Week Ten

MONDAY 27/08/07:- BANK HOLIDAY

TUESDAY 28/08/07:- Today was spent learning the modelling systems on Maya with Matt Leonard. The most complex thing about Maya is the amount of options you have to create your work. There are hundreds of menus and sub-menus that are full of tools. I'm pretty confident though that by the end of this week I should know my way around Maya and be able to create a piece of work without too much trouble.

WEDNESDAY 29/08/07:- The day has primarily been spent animating objects in Maya; making balls bounce across the screen, adding distortions to objects as they hit or pass through other objects. We have also managed to create a human-like character with a fully working skeleton within it, that we will be animating tomorrow.

THURSDAY 30/08/07:- Lighting and texturing lesson in Maya. Like everything else in Maya there's a load of menus and sub-menus, I take back what I said on Tuesday, creating a piece of work on Maya after a weeks lesson is gonna take a while. However in the few days that we've had Matt teaching us, we've learnt a heck of a lot, basic modelling, animating, lighting, texturing; but what we've learnt so far is only the molecule at the tip of the iceberg.

FRIDAY 31/08/07:- Continued work on our skeleton. Tried to make it more manageable for animating i.e. moving a foot will also move the entire leg, there is no need to adjust every joint in the leg for a movement, the foot is the control point of the leg. Very complicated and very frustrating when it doesn't work. This has been a very long four day week!

Keen Wine (Week Nine)

MONDAY 20/08/07:- The Flash industry briefs came to an end last week, we will receive new ones next week where we will be introduced to a 3D package called Maya. However this week I have been given the opportunity to work on one of the other Flash briefs. I've decided to give the Dinamo brief a go, it involves character design and lip-syncing, bit of a challenge to do in a week, but it's another week of learning flash. I've also received a new keyboard today. I have cursor keys that work WHA HOoo!

TUESDAY 21/08/07:- Continuing work on the Dinamo brief, completed lip-syncing my characters to the dialogue. I'm now concentrating on character facial expressions and body movement.

WEDNESDAY 22/08/07:- Continued work on the Dinamo Brief, added a background, created bodies for the characters and began to animate their movements.

THURSDAY 23/08/07:- Industry visit from Tim Allen, Stop Motion animator, not the actor/comedian. Talked about his career as a stop motion animator after leaving Glamorgan University in 1998. His career began in children's t.v. working on 'El Nombre' and 'Bob the Builder'. Recently he's worked on 'The Corpse Bride' and 'Peter and the Wolf'. Tim gave us an insight into the relationship between the animator and the director, good communication is required to create a good piece of work. He also gave us an insight into how difficult it is to work on a body of work when there's no real structure to the production phase.
We were also given tips and hints as to how to create good character animation. Most of what we read about a character comes from facial expressions and head movement. You need to specific in what you want your character to do and try to have hit points, making it up as you go along tends to make the character appear 'wishy-washy'.

FRIDAY 24/08/07:- Introduction to Mayaaaaarggggh 3D package. Very complicated and it brings on the brain pain, however you can create some very cool work on it.

White Geek (Week Eight)

MONDAY 13/08/07:- "It's just another manic Monday, I wish it was Sunday ... whoa ohh oh". The last week of the industry brief 'Mr Stunt Butt'. I've been continuing the work I started Friday afternoon on expanding the 'Stunt Butt walk and march-cycle', it's been a frustrating day as I've tried to sort out the sequencing between the symbol layers and the main stage layers. I've basically cannibalised the work I've already done and tried to come up with a little dance routine. It gets complicated when you modify a number of layers and try to sync the actions together, and it gets annoying when it doesn't work. Nevermind! Tomorrow's a brand new day to pull my hair out.

TUESDAY 14/08/07:- Today has been a better day for animating 'Mr Stunt Butt', there's no problem between the synchronization of movements between the symbol layers and main stage layers. However there's a heck of a lot of work to do again on the dance sequence, I hope to be finished by tomorrow afternoon.

WEDNESDAY 15/08/07:- Mr Stunt Butt has FRIED MY BRAIN!

THURSDAY 16/08/07:- Today has been the final day of working on the Flash industry brief. I have completed the work that I've been doing for the last few days, the 'Stunt Butt Dance'. It's not really a dance, it's more like a 'out of step' march with 'Stunt Butt' wafting away farts. It's not what I envisioned, however with the time given and the complexity of layers and symbols within the work, it's alright! All I need to do now is to send the work to Dylan at Griffilms and await the verdict.

FRIDAY 17/08/07:- Received positive comments about the work. I hope to get a loop on the blog, but here's a still for now.

Week Seven

MONDAY 06/08/07:- Start of a new week at CYFLE, and I'm continuing work on my industry brief 'Mr Stunt Butt'. I'm quite pleased with what I've done so far, and pleased with the brief I've been given. So far it's been a good exercise in improving my flash animation skills. I've had plenty of feed back from Dylan Jones at Griffilms, giving hints and tips at improving the character animation. I've also had the chance to create my own objects and have them interact with 'Mr Stunt Butt'. Very happy!

TUESDAY 07/08/07:- Today has been a bit of a headache. I've been working on 'Mr Stunt Butt's' walk-cycle. He might be a simple looking character but getting the walk-cycle to run smoothly has taken up most of the day, however I'm pleased to say, with the assistance of Marc Lewis our Flash tutor I think I've pulled it off. Stunt Butt no longer walks like someone who has soiled themselves. Boom boom! I'm also pleased to say that I've received some audio files to incorporate into the animation. It's the final element I need to bring 'Mr Stunt Butt' to life.

WEDNESDAY 08/08/07:- This morning has been spent adjusting the 'Mr Stunt Butt' walk-cycle. I had to sync his cape movements to the motion of his body as it rises and lowers in the walk-cycle. Sound has also been added to the animation, 'Mr Stunt Butt' has a voice now. The work has been posted to Dylan at Griffilms, I'm now waiting for his response, hopefully not much more will have to be done to the loop, and perhaps I can expand the scene or start work on another idea.

THURSDAY 09/08/07:- This morning I received an e-mail from Dylan at Griffilms, he liked the loop I made of 'Mr Stunt Butt' and thought it was funny. He suggested I should expand on the short and experiment with 'Mr Stunt Butt's' walk-cycle. He gave me some ideas on what I should try to do. I've already made 'SB' march to a beat; that was a fairly simple one to do. The other ideas are slightly more complicated, but I'm confident I can do them before the end of next week.

FRIDAY 10/08/07:- Continuing to develop 'Mr Stunt Butt's' walk-cycle. It's gonna get a bit more complicated than the 'march' I did yesterday. Already it's proving to be a bit of a headache, never mind, hopefully it'll turn out to look pretty good by the end of next week.