VFS

Back in the Saddle again

2008-08-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, schools over and I am back home, beginning the job hunt, working on the demo reel and eating lots of fatty, sugary, salty American food that they just don't understand how to make in Vancouver.
I would like to direct you to my brand new blog that I now have the time and resources to dedicate to. You can find it at: http://davincioped.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by,

DaVinci

more animations

2007-10-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a good week of rest.
I thought I'd upload a few more animations before I start 3rd semester.

hammer

throw

End of 2nd semester

2007-10-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well the 2nd semester is finally coming to an end, and I've been working like crazy trying to grasp the finer points of animation. I have not had much time to post anything lately but here's one of my more recent animations:

cliffhanger

More words later. Right now, sleep.

Sculpting

2007-09-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well the fall has come to Vancouver. It's pleasant here, leaves falling, not too cold, that still settling over the city.
I finished painting my sculpture, at least for now. I would like to paint it more later, or do a digital image using a photo of the sculpture as the base but there's no time for such pursuits right now.
I have been focusing on animation around the clock. Animating for hours every day watching cartoons before bed and while I'm eating. Analyzing Pixar and Disney films in slow motion or frame by frame replays. I think its helping. I seem to be improving.
It's kind of a funny thing. I've been working so hard to grasp the animation. This character I made just by following along in class a couple hours a week and I think it came out pretty good. Maybe I'm going into the wrong business!
Anyway here are the pictures of my sculpture. I will try to post some more animations soon.

The Walk cycle revisited

2007-08-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well it's back to the old walk cycle. This is one of those basic things you have to get down. Here is one of my better versions of the walk cycle:

walk cycle

Then you can just turn the animation up a little and you get mister peppy:

peppy walk

And here's a guy stepping up to stand on a box. Easy in life, actually pretty hard to animate:

stepup

sculpture pt 2

2007-08-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

So the sculpture that I showed a while back that was just a skeleton has now been turned into a character.
Some of you might recognize him as Darkseid an enemy of Superman and others. I added a few pictures from the comic books for reference for those that don't know what he looks like.
I think that I got a pretty good likeness.
Next step, baking (which I've done) then, priming and painting.

more work

2007-08-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple more animations I've been working on and a color picture of my character for character design.

fighter

slam dunk

Metmorphosis

2007-07-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Well I think its finally kicking in. That subtle beginning to change where you realize that you are becoming whatever it is your trying to obtain.
I was standing at the bus stop when it happened. Waiting... impatiently as usual. We've been working on walk cycles and everything else at school and I was anxious to get home and back to work. Suddenly I realized there was just as much to learn right where I was standing. Across the street a bus going the other way let off a crowd of people and I began to watch them as they disembarked. They were walking. I looked for the little kick we all give before or front foot lands in front of us and watched to see how straight each individual's back leg became as they pushed off of it. I watched to try and see how much difference their is in a person's height at their highest and lowest points.
I saw one man leaning forward somewhat stiffly, his arms taut at his sides, and noted how it made him look determined and or angry. I filed that posture away in my memory banks for when I need to make someone walk down the street angrily, or with great purpose.
I was standing there still when the bus pulled up. I could have stood there for hours, just watching people and I thought to myself, I may never be bored again.
Anyway the hard work continues.
We are doing portraits of our characters for character design class. First in black and white and then in color. Above is the latest on that. We all had to do the same thing. Jack the giant killer. But we each got to do our own take on it. I decided to make mine into a Western.

We have a number of drills we do in Animation class but every weekend I try to attempt something a little harder. I posted the last two here:

Basketball

Man Versus Monkey

They are not close to done, but I doubt if I'll ever bother to correct all the timing issues they have. I just do what I can each weekend and then move on to next week's class. They were both fun to try and I learned quite a bit on each one. I can't wait till I can really start doing some more impressive work.

Final film

2007-07-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

Well I guess this day had to come sooner or later. It's a funny thing. We all worked our butts off for 6 months on our films and now none of us can stand to watch our own movies. But its time I posted mine for all the folks back to home to watch.

watch it here

It came out okay, but I hope the next one is better.
Heres the poster that I made for it too.
Take care all.

