Yeah. Thursday. Never quite been a reasonable day in my life. If it isn't holding my most hated lessons and subjects often, it's bad luck sabotaging me on regular basis.
Woke up this morning once again around 11am, mainly due to two of my housemates talking outside of my room until 4am. Nice sleep in the morning though. Got up, and in the kitchen a guy from maintenance was finally here to fix our sink! That was a great site. The reason for the blockage was, apparently, oil left in the drains blotching up over the course of the summer.
Headed to Waitrose for some extra bin bags, and bacon. During that time I was sunk deep into Death Cab for Cutie's tunes. Songs like those really bolster some good ideas regarding narratives - specifically scene and story developments. 'Transatlanticism' is absolutely ripe with emotional impulse, from the beginning piano introduction to the progressing guitar riffs. Including something like that in my animation would be brilliant but of course we live in the Era of YouTube and plagiarism now fires beyond all four of its cheap cylinders.
Put on the bacon and sausages when I got back, granted for something that should only take 15-20 minutes to grill, doing the things take me a whole hour. I blame the time it takes for the grill to heat up fully, and the sausages taking longer than it should to brown on all sides. Setting specific alarms on my iPhone didn't help the matter much anyhow (yummy anyway) and I was obviously going to be late for the Theory at 2pm.
Theory was in fact taking place in the LL Building whose initials I never know of. The building in question was for Graphics Design, Architecture and other specific courses. I was always curious on its purpose, and being able to finally look around the interiors was nice. It's a cool looking building with the same kind of sleek appeal of the library. Too bad though that I had absolutely no idea as to where room 11C was. The map wasn't giving any clues and it took me a while - plus to visits to the animation pin board in the main corridor - to the notice it was on the floor above.
I was too late regardless, and the teacher there suggested to come back at 3:30 for the other group who I am not a part of. This hiccup has happened before already, and every time it happens I get so pissed off with myself (and well, quite rightly so). My time management is either non-existent and when a smidgen of it is it tends to mean absolutely nothing in progression. How am I to pass the course if I keep on being a goof-ball like this? Seriously?
Well after lying on my bed and emo-ing up the moment lavishly, I headed to the session proper this time (and nearly arriving late). Two or so other students waited outside with me for the group inside to finish before 3:30. Of course, there must be some sort of fucking University protocol I am still yet to cotton onto, wherein everyone aside from me turns up early and therefor the session starts early. Yes, the group inside was in fact the group for 3:30. Oh well, nothing really lost in gained wisdom though.
The session in question for theory was actually to prepare us for the Holy Wars that is academic writing - and more importantly Judgement Day of Dissertation. I forgot her name (Leslie, I think), but the teacher herself was kind and informative. Academic writing for University level seems to place an even larger weight on getting the referencing right. Some assholes could potentially go as far as to fail a student on a slip-up with referencing. Bibliography is key, amongst many others - but even then this was just academic READING. I best attend to my To-Do list and start reading those books I bought with me to UCA!
Finishing the session I hop back to reheat the bacon and sausages I had to cling-film up. Was trying to call up home for a SITREP on the matter of reheating meat but I took a plunge. Nah, it was fine.
Also recieved a letter from TV Licensing. All of us in House 92 did, in fact! If it's not the case what we needed to get a TV license if we watched any sort of live TV we needed to actually inform them that we have no need for one since we wouldn't ever be watching TV. If that sounded incredibly redundant, there isn't really much I can say against that. It WAS.
The TV License wasn't the only item in the letter box addressed to me - a Porter's Lodge slip was also there. Awesome! I quickly grabbed some ID and raced down there, catching up with Roy who had also noticed a slip for his at the time. Roy was told, though, he did not have a delivery and passed by me on the way out of the Lodge.
