The Road to Learning

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.