For anyone who hasn't seen these, the linked page has a list of sample animations by ITCD students.
http://classes.csumb.edu/CST/CST305-01/world/index.html
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday News
I haven't heard back from Spencer about blogging from E3. Hopefully that will turn out. He told me about some exciting things coming up down there. I wish I could go but it's pretty expensive and I have the project for the New Media Conference I'm working up. This week, I'm planning on going to see "Up" in 3D and if anyone wants to come along, let me know.
I'll be putting together a clip of the highlights of last semester's 405 class pretty soon. I'll also try to revise the 3D student highlight reel. I'll also start getting Pearsall to give me more updates on his work. Some of you who've been around CSUMB remember Jeff, who went on to do graphics for a company that specializes in tags, bumpers, commercials and that kind of stuff for handhelds. Jeff has been prodding them to do more 3D. They wanted to use 3DS Max, so Jeff's been teaching himself to use Max (traitor!) and he's pretty encouraged by his progress. He heard that they were building a waterpark in Morgan Hill and pitched the idea of a fly-through to the developer. The developer was non-committal but referred Jeff to the overseer of the downtown Morgan Hill redevelopment and (last I heard) it was looking promising that Jeff would be doing the fly-through for the whole project.
Don Shields, the instructor at Mission College that I met at the Oren Jacobs talk is also at E3 (lucky guys). When he gets back, I'm going to meet with him and compare notes about modeling and animation. He has his students Z-brush for a lot of the modeling and has them hand-key all their animation. He doesn't like using MoCap because of the clutter of the scripts and all the time it takes to clean them up. He's not that keen on Motion Builder because he says it's designed basically for 3DS Max and it's not so seamless with Maya. That's a bit different than the story I got from Alias, so I'll have to look into that. If the budget isn't too gruesome, I'll try to get Motion Builder and Mudbox on the 123 animation computers next week or the week after.
Mike Machado promised to upgrade the 123 computers to our latest version of Maya (2009) and I'll check on Monday to see if that's been done. Stay tuned and post something of your own if you think it's worthy. Till then.
I'll be putting together a clip of the highlights of last semester's 405 class pretty soon. I'll also try to revise the 3D student highlight reel. I'll also start getting Pearsall to give me more updates on his work. Some of you who've been around CSUMB remember Jeff, who went on to do graphics for a company that specializes in tags, bumpers, commercials and that kind of stuff for handhelds. Jeff has been prodding them to do more 3D. They wanted to use 3DS Max, so Jeff's been teaching himself to use Max (traitor!) and he's pretty encouraged by his progress. He heard that they were building a waterpark in Morgan Hill and pitched the idea of a fly-through to the developer. The developer was non-committal but referred Jeff to the overseer of the downtown Morgan Hill redevelopment and (last I heard) it was looking promising that Jeff would be doing the fly-through for the whole project.
Don Shields, the instructor at Mission College that I met at the Oren Jacobs talk is also at E3 (lucky guys). When he gets back, I'm going to meet with him and compare notes about modeling and animation. He has his students Z-brush for a lot of the modeling and has them hand-key all their animation. He doesn't like using MoCap because of the clutter of the scripts and all the time it takes to clean them up. He's not that keen on Motion Builder because he says it's designed basically for 3DS Max and it's not so seamless with Maya. That's a bit different than the story I got from Alias, so I'll have to look into that. If the budget isn't too gruesome, I'll try to get Motion Builder and Mudbox on the 123 animation computers next week or the week after.
Mike Machado promised to upgrade the 123 computers to our latest version of Maya (2009) and I'll check on Monday to see if that's been done. Stay tuned and post something of your own if you think it's worthy. Till then.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Short break
I'm in the middle of grading and working on a project/presentation for the New Media Conference in Monterey (mid-June). I've got a project going about how the emergence of depth and time as abstract concepts is changing the way we look at design, both as a process and an end product. I'll try to post a link to the earliest version of part 1 today.
The most important news relates to the presentation by Oren Jacob at West Valley College a couple of weeks ago. Oren is a fascinating character who worked his way into Pixar in the early nineties and moved into a leadership role over the next few years. I think he mentioned that his highest profile credit is being responsible for all the particle effects in "Finding Nemo," and with all the water shots, the particle effects are an impressive effort. I think he was listed as Chief Technical Officer, or something like that.
