et c'est la liste des choses que je veux faire avec toi

Oops, I guess I kind of fell down on updating about the last week of Maya Springboard. I was just so busy, I spent the week with my family in Disneyland for my younger sister's birthday and the proceeded to jump on a plane and head off to Norfolk Nebraska for the Great American Comedy Festival, so I've just now gotten time to sit back and relax. I just want to say now how much I really appreciated the springboard workshop. Not that week 1 of class 1 has started I can't even tell you how nice it is to already know people in my class. I think I would be overwhelmed if I had just jumped straight into class one. Not just because of the work-load but also because of fear of the unknown. Maya Springboard gave me a really good idea of what I was getting myself into.

I also just want to mention how awesome and amazing Brad Bradbury was to have as a mentor. As an Alumni he really knew what we were getting ourselves into, as a person he was pretty much all around awesome. :)

So, As long as I'm doing the 'Maya wrap-up' I'll put up some of the work I did.

This is from the first few weeks, where we went over very basic modelling/lighting etc.


The next week few weeks we went over tangents and, basically, moving stuff around. This included a floaty bouncing-ball thing and moving a ball in a circle (way harder than you think). Eventually though we got to move a robot arm, yay!



I totally neglected to make curves invisible when I did the playblast of this one... oops.

And then, last but not least, we had to make a one legged character take a step... it doesn't exactly look great but, at least he gets where he's going!


So, that's that for Maya Springboard. I really had a great time, I can't even tell you how much. This session looks like it's going to be just as great, if more work. A little work never hurt anyone, am I wrong? My mentor is Paul Allen (who used to work at DNA productions) and I'm really looking forward to having him help me learn about animation! Everyone in my class so far is super nice as well, so thus-far I have nothing but positive expectations and I don't expect to be disappointed.

Bises!!

I'd still be here, year after year, because you're dear to me!

End of week five already!? I can't believe how quickly the last weeks have flown! Especially considering how badly the time seemed to drag while I was waiting for AM to start. This week we did a robot-arm assignment. We got this nifty little arm rig and had to make it pick up and move again. Like everything else in Maya it's more complicated than it should be. But! I now know how to constrain an object, so yay. I also know not to let the constraint be anything other than 1 or 0! Seriously, the can goes nuts. It would be funny if it weren't so irksome.

So, my sister's birthday is next week, she's going to be 14. Which, in my mind, is officially into the 'trouble making years'. I remember what I was like at that age! Not that I'm really worried about her getting up to mischief, honestly she's too smart for her own good sometimes. The reason I even bring it up is because her Birthday means I'm spending my next week with my family in Disneyland! I'm not sure I understand how but my mum got us sneak-speak of the new Toy Story ride, which should be fun. I'm a little worried about making final classes/getting things done.

It's going to be awesome though, so whatever.

♥ Bises!!

I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day

Well, hello lovelies! I hope your memorial day weekend has been fantastic, I have to admit that mine as been pretty fantastic. Not much to say about AM, other than OMG I can't believe there's only two weeks left! Time has seriously flown, and I'm super excited to actually start. This week we've mostly been going over the graph editor and modifying tangents. I'm happy to say that the program I found beyond intimidating not that long ago I totally get now. Yay for learning things in class, right?

So, I know it's not really the purpose of this blog but my goodness this week was crazy! This weekend two of my friends and I drove up to Napa valley for some wine tasting. We went to the Mondavi winery, to honour the memory of Robert Mondavi who died a little over a week before we were there. I bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and a really yummy "Moscato D'oro" which is apparently a Mondavi specific dessert wine. (Anything I know about wine I learned from the movie Sideways, so don't quote me on any of this.) I plan on making a fresh blueberry pie to have with the dessert wine. I just need to remember to buy a ton of blueberries tomorrow at the Farmers Market. yum yum. Afterwords Mondavi we had lunch at a great restaurant called Brix, which had the biggest wine list I have seen in my entire life!

We then drove into the city where we shopped and met hot German pilots at an irish piano bar. So fun! We spent monday at the Museum of Modern Art, which was fun even though a large portion was closed to set up a Frida exhibit. Their Media Arts Collection seriously freaked me out. I momentarily felt like I was living in the video from The Ring. I'm easily freaked out. One artist who I am now completely in love with thanks to the trip is Marilyn Minter, whose photo-realistic style is beyond amazing. I can't find a good link to her work, sadly.

Then, Tuesday, I drove back to the city to see Flight of the Conchords which was amazing!! I bought a shirt, and a poster, and I fan-girled a lot. We were in the forth row! And they were funny, and cool, and generally awesome! Though, Bret? Is an insanely skinny little man.

So, last night I went and saw Maria Bamford she is one of the comedians of comedy and is supremely funny, you should totally go watch her show.

So, yes, that was my week! Thanks for reading all this rambling.

Bons baisers!!

I've got a wonderful feeling, everything's going my way

Greetings imaginary readers of my blog! So, I'm half way through week three of Maya Training and still having a great time. We've just finished doing some very basic modeling and lighting. I think the most interesting part of the process has been seeing all the different interpretations of the assignment. I've seen everything from an Alien at mission control to a guy in a bar. I think learning about lighting has been my favourite so far. It's amazing what a huge difference it makes to the feel of the scene. (not that I didn't know that before, it's just I've never really played with it myself. I mean, just turning up the intensity on an ambient light completely changes the mood.) However, none of this really matters as tomorrow we get to start animating!! Okay, not really, but we get to learn about the animation controls in Maya. I'm sure that whatever I produce will be more impressive than the flip books I used to draw in my text-books.

You and I, you and I, oh how happy we'll be!

Why hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! I have to be honest and admit that I'm really quite bad at talking about myself, but I'm so excited to be starting Animation Mentor that I'm just about ready to burst! I'm currently enrolled in "Maya Training". First time they've conducted this particular class. We're kind of guinea pigs, but that's fine. It's fun, everyone's super nice, and, to be perfectly honest, Maya is an incredibly intimidating program! Even installing it seemed like a difficult task (at the time). So far though Maya training has really helped ease my nerves, I'm actually starting to love Maya! How strange. Honestly the only thing that's bothered me so far about Maya training is the six weeks I had to wait for it to start!

Speaking of waiting! (Note how seamlessly I worked that segue in...) I am simply on the edge of my seat with anticipation waiting for Summer term to start! I cannot wait for AM proper to begin, especially considering how awesome the limited site we have access to with Maya training is. I can't wait to meet even more people who are complete animation geeks. I feel like I've finally found my people. Most of my college friends, while being totally awesome and some of my favourite people ever, just don't understand what I love about animation. What on earth was I doing at an agricultural college before this? Being miserable and misguided, that's what I was doing. It's amazing what a difference being excited about my subject makes. I actually want to do well at this, what a strange concept!

I think I've completely used up my exclamation point quota for the month in this blog entry, but I'm so fricken' excited I can barely contain myself.

So, thus ends my first blog entry! And my first real week of Maya training (though I've had access to the site for six weeks now). I was seriously ready to beg for work, which seems about opposite of how one is supposed to react to work. I just turned in, what I have personally termed, the ugliest 3D man ever. I love him big nose, little ears, and all.

TTFN: Ta ta for now