Couldn't sleep too much through last night despite the early night. Not sure as to why, although I guess part of it was due to Yannis and Georgia making a lot of noise throughout the night. Both noise, and you know - noise.
Woke up this morning past my allotted 6:30am waking time. Upon first inspecting the clock, it was 7:30am. But meh, oh well! Boy was this morning misty. Farnham looked like it swallowed into a cloud.
Shortly before lesson, I put my diary comics/autobiographical strips into a ring-binder. Because I didn't have any stickers and, for reasons I do not know, I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy some, so I cut out small rectangles from a sheet of A4 and with some glue it made a pretty good substitute to labelling my work. Put on my student number as well, although that probably wasn't necessary and I wasn't entirely sure if the number was right.
Headed onto B124 with 3 minutes past 10. More and more I am slipping away from Course Leader Leslie's words of "arrive 15 minutes before the start of the lesson" (because - "we are really anal about time keeping" that is word-for-word). There, the entirety of Year 1 was there, being the hand-in date for our sketchbooks and the like. Eventually, the boxes with the books were shifted away to the office by Ron and Andy, after a bit, told the other group that they are free to go.
Now, Andy turned to us. The 'lecture' today was pretty important as it was explaining the 30 second animation project. It's a bigun and also occurring amidst all the other current projects - Andy of course realises this. With the presentation at hand, we were run through the steps for the animation for what we are to do: a script, storyboarding, time-scheduling, animatics, animation and post-production.
Andy states that a script is to come before storyboarding.
Also, a script suggests the necessity for voice-acting and sadly that is so. I'm not against the idea of including some voice-acting and a lot of simmering ideas equate its fundamental need - it's just none of us are trained in acting and a bad performance can jeopardise and ruin a good animation. (That's not to say mine will be though, of course) We can't simply just commit the time to learn either which is likely what the staff will turn to advise us - time is everything in animation. I don't really know what to do...
The next big point was, of course, time-management. Or 'scheduling' as I prefer! Andy brought up again the very revelation that shambles us all: just how little time we have in the remaining weeks. I went on and on about my cold over the past couple of days and this is why. Our teacher ever so wonderfully put it that "you're really gonna have to pull your thumb out at this point." ...and he's right, as much as we haven't be telling ourselves that enough. Andy recommended using Excel to plan out a timetable for the next few weeks in managing work and self-set goals which is a fair option, although I prefer Microsoft Entourage - the peak in a suite of day-to-day, spick-and-span time planning. The student email system is also operated by Outlook which features a condensed version of Entourage of sorts.
At this point, I tensed up in neither a good or bad way. I just realised at least a little bit more the gravity of the whole thing. I thought I'd better get scheduling. Andy talked us through further about animatics - the process of getting the basic pacing and flow of the narrative (drawings) right and the actual animation. There were other pointers as well, but straight-forward. One of the things that Andy did talk about was acting - how we should refer to actors for our animations, how they do it, how they get 'everything' in. Theatrical actors were suggested however as Andy felt that film actors do not accentuate their gestures, emotions and everything else to the degree of theatrical. True indeed.
Another pointer Andy mentioned was something to do with narrative - I couldn't remember the details to precise measures but it was how an apparent mistake students always do at first is not establish what is happening, or what is going on in a scene enough. They cut or move onto something else. I see what he means and it's noticeable, not to mention questionable why they let it slide. But my gut had churned when considering the other side of the coin - when the flow of the narrative is at the rate of the morning rush-hour, when something is established longer than it should be. I noticed these in some student showreels and it out-right annoyed me. It could be due to simple structured plots on part by the students, but some films have shots where, for instance, a man will just stand right in front of a door for 3 seconds before opening it. I really hope this isn't what Andy meant to push for in rectifying the mistake. It may be just paranoia and not at all. Subsequently, Felix raised a hand and said he prefers quick snappy shots.
TL;DR - I don't want my animation to sit there establishing actions for ages. Smoothness, man!
Before finishing, Andy did some Q:A time. I asked him how we're to improve on something when realistically it isn't possible coming towards a deadline. His solution: finish it earlier and use the spare time to then fix up and polish things further. It's an obvious solution but I'll see if I can use the Christmas holidays for that period of additional details. Actually, the question was more of a deliberate jab at Andy's "You must never be too satisfied with your work" vs "We expect you to meet the deadline. You don't want to cross it."
Various other questions were thrown around - mainly regarding the occurrences of snow in England how our nation typically goes into critical-lockdown from the appearance of such anomaly. Apparently, it has occurred before, last year, that a deadline had to be rescheduled because the University had to be closed for a week. Andy's answer to this years was that he'll give a prize to anyone determined to hand in at the day of the deadline despite the potentially ridged conditions.
After the session finished, I asked Andy about the time-tabling plan. My question was admittedly quite cheesy - if anything can be done and passed with a firm time-table. "I don't see why not!" I recalled to him a course-leader back in SouthHampton University saying to us (after the interviews): "You won't have the time to go out drinking with friends from other courses." He added, "This isn't like film-production where minutes are recorded with a press of a button; in Animation, every drawn frame count towards a second of animation needed for completion." This nugget of forewarning stuck with me since. I'm glad it did - now I'm beginning to realise what he secretly stressed.
Headed back to No. 92 with Oscar and his pal, TMwAH. Oscar took him over to his place to give him a copy of a couple of Adobe programs. That's cool - and I need to fish Adobe After Effects from him at some point as well for obvious reasons. Headed onto Waitrose for a few nuts and bolts. Heading back, I went into my room and relaxed for a bit, calming myself a little. Later on in the day, I began composing a time table in Entourage for the next few weeks, tweaking it constantly. When looking good, I tried syncing it onto the iPhone...but irritatingly the iPhone was scrambling up the calendar events. I tried various acts to get it fixed but none to my prevail. It's a bugger since the iPhone is essential what I'll be keeping with me the majority of the time but never mind - I'll work out another way.
Went over to the library to print out some storyboards, and had a £5 note to use. The credit machine upstairs was under repair so down to the one at the ground floor. It wasn't able to process my fiver though most likely due to the crumpled and aged nature of it - so I turned to the reception desk as an option to pay credit. Instead though, the woman took me over to the machine to demonstrate how to put credit in...uh? She quickly noticed the £5 note was going to work it so yeah, manual transaction it was.
After wasting extended periods of time trying to find the storyboard templates I eventually tracked them down and printed them stupidly in colour. It was £4.00 for the job of 10 sheets and I didn't argue a lot against that. Mono prints would of been a lot more economical since 10 sheets costed a mere 50p. Having a green UCA logo on the storyboards just isn't worth the budget. I'm already learning.
Wanted to go to G01 for some animation but it was already a little late and I just wanted to relax for a bit. Besides, I need to actually plan the storyboarding for the Character Motivation first. I went upstairs to put on some supper, and decided on some tasty braised steak with mashed potato. Ready meal, but of course! It slipped my mind, however, that it needed to be defrosted (throughout the day/night) before cooking. Not all ready-meals are a simple freezer-to-oven approach of course. I'm such an idiot. I realised my mistake when taking it out of the oven after 20 minutes of Mark 6 action that the meat was STILL FROZEN TOGETHER. Whoops. Put it back in the oven to accidental Mark 7-8 for another 20 minutes and thereafter it was fine, somehow. I haven't had any stomach problems either, so hot damn.
