Hmmm. So far this year I’m averaging 1 post per month. I’ll keep working on it.

I’m glad to say that my transition to Maya is going very smoothly. I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit now and am getting very comfortable with the interface and work flow. Of course I’m not exploring every deep dark corner of the software at this point, but I’m already quite familiar with the various aspects of the application and am presently focusing a big chunk of my energies into buffing up my animation approach and skills. I’m working through some animation exercises and will be posting a few of them here every once in a while for your viewing pleasure (and critiques please!). They probably won’t all be polished or finals when uploaded. More like short little ongoing tests. Maybe if I can get a set of them done real nice I can include them in my showreel! I personally believe a person’s portfolio/showreel is never done and should be updated as regularly as possible (every 6mth - 1 year maybe) especially if you’re looking to get into/keep working in the industry.

Speaking of industry, a bunch of us educators were invited to Lucasfilm Animation Singapore last week for Educators Night and I must admit to being very impressed by the staff and facilities. They gave us a short talk and a tour and capped things off with a light buffet cum networking session right after. There were quite a few representatives from the local animation-related institutions - some I recognized and some not. I ended up being one of the last to leave because I was bugging them with so many questions (while trying to eat at the same time) towards the end. Unfortunately I can’t tell you any more than that since they made all of us sign an NDA before the visit.

I’ll be visiting another animation production house with my director and a couple of colleagues this morning. It’s a day trip. I’m pretty stoked to see how they run things there and what kind of stuff they’re working on (if they let us). I’m probably the last of the animation lecturers from my school to take a tour of the place so I’ve been feeling kinda left out. Also, these guys are utilizing a particular software as part of their production pipeline that I’ve missed seeing for awhile so it’ll be quite comforting when I do get to see the familiar GUI on monitor screens again. Err. Never mind…

Anyways, here’s my first animation exercise: A Jumping Sack.

It’s a Quicktime movie in Sorensen 3 codec.
The cool floursack rig is provided by Tim Oberlander.

See ya soon!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 12:51 am and is filed under Animation, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.