Sunday, July 29, 2012

Road to Animation

The other day, a friend of mine wrote on his blog about what got him into the animation field and thought it would be interesting to see what got other folks pursuing a career in animation. I know I don't get much traffic on my blog but felt I would share nonetheless, if anything to remind myself why I spent four years in college studying animation.

 
Some of my earliest memories of watching cartoons or other animation consist of watching an old VHS of the original Fantasia. I wore that tape and it's case out so badly for watching it day in and day out; the colors were beginning to fade, the tracking was horrible and the case was a beat-up piece of black plastic with no cover art and the clear sleeve halfway torn off but I loved all the same. Being a big fan of dinosaurs at the time (and still to an extent to this day), I always loved the "Rites of Spring;" it has to be one of my favorite segments of all time!

Like anyone else of my generation, I was raised on Disney movies; I remember going to see Aladdin in theaters and being afraid of the Cave of Wonders sand-tiger. I was a toddler and that's some pretty scary stuff when you're only about three years old! Beyond that, we had a few different VHS tapes: Robin Hood, Dumbo (another personal favorite when I was a kid), The Lion King, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and most likely a few more that I can't remember at the moment. It wasn't too much longer after that when I discovered the great wonderment of CG cartoons, namely ReBoot and Transformers: Beast War; they may not hold up nowadays but they were awesome back then! (Shame on my nerd-cred, but for the longest time I always thought Optimus Prime was always a gorilla, not an 18-wheeler)


 I dabbled around a bit with animation but nothing too major. Growing up watching other TV shows like KaBlam's "Prometheus and Bob" and "Life with Loopy," I tried doing some stop-motion with a couple of action figures and my parents video camera; I wish I still had the footage to be able to show.
It wasn't anything special (a five second short of Solid Snake drawing his gun from his holster, what can I say?) but would still be neat to take a look at now! Speaking of Metal Gear, I do remember playing the original MGS on my Playstation and thinking that the cinematics and the graphics were mindblowing and in my opinion, they still stand pretty well on their own today!
I was always interested in CG, stop-motion, and video games but I don't think I ever really thought of it as being a feasible goal. I didn't really start getting into doing anything close to computer animation until middle school or so and didn't even think about animating as a career until roughly midway through high school!
     Back in grade school, our woodshop classes were taken out a replaced by what the school corporation referred to as "modular workstations;" about every week or so, a student or team of two students would rotate to a different station and learn about different aspects of technology from robotics and construction technology to computer-aided drafting and CNC milling. My first day in the class, I was assigned to the AutoCAD station by myself with no more than a computer with the software on it and a three-inch binder with lesson plans and technical jargon; I dove in head first and loved it. What I was doing wasn't too technically demanding (I was basically creating 2D technical drawings of custom bricks and brackets) but something about understanding the software and creating something from nothing was invigorating!
     I kept taking different CAD classes throughout high school and that's when I discovered the joy of animating; viewers be warned, these were some of my very first animations when I didn't know a hell of a whole lot!

I'd like to think I've improved since then and hopefully anyone who has seen my most recent reel would agree. After high school, I went on to study animation in college; I learned a good deal about the various aspects of animation, met some truly great people that I hope to keep as life-long friends, and had some awesome experiences along the way. I'm still trying to get into the industry but I believe it's worth fighting for. To be able to work alongside some of the people I've met and become friends with in such a fascinating field would be nothing short of amazing. I really do hope to make it there someday.

That's my story (or most of it, at least) and I do think it helps to go back and really think about what got you interested in animation, it might just help you keep moving forward with your pursuits!

Friday, July 27, 2012

Finishing Richard and Other Oddjobs

I was doing pretty good with updates for a bit with updates but it looks like time got away from me a bit! Some of the biggest news on this update is that I finally finished my Richard maquette and he is featured in the top 10 finalists in the Looking for Group's Dick-Craft contest! Regardless of whether I win, I had a great time building Richard and am thoroughly pleased with the end result; my wife and I will enjoy having him on our shelf for our foreseeable future. Plus, we might just get a chance to get him autographed at GenCon by LFG's creators! 
Fully sculpted and painting started

The finished result!
On the animation front, I've decided to learn some things on my own via Digital Tutors. I've been working primarily on learning a bit more about character rigging, taking a page from one of my technical friends' book. So far it's been a pretty interesting course and I'll definitely try to keep some of workflow in mind for future projects. I plan on animating a walk cycle with the character after all the rigging work and toss the video up on here; I'm also hoping that I might be able to persuade a friend of mine to let me borrow one of his character models and test out my rigging knowledge!

Building the feet and legs
Adding in the spine
Spine and neck controls


Building the arm and hand joints
Arm and hand controllers

To stay on the animation topic for a bit longer, I've been trying to get some work done on a short film that another associate of mine has been trying to finish for some time now. I've gotten a few things taken care of for it, mainly in taking inventory of all the different shots that need to be finished as well as setting up a VPN so I can get access to the work files. I'm still really hoping to get some decent work done on the film here in the near future but this past week has been rather heavy. I've still been sending out applications and resumes whenever I get a chance, whether in my field or something to pay the bills; I've had a couple of responses here and there but nothing terribly promising.
      With still looking for steady work, I wound up helping my dad out at the auto shop; they're relocating the body shop and had to move a galvanized steel paint booth across the grounds and reassemble it. The past few days consisted of getting out to the shop early in the day, ripping out plywood, lifting and bolting together the steel panels, and using a grinder and pry-bar to take off some hinges. It's definitely been some hard work and I really respect my dad and his co-workers who do that job and others like it on a daily basis; my hat is off to them!