Oh and saw Kit in the kitchen. He was on the phone to his friend at one point and they were discussing about an event tonight concerning pyjamas and a t-shirt. Sounds like the Carnage in Guildford is on.
Plonked out on my bed for an hour or so. I heard Sophie, Georgia and other housemates tweeting around in the foyer outside my room. After a bit and starting with the blog entry it became apparent that everyone (sans Rory, I'm guessing) was planning to head to the Carnage event up in Guildford. Many of Sophie's friends were hanging outside of my room at one point awaiting her. One of them had pretty colourful pyjamas. White with many bold coloured shapes. That guy in particular, actually, asked who's in No. 5. Louie responded my name, and as the typical confusion goes - "As in, Pierce Brosnan? Like, James Bond?"
Tomorrow is my first proper day in enacting my time table. It's to the core, but not quite hardcore. Even then, I'm nervous about the workload I'm committing myself to - even if it's the only way to get this all done before Christmas. I'm sure it'll work out fine, though! I believe in myself to get everything finished up. I know I can do it. It just takes faith. (God, that was ABYSMAL, but I need to let that spark of bravado speak)
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
Cycle of Walk
Well, I planned for shopping in Farnham at 9:00am, to then work before 10am in G01 but I got out of bed at 11:15.
Cold has, for the most part, cleared up now - which is great. Whilst making my tea the cleaner came up - a different one than who I usually see. Whilst waiting for his bucket to fill, he told me "this place is usually clean compared to others" - it was a nice compliment. I said we try, and although he admitted again that whilst it isn't spotless, it's still a fair job.
Sometime at 12, at headed into Farnham for a spot of shopping. Mainly - DVD-Rs (cases for them). Quick snoop at Waitrose had the discs themselves. of course, but they were in the 'cake' packaging which wasn't what I was after. Headed instead to WHSmith - and there I found a variety. Picked up a pack of 10 for £10.99. Ah yeah, before heading to town I also dropped the lightbox back to the library. Lacking any hole-punched paper (it has specific to the peg bar) made it useless. :(
So with that done, I rested a bit and headed to G01 to finish off my walk cycle. Not a lot of light boxes were actually being used at the time - only about 6 or so. Everyone else were working on their sketchbooks. Added in the last few frames, and waited about for a line tester to be available. As it happened, one eventually was - at the far end. On the flop side, this was a line tester hooked up to a Mac, whose Dragon software failed to export the animations last time. But this time could be different so I re-shot the frames; plus the resolution and picture quality is better.
With all the frames taken, I eagerly hit the spacebar to watch the result - the walk was silky-smooth, and character illuminated from my efforts. I did hick-up on about 4 frames - one misplaced a little near the beginning, and three were a back-to-front on a leg lift, but they didn't detract too much from the believability of the performance. I'm glad I gave the stickman an eccentric jive to its walk in the end - it has added a lot to the essence of the animation. Drawing this simple walk cycle and seeing its results has given me confidence that I can leave as fluent and strong impulse to other next exercises. I can't stop watching it!
With that out the way, I went to export it to QuickTime and...it failed. So: don't use this line-tester again. I shoved the Dragon files themselves - both the ball bounce and walk cycle - onto my USB dongle and shifted to a Mac next door. Alas, QuickTime exported them fine and even better, I finally got the ball bounce done too.
One of the guys (who has frequented G01 as much as me, as of recent) told me that tomorrow Ron and Andy only want the sketchbook and comic-strips handed in. Well damn. That's good news but threw me off a touch as well. Besides that, at least I don't have to stick the animations on disc quite yet. I could get on with the character motivation exercise now but I didn't think to bring the frames with me.
Instead...I tried animating a bit of my own inspiration. Just passionately going for it - just whatever I felt could and should be done within me. That said, I tried roughing out some sketches for a punch scene I had in mind. Inspired by anime (Yup.) and director/animator Mamoru Hosoda, I wanted to see if this 'energy' of movement in mind could translate well into paper. Did some rough guides, going from a stern, standing position to a broadly-hunched wind-up to a punch and finally to an almost fish-eye perspective of the punch about to be delivered. These words are hard to follow, basically one of the things I had always wanted to explore is bringing the exaggeration and the energy of a fight into animation. Of course, most animations and their fights are exaggerated to begin with - but I want to refine the subtle details. Impacts of a punch, for instance, must be irresistible to play around with.
I'll scan and show the work done so far in any case at some point - and maybe even a line-test if I get far enough with it.
Headed off shortly and silently without saying a good-bye. Reviewed my animations a couple of times on the laptop. Eventually headed upstairs to put on some dinner. Sophie, Rob, Georgia and Yannis got back with shopping. It was nice to see everyone together again after a good week or so - in particular Rob and Sophie! Put on the spaghetti bolognese and caught up with everyone. Rob noticed my apparent cold. After eating my dinner, Jamie popped up. "McJAMMIN'!!" gleed Sophie, and Jamie snarkely responded "...Who're you?" I love it when he shoots her down like that. :(
Doorbell rung and I popped down to see who it was, probably a friend of Yannis or them lot out for a smoke. Nope! It was two Fashion students selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts, door-to-door, for a pound. (to fund their fashion show, if I recall) No thanks. I "reassured" them that I'd tell my fellow housemates upstairs. When I returned to the kitchen, they asked me right off the bat who that was. I told them "just two people selling Krispy Kireme doughnuts" - "Krispy Kreme!?" asked Sophie in a surprise. Yeah, and I told her it was for £1. Surprised by the apparent great value there (I didn't think so) Sophie reached out the kitchen window to call for their response. When confirmed of their whereabouts in the student village, Sophie darted out the house in an act to get her hands on some delights. She returned shortly - with two of the confections and a balloon. Yannis returned from his room to the kitchen and witnessed Sophie with them and further enquired how she obtained these items. He himself followed suit and went looking for the fashion students. The two of them outside kept screaming out their selling of Krispy Kremes which grated on Rob's nerves. (I almost got him to belt insults at them through the window - one of his more noticeable traits)
Man, after looking at the website though...I feel inclined to go hunt some of the places down when I return for Christmas. Mr.Donuts in Japan was awesome - irresistible places to visit and eat, my two companions would agree as well. Krispy Kreme looks just as good, so.... :(
Tomorrow I'm to hand in my sketchbook work so far. I've done most, if not all the required stuff so far - it's just a case of binding together the diary comics and tidying up the book.
Cold has, for the most part, cleared up now - which is great. Whilst making my tea the cleaner came up - a different one than who I usually see. Whilst waiting for his bucket to fill, he told me "this place is usually clean compared to others" - it was a nice compliment. I said we try, and although he admitted again that whilst it isn't spotless, it's still a fair job.