-DaVinci

Week 2

2007-07-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

Well they don't waste much time at Think Tank. We have several projects, two of which are Creating a character concept and sculpting a humanoid figure from the skeleton up.
We were allowed to mix genres and pretty much do whatever on our character, but that character had to be Jack the giant slayer. I decided to do mine as a western/fantasy mix. That's jack over there. We learned some cool techniques for fleshing out basic characters. One is to just start with the silhouette.

The skeleton will eventually be covered in muscles and then turned into a character. Probably something from Marvel or DC. His pose is just a basic one to be adjust later, but I think he has an interesting character already. I'm not quite sure if he's shrugging (what, me worry?) or if he just wants a hug.

Speaking of Marvel, our character design instructor writes and draws for Marvel. And our animation teacher actually did some of the animation on Star Wars episode one. He is a cool guy but its so weird when we're sitting in this tiny classroom with him and he starts saying things like "George Lucas said something to me once that I'll never forget..."

I can't really imagine a better place to have landed. Life is funny that way... When I first came out here I didn't even know that think tank existed, but now it feels like this was the reason I came here all along.

Think Tank

2007-07-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

So I find myself at a new school.
VFS finished up in late June (graduation is on the 5th) and I had about six days off before I was in another program, at another school.
Goodbye VFS hello Think Tank Training Centre. http://www.tttc.ca/
I like the new school. It's a little small for a person of my proportions. There's a pipe suspended from the ceiling that I'm pretty sure has my number, but I have successfully evaded it up to this point.
The place is smaller, but so are the classes. There are only seven of us, so that means more individual attention which is good. This class is similarly diverse, if not even more so. There is, Hercules from South Africa (One time the teacher came in and we were the only two in the class. We introduced ourselves as Hercules and DaVinci and the instructor stared at us incredulously. There's Yerald from Venezuala dn Yoav from Isreal, Jackie from Canada, and Rodrigo from Brazil and mat from Australia who fell down on his bike and has been wandering around with a bandage on his face, drinking soup and soda from a straw, poor guy.
All of the instructors are really enthusiastic and energetic. I think this will be a great environment for me to keep building my skill set.
I will be posting my final short from VFS soon, but I have to compress it down to a smaller file size first.
Thanks to everyone who has read about my experiences at VFS. I will try to keep updating at Think Tank and hopefully in 8 months I will be blogging about my new job.

Some city

2007-05-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

Summer has come to Vancouver, and the city is coming alive.
The cherry blossoms have burst into blooms of pink fire all over the city. And other flowers are blooming, like the red ones that sprouted on a bush outside my house.
And people are coming alive too. the streets fill up whenever the sun is out. Every day it seems like a hear a new language on the sidewalks, one that I've never heard before. The people here are from everywhere. Europe, China, the Phillipines, India, everywhere.
There is a man that sings opera as he walks down the sidewalk. I passed close by him for the first time today and I could actually feel the sound of his voice. Vibrations. Frequencies. I felt it 3 times as I passed, the vibrato from his voice. One was like a drumbeat, the other like a guitar or violin string, beneath your finger, the third was higher than that... like that sensation you get when the hair stands up on the back of your neck and your skin tingles. I'd like to sing like that someday, although I don't know if I have the pipes.
Anyway, I've drawn the assignment of making the class poster. I've decided to go with a disco theme. The plan is to get everybody's character into the scene, but here's a sneak peek of the set I made with only my Brazilian friend Norman's character in the shot.

