Week 5...

Ok I just realised my post titles are getting a little confusing, even im lost in the weeks and its my blog.

Seeing asthough I seem to be updating my blog every Sunday night just before the following AM week starts i'll start naming my posts by the previous week, so the past week has been week 5 at AM hense this posts title. Next week will be week 6.

This week was all about anticipation and squash and stretch! The lecture was headed up by ILM's Shawn Kelly who is known for working on a library of awesome films like "StarsWars", "Pirates of the Carribean", "War of the Worlds", the recently released "Rango" and upcoming blockbuster "Transformers: Dark of the moon" to name a few.

The assignment was to animate a ball travelling through an obstacle course using the principle of squash and stretch. We had a maximum of 120 frames at our disposal and were allowed to manipulate the obstacle course in any way we wished. Posing was also back on this week and we had to sketch and pose Stu to communicate devastation.

Luckily I didnt miss this weeks Q&A with Anthony and my graphics card turned up mid week so we're all back to normal!

We've been having a few bank holidays over here in the UK recently and an extra one on Friday for Prince William and Kate Middletons wedding so I took advantage and pretty much got the sketching and pose down by Tuesday as I knew this weeks animation portion of the assignment was going to be pretty tough!

Anyway heres what i came up with this week, Thanks guys - Adam

Goodbye week 4, Hello week 5...

This week was all about timing and spacing, we had to animate both a heavy ball and a light ball and really concentrate on getting across the weight difference to the audience. There was no sketching/posing assignment this week so that allowed for a little more time on the balls which I was extemely thankful for!.

The lecture was probably my favourite so far and who better to learn about timing and spacing from than Pixars Carlos Baena! If you watch Spanish Buzz in Toy Story 3 you will soon realise Carlos definatly has timing and spacing down.

The week didn't get off to a great start as unfortunatly I missed my Q&A with Anthony on Tuesday due to a mixture of long work hours, bieng tired and having a memory fail!, what a nightmare. I was gutted to say the least but my peers rallied and made me some great notes from the their lectures (Thanks West, Kalle and Carolyn!).

After last weekends hardware disaster I RMA'd my GFX card and it turns out it had burnt itself out, im getting a nice new shiny one sent free of charge! my old card has done me proud this week! Hopefully by Wednesday everything will be back to normal.

Anyway heres what I came up with this week, Thanks guys - Adam

Week 3 comes to a close...

Yep thats right week 3 has now been and gone and I cannot believe it, where did that week go?!!

Our assignment was to plan and animate a bouncing ball in the flavour of either a soccerball or basketball. We were also required to sketch out some poses that expressed excitement and then pick a favourite and pose it out with the Stu rig in Maya.

My time management was much better this week and it made the week run far smoother than the previous. On top of that I also had a massive breakthrough with my sketches, not only did I enjoy doing them but I was also happy with the results, I even almost convinced myself that maybe I could draw a little bit!

The week was going great! I was happy with my work, then just before I was about to tweak my pose for the deadline today disaster struck and my NvidiaGTX 460 card decided its short life of 6 months was enough and issued itself with a cease and desist order.

Unfortunately for me this meant I had no means of updating my pose and had to leave my 1st attempt which I submitted mid week as my final submission, I wasn't happy but I would much rather have technical faults like that happen now than later in the course. For now im running my oldschool 7800GTX card whilst waiting for a replacement.

Anyway heres what i came up with this week:

Thanks guys - Adam

Week 3! already?...

Time is passing fast and week 3 has come so soon! im already playing catch up with my blog updates! Last weeks assignment was to head into the outside world, observe life and sketch people. We were required to fill a sketchbook page and then from our sketches select a single pose to replicate with AMs Stu rig.

Heres what i came up with:

I've just recieved my critique from Anthony on this pose and its crazy how easily he spots mistakes and suggests improvements! I have to admit I could have tweaked this pose forever! in the end, even though I was far from 100% satisifed I had to force myself to stop and submit the assignment.

I would like to say ill post up a revised version taking into account my critque during the week but as its week 3 and I have a whole new assignment to work on I doubt ill find time right now. The guys who get to do AM fulltime are so lucky! i hope they realise it :).

Anyway I had best get back to my bouncing ball! - Adam

P.S If anyone has any Justin Bieber fan art please send it to Max at max-gariepy.blogspot.com he has severe Bieber Fever.

AnimationMentor is GO!...

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!!

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

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