes away by walking, Carytown in basically a very VERY long street with many independent restaurants and shops. So no main brand chain places aside from the McDonald's at the end of the road. But I'll get to that in a second. Carytown is well known by the people who live on campus, as it's listed as a recommended place to go while in Richmond. And we agree. The walk there was really pleasant, if you're following google maps like we did, it takes you through a very nice neighborhood, which was a nice change of pace as it let us admire american style houses which were not present in the city center, but very present in TV shows. Its almost a direct straight line to Carytown too, so it's an easy walk. When we got there the shops continued until out of sight, and while we only went in a few of what was available, we spent a good 3 hours there. The wide range of shops guarantees at least something for everyone. We went into a really retro video game store so i could drool over the games, a varied amount of shops which sold lots of bits and bobs, and of course we just had to go into the sweet shop and pick some some crazy sounding drinks. We even found this great shop that had a Pusheen the size of a small horse. (Not exaggerating check out the picture) As for food, while we had many restaurants to choose from, and we fully intend to come back to try a lot of them, we ended up having McDonald's as we had yet to have one since we arrived. Now I'm still unsure whether this is an American thing or if i just haven't gone to McDonald's in a while, but there was this burger called the Grand Mac. And boy did it live up to it's name. It was indeed very Grand, and it was indeed very tasty. So all in all it was a really nice day, and we intend to come back again another day. As a side note, because we were tired from walking all day, we decided to get an Uber. This was my first time getting one and it was amazing. Only $5 to get back to the flat, arrived 1 minute after ordering one, and the guy driving us was super friendly and had in fact been to Nottingham with his wife for a holiday which was cool. Anyway i would recommend! 3D Class Work UpdateNot to worry, it's still the weekend, i just haven't had time to update my work progress during the week, so I'm doing it now instead! Nothing has happened in my other classes aside from working on the projects we've had, so i'll only be focusing on my 3D class today. As i mentioned in a previous post, we'd been working on rigging a dog with an animation skeleton for the past few weeks, and now the making and rigging of the skeleton inside is finished! If you still don't know what that means, don't worry that post didn't go anywhere, it's just further down the page. I also mentioned in that post that i would have much clearer images of what we were working on, and i'm here to deliver. The model of the dog and its skeleton under the skin was modeled by our very talented teacher James Heyes, who gave us all the file to work on during this process. Taking Matters Into My Own HandsWith the knowledge i learned through doing this process, yesterday i tried my hand at doing it again at home. Admittedly i did a few mistakes and had to consult my notes a few times, but i'm getting there. And i don't think its half bad for an hours work. Please ignore the timing of the animation and the render quality, it was more of a test to see if i could make it move and the model look ok while it did, not the animation itself. When it came to rendering it i did learn a lot about Maya 2017's new render system Arnold, but i really hope we have a class on how to render because i'm pretty sure i did it the most difficult way possible. |
IntroductionHello! My name is Harry, a 20 year old Animation Student from Bristol. Archives
June 2017
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