here's another reason why pets are awesome

things learned:

• adding a pet to your character can make them seem more fresh and original
• even villains seem more interesting if they own a pet
• pets could also advance the plot of the story in different ways bc of they antics.

opinions:

• I hope when people are making their oc's they don't think of adding a pet as a way to make their character immediately interesting, but as an actual useful addition to the plot
• If there's an animal in whatever I'm watching I only care about that animal and if it lives or not. 

question: Can a pet also be a character on its own and not just a part of a main character?

weekly comments 5/17

learned:

I knew at some point I would run into a problem during my animation because things seemed to go smoothly and that didn't seem right to me. Well yay something happened.

want to learn:

there isn't much to learn at this time in the year. I guess now I'd like to work on making my resume look cool.

something frustrating:

Frustrating is an understatement. The thing happened to my audio and its completely messed up no matter what I do to try and fix it. Believe me I've tried everything. The audio tracks were fine and then all the sudden they start going out of synch. Its too late to do anything about it now.

something nice:

The trig course is over and now all thats left is review. and my pool is open now and thats all i care about.

check out this link yo:

http://vimeo.com/90252137

she uses these gloves and they help her make music on the computer. I know its not animation related but u could see how they could be used to help with certain animations.

anatomy in videogames

things learned:

• Psychologists believe that we subconsciously observe the size and location of shapes when we're looking at an object.
• The process of creating gollum from the hobbit was similar to forensic facial reconstruction because of how complex and rooted the design was.
• people can be more attached and believe a character more if a character has more familiar features.

opinions:

• it's amazing how far they've come with character design. And games are more enjoyable because of how similar characters look to us.
• I think they should maintain some imagination to the way characters look, if a character looked too perfect to humans it would seem too real to me

question: I love character design and creating myself. Is there a job where I can do that?

cartoonists on youtube

things learned:

• Youtube offers more creative freedom for animators
• Animators on youtube don't have to worry about deadlines, contracts, advertisement abandonment, and censorship like television animators need to think about.
• Cartoons on youtube also appeal more to adults and young adults 

opinions:

• I really like that cartoonists have more freedom on youtube because thats what they need to do, express themselves. And the success of some channels proves that people doing cartoons for youtube is successful as having it on TV. 
• I think it's also a good way to reach people. A lot of people are on the internet and they're always connected, so people can get noticed easier and build a fan base.

question: Does this mean that television cartoons will get less popular?

weekly comments 5/11

I learned that now its more important than ever to balance regular school and animation class because its so close to the end of the year. Which sucks because it puts a lot more stress on a lot of students but I hope everyone hangs in there.

I hope that I'll be able to finish my project, very bad.

Something nice this week was completing some artwork to put in my portfolio cause I never really complete anything--I've never had to.

Something frustrating is how much I've been procrastinating on some tasks. Even really simple things like doing laundry and cleaning my room :p

check out this link:

An anime style opening for super smash bros made by a 16 year old kid and yeah I'm super jealous. Although anime isn't my style, this person's skills are amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3KUZVkco4g

weekly comments 5/4

Things learned:

I knew that at some point I was going to have to do lip synching using my own voice this year. Even though I don't think my voice is voice acting material, its fun for practice.

What I want to learn:

I hope by the end of this month I'll be able to make improvements to all the animations I didn't finish. I guess my skills have improved a lot since last year.

Something that made me happy this week:

I guess it's lame to be happy about trig quizzes but I actually understood what was happening this week and i think I actually got a nice grade. I also finally had time to work on my project at home and I got a nice amount done in a day. I still have lip synching to do though. 

Something frustrating:

I don't know about finishing my project because of how fast I'm working so far. I'm getting about 2 scenes done in one class period and the drawing is taking up a lot of my time. And there's still lip synching to do. I guess I'm going to have to pull a couple of all nighters if I ever want to finish this. 

ay check out this link:

It's an animated short about selfie addiction!

http://animationart.tumblr.com/post/84249404881/once-upon-a-amber-ren

*annoying hipster voice* UGH, thats so cliché

things learned:

• A lot of films are seen at film festivals. And a lot of those films share the same qualities. They are used to much that they've become a cliché.
• These clichés range from clowns to cannibalism. It's hard to believe these are overused because I've never heard of these kinds of films. But thats probably because I've never been to a film festival in my life.
• Post Apocalyptic is another one. Everyone has their own theory on how the world will be destroyed and what it'll look like after. Like, everyone. So I kind of agree that it has become a cliché.

opinions:

• I can't tell if this is article is for constructive criticism or they're just listing overused clichés. 
• This article should have something in there about encouraging film makers to go outside the box and create something different. ENCOURAGE THEM. Don't just list clichés and say, "Don't to this", "we've seen this too much and its become boring". It's all about making them want to create something different and achieve higher success,  not feel bad about what they've already done. 

question: I didn't know short films were allowed to be more than 40 mins long. How long is too long?

pixar makes painterly CG: its totally awesome

The video was the first thing I watched and thankfully in the article, the new texturing technique was explained a lot better.

learned:

• Artists can paint 2D illustrations over some frames in an animation, and the frames between will be done themselves while maintaining the same style as the other frames.
• The changing of styles is unclear to whether it's a step backward or step forward using traditional paintings instead of photorealism.
• The painting is put on top of the animation and it doesn't change the animation at all, because it was already created. It just makes it look cooler.

opinions:

• I love this new technique, and its similar to the one they used when making the short Paperman which I'm crazy about. But what I love most is that it combines the work of animators and painters and illustrators and any other kind of 2D art to be used. I think it's because I'm more of a 2D illustrator myself, and I would like to explore 3D animation more but there's a way to combine both, thats why I like it so much.
• I like this new technique and I hope a lot of people can start using it soon. But I don't want them to stop doing photorealism because thats what people like the most about animation, some shots look so realistic but more polished and defined. It's amazing that it can be created.

question:

Is it a long process? does it make rendering take longer?