Meh.

Lazy day. This isn't particularly too great of me; I've pretty much did what Andy Joule advises against.  
"Oh, guess I'll get up. Murr, cereal. Maybe go shopping." etc etc. I really don't have that much time, I should be starting the two projects right NOW. Time management is of the essence for succeeding this course - I need to structure it better from now on.

Besides that, lazy times indeed. In contrast to yesterday's entry there isn't a great deal of material to talk about, fortunately, so I shall skip ahead to 3:00pm.

Got my stuff and went ahead to finish the walk cycle today in G01. Went back because yet again I forgot paper. Jane greeted me there!

If I haven't talked about my rather obscene walk cycle yet, well here we go: as Ken Harris, master animator put it - "A walk is the first thing to learn. Learn walks of all kinds, 'cause walks are about the toughest thing to do right." And it's true, for the most part. I have practiced in them before, and my final piece last year was based on walking.

For this occasion, when I was drawing in the stickman for the walk cycle I somehow managed to botch up the proportions right from the get-go. The legs were incredibly long and slender. Bad as that may be, that kind of figure had a lot of character going for it, and I wanted to do something with it. With elegance in mind, I exaggerated leg movement a great deal during the initial key-frames, raising up the legs a huge amount. I thought this would be a good idea - honestly do not know why. The idea was there, but whether I could make any real sense of it I was not sure on. The mind rest assured itself on in-betweens making better sense of the action but even at this early point I know well enough that key-frames should not be ones telling the story.

With that explained, I was working on a rather gay stride. During the process I messed up some numbering on the frames, and got a little lost in the arrangement of it all. As this was being sorted out, the two students near me suddenly started to bring up gay relations. The thing of that I heard was a girl (one whom I saw back last Wednesday) saying that she saw her ex-girlfriend on Saturday or something. Initially, I figured I'd misheard it but then her friend began mentioning that he fancied a guy on Facebook. Going by what I needed to animate here, the air turned fruity in a disgustingly sugary kind of way. :|  Peep within my year, in group 1A, silently glanced at my animation from behind. He had some critics to say with it, but generally made supporting comments.

Nearing completion of an extra 17 or so frames, someone else behind the light boxes was getting more than frustrated with the iMac. Clicks turned to finger-smashes, and grunts grew to growls. Judging by the start-up noises, the iMac was crashing (It MEENZ dEY SUX!!1) and supposedly, work was being lost. Repeatedly. My solace to the demonised citizen.

Enough frames were now down to warrant a test on Dragon, so I hopped over to the tester in excitement. Dragon initially crashed when setting Capture Device to the camera, but this was rectified when the program started again - presumably because I first selected display device to the camera that time.
Anyway, shot all 24 frames and examined the test. EUGH, whaa-? The leg-raising frames really weren't the best of ideas. The walk hasn't improved much from the Salsa marching. Even then, the walk animation needs a total of 50-60 frames, so there is still plenty room to improve it. Wanted to export the animation for the blog, but this wasn't happening. Exporting so far has had at least some problem tied to it, so I'm going to enquire Jon Hunt about dis shitz.

Shortly, at about 6:45pm, Sophie was going to Waitrose for some stationary, with Rob and James - another friend who is not the one with an Afro. (Scrap this, I'll have to write a list of names for the blog) I wanted to get a Pizza for Pizza Wednesdays, so hey, okay. Rob (albeit Sophie's idea) lobbed a stick at Yannis's window for the lols. As usual, Yannis just sort of responds with a blank look. Brought an American Hot, pepperonis and peppers! Mmm! Sophie glamoured over the halloween crap on display. I misled her into believing Waitrose sold costumes - nup. That was Sainsburys, got it mixed up. Upon heading back, Sophie was shocked to learn that Waitrose was a sub-structure of John Lewis.

Videogame society was on at the SU, but wasn't sure if it had finished yet. Popped the pizza in the fridge and winged it over to bar. I didn't see anything going on, and a guy was setting up the stage. Apparently it already finished at 7pm. Oh well! Before going to Waitrose, I chatted with Dan who lives next door to us. Yesterday through Facebook I discovered a twist - he was in fact the teacher for Street Dance. With such a perked interest, I asked him how it went. Quite well! 15 people turned up. Asked him how the structure of teaching dance goes, and it sounds smoother than I thought. I choose Salsa because from advice, it would supposedly be the easier dance to get into - but from what Dan had explained, Street Dance could be just as easy. I may actually go next time, as Dan is also just a cool guy to hang out with.

Whacked on the 'ol pizza for 11 minutes to cook. Whilst waiting, chatted away with Rob, James and Yannis. Pizza was cooked after the instructed time and Gas mark but...it looked kind of burnt. Uh? Maybe it's not burnt in the way I perceive it to be, but the crust shouldn't be browned up and hard. It didn't stop the pizza itself being tasty.  PJ made his usual guest appearance but he looked like total crap, which the group had a surprise by. Taking a break from writing this entry, Sophie told me he's caught the Uni Flu. Uh oh! I wasn't aware that it spread so much. Holy shit, do those Cod Liver Oil tablets really work after all? 


Lecture is at 9:30am tomorrow, unless the time tabling pulls yet enough magic trick out of the hat.