The Escape VFX Festival 2013

I just wanted to dedicate a little piece of my animation blog to the Escape Studios VFX Festival, that took place last week. I had such a great time!

Not only did I work it, but I attended a couple of the screenings too. I was at the Getting Into VFX talk, which was great - although to be honest, it didn't differ much from the same talk they did the previous year at Escape. A nice addition to the panel was Eamonn Butler from Cinesite, who was there to talk about Animation! So obviously, I was very tuned into him.

One of the most interesting things he mentioned, is that he likes a showreel to have a story - definitely something to think about...although I'm not sure how the material I have at the moment, will fit nicely into a coherent story...but will certainly be looking at ways to incorporate that into my reel.

I was also at The Future of Digital Creativity Panel Debate which was also interesting, although it was chaired by the disappointingly bland Danny Leigh, from Film2013. Following that, was a screening from Framestore showcasing the work they did on Gravity - which looked exquisite.

All screenings were hosted by Helen O'Hara from Empire magazine, who was charismatic, interesting and humourous, with her question handling via teh roaming microphone and the use of the VFX twitter hashtag. She lightened the evenings I attended and was a very welcome addition to the festival (she would have done a much better job than Danny Leigh - why was he there anyway???)

As that was the last night, I also went along to the Closing Party - which was lots of fun. It has to be said that the volume of the music wasn't incredibly conducive to coherent talking, but maybe that was just me. It was nice to catch up with familiar faces and congratulate everyone involved in a great festival.

The shift from last year's relatively small VFX festival, to this year's massive offering only makes me even more excited for next year's VFX Festival, from Escape. Congrats to everyone who made it happen!

I'm a Tutor!

Yes, you read that right! I was a tutor for the evening. Well, at least that's the name badge said that I got to wear the other night at Escape Studios VFX Festival. I was helping my animation tutor, Alex, who was leading an Animation Masterclass.

It was really exciting, I actually helped people! This time last year, that's the last thing I thought I would have been able to do. I was able to go round, see how people were getting on, and offer any help that was needed. I was actually pretty nervous, I was worried that someone would ask me how to do something, and I wouldn't know what to do - luckily, that didn't happen - but even if it did, I'm sure they wouldn't have minded...would they?

The Festival is/was great, so much better than last year. Escape have really stepped up their game. The studios looked slicker than ever, and the format was incredibly professional, with a welcome desk for everyone to sign in before they actually got inside...last year's was a bit messy because this wasn't done as effectively. It was nice going back to the place I studied too, gave me those warm and fuzzy feelings.

Escape also have some big screenings and industry talks happening at the Vue cinema in Leicester Square. Nice. They're really bringing on the big guns. I have a couple more events to go to next week, which I'm looking forward to. I'm going to be meeting up with one of my friends from Bluebolt Studios, so it's going to be fun having a catch up in the context of the VFX Industry, instead of down the pub!

I'm hoping to be adding my updated Creature Reel soon too - so watch this space!

Week 12 of Animation underway!

Gah! I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged last! Sorry!

My mind is bursting with ideas for animations and my showreel. I'm not quite half way through the course with Alex Williams and Animation Apprentice yet, so there's lots of time for more ideas to marinade.

I've been working on weight shifts, jumping, showing weight in animation and overall getting a feeling of reality into my work, by how weight and balance works in an environment. Here's a simple weight shift that I animated (note, everything I'm posting currently is still in rough, and not showreel ready...still lots of work to do).

 

The rig is by Raveen Rajadorai at Creative Crash. It's remarkable how more observant I am becoming. For instance, when someone switches weight from one foot to another, I never really considered the two steps often used, I thought it was just a case of switching the hips. I look at people walking too, in a new way, I'm thinking "How are they carrying their weight? How much do they bend their knee? Is their chest rotating as they walk? Is their head still or moving with the motion?". Doing this animation course has given me new eyes!

Here's another weight based exercise I have done. The suicidal flour sack! I enjoyed animating this, although I found the rig quite tricky to work with. I love how you can get so much character into a relatively ordinary, plain and every-day object. This rig is by key_framer at Creative Crash.

 

A Proud Piece of Animation

I am bloody loving animating! I've created quite a few small pieces, but none of them are really showreel yet - still lots of tweaking to do.

Here's something I'm working on - it's still work in progress, so still some work to do - but I'm happy to show it at this stage.

