Modeling

Next semester is animation, so that should be awesome.

Still have a lot to explore with modeling, texturing, lighting, and definitely a ways to go with learning how to properly wrap a character.

Not quite sure if modeling, texturing, and lighting is quite what I like though. I really like the animation aspect. The push and pull of a character, the weight it carries, over-lapping action, the acting, the expression, the staging, and every other principle on the list. I think it's the whole darn film-making process that I enjoy. Of course, there's no place for generalists, and the more I think about it, the more I tend to animation.

But, what is animation any more anyway? Is it merely puppeteering? Someone who controls different nodes, sets a key frame and lets it go to composite?

I read an interview, think it was by Spline Doctors, with Andrew Stanton, and I remember him commenting that in the industry things are getting more specialized, more streamlined more pipe-lined. That the animator ninjas are brought in to do one thing and they hire them to do it and do it well. He did lament that this was an unfortunate situation, but that the studios only have themselves to blame when they get someone who all they can really do is "animate".

I dunno, I really like the Art Babbitt quote that "the student of animation should be a student of everything". But...dunno how practical that is nowadays.

Anyway, the penguin's from Maya '08 Foundation, the other bird is too. I hate the paint effects on it and wish I knew how to wrap a character (got a book in mind for that).

As for the dog, we got a ref from our prof (I think it's from Digital Tutors), and we modeled him in class. The eye socket was loads of fun to model. After doing the whole thing in polys we then did the subdiv proxy and got him smoothed. It's not painted exactly how I want, but...all in due time.