Ok already my blog is lagging behind and I had promised myself not to let that happen!, I cant believe AM started nearly 4 days ago! There is so much information to take in I really dont know where to start.
Thankfully our first assignment is pretty easy going, we are just required to get to know the place, meet people and update our profile. Alot of people want to get stuck straight into animation but im thankful for this ease-in (see how i did that?) approach.
The mentor line up for class 1 this term is nothing short of phenomenal and I am extremely happy to tell you that my mentor is Anthony Wong! Anthony spent 10 years at Disney and worked on Tarzan, Mulan and Hercules to name a few and now works at Pixar where his work can be seen on Cars, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3 and coming soon to a cinema near you.... Cars 2!
We had our first Q&A session on Tuesday afternoon and Anthony is such an amazing guy! He has a relentless passion for animation and his experience really shows through in how he explains things. I was extremely impressed to see that it was Anthony who animated one of my favourite scenes in Toy Story 3, that scene bieng Woodys bathroom escape!.
My class consists of 14 students which seems the norm for this term, I can't wait to see their work and get to know them all. Amazingly one of my classmates (Lars) has not only visited my hometown but he met his girlfriend here!. That is crazy, I would have been impressed if anyone in the whole of AM had even heard of Whitby let alone visited!
Anyway I had best get going i've got tutorials to digest!.
P.S - Rango ROCKS! well done ILM!!
P.P.S - Check out my friend Wests blog at http://blog.cleverpuppy.com/ , he updates regular (for now) and has some very interesting reads! well done West!!
Thursday 31 March 2011
Sunday 27 March 2011
Its AM - Eve!!!...
Thats right, AnimationMentor starts tomorrow! I recieved an email the other day that welcomed me as an official student of AM so its goodbye to the silver fan badge and hello to the gold student Badge!.
The student website shut down on Friday so they can prepare for the start of a new term and will re-open with full access on Monday at 12noon PST which wil be 8pm UK time, it couldn't have worked out much better for me :).
As i had no experience in Maya prior to my application for AM ive been spending the last couple of months learning the basics, this was for 2 reasons:- firstly i didn't want to spend even more money on AM by taking their springboard class and secondly i wanted to get started on their 18 month character animation course as soon as possible and had i taken the springboard i would have had to wait until summer term.
For learning the basics of animating in Maya i highly recommend the book "How to Cheat in Maya 2010" by Eric Luhta (www.howtocheatinmaya.com). Eric is an alumni of AnimationMentor and also an instructor for their Maya training program. Other training sources i have used and highly recommend are www.digitaltutors.com and www.lynda.com.
During one of our recent weekly coffee talks a class 2 student was invited to share his experiences and give advice to any would be students watching. He highly recommended us to practice some basic ball animations in the run up to AM so over the past few days i've been working on some of my own as part of my pre-AM warm up, here are the results...
Bouncing Ball Test from Adam Bryant on Vimeo.
Bowling Ball Test from Adam Bryant on Vimeo.
-Adam
The student website shut down on Friday so they can prepare for the start of a new term and will re-open with full access on Monday at 12noon PST which wil be 8pm UK time, it couldn't have worked out much better for me :).
As i had no experience in Maya prior to my application for AM ive been spending the last couple of months learning the basics, this was for 2 reasons:- firstly i didn't want to spend even more money on AM by taking their springboard class and secondly i wanted to get started on their 18 month character animation course as soon as possible and had i taken the springboard i would have had to wait until summer term.
For learning the basics of animating in Maya i highly recommend the book "How to Cheat in Maya 2010" by Eric Luhta (www.howtocheatinmaya.com). Eric is an alumni of AnimationMentor and also an instructor for their Maya training program. Other training sources i have used and highly recommend are www.digitaltutors.com and www.lynda.com.
During one of our recent weekly coffee talks a class 2 student was invited to share his experiences and give advice to any would be students watching. He highly recommended us to practice some basic ball animations in the run up to AM so over the past few days i've been working on some of my own as part of my pre-AM warm up, here are the results...