Two things you don't mess with in Vancouver

2007-04-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

There's an old saying that you learn something new everyday. That old adage is doubly true when you are a stranger in a new city that also happens to be in another country. I have learned that there are two things you don't mess with in this city. The first: Tim Horton's.
You can say racist things, you can say sexist things, you can curse, you can spray off color commentary all over the place around here but if you say something bad about Tim Horton's (like for instance making fun of the fact that they call donut holes Timbits) the average Canadian will be ready to drop the gloves in a hot second.
The other thing you don't mess with is Canucks' hockey. I found this out while trying to find some place that might have the Pistons playoff game starting two hours before the Canucks game seven. I don't have that many sports channels at my place so I miss most Pistons games. I called one sports bar and the guy that answered the phone seemed mad that I asked. I'm sure he was wondering how anyone could even consider watching another game when one of the last surviving scions of Canadian hockey's fate was balanced on the precarious perch of a single game.
I remember how we used to circle the wagons for game sevens in Detroit. So its not that I don't understand the feeling that has come alive in this city. It's just that I don't care.
Although little by little its sinking in. I do love sports and I wonder from time to time what it would be like to hit a big slapshot, or streak down the ice on a breakaway trying to beat the opposing goalie with the game on the line.
Then I remember that I'm a 6' 6'' half-black man that was born in Detroit, and raised on Pistons basketball. Talk aboot and identity crisis.
Anyway I was wandering home from the dairy queen and I saw a screen in the window of a restaurant called Moxie's. I stopped and squinted. Where those basketball players? Yes, they were! And wearing white jersey's trimmed in red and Pistons blue? Was it possible? Then I saw number 22 loping down the court with that peculiar gate that could only belong to Tayshaun Prince, the 6' 9" forward with the 7' 2" wingspan. It was the Pistons! Moxie's indeed. It took a considerable amount that particular trait to display American basketball in a city whose mind's and hearts always have and probably always will belong to Ice Hockey.
So I was able to catch at least part of the Pistons' game, more than half actually before the impending game seven blew nervous Canucks fans in like a sudden squall and drove me back to the relative safety of the shelter of my home. Now I'm reduced to an internet ticker that tells me that the Pistons are currently leading 73 to 63 while I listen to a crowd booing the American national anthem at the beginning of the Canucks' game. You learn something new everyday. Today I learned two things. 1. You don't mess with Canucks' hockey and 2. You can buck even the strongest trends with a little Moxie.

Term 2 =long days, late nights, caffeine and letting myself go.

2007-04-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

Finally the end of term 2 is at hand. 2 down, one to go. Most of us have more or less eschewed all but the most rudimentary and imperative hygienic rituals.
In other words we still brush our teeth and shower twice a week whether we need it or not, but shaving, haircuts and other such nonsense is completely out.
I will finally have the opportunity to take the clippers to my hair tonight, so I thought I'd preserve my flowing locks for posterity.

Other than that things are going pretty well. We are getting ready for the final term where we will basically just be working on our final films. So at the end of the third term I'll probably look a lot like this again. You gotta love 3d animation school!

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Wolverine

2007-04-13T00:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some still images of a model of Wolverine that I recently finished. He is kind of hard to animate the way I have him rigged but I can pose him pretty well for stills.

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Library drop box

2007-04-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here's one for my library compatriots: This is how they do dropbox when they're closed at the local Vancouver Public Library.
No cart, no box, no nothin'. You are literally throwing your books on the floor and you can see them from the outside.
I had to shoot a picture of this one.

Raisin soda, Chicken McCroquettes and other oddities...

2007-03-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

Pictured here are some examples of the mapleastrophe, or mapastrophe as I like to call it. For some reason all the American fast food chains seem to feel the need to insinuate a maple leaf somewhere into their logo. In fairness it is easy to forget that you are not in American when you're in Canada, so I guess its good for that, but you'd remember anyway as soon as you get you're money out.
I still can't help but feel ripped off sometimes when I pay with a twenty and they hand me back a five and a big handful of change. "I get 9 dollars, what's all this change? You owe me 9 dollars!"
The other thing that sticks out is the fact that on the other side of every product, you find that products name listed again in French. Most of the time it's completely in comprehensible to me because I don't speak a lick of French. I'm learning though. Apparently the French word for Grape is Raisin, which my sister pointed out to me while I was in the middle of pointing out that "gross, they have raisin flavored pop here!"
Also, there must not be a French word for nugget, because they call their Mcnugget's chicken Mccroquettes. I'm not sure which name is less appetizing, but as an interesting side note the English translation of croquette is croquette.

cartoony robot

2007-03-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

So the new look is in. on the top, the old robot. On the bottom is the new one. He has a more cartoonish, kid-friendly look to him now, which actually works out well with the changes in my story.
I have changed course somewhat myself. I have decided that the animation path is not for me. I'm going to focus more of my energies on character modeling, instead. I find it very calming and the hours just seem to disappear without my knowing where they've gone when I'm building a character. I will still finish my final film, but it is my intent to have a modeling reel as well by the end of class, so hopefully I will have some things that I've built to show on here soon.

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Things I have learned while staying in Vancouver.

