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?

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