So I'm working on a super quick turn around short film. There are several shots that use basically the same animation, but I look at it from different angles to help minimize the amount of animation I actually have to create. Enter Maya's renumber frames option.
Each shot is the same frame length (15 frames). One shot starts at 1023 and goes until 1038. I rendered that shot out just fine, then went back into the Maya file, repositioned the camera, and then rendered with a new name, but also used the renumber frames option. I told the frames to start numbering at 1129.
While I could have just written them out with a different name (this would have not overwritten the other frames), I wanted to get the frame numbers correct during the render, so there would be no question as to where they should go in the edit.
Another little used feature of Maya that proved to be quite helpful!
So I finally got around to watching "The Princess and the Frog". I went in really wanting to like the film, and overall, it was a decent movie. I did think it had a few holes though. If you haven't watched the film yet, this is the part where you'll want to stop reading.
A lot of this film felt like a TV special rather than a film. What I mean by that is that several parts of the plot seemed to go by very quickly, or have the audience accept a lot of the story with little or no explanation. Why would the servant character go against Prince Naveen so quickly and easily? Why would the Shadow Man buy the sugar mill? What would he want to do with it? Why would the Shadow Man be so set on destroying Prince Naveen in the first place?
A lot of the character design looked like an episode of the Proud Family as well. This is not really a surprise, given that one of the lead animators on the film was the creator of the show.
Like I said, the film was halfway decent, but hardly the glorious return to 2D animation that it was touted to be. While this is not the fault of the technique, hopefully the businessmen and women greenlighting future projects understand that as well.
So this is a New Year, and as such, it's a time of year that people like to make resolutions. I plan on blogging a lot more this year. I'm also going to get a CG group started in San Diego. I used to have one years ago, but it kind of fizzled out. I'd also like to maybe write a book about getting started in the animation industry. I started in animation over ten years ago now! These are some pretty big goals, but I think it's possible.
So tonight I got two emails from my mother that had been forwarded to her via a long line of gullible people (including one of my sisters). The first one was about an internet virus hooked up to a Hallmark postcard. The second one was about carjackers using paper taped to your rear window to trick you into getting out of your running vehicle to remove it. Both emails are scams.
John Kircfalusi did a great panel at Comic Con where he pitched a cartoon. It sounds simple, but as anyone who has done a storyboard pitch can tell you, it's not a simple thing. Check out the video and see for yourself.
I spent the day animating a spider walking out from its den, only to later in the day have the location of the den moved somewhere else. The bad news is I have to pretty much start over. The good news is that I have pretty well nailed the leg patterns of a walking spider, so I should be able to animate it much faster this second time around (and the spider doesn't have as far to walk now, either).
No word on if the spiders will have to bark or not.
With Ice Age 3 doing so well in theaters (it's a pretty good movie), many people have asked me about what I did on the first film, nearly nine years ago. I found this older demo reel that includes some shots from Ice Age. The reel also contains some clips from other projects, including several proof of concept/pitch animations and some shots from 6 Monsters.
I thought this was pretty cool. The amount of set up must have been huge, but the results are nothing short of amazing. This would be great to see in person.
"Even though it's a game for kids, we're not skimping on any of the graphics quality or game play," said Floyd Bishop, senior animator for 'Free Realms'.
Well, my stint as a blogger for Channel Frederator has come to a close. Times are tough all around, and fat must be trimmed. It looks like it's time to get my own blog up to speed once again. I've neglected it for far too long. Hopefully some readers from Frederator follow me over to my new digs.
It's been a crazy couple of days out here in Southern California. There have been (and still are) fires burning across much of Southern California. There are several people injured, a few that were killed, many acres burned, and many houses destroyed.
My family and I were some of the 500,000 + people that were evacuated. We actually left before we were asked to. My wife and I had been talking last week about what we would do in the event of wildfires, and we stuck to our plan. We put the kids, the dog, some paperwork, and some hard drives in the van and took off.
We left our home around 11PM on Sunday. We drove to Mira Mesa high school and stopped there. My wife and kids slept while I stayed awake, listening to the radio news reports and watching the large flag in the parking lot to get an idea of wind speed and direction. The shelter filled up fast. My family stayed in the van so that others could have the cots and such in the shelter (the gym of the high school). I did go in to the school from time to time to find out what was going on from some of the workers there as well as grab some coffee from the Red Cross.
We left the shelter parking lot at around 4AM. We made a brief stop in Sorrento Valley so I could check online to see where the fires were and how widespread they had become. Most of the sites from the local news stations were down or had not been updated since midnight. I drove to the beach, figuring we would only have to worry about fire from one side then. We headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway and then on the 5 North until we got to an area where the air quality was better.
We saw some more smoke up ahead, farther up the 5, but it was far enough away that we felt like we were safe. We found a hotel just north of San Juan Capistrano. I was beat by the time we checked in and got everyone in an unpacked.
After nearly a week of watching the news and not knowing what was going on at our home, we finally got back today. The Rancho Bernardo area lost several homes, and there were two people found burned to death in Poway. There was no fire damage in our neighborhood, and only some signs of strong winds at my house.
We lucked out, but there are many people in the greater San Diego and Southern California area who didn't do too well. If you would like to help, money seems to be the best thing you can donate at this time.
The next few days will be interesting. Just because the fires are out (or close to being out) doesn't mean the crisis is over. There are many families with no place to go, and nothing but the clothes on their backs. The clean up and rebuilding efforts will continue for months. The investigation and search for the arsonists who started some of the fires that started when the blazes began will continue until the crimes are solved.