I, on the other hand, did and obtained a JAMIE OLIVER STAINLESS STEEL STOCKPOT. Awesome, 24cm isn't too shabby, either! When I opened it up though I find out that it was 24cm in width, not height. Height was a wimpy 5cm or so. :( But hey, I'm really grateful towards my dad for getting me this. Lot more recipes that I can cook up, now! Nikujaga, here I come!! Dad also mentioned in my e-mail that an Anglepoise lamp is on its way. It'll be handy considering I can't use my washbasin light as a bed-side light (note warns it'd overheat and break from being left on too long).
Sophie and the others would be going to Sainsbury's to do some shopping for 'Taco Thursdays'. I've already eaten but I enjoy hanging out with friends, so I tagged along like a tool. Speaking of tool, I tend to be spite most supermarket chain that isn't Waitrose. Why this is, is beyond me. It could be my upper-class blood simmering up at times, or my gang using Waitrose in Chichester frequently. Or my dad opting to use the John Lewis food division. (All the stuff he's ordered for me has in fact come from the John Lewis online store)
Whatever the case may be, glancing around Sainburys I could quickly see why most students living on campus chose to walk the extra distance. The deals on offer there were damn tempting. BOGOFF galore, and price cuts on brands all over. I gave in to temptation and brought a bag of Walkers Sensations and 6-pack can of coke. Coincidentally these had no deals going for them.
When it actually came to checking out, a gimmick caught my eye that I'd only glimpsed before once at Tesco in Chichester; self-check out. Looked handy seeing as I wasn't carrying enough to even warrant a basket, so I gave it a spin. Touch-screen controls and spoken instructions (of the key factor to people like me with somehow no experience working behind the till or counter) were of various other features and the process and experience was bees knees aside from some part of the paying procedure. It must of fucked up at some point or something because it asked for a staff number or so, if memory serves correct.
I just sort of stared at the screen in blank puzzlement, but an employee wondered pass and swiftly scanned something on the checkout of mine. Bingo-bango, it was resolved before I could figure out what the hell was happening.
Caught up to Sophie, Georgia and Louie who were waiting on Yannis. I asked them if they used the self-checkout system like I crawled out from under a boulder. Going by their response, I just did. Asked Louie if they're any good.
"They're great when they work. When they don't, it'll piss you off."
Being machines, I had guessed as much.
Yannis bought a surprising amount of stuff. I took a bag for him on the way back and didn't question or peek at the contents. Yes it was for some reason necessary that you know this. After we split paths from Louie (not our housemate btw) and went to the kitchen, I was jumped by Chris (Also not our housemate as I not learnt until yesterday) in the dark. Bastard! But he intended it for his friend Yannis, and must of thought I didn't go with everyone to Sainsburys, whilst also knowing him well enough that he arrives in the kitchen first every time.
Everyone went ahead and started with cooking Tacos. Yannis was 'bored' and repeatedly chanted Coka-Cola so I offered him one much to his surprise. He must of been really freaking bored because upon returning to my room I heard him chanting more random stuff at an even higher pitch outside, to the amusement of everyone else.
After eating an entire sharing pack of Walkers Sensations again, and re-watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time a 3rd time (with English this time, weirdo I am) I cleaned myself up and went upstairs to make some tea. Some housemates - Sophie, Jamie and Yannis, and others from nextdoor were around the table preparing to play cards + drinks. An Asian girl I saw previously chatted to me briefly about my course, and shortly wondered over to me again from the group to continue to the conversation, which to me was unexpected but sweet.
As per usual now with these trends, I forgot her name if she even gave one. Found out she was doing a course in Advertisement and told me how they're taught to be competitive. No surprise, Advertisement seems to be like that from I've seen and been told before.
Did my best to ease her in that regard though. Not sure if I did such a good job, probably not.