2007-03-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

Things I have learned while staying in Vancouver:

1. Unlike other cities, carrying an umbrella with you does not prevent it from raining.
2. People lift their umbrellas to a prescribed height when passing each other on the street. This intended courtesy results in men of above average height (me) living in constant fear of being poked in the eye.
3. Under no circumstances will mashed potatoes be sold at fast food restaurants. I'm not sure whether this is the result of a trade embargo with Idaho, or some sort of Canadian focus group, but neither KFC nor church's has mashed potatoes as a side option. Instead they try to pass off something they call Poutine. It's fries with cheese and gravy.
4. There are no paper dollars here. 5s and up. The rest is all coins.
5. "Choked" in Canada = "Pissed off" in America, which I'm told Canadians find vulgar as a term.
6. "Zed" = "Z"
7. "Poutine" = mashed potatoes and gravy.
8. "Sorry" = "Excuse me." Unless someone is in your way then you say excuse me.
9. There are either no leash laws, or they are not enforced, the dogs run wild and free here.
10. Vancouverites don't tuck their shirts in. Doing so immediately exposes one as a rube and an outsider. Don't ask how I found that one out.
11. Canadians think that Americans talk funny, when clearly, they are the ones that talk funny.
12. Vancouverites (unlike Ann Arborites) will actually stop their cars and allow you to cross the street when you're walking. The funny thing is though, they are not near as nice to other drivers. They are constantly honking their horns at one another, even though they barely speak to each other at all outside of their cars, and would never be that rude in any other situation.

3d animatic shots

2007-03-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

Here are a bunch of shots from my latest animatic. By this point the story has changed so much that most of these scenes will never appear, but at least I can post them to my blog. I really needed to scale back my final film to something more easily understood and something that would be more easily understood in a story that's supposed to take place in under a minute. I'm also trying to model more characters. I would like to have a modeling reel to go along with my final film, so there is plenty to keep me busy, even over the vacation coming up in April.

My painting

2007-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

We were also called upon to do a color panel for our presentation. i was pretty happy with this one. Everyone else seemed to like it. I would like to get into some more digital painting, but I doubt I'll have the time.

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More images

2007-03-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

Here are some more images from a recent presentation. Take a good look at XJ-800 my main character's face. It is the last time you'll see it, at least looking like that. Revisions have been called for. My instructors have asked that his face have less of a soft human feel to better match his body, so we'll see what he becomes.
The others are just shots of the shiny new XJ-1000 models, the skinny punks that give our hero so much trouble.

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Alternative lifestyle robots

2007-03-06T16:37:00.002-08:00

Funny things can happen when you are animating in one perspective and then switch to another. I was animating a proxy of my robot for a walk cycle animation and had done most of the work in in the side view perspective. As you can see below the cycle looked fine from that view:
Side walk

But then I checked it out from perspective, (or in this case 3/4) view:
Front walk

...not exactly the kind of walk the assignment called for. A few adjustments were in order, but I saved the file with that particular walk. You never know when it might come in handy.

Alternative lifestyle robots

2007-03-06T16:37:00.001-08:00

Alternative lifestyle robots

2007-03-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

Funny things can happen when you are animating in one perspective and then switch to another. I was animating a proxy of my robot for a walk cycle animation and had done most of the work in in the side view perspective. As you can see below the cycle looked fine from that view:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5517211941104625190

But then I checked it out from perspective, (or in this case 3/4) view:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-2904131566354068889

Deeetroit Basketbaaaall!

2007-02-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

I finally got to see a Pistons game. I needed that. Today's game against the bulls was national (or I guess international, technically speaking). The Pistons won it in a 2 point thriller, but I think I would have enjoyed it almost as much even if they lost. And since it was the Bulls I even got to see Big Ben play again. After watching about 80 of their 82 games each of their past few seasons, those guys feel almost like family to me. It was nice to see some familiar faces, even if they were only on the TV.

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The Library

2007-02-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

So I finally made it to the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library (for all my library people). It's the coliseum like building. It was pretty cool. Six floors, and a nice collection. They are much more archival than the AADL. Not too many of the newer CDs or DVDs. They still have a lot of VHS in their collection. They have a food court that surrounds the area outside the library... I didn't notice any self-check machines but I didn't look that hard, Oh and they just barcode their books. No plastic covers or anything like that.
I was on the Seabus, a ferry that crosses the water, that same day. It's the fastest way to North Vancouver. They have a marketplace that kind of reminded me of Kerrytown up there. I bought a caramel apple in the chocolate shop, and took a ling hard look at their caramel squares and white chocolate and peanut butter bars and all the other stuff in there. It actually didn't rain at all that day. It was a really nice trip and a good break from sitting in front of a computer all day for weeks at a time.