I took a rig of a big "heavy" character, that comes armed with a machine gun - so typically this is the sort of character you would expect to find roaming the darkened streets killing everyone in sight...so, I decided to turn the character on its head - and give him an effeminate twist. Let me know what you think :)

3D art? How do I become an animator using THAT?

Someone asked me: how do you become an animator ...which I thought was a very good question...and inspired discussion, that I thought I'd share. 3D art and animation is everywhere, so how do you get to train how to work with it? But firstly, let's get one thing out of the way, can you believe it's the end of August already? This year is zipping by. It also means that I have now been training in animation and learning animation techniques for about 2 months now. I'm at the stage where the software I'm using is getting very familiar and I'm feeling almost to the stage of it becoming second nature. Of course there are more programmes to practice animation techniques than just using Maya, but I'll stick with the one programme for now!

Click here for Image Credit

I used to ask myself "How Do I Become an Animator?", and end up getting lost on Google with articles telling me "to become an animator write letters to production companies and ask for experience", I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how much that would help in the long run. I wanted a solid training foundation, particularly in 3D art and 3D animation as that sparked more of an interest with me rather than traditional animation. One thing is for sure, I wanted to make sure I would be equipped with the animation techniques that I would need to know before I even attempted to approach a studio or company to take me on. The best piece of advice I was given (and I believe is paying off) is to network, network, network.

I didn't study Animation at uni*, so at the age of 30, I felt at a disadvantage - I didn't have a clue about any of the latest animation techniques or how to work in 3D art other than traditional sculpture. I've known about Escape studios for a while - I had a friend who studied Compositing there, and I had been to a couple of open days - so it automatically popped up in my mind. As I'm sure I've already explained, Escape couldn't help me with my dream to become an animator because they pulled the course, just as I was ready to sign up...but they did introduce me to Alex Williams...so a course in learning Maya with Escape, and a course learning Animation techniques with Alex followed.

I felt confident with Escape, the 3D art they created blew my away. But not only had I been given a personal recommendation from a friend, but the work their students is excellent - knowing Alex had connections with them, and seeing his showreel, I knew I was in the right company with him too. The animation techniques I'm learning are brilliant and easy to understand and follow (however, mastering them, is another matter). If I hadn't found either, I guess I would be looking for more schools or colleges with good reputations, good work to show for what they do and a good feel for their connections with the industry...THEN I'll approach a studio with my "let me become an animator with you" approach. Escape will help you find work when you finish a course, but I understand that they would charge a finders fee to the studio-potential-employer, which studios don't like, for obvious reasons! So, the networking approach is one I hope to explore to its full potential! It's still early days, but it's always good to be prepared!

*Some great uni courses for animation and working with 3D art, as I understand, are at Bournemouth University and the University of Kent.

Working With Wonderful Wacoms

It's been another busy week. My biggest achievement was to use a Wacom Tablet! To be honest, I was nervous about it, I've always used a mouse. Basically, Wacom tablet lets you use the Maya software (and any software really) using a pen stylus on a tablet. It completely replaces the mouse. It's weird, you just hover the pen over the tablet and it moves the cursor around your screen. It also has little buttons on your pen, to use the respective middle and right clicks. It's going to take some getting used to, but I'm really excited and have already done some Maya modelling with it! I got my Wacom tablet from Amazon, I'm using the Wacom Bamboo Pen Graphics Tablet from Amazon.co.uk and I'm really pleased with it (it only cost me about £50, bargain!). You can also get Wacom tablets on Amazon.com so it's definitely worth shopping around.

See link for image credit.

I also started modelling heads and modelling furniture this week! Quite a comparison, lol. The head picture on the left is from a design page at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne I'm linking because there are some pretty nifty tutorials on how to model in Maya, so definitely worth taking a peek.

I'm beginning to feel more and more confident about using Maya. It's taken a few weeks, but things are starting to sink in, and some techniques are turning into autopilot in my mind.

As far as travelling to my course goes, I've not had any commutable problems into London, with the Olympics in full swing...which is always a bonus!

Bloody Textures!

Hmm. That was a tough class. For some reason lots of things not working for me. Very frustrating, the perfectionist in me is struggling. The "don't panic" voice inside me is trying desperately to take over.

I guess I just need to reassure myself that that was only the 7th session and still at the very early stages of getting to grips with Maya.

I've given myself extra homework to try and catch up - its texture mapping that doesn't seem to behave. Grrr.

Bring on the Animation teaching!