She returned to the table and asked me to join. Good idea, as I have this awful habit of ominously watching everyone around the table. I sort of joined in with the group briefly but not for long - I had stuff to finish up and paying the rent was one of them. I reassured the girl I'd return shortly but I never did. Whoops! I let slip about me writing this blog though, so I hope she never finds it. :D
Kept seeing missed calls from home, so I promptly rang back. I never did get those account/sort codes and sure enough it was because Holly was skeptical over the idea of sending/talking them over networks. I didn't say anything against that other than both me AND her sent that sort of details without question over to dad when he requested it. She appologized over her supposed snap shortly after and gave me the details, Payed up the rent as well, made very easy thanks to RBS in fact storing my previous payments online.
Talked to Holly on Skype and she was quick to notice my funky and what must be REBELLIOUS facial hair styling that I am developing. It's not much, in fact. Just a 6 'o clock shadow and some beard on the chin. It was enough to warrant a comment like "prisoner" (I think) but this makes sense considering I am living in what is essentially a fucking prison cell. :< It's alright actually, I love this room now.
Was nice to see my sister 'o mine on Skype though. Hope all goes well for my sister and brother on Friday and Sunday.
Had to edit this entry again to squeeze in the extra boring info. I'm hoping this doesn't alter the 'date' of the post as I like to keep this a daily routine entry. That said I need to write these in earlier as opposed to later since it often results in me racing agains the clock before midnight. Kind of annoying.
Also need to photocopy the four-panel frame template tomorrow for the comic diary I have to do every day. Which I am currently lagging behind on - DURP.
Looking forward to tomorrow on Digital Skills My first sessions should be at 10am in LL 11B. I am DEFINITELY getting up at 7am for it.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Passing Day
Today, Wednesday, is a self-study day. Well, I cleared some things up today.
Unfortunately I decided to get up at 11:30am. I could blame it on post-poning my sleep 'till half one in the morning (Re-watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time with commentary) but that probably isn't it - just overall laziness on my regard. Regardless, my first initiative was to clear up the system lock-out on Online Payment which sent me on a goose chase starting from (and mostly occurring) over various blocks and offices of the Main Halls down to the Faculty Reception. Even then, though, it was because I needed to call to somewhere else in the campus there and despite calling through to this 'Rob' man, he then put me through to another line.
But hurray, I could log back onto Payments and clear up part of the tuition fee! Now all that's left is the rent back home (Holly is yet to reply to either my txt or email, however)
During that time as well, I passed by the library to see if my UCA card arrived yet. Seems not - they told me to check back later on in the afternoon to see then but I forgot to do that. Tomorrow is a better time, anyway.
Getting back to No. 92 house, hadn't gotten round to eating anything yet. Off to the kitchen I went and found Jamie there washing up a lot of the crap other housemates must of left behind. I felt kind of bad - Jamie is a modest and patient guy. Asked if he didn't want any help - said he was alright. Cooked myself the rest of the bacon (albeit cut short due to parts gone worryingly solid/discoloured).
Later I popped round to Waitrose - one just a minute's walk away from accommodation. There I got very essential stuff: McVities dark chocolate digestives, Walker's Sensations and bacon rashers.. Again, I passed by this girl who works there with some pretty 'attractive' eyes. I really wanted to say hi but she was in the middle of shelving various products. No good in distracting someone at work!
Back at my House 92, I found yet more print advertisements jammed to our door. One in particular was of the Uni's Fresher's events; the Fresher's Ball on Thursdays. Would be nice but £15 entry is pretty steep (especially since everyone has to watch the budget) and the drinks probably will be too. Besides that, you'd need a couple for a ball, wouldn't you? And formal clothing? It just doesn't seem too appropriate for only the first few weeks of University.
Passed by Georgia, Rob and Chris (AKA Yannis) - this is actually lies. I remember passing them before leaving for Waitrose, I just can't be assed to rectify the previous paragraphs. Regardless, they came back with bags of Waitrose goodies. I was sort of worried for Jamie and the fact that he'd just cleaned up the bloody utensils and whatnot.