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my robot

2007-02-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

We've come down to the end of Term 1 now. That means I'm a third of the way there! Our last assignment before our term 1 exam was to model the main character for our story. So here he is. The robot I've posted so many drawings of. He is in his early stages but already has a pretty nice range of emotions if I do say so myself. All in all I'm pretty happy with him, which is encouraging for my final film.
As I mentioned we also took an exam. It was an all day affair involving a written portion with multiple choice, true or false, and short answer sections. We also had a practical portion where we had to pick a toy out of a box (they were wrapped in paper bags so we couldn't see what we were getting) and then we had to block it out (a primitive, model of the item using simple shapes such as cubes, spheres and cylinders) and then animate it. Lucky me I drew a spider. That's eight legs to block out, and animate folks, plus did I mention I hate spiders? Anyway I completed the assignment. It wasn't too hard considering what was expected of us and the amount of time given. You can look at it here:

Spider Video

Hopefully that link will work. It is a ".CA" which is the Canadian version of ".com" but hopefully that won't interfere with anything.

After a short break we return for term 2. Which means lots more animation assignments and further refinements of our stories. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing now that things are coming together. I should have more to post pretty soon...

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Socializing

2007-02-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

Once in a while we manage to push away from our computers. We all went out for Nick's birthday. The Red Robin. Sometimes we hit the basketball court. That's me and Gonzalo shooting on the court. Picture to the right is from left to right: Gonzalo, Nick, Sreejit, myself and Reggie. Not pictured: 30 seconds later when we all get up pay the bill and shuffle back into the lab where we pretty much live now.
Our row is filled with basketballs and clay models, books on animation, storyboards etc. Its also starting to get a little ripe in there. I might have to bring in one of those car air freshener's or something because somebody's been pulling one too many all nighters.
2 big projects coming up. The walk cycle where we make our character rigs walk for the first time and the first revision of what will eventually be the final model of our character. So I should have some interesting things to post soon.

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Robots, robots, robots

2007-02-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

As the story "obsolete" has evolved I have gone through a number of changes. Here are a series of sketches. The blue circled robot on the page full of robot faces is the current (and hopefully final version) of the story's protagonist, model X-J 800.
On the page below are some preliminary designs for the other model of robots in the story the shiny new X-J 1000 model.
The final page down at the bottom is the full model, body and legs, of the current X-J 1000 series. They will be taunting, mocking and otherwise giving our protagonist a hard time. To the right of them is the updated version of X-J 800's body.
It has been a lot of fun doing the concept portion of the assignment. I will have to work really hard in the coming months to make sure that the final product matches up to the original concept.

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Sets, waffles, and the superbowl

2007-02-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

here is a basic environment of the junkyard in which my story takes place. We had to block it out, and then start the modeling process. The colors go on later and a lot of refinements will be made but this is the basic set where all of the action will take place.

Today I planned to go and check out this waffle place I'd seen before. They have a big sign that says authentic Belgian waffles. So I went down there and lo and behold they were closed. All day. How do you close a waffle place on Sunday? Seriously, I'm asking. It's just wrong.
So there I was standing in the rain outside the waffle place, that sign taunting me. I searched for a Denny's, there are a lot of those out here, but all in vain. I finally just came home, bought some syrup and made my own dang breakfast.

Sports bars out here will show a regular season hockey game over the Superbowl. That's almost as disturbing to me as a waffle place that's closed on Sundays. Things like this make me realize that I am truly a stranger in a strange land. It's the SUPERBOWL people! Sigh.

Next up is the infamous bouncing ball animation...

The days are just packed.

2007-02-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

Today we started with our usual early class of lectures. Then we had a break during which we were able to do spend some time in the computer lab, and take a life drawing class. Me and a couple other guys also took the opportunity to go to a local court and get into a game or two. Then at 6:30 we had a night class where we met our advanced modeling instructor.
She has worked for EA games (makers of Madden and other sports games. She now works for propaganda games. She worked on Def Jame Vendetta (for fighting game fans.)

