December 29, 2009

A.D.A.M & E.V.E '09- Miami

Can't say enough about how great this event was and what it's trying to do for South Florida as far as the animation and digital arts community is concerned.

The Animation Digital Arts Media & Electronic Visual Effects took place for the first time this year at the Miami Science Museum, headed by Noreen Legault who is also responsible for the South Beach International Animation Festival.

The event took place the 27th and 28th, days in which speakers shared their knowledge and where opportunity for networking was plentiful. Brief summary of the event:

Guy Manos Director/Stuntman

Spoke a bit about his history and presented a very interesting perspective using pre-vis to justify a new generation of low cost, quality film-making where it's really not all about the director and more about a blueprint for the "creative vision" that can be shared with everyone else involved with the film.

Jesus Bacca & Roman Cuzan Animators/Illustrators

Outlined the development of a character from concept to a realized model.

Matt Peterson from the National Parks Service

Applications for 3D modeling other than features and games, it can be used to visualize the slow decay of our ecosystem, especially coral reefs.

Miguel Oubina from Nuclei 3D

Went over the Unreal Dev Kit and answered questions with regards to importing models into the engine.

Leslie L. Krensky from SAG

Overview for actors and voice talents in animation, games, and many other non-traditional mediums such as mobiles.

Yvette Ferry & Alisha Vera for marketing and social media

Presented the various uses of social media for marketing.


Unfortunately I forgot my camera and was not able to record this one, however, George Moss from gmoss design did get a clip from what was probably my favorite presentation:

ADAM & EVE FESTIVALS MIAMI - GAMING WORKSHOP 2009 from Gmoss on Vimeo.


Oh, and on location was Infinite Bits, they provided a collection of video games from Pong to PS3, as well as a session of Rock Band at the end. I had never actually seen, much less played with an actual Atari Pong console or even a 2600, I was really stoked and surprised at how addicting pitfall is and how difficult space invaders was.

There was also a screening of Machinima from around the world, as well as a best of '09 from the Ottawa International Film Festival.




December 26, 2009

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.



Paint Final

Wrapped up painting and it was just spectacular. We got demos from two awesome artists, one from Joe Gyurcsak and the other from Olivier Cass.

Both gave very different, yet similar techniques for painting (isn't it all?). Joe Gyurcsak was a little more impressionistic, very impasto, fresh, and impulsive, still was very naturalistic.

Olivier Cass' was a very exciting demo, he did the whole thing the way I've been reading these ARC ateliers and academies do it. He set up the canvas right next to the model (sight-size), made the envelope around the model, started carving in the figure, very Anthony Ryder. I would later find out he actually studied with Anthony Ryder and did attend the Florence Academy of Art.

What's great is, I found out from him that there's actually an atelier in south Florida, so if any locals read this and want some 19th century French Academic training in their lives: Romero Hidalgo Studios. Haven't visited and it's not ARC approved (that I know of) but, this is still pretty awesome.

Anyway, just a few self portraits, classmate models, and landscapes from around town. Having a lot of problems with my flesh tones, but I'm a little more aware of planes now, and it's helped my drawing a bit.
















(L)(E)(M)(U)(R)

Trying to study expressions a bit more and getting more interested with lighting. Got a load of new books for studies, I'll list a few if anyone's interested:

The five C's of Composition
Artistic Anatomy
Figure Drawing (Hampton)
Facial Expressions