Grabbed my USB Dongle, book with frames and headed to the University's traditional animation room. Granted, it was a little packed up at the time but at least another 2nd year (Or was it 3rd year?) student seemed friendly and chatty. I came back a bit later - at about 3pm or so. It was almost empty save for the student beforehand still there. I checked out what she was doing - it looked pretty good! Her character design of a bitchy, old (and what I assume to be), french lady looked apparent and striking. Better yet, the in-production scene of her decrepit hand reaching for a lipstick looked impressively fluent and well-done. I asked her "What would Andy Joule say about this?" - "It would need to be longer."
Headed over to a then-free Line Tester with an iMac but fortunately I find out that Dragon had actually saved both the scene AND the frames with it. No more re-compiling needed! Saved my work to a USB dongle once again but I was still getting the same error messages. I uploaded the test to YouTube in case, anyway. Student wearing a green UCA hoody popped in and introduced himself - he was Matt, and he was a 1st year student like me in Animation. It's just I am a blind twat and never noticed him before, granted our group does have roughly 60 students. Cool guy, though. He isn't in my Theory group tomorrow but maybe he will be for Friday in Digital Skills?
Got back and yup - animation movie is still corrupt. Never mind! Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKn_teHOP50
Later on in the evening it was Wednesday and this meant it was Pizza since I religiously follow the food routine that was set out by housemate Sophie and others. Me, Sophie and Georgie were in the mood for Dominos and a student discount of Buy-One-Get-One-Free was in offer. There were calculations to be done for the reasonability of pricing but it worked out okay. I went with the American Hot; pepperoni, jaleppeno peppers and onions (thought I skipped the onions). The Jaleppeno <sic> peppers are damn spicy though, I find. Chris (who at the time was gulping milk out of a carton gangsta' style) and Miles seem to of had quarrel in nibbling away at them however. Crazy bastards! D: They went and had Goodfella pizzas. Sophie ravished her pizzas and I took an Ice Age to finish mine off.
Got tired and conked out for an hour - getting up I later hear outside my room Jamie going to one of the other houses to play Super Mario Kart. What a game! But I wasn't the only one - Chris promptly popped out and asked, too. And so did Rob. But Jamie was to go alone - the rest were to watch a film in Sophie's room. Initially I skipped but after a while I stuck my head into her room whilst they were watching - they freaked a little. I thought, "Huh?" Oh, it was Paranormal Activity. Georgia wasn't really finding it scary, as was Rob but I bet he did. Sophie and Chris were getting freaky-deaky over the ending because neither had seen the DVD's particular 'spin' on the closing curtain - if you didn't know about Paranormal Activity's endings, it had three alternate ones.
And afterwards, I am here now, typing away a minute before Thursday.
Unfortunately I decided to get up at 11:30am. I could blame it on post-poning my sleep 'till half one in the morning (Re-watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time with commentary) but that probably isn't it - just overall laziness on my regard. Regardless, my first initiative was to clear up the system lock-out on Online Payment which sent me on a goose chase starting from (and mostly occurring) over various blocks and offices of the Main Halls down to the Faculty Reception. Even then, though, it was because I needed to call to somewhere else in the campus there and despite calling through to this 'Rob' man, he then put me through to another line.
But hurray, I could log back onto Payments and clear up part of the tuition fee! Now all that's left is the rent back home (Holly is yet to reply to either my txt or email, however)
During that time as well, I passed by the library to see if my UCA card arrived yet. Seems not - they told me to check back later on in the afternoon to see then but I forgot to do that. Tomorrow is a better time, anyway.
Getting back to No. 92 house, hadn't gotten round to eating anything yet. Off to the kitchen I went and found Jamie there washing up a lot of the crap other housemates must of left behind. I felt kind of bad - Jamie is a modest and patient guy. Asked if he didn't want any help - said he was alright. Cooked myself the rest of the bacon (albeit cut short due to parts gone worryingly solid/discoloured).
Later I popped round to Waitrose - one just a minute's walk away from accommodation. There I got very essential stuff: McVities dark chocolate digestives, Walker's Sensations and bacon rashers.. Again, I passed by this girl who works there with some pretty 'attractive' eyes. I really wanted to say hi but she was in the middle of shelving various products. No good in distracting someone at work!
