More 3D goodies

Hello again!

I'd like to start off apologizing to anyone who has listened to 7th Row Center and figured out I had some bad information about The Secret World of Arrietty, and Studio Ghibli, and Hayao Miyazaki himself.  I realized that Patrick Stewart was in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, not Tales of Earthsea.  I was thinking about another fine British actor, Timothy Dalton, who played Ged/Sparrowhawk in the English language version.  Also, Miyazaki did not direct Arrietty; it was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who was a key animator for several other Ghibli (and non-Ghibli) films, such as Spirited Away and Ponyo.  Miyazaki has been credited as a writer and executive producer, so he was involved, just not as the director.

I'm sure I got more wrong, but if you have any questions, complaints, or comments, feel free to drop us a line at 7throwcenter.com, or on facebook, or reach me directly on this site or my facebook page, or find me on twitter at @WeaklyAnimated.  I know I haven't been that active on any of these lately, but I want to make sure I get good grades first, everything else comes after that.

Now that THAT is out of the way, I have some more images for people to view.  I have been working on modeling and texturing these models for a few weeks, in preparation for a scene focusing around the life and world of Harry Dresden, one of my favorite characters of literature.  If you are unfamiliar with Harry Dresden, I HIGHLY recommend you check out the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher, or the audio books narrated by James Marsters.  So while I work on the lighting, take a look at the objects themselves.

For those with keen eyes, yes that is Discord from My Little Ponies.  Don't ask.  I still have more tweaking to do, but these are pretty much finished.  The rest of the scene is all about lighting and camera work.  Soon, I should have fully lit scenes using 3-point lighting for you to enjoy.  Comments and feedback are welcome as always.

Cheerio!

School in session

Well school is back in session, and things are looking up. Not only am I taking a 3D modeling and lighting class, but my wife and my cat have moved back in with me, thanks to a new job she got :D.

So things will be different, but better. I will still have all those late and sleepless nights doing homework, but this time I don't have to face it alone. I look forward to the classes, and have a lot of work to do already. I'll keep everyone posted.

Also, don't forget to check out the latest episode of 7th Row Center, now streaming.

Watch your head!

Well it's that time... crunch time!  2 weeks left of classes, that's only 4 classes left till this quarter is finished!  No time left to think, just time to enough to work.  I've been up late all weekend working on a term paper and now I'm down to the final tests and projects!  So before I vanish into the world of even more sleepless nights, cramped hands, and bloodshot eyes, I wanted to share my latest animation from last week.  This one is of Adam reacting to a pie being thrown at his head.  Enjoy!

Be sure to check out the latest episode of 7th Row Center.  I was too busy to attend this show, but I will be back for the next one (of course that means I'll be doing it in the middle of finals... lucky me!)

Ta Ta!

Halloween on 7th Row Center and more

I will keep this post short. Seventh row center has a new episode up all about Holloween movies, the scary and the not so scary. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever podcast are sold. :P

I am also trying to work on something new for the blog, a video blog entry every now and then. I should have more posted soon about that later as well as about my latest animation projects.

Well that's all for now.

ALOHA!

New animation!

Well for all those interested, I have yet another new animation for you.  This one is coming to you a bit late because our teacher was out sick on Monday.  Actually, that's not why it is late.  It's late cause I procrastinated and then tried to make up for lost time but ended up only finishing one project, and not the other... Moral of the story... don't put off today what you can fail tomorrow.
LUCKILY for me, my teacher was sick.  Not that I think it is a good thing to be sick.  I hope he feels better in time for the next class, and wish him the best, he really is the coolest guy.  But God put his hand in when he saw I was working so hard to catch up for bad judgments, and I was able to finish the animation for the next class.  So here it is!  I call it... The Great Sack Escape!... not really...  It is about a sack of flour trying to escape the bakery, only to get... well...  watch and enjoy.

So there it is!  Hope you enjoyed it.  Short yes...  I am not satisfied with the truck... didn't plan out the movement well enough.  But the sack turned out great!

