Rigging and Production Modeling

So a month or more has gone by. I spent it in Compositing Fundamentals (CFM) and Fundamentals of Animation (FOA).

I was alright at animation, but I found the class to be... less than exciting. We spent a lot of time talking about animation and not enough time doing it. The lab instructors were... friendly, but very unprofessional. The night classes said they kept falling asleep during their labs, and for us in the day classes, they got very frustrated very quickly and one went as far as to start physically doing the work for me - which is completely against everything this school is supposed to be for. I eventually told her I got it and that I could take it from there, and it still took some talking to convince her to let go of my stylus and let me do my work. Critique is one thing. Physically taking over work I should be doing in order to learn is something else. If you must do a demo, undo the work you did and let me try it myself. I won't learn just by watching you.

I was unimpressed, overall. I found 2DA to be more of a learning experience than FOA. I was much more engaged by compositing. The instructors were very relaxed, very straight-forward, and very capable and would explain rather than seize control of your projects. The podcasts were thorough. And the material was generally much more fun and interesting. Even rotoscoping was fun, though I know in an actual production setting, it's a boring, frustrating pain. But I grasped it pretty quickly and Nuke was an amazing program to work with. It had the ease of Photoshop with the logic of Maya. I would display my work, but it's all copyrighted material from movies, so I can't. :( I will say, however, that the color lecture we got was probably one of the most amazing ones we had. Pedro Flores is, simply put, one of the best to teach it. It was hard to translate physical traditional color theory into digital color theory. I was very sad to learn they used to do speedpaintings in compositing... that would have been an amazing, educational addition. I sketched a lot in class as it was, but it would have been nice to get professional guidance. And it would have worked in tandem with color theory. Either way, soon after we did the color theory lecture, I ended up painting this:

Easily one of my most coordinated colored pieces. I have a very, very, very hard time with color. I am not sure why. But this is a significant improvement, even as it is now.

Now I'm just waiting for grades for that month, and we've started Rigging Basics and Production Modeling. More below.

2D Animation + Mass Effect

To start with, I got the Mass Effect art book - the big one with 180 pages - and it's glorious. Second, I've got annoying neighbors. Third, I'm in 2D Animation. Fourth... I drew something I was actually not appalled by.

"Purpose dictates Process"

Marcus always tell us this.

And he's right. He's articulate what I've always thought about any type of work in a very simple way. "Purpose dictates Process." If you can't get something to work, make sure you're making it for what it's going to be used for.

I finished my CDC project, which is building a character model from scratch. Final results:

I'm pretty pleased.  I didn't add nipples or a belly button (since they weren't required, per se), but I did add decent feet, which aren't required either.

We also had to UV it, and I daresay I finally understand how to make UVs. FINALLY. Sheesh.

We also had to do a clothing design with details - drawn or sculpted or what have you, but not modeled - but I... did not like what I did. It's embarrassingly bad and I think I need to start drawing again because I'm starting to forget.

After the cut are wireframe details. And rambling. But you can stop reading when the pictures stop.

Going to the store

In case anyone was wondering what the instructor teaches us during lecture

This one is funny because of what a mockery it makes of a so-called animation class in the noted university. The dude makes the best of it.

But honestly?

Honestly?

This one is the kicker. 

I will give you $15 if you don't laugh.

Character Modeling and Massively Single Player Online Games

'Bout that time again.

I was going to make a post for New Years'... but then that didn't happen. I spent New Years with The Old Republic and a few good friends and my buddy The Bottle. It was pretty good. SO, a belated Happy New Years' to everyone. 2011 was said to be a pretty crappy year for a lot of my friends, so hopefully 2012 will treat y'all better. From the sounds of it, things are turning out well so far. We shall see.

Anywho.

The first part of this is about my character modeling class. The second part, marked by large red text below, will be a quickie review of SWTOR. Skip to whatever you want to read about.

A required warning - boobs below. Shield your sensitive eyes! 

Oh my god.

Blogspot lowers the resolution, so here's the link to the full image. Thanks, Dead End Thrills.

It's concept art from the game Dishonored, to be released in mid/late 2012. Published by Bethesda, developed by Arkane Studios, focuses on stealth action and allows for non-lethal disabling on every single enemy, including boss fights.

I'm keeping an eye on this sucker. Because that concept art is amazing.

Kool-Aid in mah spaceship

OH YEAHHHH.

Finally decided to use my laptop to make a post. Since my laptop is where all the shiny things are.

This is digital/3D stuff from the last two months, in chronological order. My bitterness towards Autodesk Maya has decreased significantly, but I suspect she and I will never get along fully. She's too fickle, along with a lot of other things that aren't polite to say.

The second-to-last Model Creation project was for us to use reference and create a high-detail 3D model of an arcade machine. I chose Need for Speed: Carbon, but there were like 10 different types and no consistent reference... so I just mixed and matched. It took me a long time to learn to love that class, and it shows in how long it took me to get up to speed. I passed the class, but I could've gotten a higher grade (instead of a mediocre B) if my head hadn't been worse off than it is now. It's okay work, but I can't say I'm proud of it.

And no. You will never see my 3D Foundations work. I may have passed that class with a B, but that doesn't mean the work was anywhere near quality. It ain't even average. It ain't even decent. It will never see the light of day.

Next up is the MCR final, which I worked harder on and I think I did passably well on: