Animatic Vrs 0.5

Spent most of this labbing time working through this again.
I lost the flash file to the 0.4 animatic somehow. Hence Completely re-doing the end.
I wanted the puppy to get the cake.
Not sure about the middle of the end sequence.

Here's Version 0.5

(yes you still need Flash player)

Rigging course, on my own.

I'm learning some of the fun things about rigging.
Actually a lot of this makes sense once I figure out what the book is going on about.
Though I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time but did the second.
Picture shows my little hand rotation controlling the skeleton hand.

(google thinks that 'rigging' means with rope, and puts up rope ads. I laugh)

No, really, I'm working...

I chugged through the rest of the tutorials in my Maya 09 basics book, time to tackle the Rigging book Miles has stashed somewhere.

Oh and I've continued to play with sketch pad, and continued to like it.

There's a mirror function, both for x and y axies... this weird face was fun, kinda a thin man squished out and placed on a wall. I don't really know.

Sketchbooking at home

Yes. I should be working on Gizmo. But I'm not sure what to do. And this is a new toy.

The Autodesk bundle comes with a little program called Sketchbook. This is like photoshop lite for drawing and painting. Big annoyance is that the 'fuzziness' of photoshop even worse. Better side is that I have it at home, and an old Wacom tablet. Much time wasting ensues.

Sketchbook pro (which has things like Layers which are very nice) is about $100 (less for students I'm sure). And feel easier to sketch with (rim shot) than photoshop.

So here's my latest creation.

Still figuring out brushes mostly, finding what I can create well and what the right brushes (and smudgers and blurings) can help me create better.

Playing with Photoshop and painting...

Just cause it's fun. If I own this program at home I will waste so much time playing with it...
I like the trees more, playing around whith what happens when you add something like yellow to a green tree, then smudge it...
Wish I could rotate the image while working on it...

My goals for the distant future...

Here was a job posting for Activision in the San Francisco area:

Lighter/Environment Artist - Activision Bay Area

· Light characters and environments (interior & exterior).

· Understanding of composition and the ability to enhance mood by lighting.

· Expert knowledge of Maya.

· Working knowledge of industry standard rendering programs, such as Renderman or Mental Ray.

· Ability to do UV mapping/modeling/texture work as required.

· Working knowledge of Ambient Occlusion maps, HDR rendering, Lightmap generation, and Global Illumination solutions is a must.

· Knowledge of color theory and strong sense of light and shadow.

· Ability to follow design reference and ability to work with wide range of styles.

· Initial responsibilities will be 50% lighting/50% environment art creation. 100% lighting duties once in production.

Please click the 'Apply' button below

THis is pretty much right up my lighting alley. I just need to work with the rendering stuff and the other bits in the middle of the post.

Still need to finish the puppy first...

Maybe ask Gore-face if I can use his many models to light interestingly....

Dem Teef be nearly done

Woo copy and paste!
I have pulled out the teeth into different objects, as per recommendations. Then I shamelessly copied the secondary teeth, nearly mirroring top and bottom. It will annoy me later and I will tweak them more then, but for now I feel really good to kinda have all the teeth.
Add a tounge and that's all the body parts. Wow. Even in crappy first effort form, I'm making strides forward. Or stumbles. Like a drunken sailor. Who should be able to walk well drunk, after dealing with the challenges of walking on a ship at sea... anyway.
Gods this all would be easier to do in real 3d. Maybe I'll invent a holo deck where you can manipulate these things in all 3 dimensions at once.
Yeah, I'm tired, it's been a long first week.
Repeat to do list:

• Sys lab1,
  
• indie study projector thing,
  
• drag myself in here this week end and add the tounge (how many faces should it have? I don't know..)
  
• and start tweaking this model.
• Work on psyc ward stuff?
• Feels like I'm forgetting something...
• Grad Project! sketch sketch sketch ideas. look up and see if I can do it in C# for the learning...
• (My current Grad project is a 2-d game of this Corgi versus the forces of evil squirrels. Pretending this game is commissioned by a dog treats company, the corgi gets dog treat power-ups to overcome obstacles. Maybe there should be a goal different from the squirrel chasing.)
• Oh, and the Corgi may get named "Gizmo." It sounds better in my head than it looks on paper.
• Also I may think about doing the game in 3d, over the shoulder like the old Spyros. Hmm concept theft....
• p.s. yes I'm re-posing this Grad stuff where it belongs, in the other blog.