We also met our animation instructor this week. He worked for Hanna Barbara for a while before becoming a teacher full time. It's pretty cool that we're getting the chance to be taught by industry professionals. I have three projects due during the upcoming week, so I'll probably post some of the final images when they are done.

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A word on Starbucks

2007-01-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

I go to Starbucks sometimes and feed the corporate monster because they have free wireless and no TV and there's nothing to do but sit there and do your work.
But I think that I saw 3 Starbucks within 2 blocks. I'm not exaggerating people. It's out of control here! It makes the Omnipresence of Starbucks in Ann Arbor look like mere ubiquity.

Also I'm adding a e-mail links to these blogs so anyone reading this can send a message more easily.

right here at the bottom. -----> e-mail me

This way when Starbucks sends me a cease and desist order, they won't have to fish around through their worldwide database for my e-mail address. :)

Presentations

2007-01-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Presentation day went pretty well for me, except for a few frantic moments where a group of us students, thinking that we had plenty of time waltzed up to the copier on the 4th floor and then found out that it had run out of toner, then ran downstairs to the 3rd floor copier only to find out that we needed our student pin numbers to make the copies, then ran to the computer to check our e-mail for said pin... you get the idea.
There were some really good stories in there. I hope that everyone who pitched today has the opportunity to bring their projects to fruition. It will be an impressive array of final films if we do. Either way it will be fun to watch them all evolve from the seed of a concept in a brainstorming session all the way to the final product.
We have stories about animals playing checkers. Super heroes, robots, a superstitious man and his lottery ticket, a couch potato, a thirsty man in the dessert, a bowl full of vegetables, and so many more. It was really a great time seeing everyone's vision. It seems to say so much about who they are and what their interests are. Like watching a 6-4, 200 plus pound dude from Brazil act out his animation concept to the tune of Stevie Wonder's very superstitious. That one was a showstopper!
Now comes the hard part, we just have to model (sculpt in virtual space) rig (apply skeletons so they move properly) light, build props, animate, edit, add sound, and of course the biggie render (the time consuming process of waiting for the computer to turn all the information into an actual picture 24 times to give you a second of animation, looking at it, seeing how its still not quite right, fixing it and waiting all over again.)
But for now I think I'll just breathe a sigh of relief that, for the moment, public speaking is over. Tomorrow it's nose back to grindstone/monitor and we'll see what we can do.

Hope everyone out there is doing well. Hopefully soon I'll have some screen caps of some props for my story.

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-Davinci

2007-01-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

So this is the protagonist to my short story.
A robot who has become obsolete. In the story he
tries to reenter the work force but finds himself incapable
of doing the job that was once his reason for existence.
But when he meets another impaired robot his fortune's change.

Below are a bunch of other characters that didn't make the cut.
One was a kid outside a toy store. A basketball playing frog. And my
personal favorite, of the rejected characters, a cookie stealing ninja.
That one would have been fun to animate.

So today was a pretty good day. I learned some quick and dirty Maya tricks that I didn't know and we got to watch our instructor work on the projector. I've seen it before but I forgot how quickly and efficiently things can be created by someone who really knows what their doing. I need to really focus on getting that comfortable with the program. You can do some pretty amazing things pretty quickly when you work with it all the time.

Presentations are tomorrow. I have to show my concept and storyboards for what will eventually become my final project. So I guess I better get used to my robot character. I will be seeing alot of him for the next five months.

Ramping up

2007-01-17T18:05:00.000-08:00

Things are heating up now. We're lighting rooms and bouncing balls. You always start off bouncing balls. Don't ask me why, it's quintessential like that.
Pretty simple stuff all in all, but not as simple as actually bouncing a ball. There are Translate, Rotate, and Scale/squash nodes, and your XYZ coordinates, keyframes and frames per second settings to juggle. All so you can take a sphere and move it across the screen, and distort it in a fashion exaggerated enough to make it look like it's really moving.
It's exciting to be getting to the point of really making things happen again, but I seriously need to spend some time brainstorming. Next week we have to have an idea of what our final project will be. So that means what ever I decide on I'm stuck with it for the next 5 months so I better either love it, or learn to.
No pictures today, but maybe next time. I should have something worth showing next week.