Sometime at 12, at headed into Farnham for a spot of shopping. Mainly - DVD-Rs (cases for them). Quick snoop at Waitrose had the discs themselves. of course, but they were in the 'cake' packaging which wasn't what I was after. Headed instead to WHSmith - and there I found a variety. Picked up a pack of 10 for £10.99. Ah yeah, before heading to town I also dropped the lightbox back to the library. Lacking any hole-punched paper (it has specific to the peg bar) made it useless. :(
So with that done, I rested a bit and headed to G01 to finish off my walk cycle. Not a lot of light boxes were actually being used at the time - only about 6 or so. Everyone else were working on their sketchbooks. Added in the last few frames, and waited about for a line tester to be available. As it happened, one eventually was - at the far end. On the flop side, this was a line tester hooked up to a Mac, whose Dragon software failed to export the animations last time. But this time could be different so I re-shot the frames; plus the resolution and picture quality is better.
With all the frames taken, I eagerly hit the spacebar to watch the result - the walk was silky-smooth, and character illuminated from my efforts. I did hick-up on about 4 frames - one misplaced a little near the beginning, and three were a back-to-front on a leg lift, but they didn't detract too much from the believability of the performance. I'm glad I gave the stickman an eccentric jive to its walk in the end - it has added a lot to the essence of the animation. Drawing this simple walk cycle and seeing its results has given me confidence that I can leave as fluent and strong impulse to other next exercises. I can't stop watching it!
With that out the way, I went to export it to QuickTime and...it failed. So: don't use this line-tester again. I shoved the Dragon files themselves - both the ball bounce and walk cycle - onto my USB dongle and shifted to a Mac next door. Alas, QuickTime exported them fine and even better, I finally got the ball bounce done too.
One of the guys (who has frequented G01 as much as me, as of recent) told me that tomorrow Ron and Andy only want the sketchbook and comic-strips handed in. Well damn. That's good news but threw me off a touch as well. Besides that, at least I don't have to stick the animations on disc quite yet. I could get on with the character motivation exercise now but I didn't think to bring the frames with me.
Instead...I tried animating a bit of my own inspiration. Just passionately going for it - just whatever I felt could and should be done within me. That said, I tried roughing out some sketches for a punch scene I had in mind. Inspired by anime (Yup.) and director/animator Mamoru Hosoda, I wanted to see if this 'energy' of movement in mind could translate well into paper. Did some rough guides, going from a stern, standing position to a broadly-hunched wind-up to a punch and finally to an almost fish-eye perspective of the punch about to be delivered. These words are hard to follow, basically one of the things I had always wanted to explore is bringing the exaggeration and the energy of a fight into animation. Of course, most animations and their fights are exaggerated to begin with - but I want to refine the subtle details. Impacts of a punch, for instance, must be irresistible to play around with.
I'll scan and show the work done so far in any case at some point - and maybe even a line-test if I get far enough with it.
Headed off shortly and silently without saying a good-bye. Reviewed my animations a couple of times on the laptop. Eventually headed upstairs to put on some dinner. Sophie, Rob, Georgia and Yannis got back with shopping. It was nice to see everyone together again after a good week or so - in particular Rob and Sophie! Put on the spaghetti bolognese and caught up with everyone. Rob noticed my apparent cold. After eating my dinner, Jamie popped up. "McJAMMIN'!!" gleed Sophie, and Jamie snarkely responded "...Who're you?" I love it when he shoots her down like that. :(
Doorbell rung and I popped down to see who it was, probably a friend of Yannis or them lot out for a smoke. Nope! It was two Fashion students selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts, door-to-door, for a pound. (to fund their fashion show, if I recall) No thanks. I "reassured" them that I'd tell my fellow housemates upstairs. When I returned to the kitchen, they asked me right off the bat who that was. I told them "just two people selling Krispy Kireme doughnuts" - "Krispy Kreme!?" asked Sophie in a surprise. Yeah, and I told her it was for £1. Surprised by the apparent great value there (I didn't think so) Sophie reached out the kitchen window to call for their response. When confirmed of their whereabouts in the student village, Sophie darted out the house in an act to get her hands on some delights. She returned shortly - with two of the confections and a balloon. Yannis returned from his room to the kitchen and witnessed Sophie with them and further enquired how she obtained these items. He himself followed suit and went looking for the fashion students. The two of them outside kept screaming out their selling of Krispy Kremes which grated on Rob's nerves. (I almost got him to belt insults at them through the window - one of his more noticeable traits)
Man, after looking at the website though...I feel inclined to go hunt some of the places down when I return for Christmas. Mr.Donuts in Japan was awesome - irresistible places to visit and eat, my two companions would agree as well. Krispy Kreme looks just as good, so.... :(
Tomorrow I'm to hand in my sketchbook work so far. I've done most, if not all the required stuff so far - it's just a case of binding together the diary comics and tidying up the book.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Lazy Summer No. 5
Didn't do a whole lot today. Just resting for the most part. I got bogged down by the stupid cold that developed from yestarday. Took a shower and some hot drinks as a means to melt away the 'goo' blocking up my head. I wanted to go to the library today, and get some books necessary for the essay. That didn't quite happen.
Headed to Waitrose at 3:45 and got some marmite, waffles and cheap custard creams. Not bad! Put on supper at 7:00 or so - an indian pack meal from Waitrose. The packaging it came in is cool! At 7:30, dad called me up on Skype and we had a chat - mainly because he was going back to work in India the following day. He brought up the idea of using a taxi (that he uses for the airport commuting) to head back to Farnham from home each weekend (under his payment). That's kind but I'd feel to guilty. He reassured me about the work for University and that he'd help with the essay. I think dad has misinterpreted my stress and anxiety coming solely from the essay - it's generally from having to shift through all the work up to December.
Tomorrow, I must get the Walk Cycle complete, put on a DVD with a case and labled - the same for the bouncing ball exercise.
Headed to Waitrose at 3:45 and got some marmite, waffles and cheap custard creams. Not bad! Put on supper at 7:00 or so - an indian pack meal from Waitrose. The packaging it came in is cool! At 7:30, dad called me up on Skype and we had a chat - mainly because he was going back to work in India the following day. He brought up the idea of using a taxi (that he uses for the airport commuting) to head back to Farnham from home each weekend (under his payment). That's kind but I'd feel to guilty. He reassured me about the work for University and that he'd help with the essay. I think dad has misinterpreted my stress and anxiety coming solely from the essay - it's generally from having to shift through all the work up to December.
Tomorrow, I must get the Walk Cycle complete, put on a DVD with a case and labled - the same for the bouncing ball exercise.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Lazy Summery No.4
Jumped out of bed at 10 past 12 today, that's pretty bad. Slept a little better, though.
Called up my father and sister - but to no answer. Tried the house phone too, and no luck. At 1:20 or so I fried up some sausages and bacon - a good time to eat some of them. Sausages cooked fast and well (and I nearly burnt them) but the bacon took longer than they often would.
Later that day, at about 2:30 my dad rung up to say he was about to head to Farnham with Holly - about six minutes or so. 45 minutes later, he called up again to say he was coming up to the car park. Walking into the car park behind the Student Village, there I saw him - with Iggy hopping around. Gave him 40p change for the ticket machine, and took guided Iggy to the car. Saw Holly in there, looking well! Iggy promptly hopped right into the car, back onto her lap.
Leaving the doggy friend in the car, we headed to a cafe down around the arcade. Candy...Twist, I think it's called. Not only was it a cafe, it was a shop for sweet confectionary as well. Dad and Holly got to see how I was doing; I behaved a little bit tense, especially for a minute around my sister but I cooled. Tea was nice, and my dad had a "really strong hot chocolate" along with a coffee. Caffeine, it gives mankind power.