Bouncing Ball Test from Adam Bryant on Vimeo.
Bowling Ball Test from Adam Bryant on Vimeo.
-Adam
Friday 4 March 2011
Paid and Displayed...
Well I havnt quite displayed yet as I havent got access to the AM Student Badge but im all paid up! For the first class anyway! I dont think either me or my bank account could take the shock of spending the whole $19,000 all at once even though it will cost an extra $100 per term doing it via the term by term payment plan.
My idea is to pay the first term as I have and then pay for the rest all at once, other than the reason above I dont know why im doing it this way, its just an idea I got in my head and kind of makes me feel better about it I guess.
So far in my short time as an AM applicant ive met some great people and i cant wait to get to know them more and watch them develop as animators. Everyone comes from completely different backgrounds and its great to hear how they arrived at AM.
I dont want to put a downer on the experience already but a huge factor for me regarding the whole AM journey is the money involved, and im sure this will be the same for many current students and future students. As far as my money situation goes, AM will pretty much flatline my bank balance after the 18 months, im going to have to really put this thought to the back of my mind and not let it get in my way. As one of the main reasons for this blog is to give an insight into my own personal experiences at AM for others considering the course, I want to let those people know that ill be 100% funding my own tuition throughout the full course.
As far a work goes ill be holding down a full time job for the whole of the first term and then depending on how things go ill make a decision on whether to leave work and go full time AM from then onwards. Whats important for me is to make sure that at no point does my job get to a point where it puts in jeopardy my learning and progression through AM.
I was always unsure on what to do regarding work when I first considered applying for AM and didnt know whether to quit my job from day one. I got in touch with a great guy called Max Hamond who is a current student at AM and he gave me a little gem of advice "make the decision to leave work after you have started AM, that way you wont make a bad decision". In the end it turned out I had no choice and I couldnt afford AM without working no matter how many spending cuts i made.
As of now, im currently waiting to recieve my orientation email for access to what i believe is an introduction to AM and some other goodies such as a Maya license and some discounts to other things, right now it still hasnt sunk in that im actually going to be a student at AnimationMentor.
Its late, im tired, work tomorrow... night - Adam
My idea is to pay the first term as I have and then pay for the rest all at once, other than the reason above I dont know why im doing it this way, its just an idea I got in my head and kind of makes me feel better about it I guess.
So far in my short time as an AM applicant ive met some great people and i cant wait to get to know them more and watch them develop as animators. Everyone comes from completely different backgrounds and its great to hear how they arrived at AM.
I dont want to put a downer on the experience already but a huge factor for me regarding the whole AM journey is the money involved, and im sure this will be the same for many current students and future students. As far as my money situation goes, AM will pretty much flatline my bank balance after the 18 months, im going to have to really put this thought to the back of my mind and not let it get in my way. As one of the main reasons for this blog is to give an insight into my own personal experiences at AM for others considering the course, I want to let those people know that ill be 100% funding my own tuition throughout the full course.
As far a work goes ill be holding down a full time job for the whole of the first term and then depending on how things go ill make a decision on whether to leave work and go full time AM from then onwards. Whats important for me is to make sure that at no point does my job get to a point where it puts in jeopardy my learning and progression through AM.
I was always unsure on what to do regarding work when I first considered applying for AM and didnt know whether to quit my job from day one. I got in touch with a great guy called Max Hamond who is a current student at AM and he gave me a little gem of advice "make the decision to leave work after you have started AM, that way you wont make a bad decision". In the end it turned out I had no choice and I couldnt afford AM without working no matter how many spending cuts i made.
As of now, im currently waiting to recieve my orientation email for access to what i believe is an introduction to AM and some other goodies such as a Maya license and some discounts to other things, right now it still hasnt sunk in that im actually going to be a student at AnimationMentor.
Its late, im tired, work tomorrow... night - Adam
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