By changing the script and the scene?

Today's journal title is provided by Peter Gabriel - Down to Earth, from the brilliant movie that is wall-e, which is now probably one of my favourite movies of all time.

If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, go book some tickets now. It really is a beautiful movie, and as Ed Hooks points out in his most recent acting for animators newsletter; "is arguably the first American made animated feature film for adults ("Fritz the Cat" excepted)"
I'd just like to give thanks to Ed Hook for the excellent 'acting for animators' class he gave at Teesside university at Animex '08.

With animation in mind I've recently been working on some practice for the 3rd year using the 'guy v1.0' rig, trying to animate a 'nervous walk to a cross on the floor'. While I have rather been taking it easy, and spent the last of my student loan on going out with my mates, I'm starting to make more progress on preparation for my impending 3rd year of university. Even if it is only an hour or two a day . Though I'm starting to work for a bit longer... Kinda need to get back into the focus I had when I was working on my ICAs.

Finally I think *touchwood* summer might be here in England, though currently it is being spoiled by some old guy who has decided to start a fire in the allotments behind my house. He keeps doing it as well and my room now stinks of smoke, plus his carbon footprint must be massive

Well I've bin up since about 8am today, which is a first since god knows how long, and I've been playing around with the centre of gravity in the rig I'm animating with and adding in some more keys. I'm gonna have me a break and play some of the old game's I've been installing on my PC.

Peace out

... guess it'll all work out.

Today's journal title and the bit above is provided by Newton Faulkner


Two main things have happened recently, firstly I'm now 21 - a proper adult (supposedly), and I'm celebrating my birthday this weekend, my mate's from uni and will be coming up, much appreciated.

The second is I had an interview with Lionhead for an 11 month motion capture internship, which would pay 15K PA. I feel the interview went well, though when I was talking about my show reel I wasn't so good since I'm not happy as I as could be with it. But it got better as I started talking to them about motion capture, and started having a joke about a few things. My NDA (non-disclosure agreement) kinda stops me from saying various things, and I sure as hell don't want to have Microsoft on my ass, already had one mate trying to get info out me, no dice.

Also talked to some of the people on their lunch break and they seemed pretty aright, and it seems like a great place to work.

But I didn't manage to get the job, was a bit down about it since it would have been a great opportunity, but I feel I lack some technical skill. I know the guy who got the job, and I knew he was probably the most likely to get it. Though if I had got the job there would be some issues to sort out with my house next year as I'm in a contract, so I can look at that as a positive.

His 3D animation ability is better than mine, and I knew it. So I'm gonna keep getting better myself.

Also thanks to for the help with navigation, even though we still ended up getting lost thanks to my quick decisions.

...admittedly the plan for getting better starts after this weekend, I'd kinda always had it in mind to take it easy till after my birthday, but I've had a play around with a few free XSI rigs, and I've selected the songs I'll be using in my Final Major Project in the 3rd year, maybe 10-15 seconds with be used from each.

I want to plan out a rough animatic and show the artists how I plan to use the songs, but just see if you can guess what I'm planning, they're gonna be used in this order:
[link]
[link]
[link]

Well the tasks I'm gonna be working on over summer are:
Storyboard
Animatic
Character design
Animation Tests
Animation practice with pre-built rigs
Research into texturing (including work with Zbrush)
Research into Rigging (The XSI biped guide kinda sucks)
Learning to use 3DS max
..and whatever else comes to mind

Granted some of those may be put of the back burner in favour of other ones, but the main thing is preparing for my 3rd year and getting better at animation.

....and before I forget, I need to put this down as I commented on 's journal

Comment and I will:
a) tell you why I friended you, (if your a random person I don't know, I'll just say nice things)
b) associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.,
c) tell you something I like about you,
d) tell you a memory I have of you,
e) ask something I've always wanted to know about you,
f) tell you my favourite submission of yours,
g) in return, you must post this in your journal.



Also MGS4 is awesome, there are some freaking amazing boss fights, sometimes it can feel a bit cumbersome, but I'll be damned if I didn't have an awesome time playing it... now time to try it on Big Boss mode without killing anyone or setting off alarms :S

Also my spore page, I've wasted too much time with the creature creator...
[link]

Today's journal title is provided by Pendulum - Propane Nightmares

Got the new album the other day, its a different sound to Hold your colour, but it's really starting to grow on me

2nd year over, and I went into a bit of crazy at one point during it because I freaked out about actually getting all my work done, and then I also did 2 all nighters in a row, now that was a bad idea, made me all kinds of crazy... self inflicted insomnia isn't a good thing. But I wouldn't have been able to actually get all my work done if I hadn't of done that.

While I'm pretty happy with a fair bit of stuff I've done this year and I've definitely improved as well as gaining a better insight on what I need to do to get better, I really regret not using my time better, mostly on my 3D character. I reckon I'm most proud of my 2D animation production work which currently sits pride of place on my DA featured work thingy.