Afterwards, Holly and dad looked into a couple of shops on the way up to Waitrose - a perfume/fragrance and clothes shop to be precise. My sister saw a coat that caught her eye, and my dad put an order of some sort on for it for Christmas. (Along with a 'royalty' card or similar - something to get a discount, I think) At Waitrose, I picked up some goods for me from an Indian meal, stuff for a stir-fry, milk and so on. Taking the opportunity to, dad and Holly did a shop up there as well. I really appreciated how easy-going dad was with this food shopping.
After packing the goods into the car, I kept my shopping and headed back to my place - Holly, dad and Iggy followed. I was a little cautious on Iggy coming along (He tends to get hostile around teens, and barks) but he was fine. He enjoyed stopping mid-way often to peep at students hanging outside their house. We all headed into 92, and dad needed to go for a whizz (as did Holly). Iggy hopped all around the room checking it out, and probably lavishly investigating student smells. Before leaving, Holly and dad reassured me about staying on top of University work and figuring it out - that I'd do fine. I really appreciated it! In particular, dad often talked about the essay. It isn't top priority for me...but I would actually like to start it at least by the end of next week.
Followed the trio to the door, and gave them my farewells. My dad is heading back to work in India on Monday. Packed my shopping away and started up the stir-fry. Jamie popped up, having woken up recently; he had to film his documentary at Woking from 9am and didn't get back 'till 10am the following day for reasons involving some shootings happening only past midnight. He talked about how weird it was to fall asleep during the day and I talked about the new Winnie the Pooh film. (Traditionally animated! ENGLISH Christopher Robin!)
As I was eating up my stir-fry, Yannis popped up. He sounded a little grumpy, and wondered "why is there a cup there?" Cup left in his cupboard, I believe, but it might be the sink. Likely the latter. Oh, Yannis got back yesterday if I recall. Not only did he head back home this week, he also went to a gig featuring his favourite band, The Foals. One of his friends during the event had pissed in a cup ('Weenier cup') and placed it near the legs of a seated girls without her notice. Yannis himself didn't see the result - but he expected it to of been good and bad. Yannis spent much of today asleep as well, since he was both up through the night for the Foals, and spent a good portion of the time travelling back to University the following day.
Yannis wondered if I had a cold - I confirmed it (it started manifesting today, actually) and he offered me to use some of his cold pills. "No thanks" - but I do appreciate the offer. He dumped his washing on top of the stuff that was mine in the sink - he must of not noticed I was going to wash my stuff up soon. :( Finally did so after consuming the entirety of my stir-fry. Even now, I feel full!
I could Georgia outside of my room moments ago so I guess she (and maybe Sophie) is back from Brighton. Tomorrow I'll head to the library to get some of the readings for my essay - albeit I need to still choose a question for it first.
Called up my father and sister - but to no answer. Tried the house phone too, and no luck. At 1:20 or so I fried up some sausages and bacon - a good time to eat some of them. Sausages cooked fast and well (and I nearly burnt them) but the bacon took longer than they often would.
Later that day, at about 2:30 my dad rung up to say he was about to head to Farnham with Holly - about six minutes or so. 45 minutes later, he called up again to say he was coming up to the car park. Walking into the car park behind the Student Village, there I saw him - with Iggy hopping around. Gave him 40p change for the ticket machine, and took guided Iggy to the car. Saw Holly in there, looking well! Iggy promptly hopped right into the car, back onto her lap.
Leaving the doggy friend in the car, we headed to a cafe down around the arcade. Candy...Twist, I think it's called. Not only was it a cafe, it was a shop for sweet confectionary as well. Dad and Holly got to see how I was doing; I behaved a little bit tense, especially for a minute around my sister but I cooled. Tea was nice, and my dad had a "really strong hot chocolate" along with a coffee. Caffeine, it gives mankind power.
Afterwards, Holly and dad looked into a couple of shops on the way up to Waitrose - a perfume/fragrance and clothes shop to be precise. My sister saw a coat that caught her eye, and my dad put an order of some sort on for it for Christmas. (Along with a 'royalty' card or similar - something to get a discount, I think) At Waitrose, I picked up some goods for me from an Indian meal, stuff for a stir-fry, milk and so on. Taking the opportunity to, dad and Holly did a shop up there as well. I really appreciated how easy-going dad was with this food shopping.
After packing the goods into the car, I kept my shopping and headed back to my place - Holly, dad and Iggy followed. I was a little cautious on Iggy coming along (He tends to get hostile around teens, and barks) but he was fine. He enjoyed stopping mid-way often to peep at students hanging outside their house. We all headed into 92, and dad needed to go for a whizz (as did Holly). Iggy hopped all around the room checking it out, and probably lavishly investigating student smells. Before leaving, Holly and dad reassured me about staying on top of University work and figuring it out - that I'd do fine. I really appreciated it! In particular, dad often talked about the essay. It isn't top priority for me...but I would actually like to start it at least by the end of next week.
Followed the trio to the door, and gave them my farewells. My dad is heading back to work in India on Monday. Packed my shopping away and started up the stir-fry. Jamie popped up, having woken up recently; he had to film his documentary at Woking from 9am and didn't get back 'till 10am the following day for reasons involving some shootings happening only past midnight. He talked about how weird it was to fall asleep during the day and I talked about the new Winnie the Pooh film. (Traditionally animated! ENGLISH Christopher Robin!)
As I was eating up my stir-fry, Yannis popped up. He sounded a little grumpy, and wondered "why is there a cup there?" Cup left in his cupboard, I believe, but it might be the sink. Likely the latter. Oh, Yannis got back yesterday if I recall. Not only did he head back home this week, he also went to a gig featuring his favourite band, The Foals. One of his friends during the event had pissed in a cup ('Weenier cup') and placed it near the legs of a seated girls without her notice. Yannis himself didn't see the result - but he expected it to of been good and bad. Yannis spent much of today asleep as well, since he was both up through the night for the Foals, and spent a good portion of the time travelling back to University the following day.
Yannis wondered if I had a cold - I confirmed it (it started manifesting today, actually) and he offered me to use some of his cold pills. "No thanks" - but I do appreciate the offer. He dumped his washing on top of the stuff that was mine in the sink - he must of not noticed I was going to wash my stuff up soon. :( Finally did so after consuming the entirety of my stir-fry. Even now, I feel full!
I could Georgia outside of my room moments ago so I guess she (and maybe Sophie) is back from Brighton. Tomorrow I'll head to the library to get some of the readings for my essay - albeit I need to still choose a question for it first.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Don't cross over the dead line
Much better rest last night.
Got up at...11:55. Irritated, as I wanted to go to G01 for some animation. On the way to the 2:00 session, I came across Oscar (with a funky new haircut) outside the library having a smoke with others. Waited a little bit longer inside the library - Luko came out of his lesson. Again he looked tired, and apparently fell asleep (hypothetically) in Jon's session.
In Jon's session today, speaking of which, we were taught the basics of the Puppet Pin tool! This versatile feature allows inanimate objects to get bendy flexibility for the purpose of animation. I learnt a little bit about this ahead of time on the Adobe Workshop website, but not to the extent here. Because of Jon Hunt's fandom to Formula 1, and the upcoming big race, Lewis Hamilton was used as the example demonstration.