So what was the other project I finished?  A storyboard... which I may or may not be able to show you.  it is big and glued together...  We'll see what happens.

Other than that, I have a new toy, but I'll go into that one later.  I will be doing a new episode of 7th Row center with Alex "da movie guy".  Should be up this weekend.  Also, if you have any suggestions of movies or genres or anything else you want to talk about, let me know, and I'll gladly bring it up with Alex!

Till next time

CHEERIO!

Behold the animator's pencil!

Great Metallic Balls

I have been really busy this last week.  With the completion of the GENERATE challenge (of which the Patchwork Pirates got 5th place), I have had to work on a hand-drawn animation of a waving flag (not an easy one for students to figure out), as well as an animation that involves following various principles of screen design and focusing on showing Z-depth (which is really just depth on a 2 dimensional screen), not to mention a presentation for a proposal for a term paper.  Busy all around really.
The cool thing is there are now 3 new excellent animations finished for my classes, all of which look better than I thought they'd turn out.
Also, I figured out why the bob-omb animation looked so bad.  Apparently I uploaded the wrong file, although the final one still has compression issues, but it looks a zillion times better.

Besides the bob-omb animation, I have the others to show as well.  Here is the flag waving pencil test:

This is the flag wave animation.  It took me several hours to complete, and I had to essentially start over at one point when I suddenly realized what I was doing wrong.  I kept drawing the various keys and inbetweens wrong, and it suddenly clicked, and I figured out how to make it work.  This is the result.  It is short, but fluid.

Next up is the Screen Design Z-Dept project, or as I all it... Marble Maze:

This animation is intended to loop.  The point of the exercise is to show depth in a 2D screen.  There are several ways to do this including scale, overlap, perspective, and more.  I originally intended to draw this out in Photoshop and then bring it into After Effects and animate it there.  However, after struggling to make it look the way I wanted to, I started modeling it in Maya, and decided it turned out so well, I'd just do the entire thing in Maya, and proceeded to do just that.  I used Maya 2008 (and 2012 for rendering on campus), and only used basic shapes and methods, but with very effective rendering techniques.  All the lights use Ray Tracing and shadows, the wood surfaces use many layers of textures to make it work, the rendering used mental ray, and Final Gathering, in order to get such effective colors and lighting etc.  It took me about 12 hours or so to render the final version (and I had to render it twice... one scene once... cause they earlier ones didn't look good), but luckily I could use multiple computers on campus, and managed the entire thing in about 4 hours.

In other news, keep your ears open for the latest episode of 7thRowCenter, where we talk about the power of cheese.  These movies are so bad, they are Gouda!

Till next time,

GUTEN TAG!

7th Row Center podcast

I am still having some technical difficulty with my latest YouTube video... I apologize for not being able to see the short animation. I will fix it as soon as I can figure it out.
Until then, I'd like to let everyone know about a few things that are happening.
First, Check out "7th Row Center" to hear a podcast all about animation, or more specifically about Disney, featuring yours truly. I'd like to welcome everyone who was directed to my humble blog thanks to the podcast. Feel free to leave comments, questions, or anything else int he comments section below or through email (cptgreedle@gmail.com). It is an excellent podcast, even when I am not in it, and will keep you entertained and informed about movies.
Next, I have 2 new animations to post, but I will do that on my next update. I only hope to fix the issue with youtube before I post them.
I should have another animation or 2 next week as well, including a test involving Timothy the mouse from Dumbo. I still need to make sure it is ok to post it, but I'll post something.
Also, anyone that might be tuning in from SCAD, if you are reading this, I hope you are interested in animation, and perhaps in the animation field. If so, be sure to check out the SCAD Atlanta Animation Society (SAAS), which will be having its next meeting soon. It is a worthwhile society for anyone interested in going into animation.
There is a chance that I will also have a very good short video to show next week, as part of a collaborative project, which I will post more details about later.
That is all for now, thanks again for tuning in, and be sure to check out Alex "Da Movie Guy" and his podcast at www.7throwcenter.com/

Au Revoir