The Road to Learning

September 23, 2007 in | No comments

I decided to map out all of the high-level things I want to do to get better at animation …

Reading Books

Over the years I’ve collected a lot of books on these different areas. I usually read a new book all the way through, try a few small projects on what I learned, and then I file it on my library shelf with the others books like it is a member of a prized collection! Later on, I’ll pull the book out when I need to do a specific task or just when I really need to drill down into the details of something I’m working on or thinking about.

Learning from others

The blogs here at animation blogspot are a great source of inspiration to see how other people have approached practicing their craft and creating their portfolios.  I also like studying all of the work over at CGSociety.org for ideas.

Practicing

The only way to get good at anything is to practice it over and over again. That usually isn’t a problem if you work in the industry where you are overloaded with fun projects all day but if you pursue animation as a hobby like I do it can be hard to find the time to stay sharp at all of the things you like to do.  I love working with Corel Painter, for example, but it has been months since I’ve actually had the chance to work on it.  When I finally do break it out, I find that I’ve gotten a bit rusty and I have to re-learn a few things.  I’ve been working on a website that I call Practice Circles to help people out with this but I’m still deciding on what direction to take it.

Contests

There used to be a great site called the 10 Second Club where people could practice animating to a short sound clip every month.  Too bad it doesn’t appear to be active anymore.  Another place I’ve been to is to the Animation:Master site where they hold a monthly themed competition. I’d like to find the time to enter a contest like one of these again on a regular basis.

Projects

Personal projects in the past have always ended up being overly ambitious for me and by the time I look at the details it seems like it would take me years to complete what I had in mind!  My goal now is to try and think of some smaller projects that I can actually have a chance of completing in a reasonable amount of time.

Tools I’ve used

I’ve used Maya, Animation:Master and Corel Painter for projects.  I hear 3ds Max is great as well but I haven’t had the chance to use it yet.

Tutorials

There seems to be no shortage of these out there if you want to spend the time and the money learning the ins and outs of a particular feature in your software.  I need to compile a list of these to try and work it into a schedule.  Maybe post the results here.

Location, location, location

There doesn’t appear to be a ton of studios using Maya to do animated films in the area where I live but I’m looking.

Local meetings

I found a great local animation group meeting recently, they are starting a new website … http://www.indy-aauga.com

Schools

I’ve only browsed at a few schools online so far … Gnomon, AnimationMentor and AI online.  Not sure that I’ll be able to invest the time and money into one of those.

Links

AWN is the place to go for animation news, I like www.3dlinks.com too.

Planning a portfolio

September 19, 2007 in | No comments

I’ve been working on how to go about planning my portfolio recently and I have to say that simply deciding on where to begin has been a challenge. I like the idea of working on so many different parts of creating a short animation that it is hard for me to focus on doing just one thing.  I like the idea of being a generalist that knows a bit about all of the stages in a pipeline so I’m going to start off by making a list of everything that I’m interested in here and hopefully I can build some momentum on a portfolio from that.

Areas of Focus

  • Storyboarding
  • Modeling and Rigging
  • Animation
  • Effects
  • Lighting and Rendering

Ok, so this list is so broad that it can’t really be called focused now can it? You can see my problem. I like all of these things yet each one takes a fulltime effort for an artist to really get good at it. I’ve tried bits and pieces of each of these and I like them all.  I haven’t found one to focus on yet that urges me to forget the others.  I’m going to try spending my time telling some really short complete stories that touch on all of these areas and see where that takes me.

Great book by Tony White

July 1, 2007 in Books | No comments

I’m reading a book right now called Animation from Pencils to Pixels that has me kind of fired up to get back into my animation hobby again.  The book provides a broad overview on how to create your own animated film and it follows the making of a short film that is included on a CD.  Its been way too long since I’ve had a chance to actually practice any animating rather than just reading about it so I’m hoping this one will get me fired-up to actually get going planning and practicing again.

Robot Chicken - Star Wars

June 20, 2007 in | No comments

This is REALLY funny and some good animation, you’ve got to check it out … www.adultswim.com.  The Emperor cracks me up!

Day One of my animation blog

June 12, 2007 in ~ Other | No comments

Hello!  First day setting up Wordpress, picking a theme, etc.  I think it’s great that AWN is providing this service free for animators.  I’m looking forward to seeing what everybody in the community is up to.  I plan on making this a practice log  and a place for WIPs.