opinion on 3D character generator

I could see why people would think this is cheating, but people need to think about how much time it takes to create their own rig. I think this character generator is brilliant for people who just want to do purely animation instead of creating characters. They can use these ready to animate rigs and learn how it works and experiment with animating it. I would rather use these for the kinds of characters you put in the background of a scene instead of using it as a main character.

It is also greatly useful for beginning animators. There's people that just want to do animation and instead of creating animated characters, just like there's people who create 3D characters instead of animating. And it's available for free for students and educators so obviously it can be used for people trying to learn 3D animation. I haven't looked at the actual character generator but it looks like it includes many different body types and even more hair, eye, and skin colors. But all in all I think its very helpful for people who want to learn and practice animation skills. They have a character ready for them and don't have to spend hours making their own character

directing comedy

What I learned:

• At certain times in comedy you've gone too far with jokes and have lost the audience. Or the joke wasn't expanded enough and it only ends being a little funny. 
• Great comedies have drama at its core. It's not just purely comedic situations, it's making light out of a serious situation that viewers can connect with. 
• Your film won't look perfect until you're finished editing. So until then you don't really know what your film looks like

thoughts:

• I saw Grown Ups 2 I probably watched about 30mins of the film and I still had no idea what the plot was, or if there really was a plot. I think they could've done a good job if there was an actual serious plot involved and not just comedy the entire way through and some jokes weren't funny at all.
• Some of these 'commandments' don't work for everyone since some people find different things funny 

question:

do you have to write a funny script or can some parts be improvised?

lighting tipz

What I learned:

• actual Legos were not used in the Lego movie so they had to make the lego brick as realistic as possible in animation. Even making them sticky with hair and dust and some having thumb and finger prints on them
• they created scenes with actual lego pieces figured out what kind of lighting they should use in the movie
• the first shot won't always look the way you want. they worked hours on the first shot's lighting and then decided they needed to try a different approach

thoughts:

• In the very last paragraph, when he states "There's always a terrifying when you can't imagine how a film will get done, and we certainly went through that on film", I can understand what he means. In every project you're trying to get done, there's so many things you have to get past to finish it. 
• these tips are very important and should be taken into consideration bc they worked tirelessly on this film and it turned out spectacular. 

how long have they been working the lighting of this movie? 

Weekly comments 3/1

what I learned:

• Friday we learned about bones and joints and it was a nice break from doing maya all the time. I also learned that I have way too much schoolwork to do and i haven't been able to do any of my animation at home yet

what I want to learn:

• I want to learn how to make a realistic tree with leaves and everything in maya. the last couple days i've just been putting a bunch of spheres on a cylinder and it looks silly 

something nice this week:

• i went to this really cute store that has a huge cozy knitting section at the back of the store and they also have knitting classes and open knitting too, aw yeah. I also saw The Lego Movie and it was amazing!!!!!!! Chris Pratt and Charlie Day are two of my favorite actors and they both starred in it, which was perfect. 

something blah:

• Just recently I lost my flash drive and that was totally my fault cause i just put it in my jacket pocket and not anywhere safer. Maybe I left it at school hopefully!!!! Also I've been sucking badly at trig and getting bad grades. I've missed English a lot lately and as a result I have no idea what The Great Gatsby is about so I'm getting not so good grades in there too. 

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cool link:

http://www.3dtutorialzone.com/tutorial?id=99

it shows you who to edit a pivot point so you can rotate thing at a certain area wooooooo