Inspiration

Just a quick one, I love the style of this animation and thought you should all check it out :)

https://vimeo.com/36587404

1st Shot Done

I had my first shot signed off today by Jud and Mario, I must say it feels good to have at least one under my belt for now. It is currently rendering and I am going to leave it on all night. I have found that when everything is in the scene (including the updated water, which I will post next) the frames take around 30 minutes to render at full quality!! So we are cutting it into passes and rendering characters separately and then compositing it all during the editing process. This will save us time in the long run.

I have started about 5 other shots in the mean time, but they are only partly done or keyed...I have a lot of characters to animate in some of the shots!

I had a bit of a breakdown today thinking I would never be able to finish this in time, but after talking with Mat and having quite a productive evening I feel better about things now. However we really have given ourselves a goliath task here, gotta say it's by far our most ambitious piece to date.

We are mostly on plan with our self-made schedule to finish all of the animating by May 15th, leaving us 9 days to edit and set up what we need for the degree show.

Pushing Poses

I remember the talk from David Bunting where he was mentioned his time as an animator when he first started out, and the director said to him 'push that pose'. I have taken this and implemented it into my own work today as I was setting up a shot.

I got Rookie and set up this shot with his pose ready to take his glove off and slap oldie in the face.

Now for some reason I was happy with this ( I don't know why, as he has very little emotion and seems very static) and then I remembered David telling us about pushing poses, exaggerating the character's physical emotions to give them more appeal and make them more dynamic.

Now here is the pushed pose, I have taken the whole body and twisted it towards the camera and made him look right down his nose at Oldie. I also brought his hands back and really arched his back, whilst spreading his feet out to redistribute his weight. I think this has made him much more dynamic and characterised, making it more suitable for the action that is going to happen. I am a lot happier with this than the previous pose.

I will be remembering this with all of my shots and pushing them as best I can without going too far!

Textures Galore

I spent yesterday applying all of the textures to the base file for the scene...sufficed to say, with over 150 different textures, this took a while!! 95% of the textures files are courtesy of Mat's hand, he spent a few pain-staking months making them all and I thank him.

Here are a few of the images I rendered to see what they looked like

These are the first few buildings I did applied the textures to, and both Mat and I were very happy with the outcome so far.

Here I wanted to see what the textures look like from the first shot, as they are never going to be seen close up but they still need to be good quality.

I applied a few more textures and shot them from a few more angles to see how thelight was reacting and what they looked like.

Finally here almost all of the textures have been applied (except for that one to the right of the townhall) and I added a rough example of how the water might look. Overall Ma and I are very happy with the outcome and both believe it is the most ambitious work we've ever done.

Action Plan

I was informed today that we would be marked on our research into the action plan, though nowhere in the brief does it make this clear. However it's a good job I have done some research into it already!

I have a list of almost 30 company websites and media job websites that I have collected and registered with.  I also have a handful of jobs, so far,  that I plan to apply for as soon as I have my CV sorted.

http://www.animationbase.com/
www.productionbase.co.uk
http://www.creativeheads.net/
http://www.grapevinejobs.com/home.aspx
http://uk.jobrapido.com/?w=junior%20animation&l=&ft=1
http://www.awn.com/
http://www.naughtydog.com/work/
http://www.polycount.com/forum/
http://www.pixarcanada.com/apprentices.html
http://www.framestore.com/
http://www.arcproductions.com/careers
http://www.squarezero.co.uk/
http://www.realtimeuk.com/
https://www.rockstargames.com/jobs
http://studioaka.co.uk/
http://www.th1ng.com/Index.aspx?WebsiteId=1
http://www.picassopictures.com/
http://www.hibbertralph.com/
http://www.blue-zoo.co.uk/
http://www.ttgames.com/
http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com/careers/
http://www.eurocom.co.uk/index.php/careers/
http://www.passion-london.com/
http://www.strangebeast.tv/
http://www.aardman.com/about-us/jobs/
http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=1
http://www.flauntproductions.com/
http://www.optical3d.com/
http://www.imagineanimation.net/

I now also follow a lot of these companies through twitter and get live updates as to what is going on within the company and if they have any available jobs that might suit me.

The jobs that I plan to apply for are here
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/graphic-designer-3d-animator-video-editor/21272594?WT.mc_id=indeed
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/3d-medical-animator/21385577?WT.sourcefrom=peoplewhoappliedfor
http://www.bulbstudios.com/jobs
https://graduatetalentpoolsearch.direct.gov.uk//casa/servlet/casa.jobseeker.JSVacServlet?mode=showVac&CASA_object_id=PVSUB-MIN3466-VACY-13032012-1817864&search_level=null&vacancy_class=&ticket=6CF7D14E-D3F7-419E-9CF2-DFF61002DAF7&from=181&total=489&curr_pos=15&last_pos=20

I am currently getting help with my CV and plan to have that finished in the coming weeks as I have a lot on my plate for now!

Animation Has Beguuuuuun!!

Finally animation has begun on my end, I have animated 6 tertiary character loops today, and from what you can see on the first shot...they don't have a major role in the animation. However I think that they'll add just that little extra to make the square feel like it's really lived in. I'll get some test renders done when I have them finished and put them up on my vimeo account, with a link to it from here for you to see :)

Action Planning

I had a burst of enthusiasm for networking yesterday and linked up my twitter and facebook, along with creating a vimeo and linkedIn account to help prepare me for getting a job when I leave!!

I have also bookmarked 5 jobs now and plan to applied when I get my CV approved. I'm also going to try and make a preliminary show reel to show what I have so far...it won't be that much as I'm not happy enough with a lot of my work to put it into the show reel. However I am going to include things like modelling and riggin along with my animating, to really show off all of my skills and increase my chances at the outset.

I think I'll create some specialised show reels for each area, tailored to what job I am applying for. At first though, I think that having a variety one is going to be better as I'll be a new graduate and hopefully people will see some potential there!



Oh and my vimeo site is http://vimeo.com/robertbeard
My twitter is https://twitter.com/#!/RobertsBeard
and LinkedIn is http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=176731372&trk=tab_pro which doesn't have much on it now but I plan to improve it in the near future