The prettiest thing

2007-01-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we decided to check out the beach here. From the street it didn't look like anything special but as we got closer there was this incredible green water, and a distant shore on the other side where homes that swept up the mountainside were partially obscured by a looming fog.
There was a wind driven marrionette of a swimmer perched on a high pole, her legs working in an ungainly cadence, trying to make her way through the deep clouds that surrounded her.
While we were standing there, looking out at the sea a great wind rose up and the gulls took to the air crying out. It felt like the opening of new doors, like the beginning of new possibilities. It felt like the absence of worry, like the absence of thought itself. But the wind died down, and the siren's song fell silent.
And I thought, we are all of us, living through the hours and days and years to get to moments like that.
Tomorrow we focus on the new day's tasks. And sunlight on the treetops, and wind blown snow glittering like diamond dust goes unnoticed as we pass through the throngs of rush hour traffic. Gray skies may fill us with gloom, rather than hope and cold winds may shake us shivering in our winter coats. But within those experiences lies the dormant seed of flowers unbloomed and springs unblossomed. The trick is not to let the gloom of today obscure the gift of hope that each tomorrow brings.

Blizzard

2007-01-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Taffy's last night here. We got off the bus and walked through a dark night and a bit of a hailstorm to get to the museum of Anthropology. The art in there was amazing. There were old steins and ceramics and porcelain that has somehow survived for hundreds of years. There was a canoe and totem poles, and African masks. It was a pretty amazing place. I'm glad we got to see it before she went.

So now its just me. The place sure is quiet now. I guess its a great studying environment anyway. It has been cold and gray lately, but the task ahead keeps me focused. They say that spring comes in February around here though. I'll be looking forward to the change.

Animation

2007-01-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Today in class our instructor was talking about some of the better animation and animators out there. He was giving us an overview of animation in general, in Maya, and books we should read and clips we could watch, and it started to reignite my passion for animation. It started to change the way that I think about it.
When I was younger I was always thinking about action and special effects and the fantastic voyages and vistas you could create. Today I was thinking about simplicity. A man picking up a ball or a rock, a glance from one person to another, walking, a smile, these are some of the easiest things to do in real life. Yet, I think they are, perhaps, the greatest challenges in animation.
I suddenly felt excited to try these simple things. I felt like a child, like the whole world was new and the simplest things could be entertain me endlessly. Maybe that’s why we do art, because it makes us feel like a kid again, because it makes us feel like anything can happen, like we can make it happen.
Some of you will know this already but when I was a child it was my fondest wish to emulate the old Walt Disney films. All these years later, between wanting to make comic books and be a great author, do graphic design, or photography or web design, I have come full circle, back to animation but with a new tool. Its funny how things come back around like that. How you find yourself back at the beginning again, and how comfortable and good it can feel to meet an old love and still realize that the thrill’s still there.
So we sit at computers knowing little or nothing of what is to come, watering our dreams and trying to make them grow. We’re at the very beginning with no telling what the end result will be. We’re trying to become illusionists, trying to become world builders and story tellers, we’re trying to bring life to sculptures made of ether. We’re trying to become Zen masters who see the beauty and complexity in small simple things, see the joy of life, in the first steps of our own creations. We’re trying to become animators.

Orientation

2007-01-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

For the past two days we’ve had orientation. We’re learning the rules of the school. Don’t plagiarize, don’t use school computers to rip Cds, the usual stuff. We also got to see some demo reels from former students that were pretty impressive.
I made a few friends. The cool thing about VFS is that people come from all over to go there. I ate lunch the other day with people from Sacramento, Toronto, and Argentina. We also have people from Mexico and India, Japan, China and Korea. It was an amazing thing walking into the theatre where we all were gathered on that first day. It was like walking into a UN meeting, I saw so many faces from so many nations all gathered in one place to pursue a common goal. Vancouver on the whole seems like that. You never know what accents or languages you might hear on the train or on the street. You see and pass people on the street that you can just tell by their dress and demeanor come from far away places.
We got our school kit today. A VFS backpack full of bottles and umbrellas and other things with Vancouver Film School written on it. They gave us cards to get into the building and we are supposed to get our student Ids soon. I can’t wait to get my hands on that, and see what kind of picture they took of me. The guy had to adjust the camera and bring it way up when it was time to take my picture so we’ll see how it looks.
Next week we should get into a little more of the Maya program itself. I’m hoping to get some screen captures on here once we start the actual projects. They say that some pretty interesting people will be coming through the school. People who work at Industrial light and magic and Pixar. It will be a great opportunity to be able to talk to industry professionals and get their input on my work.
I hope everyone is doing well in their respective cities, and their respective lives. I will report back next week when we get our first real projects.