We needed to quickly grab a character off of the internet to use for puppet animation. Jon made an emphasis on quickly here as the last group took around 10-15 minutes to use a workable image. Nabbed an image of Mickey Mouse, seeing as his limbs spaced apart enough. Placing pins on him and animating the parts were fine - things got muddy when the left hand (or theoretically right as Jon felt necessary) couldn't be tweened without the ear being pulled with it due to the 'mesh' overlapping onto the hand. Raising the mesh/triangle amount wouldn't help. Further more, the thumb of the hand wouldn't follow along and stay stagnant. It was weird considering the other hand moved fine. Jon suggested to edit the picture back at Photoshop into multiple layers. And Jon was annoyed with the previous group taking so long with their images.
In regards to the issue that me and everyone else was having (China James was using the same Mickey picture too) Jon went through the process of, incidentally, splitting an image up into multiple components (eg. layers) for puppeteering. From the sounds of it, multiple components sounds necessary regardless, just for the sake of making things simpler and further flexible. Mr.Hunt brought up an example, for instance, of a characterised water drop with a bowling ball. Splitting up the image into several pieces really increased the fluidity and dynamic manipulation of the subject as opposed to being restrained to working with a stiff piece of mould.
Finishing up the lesson, Jon took us through how to use the omnipotent camera tool of After Effects - possibly the bread and butter of the program. We were already taught this briefly by Will but Jon gave us a larger approach to it. The 'virtual' camera shared many of the same properties and options a real industry camera would with film size, aperture, lens and so fourth. This would make sense, I suppose, given that After Effects is used so heavily to apply, well, the after effects to a film. Despite turning 4:00 we had the opportunity to play around for a while with the camera function since we were the last group for today. I didn't have long though as I wanted to get to G01 - and also to call back to my dad, as I purposefully missed the call since I was in class. Dad sent a txt this morning at 7:00 concerning my grouchy voice and coughing having heard it from Holly, offering to come down and visit.
Called up my dad again outside of the library on the way back and asked about my preference on seeing him and Holly. Had to be busy over the weekend(s) and so I suggested maybe to visit tomorrow Saturday. Look forward to seeing him. After the call finished, I stopped and...oh yeah. I wanted to see about borrowing a lightbox from the library. Heading home, I stopped and turned 180 at the student village and headed back to the building to enquire - indeed I could! But I hadn't brought my wallet that had my student card. Back I go. Too many times now I keep on disregarding my wallet when I had in fact needed it for something. Got it, and had the light box. Nice! And so I headed to G01 as I can just keep it with me until I get back. Oh, wait. PAPER. Back-track again. Dumped the lightbox in my room, got the heap of paper and headed to G01 for real this time. Familiar faces were working in G01 again, which I'm beginning to like.
As I worked on the walk cycle, I nearly finished it until I bad revelation came about - on Fridays, G01 closes early at 6:00pm. This severely hindered my plan - my previous line-test was good enough, but I wanted to give it more. True enough, at 6:00 on the spot the security guard popped in and, in friendly, courteous manner asked us to pack up by about 5 minutes. I frantically asked G01 Sophie if this place is open over the weekdays, and the earliest it is open in the morning. Q1: It isn't. Q2: 9:00. Both answers I was afraid of. Hmm.
Headed out and...ran back in, almost forgot the paper. Headed back to my house in a strop. So what now? The deadline is on Monday, for (I believe to be) 9:00-9:30am. I do have a lightbox, but I didn't get around to punching holes in the paper. Besides that, I don't have a line-tester. Arguably the most important thing, to me, about producing the animation. The iMacs hooked up to the testers have the software Dragon on it, too, which have necessary exporting functions - both for AVI and MOV. Avi is important for the DVDs I think, which are a requirement for assessment. Anyway - another penny-drop occurred. I over-heard the American student mentioning that not only was the walk-cycle due for assessment, so was the ball bounce exercise. Crap, I completely forgot about that. I've done it - but the iMac that it was on was having no luck on exporting it in anyway without corrupting the file. Of course the studio is closed over the weekend, so I'm pretty much screwed.
Headed back to my house, and shortly thereafter went into town. Headed to Subway, and used my points for a free footlong 'B.M.T' sub and with my student card, a free drink. Payed just 50p, and that was for a donut. Got back and my contained anger petered out a little bit. Read some weekly manga and felt calmed down. Began thinking of some ideas on how to tackle the problem. Dropped a message on Facebook asking people on my course what the time and place for the hand-in is. Checking on UCA a surprise came about - the deadline is Tuesday 16th. It's for 10:00-10:30 as well! Well, that's great! It gives me a whole day not only to finish the animation but also to get them on DVDs.
It's 22:22 now, so I'll be ending this blog here so that I can shave and shower up, then head to bed.
I'll work on some designs tomorrow, print out some storyboard templates and get to work on the essay and Digital animation.
Got up at...11:55. Irritated, as I wanted to go to G01 for some animation. On the way to the 2:00 session, I came across Oscar (with a funky new haircut) outside the library having a smoke with others. Waited a little bit longer inside the library - Luko came out of his lesson. Again he looked tired, and apparently fell asleep (hypothetically) in Jon's session.
In Jon's session today, speaking of which, we were taught the basics of the Puppet Pin tool! This versatile feature allows inanimate objects to get bendy flexibility for the purpose of animation. I learnt a little bit about this ahead of time on the Adobe Workshop website, but not to the extent here. Because of Jon Hunt's fandom to Formula 1, and the upcoming big race, Lewis Hamilton was used as the example demonstration.
We needed to quickly grab a character off of the internet to use for puppet animation. Jon made an emphasis on quickly here as the last group took around 10-15 minutes to use a workable image. Nabbed an image of Mickey Mouse, seeing as his limbs spaced apart enough. Placing pins on him and animating the parts were fine - things got muddy when the left hand (or theoretically right as Jon felt necessary) couldn't be tweened without the ear being pulled with it due to the 'mesh' overlapping onto the hand. Raising the mesh/triangle amount wouldn't help. Further more, the thumb of the hand wouldn't follow along and stay stagnant. It was weird considering the other hand moved fine. Jon suggested to edit the picture back at Photoshop into multiple layers. And Jon was annoyed with the previous group taking so long with their images.
In regards to the issue that me and everyone else was having (China James was using the same Mickey picture too) Jon went through the process of, incidentally, splitting an image up into multiple components (eg. layers) for puppeteering. From the sounds of it, multiple components sounds necessary regardless, just for the sake of making things simpler and further flexible. Mr.Hunt brought up an example, for instance, of a characterised water drop with a bowling ball. Splitting up the image into several pieces really increased the fluidity and dynamic manipulation of the subject as opposed to being restrained to working with a stiff piece of mould.
Finishing up the lesson, Jon took us through how to use the omnipotent camera tool of After Effects - possibly the bread and butter of the program. We were already taught this briefly by Will but Jon gave us a larger approach to it. The 'virtual' camera shared many of the same properties and options a real industry camera would with film size, aperture, lens and so fourth. This would make sense, I suppose, given that After Effects is used so heavily to apply, well, the after effects to a film. Despite turning 4:00 we had the opportunity to play around for a while with the camera function since we were the last group for today. I didn't have long though as I wanted to get to G01 - and also to call back to my dad, as I purposefully missed the call since I was in class. Dad sent a txt this morning at 7:00 concerning my grouchy voice and coughing having heard it from Holly, offering to come down and visit.
