Well, the break is almost over, and I havnt done a whole lot. Earlier in the break I did some reading on animation and did some studies. I was thinking about it, and I really dont have that much experience animating. Reading, and drawing are only small portions of animation. I really need to get into it, and focus on ANIMATION. Today I found someones website that showed everything they were working on while taking the animation mentor class 1. www.animationmentor.com

After looking over his work, I realized that my upcoming "Advanced animation" class is going to be horrible. At animation mentor, the characters are provided, you just have to animate. In my class you will have to model, animate, rig, and light. I really dont know what to expect. I know I am going to have to teach myself everything, because the class will not help me.

Well, I finished all my classes, and now im chilling at my parents house playing video games. I dont think I failed any of my classes... we will see. I went to see King Kong the other day and was kinda dissapointed. The movie was very long, and there was so much computer generated material I thought I was playing a video game. I found myself boored about half way through the film.

At one point in the movie, a bunch of the main characters fall into a pit full of random prehistoric bugs. Aparently all the bugs lived in the walls of the pit the characters fell in. I dont understand how 10 or 15 different species can live together in a space 50ft x 50ft without bugging eachother.

It seemed like most of the CG material was filler, and they did it because they could. Just because this movie was directed by Peter Jackson does not mean it is a good film! This isnt LOTR people! I think the reason movies like LOTR, and The Chronicles of Narnia do so well is because of their religious elements. The story of Narnia is based on the Christian Religion, and I think that is why it did so well.

Heres something to think about. What would movies be like if all the money that is spent on horror films was used to make movies like Narnia, and LOTR?

Also, on another note, I read that Disney is once again talking about buying Pixar. Disney says that they need to "get Animation right", and Pixar will help them do just that. Disney says it is thinking of buying a bunch of Pixar Stock so they will be the majority stockholder. This is funny in my opinion, becuase latly (Past 5 years or so) disney has been cranking out junk movies. Maybe if they just focused on a GOOD STORY, like what PIXAR does, they would do better. The story is something PIXAR does the best, and that is why they are doing awesome. Good job PIXAR!.

Well, I just finished handing in my second to last project for English. It feels good to be so close to the Christmas break. I have to spend the rest of today working on my Lighting and Texturing final project. I only have a few more things to texture, so its not that bad. Most of the time I will probably spend on lighting, and bump mapping everything.

A few things I thought I would note. For those of you who don't already know about PhotoshopTV, its a weekly podcast that has a ton of cool tips for photoshop users. Also, something I just found on 3dTotal is the Effects Corner. Its another podcast about visual effects being used in movies and such... Check them out, links below.

http://www.photoshoptv.com/
http://effectscorner.blogspot.com/

I havnt been working on my Capstone project latly... Ive mainly been working on my Final projects for the end of this simester. I am however a little pumped about next simester, because I will be taking an Advanced Character Animation class. I will have to design a character from the ground up. I should be cool because I will have to create a story for the character. Ive been working aready a little on character design and I like it alot. I think if you want to have a really sucessfull character you need to really know the character like a friend. You need to know everything about them, their story, why they act the way they do, their feelings. There is so much detail involved its crazy, but in the end im sure it will be awesome.

By the way, www.CGTalk.com is a forum that has TONS of resources for anything related to this. Check it out if you need some help, or inspiration.

Ive been working on my final projects for a week now, and I still have a TON to finish. My final for my 3D Texturing and Lighting class is way behind so I wont be updating for a while. I did however find something interesting on the 3dtotal website. Check it out, its a website that is hosting free sound samples that you can use in your personal video's and stuff. http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

Well, its been a few more days, and not a whole lot has happened. I spent some time looking for storyboard templates, and I actually found some on the CGTalk forums. I have my own storyboard template, but I wanted to make sure mine were designed correctly. Im planning on using Alias Sketch to make all my storyboards. I will be ordering a WACOM Intuos3 6x11" tablet for all my future graphics work. I am also ordering V-Ray Advanced for use in all my future animations.

Well, things have been really busy this past week. I'm happy to say that I did quite well on my last project. I put alot of work into texturing that dreadnaught. Lately ive been messing with a story for my short film, but I want to write it in script format. I was looking on some forums for tutorials when I found a piece of software called "celtx". It is a free script/screenplay software, it can be downloaded on the link below. There is another software title called Final Draft 7 that im going to try also.

http://www.celtx.com/