The Saddest Day

2007-01-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

It's checkout time. The Residence Inn in Vancouver has been good to us. They were courteous and friendly and kept the rooms neat and nice, but most of all they fed us breakfast. A complimentary breakfast buffet. And for those in the know that means free. All the food you can eat for breakfast, for free, every morning right there like the sun rising in the east, except sometimes the sky is overcast and you can't see the sun, but I saw that breakfast buffet every morning. They had eggs and sausage, pancakes and waffles. They had pastries and coffee and orange, grapefruit, and apple juices. They had muffins and hash browns, oatmeal and cold cereal. They had several kinds of yogurt and you could even make yourself a breakfast burrito if you wanted, although I'm not sure why anyone would.
But today it's raining, the skies are gray and it seems fitting. Because tomorrow I have find and make my own breakfast. I guess its true what they say, that all good things come to an end.

So adios Marriot residence inn, adios free all you can eat breakfast buffet every morning. Adios yogurt with strawberry sauce on it and lemon filled pastries. You will be missed, and won't soon be forgotten.

Aquarium

2006-12-30T15:05:00.000-08:00

Since my sister and I succeeded in finding me a place to live yesterday, we decided to do something fun today. So we went to the Vancouver Aquarium. I'll keep the blabbing to a minimum here are some pictures.

48 hours

2006-12-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

I’m finally here. It seems like such a long strange journey. Flight is a sudden shift in time and space. You can be in one place and time, and within a few hours find yourself in a completely different one.
But the train is different. It starts slow, rolling along and the landscape changes almost imperceptibly at times. Faded flatlands transform into dry grassy hills that, in time, evolve into mountains. To come here by train feels like more than a trip, it feels like a journey.
I won’t soon forget strange landscapes of a city in Indiana whose name I never caught, a city that seemed to made almost entirely of wrought iron and steel, where great cranes stretched up into gray skies. Barrels and rods covered the earth in lieu of grass. The train sank down into a concrete tunnel and everything went dark. It felt almost like we were descending into some strange new world out of a science fiction movie. When we emerged it was into a whole new world where cows grazed what little grass was still green and the sun was settling into the Western horizon. All the while as the world changed without, there was the world within the train and it was changing too as old passengers exited at their stops and new ones boarded. Like the raspy voiced, tattooed man who always seemed angry about something, and couldn’t wait for the next smoke break. Or the little boy who kept running up and down the aisles back and forth giggling as he went, until my sister suggested that we hold out a paper cup filled with water to aid him in his impromptu marathon. We met people in the dining cars and were reminded that people can get along, even strangers who are suddenly thrust into one another's space. People seem to get along fine when they have, but those times are so few and far between now.
It was night when we passed through the mountains of Montana. We never really saw them at all. Unfortunate because we were looking forward to the sight of them after all the flat plains we’d passed through. But in the peaceful hours that presaged the dawn, I saw lonely houses, their porch lights glowing on snow covered hills with nothing at all around for miles. I can’t imagine what it could be like to live so far away from the rest of the world. Are they lonely, or contented? Do they long for bright cities, do they smile more or worry less?
In Whitefish Montana we passed a cheerfully decorated house where people in red vests stood on their porch and waved energetically as the train passed. it reminded me of my youth when we still celebrated Christmas with egg nog and trimmed trees and sugar cookies frosted with icing of green and white and red. I didn't know there were still people honoring old traditions like that.
Soon after that the journey was over And the time that was so long in passing, seemed little more than a moment, in memory. We saw more mountains and beyond them the sea.
That night I was sitting in a hotel room looking out at the Vancouver skyline, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Within a week’s time classes will have started and the real work will have begun. But tomorrow there is the business finding a place to stay, a new phone a dozen other various and sundry items I will need for my time here.
There’s also the little matter of a lime crush I saw at the local 7-11 tonight. A lime green drink, that I’ll buy with a bright blue five dollar bill. I just might learn to like it here.