Back at my House 92, I found yet more print advertisements jammed to our door. One in particular was of the Uni's Fresher's events; the Fresher's Ball on Thursdays. Would be nice but £15 entry is pretty steep (especially since everyone has to watch the budget) and the drinks probably will be too. Besides that, you'd need a couple for a ball, wouldn't you? And formal clothing? It just doesn't seem too appropriate for only the first few weeks of University.
Passed by Georgia, Rob and Chris (AKA Yannis) - this is actually lies. I remember passing them before leaving for Waitrose, I just can't be assed to rectify the previous paragraphs. Regardless, they came back with bags of Waitrose goodies. I was sort of worried for Jamie and the fact that he'd just cleaned up the bloody utensils and whatnot.
Grabbed my USB Dongle, book with frames and headed to the University's traditional animation room. Granted, it was a little packed up at the time but at least another 2nd year (Or was it 3rd year?) student seemed friendly and chatty. I came back a bit later - at about 3pm or so. It was almost empty save for the student beforehand still there. I checked out what she was doing - it looked pretty good! Her character design of a bitchy, old (and what I assume to be), french lady looked apparent and striking. Better yet, the in-production scene of her decrepit hand reaching for a lipstick looked impressively fluent and well-done. I asked her "What would Andy Joule say about this?" - "It would need to be longer."
Headed over to a then-free Line Tester with an iMac but fortunately I find out that Dragon had actually saved both the scene AND the frames with it. No more re-compiling needed! Saved my work to a USB dongle once again but I was still getting the same error messages. I uploaded the test to YouTube in case, anyway. Student wearing a green UCA hoody popped in and introduced himself - he was Matt, and he was a 1st year student like me in Animation. It's just I am a blind twat and never noticed him before, granted our group does have roughly 60 students. Cool guy, though. He isn't in my Theory group tomorrow but maybe he will be for Friday in Digital Skills?
Got back and yup - animation movie is still corrupt. Never mind! Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKn_teHOP50
Later on in the evening it was Wednesday and this meant it was Pizza since I religiously follow the food routine that was set out by housemate Sophie and others. Me, Sophie and Georgie were in the mood for Dominos and a student discount of Buy-One-Get-One-Free was in offer. There were calculations to be done for the reasonability of pricing but it worked out okay. I went with the American Hot; pepperoni, jaleppeno peppers and onions (thought I skipped the onions). The Jaleppeno <sic> peppers are damn spicy though, I find. Chris (who at the time was gulping milk out of a carton gangsta' style) and Miles seem to of had quarrel in nibbling away at them however. Crazy bastards! D: They went and had Goodfella pizzas. Sophie ravished her pizzas and I took an Ice Age to finish mine off.
Got tired and conked out for an hour - getting up I later hear outside my room Jamie going to one of the other houses to play Super Mario Kart. What a game! But I wasn't the only one - Chris promptly popped out and asked, too. And so did Rob. But Jamie was to go alone - the rest were to watch a film in Sophie's room. Initially I skipped but after a while I stuck my head into her room whilst they were watching - they freaked a little. I thought, "Huh?" Oh, it was Paranormal Activity. Georgia wasn't really finding it scary, as was Rob but I bet he did. Sophie and Chris were getting freaky-deaky over the ending because neither had seen the DVD's particular 'spin' on the closing curtain - if you didn't know about Paranormal Activity's endings, it had three alternate ones.
And afterwards, I am here now, typing away a minute before Thursday.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Great Bouncing Balls of Fire!!
Today was, what could be considered, a large step into my animation history and experience - actual frames. Not the sort onion-skinned in Flash, not the sort done with tarty tracing paper. Actual light-box, peg-bar, hurried pencil tested frames.
Before that though, I was late up yet again in the morning in regards to my own time keeping.