All regrets aside I'm planning on working on things during the summer, and I'm fairly confident I've passed the year.

Various aims include photoshopping some drawing and composition work (which would have helped me get some more marks, but I ended up doing the drawing the night/morning before the actual hand-in), various animation exercises, playing around with animation stuff for my final major project, looking into texturing, and other things that I forget. I might not get around to doing all this, but I just don't want to be lazy and un-productive...

But for the moment I will be, still got a week at uni and I'm gonna just relax and get a few things sorted before I go back home. One of them will probably be a new deviant art ID involving my half beard...

Thanks to everyone who commented on and 'ed my 2D production [link]

Peace out

Today's journal title is provided by Led Zeppelin - The song remains the same

Random music things stolen from

Take the music listening device of choice, with all your songs on it, stick it on shuffle and put a song together with the first lines of the songs that come up (now i'm using a rule of thumb of if a song dosent have lyrics skip it, plus i'll whack on a translation if some non english stuff comes up)

City rooftop, summer night
You saw me lost in treading water
I feel the night explode, when we're together
Because I had danced, the beautiful lady was enchanted*
Let me take your hand
Make it funky**
Going home late last night
Let's go to a rave and behave
Do nothing but cry
I just couldn't believe it


All this love - The Similou : Circles - Incubus : Tell is to my heart - Taylor Dane : 遠神忌為 - 川井憲次 (english "Toh kami, emi tame" which is a wedding song used in the movies of ghost in the shell) : Let's go to bed - the cure : Make it funky - James Brown: Jack the stripper/Fairies wear boots - Black Sabbath : No Tomorrow - Orson : Dahlia - X - Japan : Snoop Dog Baby

* origional translation
吾が舞へば、麗し女、酔ひにけり（あがまへば、くはしめ、ゑひにけり）
A ga maeba, kuwashime yoinikeri（あがまえば、くわしめ、よいにけり）
I have mad internet skills - fact

** just used the first lines of the actual song part ignoring the talking before and the count in

O.k.

That's a pretty good range of my music library and it sorta works, and '遠神忌為' took some skills to get a translation.

Now go play raptor safari! [link] (you have to install the unity web player beforehand, its not spyware or any crap like that)

Well apart from this journal, I've been busy, spent about 10 hours yesterday finishing off the animation in my 2DAP, now it just needs a couple of little things added, then putting all into a single movie, while i'm pretty happy with it, there's a weird feeling about it, i put it down to the amount i freaked out while making it, swearing at chairs, and increased paranoia due to lack of sleep and lots of work. I'll contact the Paragonx9 about using their track in the animation, but it was on the newgrounds audio portal so it should be ok since its all royalty free sorta stuff, then it will be up on DA in a while.

strangely enough my work seems manageable now for uni, but still I'm not letting my guard down, next up Concept Development, Drawing and composition, 3CA and finally 3D character (which is the last hand in on the 15th of may)

Peace out

Today's journal title is provided by A - Starbucks

And I really wouldn't swap what I'm doing at the moment for a job in Starbucks.

Been busy, though could be busier... I've been working on 2D stuff mostly, recently, and my 2D character animation work is now finished and I've just activated my film account and uploaded it [link]

Next (and currently on the cards) is my 2D Production which means making the finished animation of the animatic i was working on for a hand in earlier this year [link] , currently I'm adding posters and other random things around the robot office in the first part of the animation and on the outside I need to make a skyline, flying cars, window washers and whatever else comes to mind to bring the environment to life. Its all a slight homage to ratchet and clank. While I'm putting a lot of work into it it might not be able to go up here (though it will definitely be on youtube) since it kinda uses a lot of referenced images, but they have been altered to fit with the style of the scene, might go onto the forums at some point when its done so get an idea of what ppl think.

I've also been struggling to discipline my character 'Arthur' as the rig and enveloping on the model was freaking out (his hips pulled a 180 for a reason unknown to be), though after nearly having to start the rigging and weighting again I sorted the problems and saved him as a model so if it all goes wrong I can just grab him from my file directory.

Less than a month till my first hand in date, so I'm gonna be keeping busy over the upcoming break, no going home, but working on my various projects instead.

At some point I'll contact another batch of companies, and post some W.I.P.stuff up here to link to, though if a work placement falls through I've got my housing next year sorted, moving into my mate 's room across the road since he's been snapped up by realtime worlds to work on cut scenes for thier upcoming game A.P.B., so best of luck goes to him with his work.

Also I've mentioned to and about modelling and animating their characters over summer, if you read this and you want me to model your character (well as far i know it will be terry and taj) would you be able to provide a front back and side view with arms out at right angles, and on the side view leave the arms out, instead showing the 'space' left by where the arm joins the body. Any Q's just shoot them in my direction, I can probably get the character profiles off the stuff in your DA galleries, though I might need to go more in depth (its what ed hooks would want, he's a legend [link])

Peace out