Called up my dad again outside of the library on the way back and asked about my preference on seeing him and Holly. Had to be busy over the weekend(s) and so I suggested maybe to visit tomorrow Saturday. Look forward to seeing him. After the call finished, I stopped and...oh yeah. I wanted to see about borrowing a lightbox from the library. Heading home, I stopped and turned 180 at the student village and headed back to the building to enquire - indeed I could! But I hadn't brought my wallet that had my student card. Back I go. Too many times now I keep on disregarding my wallet when I had in fact needed it for something. Got it, and had the light box. Nice! And so I headed to G01 as I can just keep it with me until I get back. Oh, wait. PAPER. Back-track again. Dumped the lightbox in my room, got the heap of paper and headed to G01 for real this time. Familiar faces were working in G01 again, which I'm beginning to like.
As I worked on the walk cycle, I nearly finished it until I bad revelation came about - on Fridays, G01 closes early at 6:00pm. This severely hindered my plan - my previous line-test was good enough, but I wanted to give it more. True enough, at 6:00 on the spot the security guard popped in and, in friendly, courteous manner asked us to pack up by about 5 minutes. I frantically asked G01 Sophie if this place is open over the weekdays, and the earliest it is open in the morning. Q1: It isn't. Q2: 9:00. Both answers I was afraid of. Hmm.
Headed out and...ran back in, almost forgot the paper. Headed back to my house in a strop. So what now? The deadline is on Monday, for (I believe to be) 9:00-9:30am. I do have a lightbox, but I didn't get around to punching holes in the paper. Besides that, I don't have a line-tester. Arguably the most important thing, to me, about producing the animation. The iMacs hooked up to the testers have the software Dragon on it, too, which have necessary exporting functions - both for AVI and MOV. Avi is important for the DVDs I think, which are a requirement for assessment. Anyway - another penny-drop occurred. I over-heard the American student mentioning that not only was the walk-cycle due for assessment, so was the ball bounce exercise. Crap, I completely forgot about that. I've done it - but the iMac that it was on was having no luck on exporting it in anyway without corrupting the file. Of course the studio is closed over the weekend, so I'm pretty much screwed.
Headed back to my house, and shortly thereafter went into town. Headed to Subway, and used my points for a free footlong 'B.M.T' sub and with my student card, a free drink. Payed just 50p, and that was for a donut. Got back and my contained anger petered out a little bit. Read some weekly manga and felt calmed down. Began thinking of some ideas on how to tackle the problem. Dropped a message on Facebook asking people on my course what the time and place for the hand-in is. Checking on UCA a surprise came about - the deadline is Tuesday 16th. It's for 10:00-10:30 as well! Well, that's great! It gives me a whole day not only to finish the animation but also to get them on DVDs.
It's 22:22 now, so I'll be ending this blog here so that I can shave and shower up, then head to bed.
I'll work on some designs tomorrow, print out some storyboard templates and get to work on the essay and Digital animation.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Lazy Summery No.3
Uh oh, already on the third one? I am pretty tired right now, though, having gotten little to no sleep last night despite heading to bed by 10:30. Scratchy coughs (anxiety, I guess) are a pain but hey ho!
Got up at the best time yet - 6:15am! Nice! And what better way to start off my morning than with a shower. All the housemates would still be asleep so I tried to be quiet even if a shower is going to do absolutely no good on that regard. Whilst washing away, I heard a knock on the door and as I feared, someone wasn't liking the racket. It could of just been paranoia or I am delusional - pretty sure there was one, however. I froze on the spot in the shower immediately turning it off...and turned it back on again after a minute or so as I still had shampoo on my hair. I had to cut my morning shower early. :( Who WAS that, though? I'm guessing it was Yannis.
I glided back into my room, still in a weird semi-drunken state that you get from a night of illness. Dressed myself with some new clothes reeeaaally slowly from the state of mine. Still a little startled from irritating a housemate, I passed the time in half an hour (or an hour?) by reading Animation Survival Kit. Tried to find a section of the book listing the tempo of a walk - how many frames a paced walk should have, indeed. Eventually found it - casual strolling (Which is what I want) is 16 or so frames a step. Well, dammit. Should of planned this out better.
Come 7:00am I strolled upstairs to get myself some much needed tea and toast. I really didn't feel like being awake with a lingering sense of illness simmering within me. Noticed one of the sinks was brimming with unwashed stuff with a bit of paper that at first I didn't notice was a note. ("Are we that bad?" - I first thought) Somebody noted that they'd clean the rest of in the morning. Judging by the zany writing style and 'by the Lemon Monster!' I guessed it was either Georgia, Yannis or Rob. Or Sophie? (She's not like that however)
After peeling off some slight mould from the last couple of pieces of bread, toasting it and preparing the tea, and I paced my way back down in weird, dazed steps. Like a zombie butler. Had some SolapdinePlus to hopefully ease up that stupid throat pain. At 8:00 I kipped out a little bit for an hour, it felt quite nice. Come 9:45 I departed! In windy, bitter cold rain! Luckily I had a hooded coat, so annoyances aside from wet jeans.
Got to Maltings for Jon's lecture just in time. Sat somewhere in the second row, and Luko turned up a little bit after me. The lecture today was on Realism. This was a pretty interesting subject since it is of course so debatable. What is 'realism'? Mr.Weinbren typically starts off the session, like all good lecturers, with a titular question. Most answers had, in fact, happened to cover resulting bullet points on the next side. I liked one particular response by the American student: "Natural flow following a logical path."
Most the slides talked about the French theorists - and one french man in particular, Andre Bazin. He proposed in 1946 that the goal and ambition of cinema is "a total
I couldn't jot down the rest as Jon kept moving the slides forward. The underlying term here, anyway, is Cinea Verite. There's a lot to this but Jon's quote that slipped his tongue summed it up. "Post-modern ironic trick." One of the interesting things he had us do was showing us a photo of a group of 'extatic' children - ones who look eastern european in the 1920s. He asked us - what's going on with the photo? Somebody stated that one of the children were superimposed to the photo, despite Jon correcting that statement. To get the responses interesting, he further asked what's going on behind the camera. Only then did suggestions of warfare (or celebrity on one answer) arise.
The next topic was great. In a...um. It was this: hyper-realism. Example? Disney Land. Disney characters in costumes. Hyper-realism right there. The term here was coined by a Paul Wells. Here are some examples I jotted down: Deers move like deers. Sounds are as they manifest in real-life. Snow White moves like Snow White. Obviously there was actual slides with real examples but I needed glasses and he moved on quickly.
Went on a break, and sat in the lounge with Luko. Poor guy still had a cold torturing him , and couldn't get much sleep. (Because as most students do....he stayed up! Watching something. Forgot.) I discussed this hyper-realism nonsense with Luko, debating that it's just a blowhard way of saying 'really realistic'.