On to the gaming front! I've finished a couple of my ventures while continuing to add to my pile of shame (damn you Steam and GOG.com). During the Steam sale, I picked up From Dust, Legend of Grimrock, Dear Esther, The Witcher and The Witcher 2... like I said, damn you Steam and Good Old Games! Other than installing those, I haven't had a chance to touch 'em. That being said, I did finish a handful of games; I wrapped up Bulletstorm, Braid, and Max Payne 3. I really enjoyed Bulletstorm and all of it's salty language, over-the-top nature, and fantastic weapons. Was the story that original? No, not really. Was it fun to play? Absolutely. I loved the Skillshot mechanics and I was always looking for new or interesting ways to take out enemies. It really is a fun game as long as you don't try to take things too seriously and definitely worth picking up, especially at the prices you can find it for now. 
        For the most part, I enjoyed my playthrough of Braid; the time-space gameplay mechanics were really interesting and entertaining to work with and the visuals were dripping with style. It's kind of like a neo-impressionist version of Super Mario, if that makes any kind of sense. The story was well-done and definitely kept me interested. My only real negative is that some of puzzles got to the point of being pretty much absurd; they were still solvable but they didn't necessarily give you that self-satisfied elation that the likes of Portal would do. I would still recommend it to anyone that hasn't gotten their hands on it yet.
        Max Payne 3. I enjoyed parts of it but on the whole, this game just did not feel like Max to me. The gunplay was there. The bullet-time was there. Max was kind of there. Gone was the traditional graphic novel story-telling, dark comedy, femme fatales, and any characters worth caring about; it was very nice of Rockstar to write a fairly flat character into Max's past in order to justify uprooting the drunkard. More often than not, I found myself asking why does Max care about what he's doing even as Max asked himself that very question. I also came to a startling realization that I spent most of the game hiding behind cover rather than diving across the room in a blazing ballet of bullets. For the most part, my gun-dives were rewarded with quick deaths and a great deal of frustration. 
      The gameplay animation was really impressive, I will admit that; however, it seemed for such a fast-paced game that Max took his precious time raising his gun before firing a shot, often times resulting in the ex-cop catching more than a few enemy bullets before ever cocking his weapon. One nagging frustration for me is that it always felt like the game was rushing you from point A to B without ever giving you time to explore the environment for their new "clue" system or golden gun parts. In the earlier levels, whenever you would take more than a second to look at something, you would be constantly berated by Passos until you moved on; it was frustrating, irritating, and did a real disservice to the artists that built those environments. In an effort to cut this soapbox short, I will go ahead and say this: the gameplay was alright and it was a decent third-person shooter but this is not the Max Payne that most of us grew up with. 
      I'm still working on a lot of the same games I was last time, pretty sure I'm getting close to finishing Far Cry and I just started Duke Nukem Forever. I know what most people would say when they see that last one but I'll be honest: I was curious and it didn't cost that much. I'm only a few hours in but the gameplay is fine, the humor is sophomoric at best, and the visuals are nothing to write home about. But you know what? I'm enjoying it and having great time playing it. I'm not sure what that says about me but I'm not sure if I really care. Games are meant to be entertaining in some fashion and so far that's what Duke is, low-brow as it may be. 





Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Update on Life and Richard

It's been a strangely hectic-feeling week or so in the life of being unemployed. I've been really looking for a nice, meaty project to sink my teeth into. Lo and behold, I discovered the website indieDB.com; it's a social site of sorts where a lot of indie developers (industry newcomers and veterans alike) are trying to start up various gaming projects. With spending a little bit of time on the site, perusing around and talking to some various people, it looks like I've found a couple of interesting projects to get into with the likes of two companies known as Rising Soul Games and Dark Lore Games. I can't really talk too much about what the projects entail but if all goes well, they should keep me pretty busy and I think it'll be  a great experience.

I've also been trying to work bit by bit on my Richard maquette and explore the world of DeviantArt.com. I wound up not working on Richard for a couple of days because I got called in to do some playtesting; it was the full deal: unreleased game, NDA's and monetary compensation. The most fun part aside from playing the game? If anyone tries to ask me what I tested, I can honestly answer, "I'm sorry, that information is classified." How many times do you really get to say that in real life? Anyway, it was fun/interesting experience and one that I wouldn't necessarily mind doing again. Back to Richard for a second, here's a few shots of my latest progress with him.

No arms yet and torso's still a little off...
The torso's been mostly resolved, now with some arms and sexy bracer

What's that, a near finished mantle and TWO bracers?!
On the gaming side of life, good lord my backlog has gotten extra terrible. I have done away with the boyhood single-mindedness of working on only one game at a time; it's just not feasible anymore! As of right now, I am working on Far Cry, Amnesia, Titan Quest, Mass Effect 2, dabbling again in Skyrim, and getting close to finishing Bulletstorm (I think). I still have a number of games on PC that I picked up during the last Humble Bundle sale that I haven't gotten around to trying yet including the critically acclaimed and award winning Bastion and Braid. Don't even get me started on my PS3 backlog...

 I recently finished playing through both Limbo and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. Both were really great games with some interestingly brain-busting puzzles. The music in Superbrothers was fantastic and Jim Guthrie deserves much praise for his work; I had downloaded the soundtrack before playing the game and loved it so much I put it on my phone so I can take it with me everywhere! Limbo was beautifully creepy and reminded me a bit of playing the old NES version of Prince of Persia, albeit with a bit more disturbing death sequences. For a monochromatic 2D side-scroller, and even without that qualifier, Limbo's animation was amazing; everything had a sense of grace and subtlety to it that you don't see in a whole lot of games or even movies. I think it's come to that time again with this post though; I have run out of updates for the time being but I will be sure to try and post more info when I have it, more thoughts on games, industry stuff, projects, and what-have-you. For the two or three people that mistakenly find my blog, I wish you a safe and happy holiday: please don't blow off too many appendages or set the fields ablaze.