7am is my intended time to arise but cold air entraps me to this eery state of warmth and safety - a fear to be born yet again into the real world. With my sessions in Principles starting at 10am, I decided to at least get up 50 minutes beforehand. Tea was on the menu alone. Marmite on toast would of been a nice compliment but alas my bread moulded up into a Cthulhu fuck-fest. :(
Principles in Animation today was pretty fun, actually. Robert tasked us with drawing various objects and actions that accentuated movement or weight. Running man, speeding car, and somehow a feather was some of this. The second task was to draw up two scenes (just bare with me here): one of a ball breaking through a window and bursting through a man's newspaper to his surprise, and even greater, a man on a table grabbing a table cloth for support whilst another person runs to support a falling vase.
The first scene I personally thought I got pretty on the spot, whilst the second was a failed attempt to cram all of the tasked actions into some dynamic wide-angle shot. I wasn't sure what else I was thinking other than "How the hell am I to sqeeze all of that into a single thumbnail?" Thinking back, I like how I decided to, for some reason, design the table-wobbling character as a blind man.
Was hoping for Rob to check my book for many errors and advice on improvements. He intended to get around people quicker this time, too. Nope. He still feels the need to go through all the specular, denizen details of the books. There was afternoon lesson for him to catch up with the rest but god damn, he couldn't even see me then!
Speaking of afternoon lesson - the former-mentioned bouncing ball exercise occurred. I arrived slightly late which was enough for almost all the light boxes to be taken. Paper was already being queued up for chopping, and I was kind of lagging on keeping up. But whatever? I eventually found a place, a spare peg bar and got cracking with the exercise.
Andy Joules (AKA John Locke) is our other teacher for Principles. He's something of a hard-boiled industry veteran. I wouldn't believe myself as first but hey - check out his showreel and some of his work dates back to the 70s. He's done a variety of adverts for the BBC, too. I love that one of What We Eat on BBC3! That's so clever.
Waffling aside, yeah. Andy told us the basics to get a ball bouncing in arcs and it was pretty effective.
The basis was to draw a line forming in arcs and to then drawing the balls going sequentially across, on one frame. We'd then use that frame as a standing point for where to draw in the ball for each individual frame.
Spacing (and to a lesser extent, squash and stretch) was important here and basically taught us the fundamentals of that vital knowledge. Most people finished up their ball bounce at 15-21 frames. I decided to be picky and 'soften' up the animation with an additional 17 or so frames; I suppose The Animation Survival Kit already forewarned me on how to space things accurately.
Once done - off to the mighty LINE TESTER. It's basically a slightly bigger light box with some fancy lamps around it as well as something to hold a camera. But this device really works a treat - the camera is hooked up to the iMacs and a stop-motion program called Dragon enables quick fires of digital capture to be taken with a simple press of the enter key. It was very neat and rewarding to see that scruffy ball of mine bounce across so fluently thanks to the extra added frames. Andy seemed to of found it alright - I'm happy he didn't (appear to have) any qualms about it.
Oh, yeah. When everyone left because of my impractical slowly-wins-the-race work ethic, a student I never met before came in whilst I was trying to rectify a stupid-ass screw up I made on Dragon. Her name was Sophie - she was a 2nd year student of animation! It was interesting and fun to talk to her about what she did over the course of her first year, and her tastes towards animation. She hopes to send an animation off to the film festival. I hope that'll happen, she seems to look like the sort with some great ideas tucked away. She was nice, hopefully I'll catch her again. (There was a 3rd year student that came in, too, albeit he jumped right into frantic work. Well, I can't wait for 3rd year at University now.)
Back home at Room 5, I was avid to see my compiled line test on my laptop. Too bad, then, that the .mov file seemed to of been corrupted. QuickTime back in the studio were informing me of something being amiss but I just sort of assumed it was the iMacs fault. (Besides, having a technical hiccup whilst meeting someone new is just awkward) I'll have to recompile the frames tomorrow.