What I really liked about his presentation is that he reinforced a number of things I've been saying over the years, not that I'm all that brilliant, but the key concept is to create work that has a look and feel that moves beyond just technical competency. He said, in some many words, that he can teach most anyone to use Maya (which is what they use), but he can't teach the creativity and the sense of new ideas that make for memorable content. What I really like about that philosophy is that it ties in so seamlessly with what the university experience is all about. We aren't a trade school and you can learn to use the software through all sorts of ways, both cheap and/or expensive. What makes your work memorable is the ability to bring all sorts of new ideas together in a creative and challenging way to get the audience to see and feel things they might not have experienced before.
To do that, you need experiences in other cultures and other ways of thinking, taught to you by university classes and classmates. That's why it's important to know the culture and mythology of a place outside your comfort zone. For those of you who do the research, you'll find out that a major part of the storyline for Shane Acker's new film, "9" comes from aboriginal culture and their belief that the soul is not complete in the afterlife unless all the souls it's a part of (in physical life) are accounted for. That all gets pretty deep and heavy but it's what makes the story resonate.
So, Oren reinforced my viewpoint that says you need to develop a personal statement that connects deeply through cultural networks and personal experience to really get ahold of the audience's attention. Beyond that, he had lots of great tips for getting noticed and one of the things I most appreciated was his suggestion that doing work, putting it on there on YouTube and waiting for things to happen is a pretty good idea. If it's got staying power, word of mouth will get you some notice. Word of mouth can get you from YouTube to the big leagues if you handle it right.
While up there, I met Don Shields, who teaches animation at Mission College and he and I compared notes about teaching Maya, the game industry and other nuggets that I'll forward in the near future.
The most important news relates to the presentation by Oren Jacob at West Valley College a couple of weeks ago. Oren is a fascinating character who worked his way into Pixar in the early nineties and moved into a leadership role over the next few years. I think he mentioned that his highest profile credit is being responsible for all the particle effects in "Finding Nemo," and with all the water shots, the particle effects are an impressive effort. I think he was listed as Chief Technical Officer, or something like that.
What I really liked about his presentation is that he reinforced a number of things I've been saying over the years, not that I'm all that brilliant, but the key concept is to create work that has a look and feel that moves beyond just technical competency. He said, in some many words, that he can teach most anyone to use Maya (which is what they use), but he can't teach the creativity and the sense of new ideas that make for memorable content. What I really like about that philosophy is that it ties in so seamlessly with what the university experience is all about. We aren't a trade school and you can learn to use the software through all sorts of ways, both cheap and/or expensive. What makes your work memorable is the ability to bring all sorts of new ideas together in a creative and challenging way to get the audience to see and feel things they might not have experienced before.
To do that, you need experiences in other cultures and other ways of thinking, taught to you by university classes and classmates. That's why it's important to know the culture and mythology of a place outside your comfort zone. For those of you who do the research, you'll find out that a major part of the storyline for Shane Acker's new film, "9" comes from aboriginal culture and their belief that the soul is not complete in the afterlife unless all the souls it's a part of (in physical life) are accounted for. That all gets pretty deep and heavy but it's what makes the story resonate.
So, Oren reinforced my viewpoint that says you need to develop a personal statement that connects deeply through cultural networks and personal experience to really get ahold of the audience's attention. Beyond that, he had lots of great tips for getting noticed and one of the things I most appreciated was his suggestion that doing work, putting it on there on YouTube and waiting for things to happen is a pretty good idea. If it's got staying power, word of mouth will get you some notice. Word of mouth can get you from YouTube to the big leagues if you handle it right.
While up there, I met Don Shields, who teaches animation at Mission College and he and I compared notes about teaching Maya, the game industry and other nuggets that I'll forward in the near future.
Welcome
For a few weeks, I've been thinking about ways of better connecting the CSUMB animation community. The growth in animation, game design and related fields is astounding and I come across interesting items, tidbits and major news almost daily. Last week, I finally decided it was time to do a blog to post news, clips, messages and opinions about animation (and its relatives) in a place where people and students I know can share.
In this blog, I'll try to keep up-to-date with news and events that might be of interest to those of you in the CSUMB community and the region.
Please forgive the goofy name of the blog. It's the best I could come up with. I tried to be cleverer, but it just wouldn't come. My best stuff seems to come out impromptu.
In this blog, I'll try to keep up-to-date with news and events that might be of interest to those of you in the CSUMB community and the region.
Please forgive the goofy name of the blog. It's the best I could come up with. I tried to be cleverer, but it just wouldn't come. My best stuff seems to come out impromptu.
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