Back in the lecture things moved onto categorising animation realism. Visual realism, aural realism, realism of motion and so on. By this stage the walls of text were past mammoth proportions, so I just listened in and jotted in doodles. We were shown a trailer for Bambi for the example of all this categorising put together (Bumper's foot bumping looks so lewd by this day). Some guy behind me kept putting his feet on my chair, moving it a bit. Pissed me off. The hunch that anyone who gels their hair up is something of an arrogant prick is sadly coming to be true. He openly bitched about Felix's barrage of question and examples though.
Speaking of which, Felix did also consult Jon on 'uncanny valley' which spoilt the next slide's case. Uncanny valley. Man-made imagery of something so realistic like a human, but...it's not quite there. Some ever so slightly looks off and the entire illusion is broken. Mr.Weinbren brought up a great example of this with a 'technical demo' of a videogame, Heavy Rain. I heard about this game from my older brother. Apparently it really showcases ultra realistic visuals...and boy, did it ever. Shame the actual 'actress' animation looked pretty balls, especially on the face. (the most important spot for believability and empathy) Story looked interesting though.
At the end of the session, I wanted to catch Jon to ask him some questions regarding the essay. Two or three other students jumped up to his side already however, each avidly enquiring Jon if he "heard of this game" or "that game" based on HYPER-REALISM. When it came to my turn (and 1-to-1 by this point) I joked to him being a fan of the pixels and all. With the essay, we can of course start it now as I guessed although Jon brought up that he was going to cover all the questions (that we did each week like realism) before letting us kick off. Still, stuff is gotta' be done before Christmas.
Luko went to Boots for some heart-burn pills - buying 'TumTum' because he was appealed by the name. I headed to Waitrose for some snacks and told Luko I'd see him in G01. Back home I headed upstairs to the kitchen for a drink and Sophie popped up. She was quickly irritated by Yannis's (it was him!) mess and we both agreed that blockading a sink with unwashed stuff is a slap to everyone else. Coincidentally, Yannis popped up. He picked up his notice and put it in the bin. Then, he added an extra plate to his sink of unwashed things. Sophie didn't bring up the issue with him and neither did I - we mutually wanted to hold on to see if Yannis was actually going to do something about it. I headed down to my room after a bit though so never saw. Right now I didn't know if it is cleaned yet.
After a small break I accidentally fell into a resting snooze and eventually headed to G01 at 3:30 or so. There, I worked away more on adding frames to the walk cycle, trying to find methods of making it quicker without initial guidelines slowing me down to almost unproductive levels. Luko wasn't anywhere to be seen though...oops, I guess I let him down by not turning up sooner. Shoot.
Worked away, and come 6:00, checked other peoples walk cycles and/or Character Motivation. One of the girls has done over 100 frames for her motivation already and it is key framed. One of the other students whose name I need to catch (feet on chair, attends street dance) mentioned Ron told him to start again both for the walk cycle and character motivation. Ouch. Nikki's (Philippine student) finished her Character Motivation of an old man. Looked great! When I was eventually the only one left after Nikki's departure, I got a text from my sister if I wanted to talk on Skype. Suggested for about 7:30. Janitor came along at about 6:30 to ask if I'd be any longer in G01, and promptly packed my stuff (and switched off the iMacs) to head off. Apparently I'm not meant to be the only one in G01 or something? What the crap.
Got back home and waited for sister to call up on Skype. I managed to doze off my desk like a lazy sod, and even migrated to rest on top of the bed still fully clothed. Left the volume on my laptop loud to see if she'd call. By 8:20 I got up and started with writing this entry. Gave my sister a call (who wanted to call back in 5 minutes at first) and didn't sound to avid to talk with me due to god-awful scratchy, raspy voice. Told me not to work too hard and take a break. Well, I've been taken to many of them, even today. :(
It's 9:30 as of writing this and I'm just going to shower up and head to bed. I just don't feel appetised or inclined enough to eat dinner tonight. I need to work, lots, for my sake.
Got up at the best time yet - 6:15am! Nice! And what better way to start off my morning than with a shower. All the housemates would still be asleep so I tried to be quiet even if a shower is going to do absolutely no good on that regard. Whilst washing away, I heard a knock on the door and as I feared, someone wasn't liking the racket. It could of just been paranoia or I am delusional - pretty sure there was one, however. I froze on the spot in the shower immediately turning it off...and turned it back on again after a minute or so as I still had shampoo on my hair. I had to cut my morning shower early. :( Who WAS that, though? I'm guessing it was Yannis.
I glided back into my room, still in a weird semi-drunken state that you get from a night of illness. Dressed myself with some new clothes reeeaaally slowly from the state of mine. Still a little startled from irritating a housemate, I passed the time in half an hour (or an hour?) by reading Animation Survival Kit. Tried to find a section of the book listing the tempo of a walk - how many frames a paced walk should have, indeed. Eventually found it - casual strolling (Which is what I want) is 16 or so frames a step. Well, dammit. Should of planned this out better.
Come 7:00am I strolled upstairs to get myself some much needed tea and toast. I really didn't feel like being awake with a lingering sense of illness simmering within me. Noticed one of the sinks was brimming with unwashed stuff with a bit of paper that at first I didn't notice was a note. ("Are we that bad?" - I first thought) Somebody noted that they'd clean the rest of in the morning. Judging by the zany writing style and 'by the Lemon Monster!' I guessed it was either Georgia, Yannis or Rob. Or Sophie? (She's not like that however)
After peeling off some slight mould from the last couple of pieces of bread, toasting it and preparing the tea, and I paced my way back down in weird, dazed steps. Like a zombie butler. Had some SolapdinePlus to hopefully ease up that stupid throat pain. At 8:00 I kipped out a little bit for an hour, it felt quite nice. Come 9:45 I departed! In windy, bitter cold rain! Luckily I had a hooded coat, so annoyances aside from wet jeans.
Got to Maltings for Jon's lecture just in time. Sat somewhere in the second row, and Luko turned up a little bit after me. The lecture today was on Realism. This was a pretty interesting subject since it is of course so debatable. What is 'realism'? Mr.Weinbren typically starts off the session, like all good lecturers, with a titular question. Most answers had, in fact, happened to cover resulting bullet points on the next side. I liked one particular response by the American student: "Natural flow following a logical path."
Most the slides talked about the French theorists - and one french man in particular, Andre Bazin. He proposed in 1946 that the goal and ambition of cinema is "a total
I couldn't jot down the rest as Jon kept moving the slides forward. The underlying term here, anyway, is Cinea Verite. There's a lot to this but Jon's quote that slipped his tongue summed it up. "Post-modern ironic trick." One of the interesting things he had us do was showing us a photo of a group of 'extatic' children - ones who look eastern european in the 1920s. He asked us - what's going on with the photo? Somebody stated that one of the children were superimposed to the photo, despite Jon correcting that statement. To get the responses interesting, he further asked what's going on behind the camera. Only then did suggestions of warfare (or celebrity on one answer) arise.
The next topic was great. In a...um. It was this: hyper-realism. Example? Disney Land. Disney characters in costumes. Hyper-realism right there. The term here was coined by a Paul Wells. Here are some examples I jotted down: Deers move like deers. Sounds are as they manifest in real-life. Snow White moves like Snow White. Obviously there was actual slides with real examples but I needed glasses and he moved on quickly.