Ah - and not only that. I'll have to contact System Administrators or something in Finance. Intended to pay part of my tuition fee before Thursday since the money came in today but several log-in failures and whoopee, the Pay Online system locked me out, that dick. ;_; Rent has to also be payed for back home, but my sister hasn't texted back some of the details for online RBS yet. On top of that, I need to e-mail my dad about Endsleigh - but I'll do that tomorrow once this has all been sorted. Oh! I can get my UCA card, too.
Had a spaghetti bolognese, pre-cooked. Was quite nice! Also experienced TokBox website after my housemate Sophie (not from before) brought it up again. Multi-chat convo, baby! Sounds like a hoot.
Kitchen is kind of messy again, though. Man, poor Roy - he cleaned up a lot of the stuff, too.
Just spent like a whole hour writing up this blog as well. Am I really going to be writing an essay like this each and every time? Hope not, fitting that into a schedule is going to be hella' fun otherwise.
Before that though, I was late up yet again in the morning in regards to my own time keeping.
7am is my intended time to arise but cold air entraps me to this eery state of warmth and safety - a fear to be born yet again into the real world. With my sessions in Principles starting at 10am, I decided to at least get up 50 minutes beforehand. Tea was on the menu alone. Marmite on toast would of been a nice compliment but alas my bread moulded up into a Cthulhu fuck-fest. :(
Principles in Animation today was pretty fun, actually. Robert tasked us with drawing various objects and actions that accentuated movement or weight. Running man, speeding car, and somehow a feather was some of this. The second task was to draw up two scenes (just bare with me here): one of a ball breaking through a window and bursting through a man's newspaper to his surprise, and even greater, a man on a table grabbing a table cloth for support whilst another person runs to support a falling vase.
The first scene I personally thought I got pretty on the spot, whilst the second was a failed attempt to cram all of the tasked actions into some dynamic wide-angle shot. I wasn't sure what else I was thinking other than "How the hell am I to sqeeze all of that into a single thumbnail?" Thinking back, I like how I decided to, for some reason, design the table-wobbling character as a blind man.
Was hoping for Rob to check my book for many errors and advice on improvements. He intended to get around people quicker this time, too. Nope. He still feels the need to go through all the specular, denizen details of the books. There was afternoon lesson for him to catch up with the rest but god damn, he couldn't even see me then!
Speaking of afternoon lesson - the former-mentioned bouncing ball exercise occurred. I arrived slightly late which was enough for almost all the light boxes to be taken. Paper was already being queued up for chopping, and I was kind of lagging on keeping up. But whatever? I eventually found a place, a spare peg bar and got cracking with the exercise.
Andy Joules (AKA John Locke) is our other teacher for Principles. He's something of a hard-boiled industry veteran. I wouldn't believe myself as first but hey - check out his showreel and some of his work dates back to the 70s. He's done a variety of adverts for the BBC, too. I love that one of What We Eat on BBC3! That's so clever.
Waffling aside, yeah. Andy told us the basics to get a ball bouncing in arcs and it was pretty effective.
The basis was to draw a line forming in arcs and to then drawing the balls going sequentially across, on one frame. We'd then use that frame as a standing point for where to draw in the ball for each individual frame.
Spacing (and to a lesser extent, squash and stretch) was important here and basically taught us the fundamentals of that vital knowledge. Most people finished up their ball bounce at 15-21 frames. I decided to be picky and 'soften' up the animation with an additional 17 or so frames; I suppose The Animation Survival Kit already forewarned me on how to space things accurately.
Once done - off to the mighty LINE TESTER. It's basically a slightly bigger light box with some fancy lamps around it as well as something to hold a camera. But this device really works a treat - the camera is hooked up to the iMacs and a stop-motion program called Dragon enables quick fires of digital capture to be taken with a simple press of the enter key. It was very neat and rewarding to see that scruffy ball of mine bounce across so fluently thanks to the extra added frames. Andy seemed to of found it alright - I'm happy he didn't (appear to have) any qualms about it.
