Weekly Comments

     3D is so much fun! Between animation, texturing, modeling there is so much to learn, and so little time! I cant believe we are already starting our chicken animation. I am almost finished creating the environment, and about to start animating the chicken. What made me happy this week that I finished all the tutorials, but what made me unhappy is I have been cut short on time because of my field trip on Monday, and me being sick on Thursday, I hope I can catch up on all the time I missed.
     My link of interest this week is to a tutorial series on modeling a bodybuilder, I myself am going to do this series next weekend, to hone some of my modeling skills. It helps to work from realism, so this would help me getting some proportions in 3D correct. This guy also has a bunch of really good tutorials like UV wrapping, I STRONGLY recommend you check him out!

Creation of the Battle of Five Armies

     The new Hobbit movie has seen quite a few amazing advancements in the Cgi Industry. The large amount of fighting soldiers required software that could simulate such a huge battle. Additionally the scene where the dragon attacks the town they made sure that everything affected everything. So wind from the dragons wings affected the fire, and the fire in turn affects the buildings, etc.

     I have never seen any of the Hobbit, or Lord of the Rings movies, but from the scenes in the video the Cgi looks absolutely fantastic! And from the software that was used to generate the battle is pretty amazing. The software behind the the battle "Massive" is also responsible for the zombie hordes in World War Z. This is very big news because of all the possibility that software like this is opening up. I cant wait to see what new action sequences this could bring about!

Michael Bay Explains His Action scenes

     Not everyone is a fan of Michael Bay, but you cant deny he can make some killer action sequences!One of his main objectives when he directs is to give the audience a unique view from where he places the camera. To give the audience a feeling of being in an environment he will take a large shot then go to small details like facial expressions. When Bay said "I just like moving big things close to the camera. To keep it real." I found it very interesting, because when you watch close up action it makes you feel like part of it.
     Personally I think Michel Bay is an alright director but I feel there is a little too much going on all the time that I cant focus on what is happening in his shots. I do think his movies are fun to watch just a lot of adrenaline fun! Its great that he uses practical effects over Cgi by doing this he creates an unparalleled feel of realism but it really doesn't feel cost effective.

Disney's Advances in Creating Realistic Human Eyes

  For the longest time creating realistic eyes was a challenge. Often key features are ignored due to their complexity and detail.  But now Disney research has made a breakthrough in the way eyes are designed. By capturing real eyes with multiple cameras computes can generate a realistic eye with the included dilation of the pupil! This is great news because there are so many different ways this can be applied in different fields like simulation, film, medicine etc.
     I feel that this is extremely important to the overall quality of future animation, because of how important a character's eyes are. Peoples eyes are all different, dynamic and expressive, this is often forgotten about when it comes down to money and time. Hopefully this will enhance the bond between the audience and the animated character through the eyes!

Weekly Comments

     Break is over, so now getting back in the daily routine is tough. Finally we got to get our feet wet in Maya so I am very excited to keep moving forward, the exercises haven't been crazy hard, but they show the labor required to model 3d. I learned how to proxy smooth this week, which is really cool! What made me happy this week was that we got Friday off due to the weather! What frustrates me about that though is that we have less time to learn Maya until our class competition. I cant wait to learn about nurbs, it is a whole area of Maya I have yet to explore!
     My link of interest is to a youtube channel called Animation Methods, this guy has a ton of videos for autodesk Maya, These are really good if you wanna learn on your free time, I've watched them in the past, I recommend them to anyone fooling around on 3d!

Importance of Size in Film

     The manipulation of character size is an indisposable tool available to film makers. We commonly associate this with establishing dominance.  But there is much more to it than showing power. Depth is portrayed with character size to direct the audience towards what is important for the story.story. Orson Wells once had a small set constructed for Character size, but not everyone has the budget for this so wide angle lenses are a common solution because they bring the  focus of the shot forward and send the rest backward.
     I find it interesting how the size of a character can really drive story-line. When you think back lots of horror films use this to show something moving in the background while you can see that the protagonist is oblivious to what is happening behind them. Next year in video it will be fun to experiment with this technique.