Went on a break, and sat in the lounge with Luko. Poor guy still had a cold torturing him , and couldn't get much sleep. (Because as most students do....he stayed up! Watching something. Forgot.) I discussed this hyper-realism nonsense with Luko, debating that it's just a blowhard way of saying 'really realistic'.
Back in the lecture things moved onto categorising animation realism. Visual realism, aural realism, realism of motion and so on. By this stage the walls of text were past mammoth proportions, so I just listened in and jotted in doodles. We were shown a trailer for Bambi for the example of all this categorising put together (Bumper's foot bumping looks so lewd by this day). Some guy behind me kept putting his feet on my chair, moving it a bit. Pissed me off. The hunch that anyone who gels their hair up is something of an arrogant prick is sadly coming to be true. He openly bitched about Felix's barrage of question and examples though.
Speaking of which, Felix did also consult Jon on 'uncanny valley' which spoilt the next slide's case. Uncanny valley. Man-made imagery of something so realistic like a human, but...it's not quite there. Some ever so slightly looks off and the entire illusion is broken. Mr.Weinbren brought up a great example of this with a 'technical demo' of a videogame, Heavy Rain. I heard about this game from my older brother. Apparently it really showcases ultra realistic visuals...and boy, did it ever. Shame the actual 'actress' animation looked pretty balls, especially on the face. (the most important spot for believability and empathy) Story looked interesting though.
At the end of the session, I wanted to catch Jon to ask him some questions regarding the essay. Two or three other students jumped up to his side already however, each avidly enquiring Jon if he "heard of this game" or "that game" based on HYPER-REALISM. When it came to my turn (and 1-to-1 by this point) I joked to him being a fan of the pixels and all. With the essay, we can of course start it now as I guessed although Jon brought up that he was going to cover all the questions (that we did each week like realism) before letting us kick off. Still, stuff is gotta' be done before Christmas.
Luko went to Boots for some heart-burn pills - buying 'TumTum' because he was appealed by the name. I headed to Waitrose for some snacks and told Luko I'd see him in G01. Back home I headed upstairs to the kitchen for a drink and Sophie popped up. She was quickly irritated by Yannis's (it was him!) mess and we both agreed that blockading a sink with unwashed stuff is a slap to everyone else. Coincidentally, Yannis popped up. He picked up his notice and put it in the bin. Then, he added an extra plate to his sink of unwashed things. Sophie didn't bring up the issue with him and neither did I - we mutually wanted to hold on to see if Yannis was actually going to do something about it. I headed down to my room after a bit though so never saw. Right now I didn't know if it is cleaned yet.
After a small break I accidentally fell into a resting snooze and eventually headed to G01 at 3:30 or so. There, I worked away more on adding frames to the walk cycle, trying to find methods of making it quicker without initial guidelines slowing me down to almost unproductive levels. Luko wasn't anywhere to be seen though...oops, I guess I let him down by not turning up sooner. Shoot.
Worked away, and come 6:00, checked other peoples walk cycles and/or Character Motivation. One of the girls has done over 100 frames for her motivation already and it is key framed. One of the other students whose name I need to catch (feet on chair, attends street dance) mentioned Ron told him to start again both for the walk cycle and character motivation. Ouch. Nikki's (Philippine student) finished her Character Motivation of an old man. Looked great! When I was eventually the only one left after Nikki's departure, I got a text from my sister if I wanted to talk on Skype. Suggested for about 7:30. Janitor came along at about 6:30 to ask if I'd be any longer in G01, and promptly packed my stuff (and switched off the iMacs) to head off. Apparently I'm not meant to be the only one in G01 or something? What the crap.
Got back home and waited for sister to call up on Skype. I managed to doze off my desk like a lazy sod, and even migrated to rest on top of the bed still fully clothed. Left the volume on my laptop loud to see if she'd call. By 8:20 I got up and started with writing this entry. Gave my sister a call (who wanted to call back in 5 minutes at first) and didn't sound to avid to talk with me due to god-awful scratchy, raspy voice. Told me not to work too hard and take a break. Well, I've been taken to many of them, even today. :(
It's 9:30 as of writing this and I'm just going to shower up and head to bed. I just don't feel appetised or inclined enough to eat dinner tonight. I need to work, lots, for my sake.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Lazy Summery No.2
Again, got up at 11:50am. Brushed up, and had some tea and waffles.
Jamie came up to the kitchen for some chicken dippers, and talked about his experience going to the Kinect launch party at London as a guest with PJ and his friend. He had a great time - the ice rink was situated outside of the History Museum, and they were allocated as VIPs - although there were apparently statuses higher than that.
Besides this, Jamie was able to have free cocktails and food (that is a plain burger, cheese and extra toppings cost £1 more) - and of course ice skate around the rink which he certainly did not enjoy. Celebrities were in the VIP lounge, apparently actors of Hollyoaks. Jamie didn't care about the series of the celebs though. Considering Jamie had to shoot for his documentary in Woking most of the day, it's not a bad way to finish things off!
At 2:30 I headed to G01 to work more on the walk cycle. Adding in additional frames to an animation so specifically two-dimensional was pretty annoying, and trying to plan them in with the correct proportions was tricky. Despite that, I added an impressive...7 more frames! With 19 frames needed to be done with each step, I'm really ploughing with progress here.
G01-Sophie was there, and I flooded her with questions regarding her experience with projects over the 1st year. My biggest one was to what extent sketchbooks need to be separated between projects. There is the 30 second animation needing to be done for Principles - can I include it in my current principles sketchbook, for instance? I can see myself only taking up a 1/4 of the book with content - I'm not animating for anyone yet, as much I'd like to. I may just include content within a ring binder.
Questions were being thrown around to a 3rd year student in the room too - he and Sophie causally chatted about how the 1st year is easy-going on demands for projects. Of course they say this, but being put on referral is a bad thing - something I need to avoid at all costs. D:
At about 6:55pm, I packed away after getting my animation line-tested. It's coming along nicely! Even if it's just 7 frames of improvement! Switched off all of the plugs (or I think I did, I checked constantly) and iMacs. Not many people tend to turn their stuff off or put things away when it's near to closing time (7pm). I suppose there is the chance someone would come in to work, but likely not before 10 or so minutes before the end of the day.
Outside of G01, I spied a discussion between 3 or 5 individuals going on in the room next door. Wonder what it's for? Club, perhaps. Oh! Also saw PJ post on Facebook a YouTube video showcasing a riot occuring at the National Demonstration for students today, up in London.
Getting back, I waltzed up to the kitchen - there was Rory! He's alright, phew. He went to the demonstration today. Kit came up to the kitchen. Being a little on the anti-social side, I didn't talk much like a douche partly because of a cough/cold coming on, and also because of the amount of work I need to sort out and organise in time keeping. Kit started a chat, asking my day went. He did most of the filming for the library today - poor guy has been given such a mundane documentary choice by the staff.
Told him about the 'ol potential cold, and suggested to drink lots of orange juice and eat fruit. This would make sense because right now, either of those two things feel like something I don't want to have right now. Actually, my appetite as a whole isn't too high and I feel pretty tired - hence why I'm lazily writing this ahead of time. (and sounding like a grumpy fart).
Got the lecture tomorrow! Should be good - I'll ask Jon for some advice on the essay, and head to G01 afterwards.
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