Oh, yeah. When everyone left because of my impractical slowly-wins-the-race work ethic, a student I never met before came in whilst I was trying to rectify a stupid-ass screw up I made on Dragon. Her name was Sophie - she was a 2nd year student of animation! It was interesting and fun to talk to her about what she did over the course of her first year, and her tastes towards animation. She hopes to send an animation off to the film festival. I hope that'll happen, she seems to look like the sort with some great ideas tucked away. She was nice, hopefully I'll catch her again. (There was a 3rd year student that came in, too, albeit he jumped right into frantic work. Well, I can't wait for 3rd year at University now.)
Back home at Room 5, I was avid to see my compiled line test on my laptop. Too bad, then, that the .mov file seemed to of been corrupted. QuickTime back in the studio were informing me of something being amiss but I just sort of assumed it was the iMacs fault. (Besides, having a technical hiccup whilst meeting someone new is just awkward) I'll have to recompile the frames tomorrow.
Ah - and not only that. I'll have to contact System Administrators or something in Finance. Intended to pay part of my tuition fee before Thursday since the money came in today but several log-in failures and whoopee, the Pay Online system locked me out, that dick. ;_; Rent has to also be payed for back home, but my sister hasn't texted back some of the details for online RBS yet. On top of that, I need to e-mail my dad about Endsleigh - but I'll do that tomorrow once this has all been sorted. Oh! I can get my UCA card, too.
Had a spaghetti bolognese, pre-cooked. Was quite nice! Also experienced TokBox website after my housemate Sophie (not from before) brought it up again. Multi-chat convo, baby! Sounds like a hoot.
Kitchen is kind of messy again, though. Man, poor Roy - he cleaned up a lot of the stuff, too.
Just spent like a whole hour writing up this blog as well. Am I really going to be writing an essay like this each and every time? Hope not, fitting that into a schedule is going to be hella' fun otherwise.
Monday, 27 September 2010
SUMMERY
STUFF YOU MISSED:
- Moving into Prison Cell
- Meeting housemates
- Appreciating Prison Cell
- Induction
- Free crap like Chili Dogs and filthy fucking Frosty Jacks
- Signing up for Salsa and Cocktail Society because I am pretentious
- Getting Laptop
- Family visiting
- Student Union stuff
- Principles: Character design
- Unable to figure out the shower
- Sink block
- Being reported for that
- Being reported for leaving clean stuff on the draining board
- and a cigarette end on the communal floor in the corner
- Ice skating which I didn't actually go to
- Queuing up for PAT Electrical Appliance test
Crap I never really got to wright up about. My laptop is here now so I can keep up to snuff with the art of blogging dat shit up. (There was probably an iPhone app for Blogger but oh well)
So it all BEGINS
My name is Piers Mearns. Eccentric and slow, but humble enough.
So I've started off with University life, AKA high life (Yeah :D) here at the UCA of Farnham.
My eyes set firm to create top-notch animation over the next few years, I'll also be keeping a blog along the way to chronicle my successes and failures, hardships and highlights. (Probably also my breakups and s[ellin mistakes!1!)
I've actually moved in and started University about two weeks ago, but the first two weeks are always boring as hell anyway. Nothing really missed!
With that out the way, I won't know what is up ahead for me regarding my next three years. It's no surprise a lot will happen, but there will be surprises within.
So I've started off with University life, AKA high life (Yeah :D) here at the UCA of Farnham.
My eyes set firm to create top-notch animation over the next few years, I'll also be keeping a blog along the way to chronicle my successes and failures, hardships and highlights. (Probably also my breakups and s[ellin mistakes!1!)
I've actually moved in and started University about two weeks ago, but the first two weeks are always boring as hell anyway. Nothing really missed!
With that out the way, I won't know what is up ahead for me regarding my next three years. It's no surprise a lot will happen, but there will be surprises within.
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