hilscreate.blogspot.com

Brick by Brick by Doodle Alley.

2011-11-04T12:59:00.000+08:00

A student pointed me to this comic illustration by Stephen McCranie.

there are also these very interesting links.

http://doodlealley.com/2011/08/27/principle-vs-process/

http://doodlealley.com/2011/10/24/make-your-milestones/

Mentality.

2011-08-21T23:49:00.000+08:00

I was over the weekend at the Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Convention helping out at the booth rented by the school where I am currently teaching.

I had a lot of chances to talk to a lot of different people. Students, professionals in other industries thinking of changing lines, and socially awkward teenagers and delusional nut cases.

And it was a shock for me, listening to a lot of people's misconception understanding of what is needed to succeed. A few came and expected to be able to just learn maya and able to make their own movies. Others want to working in VFX but not interested in knowing how it works.

There was another one who said, animation looks fun but she hates drawing and computers. well then.... But there were also fresh students in their 1st year in the different schools. And the enthusiasm a young fresh mind brings. I did consciously try to dissuade them to get out while they still can and go into something more profitable. (I was half joking just to see their reaction).

It dawned on me that the most important thing that a person can bring to the table doing animation is isn't talent. It is mentality. It really is. More accurately, it is the HUNGER. The hunger to want to learn, to find out more. TO. IMPROVE.

And I think this is the defining quality that I think, will try differentiate those who talk and those who succeed.

the economics of animation industry. part 1

2011-08-09T09:12:00.023+08:00

I blogged about a very informative post from David Stripinis about the evolution of the VFX business and the current state of the industry.

I thought I investigate about the simple economics of the animation industry.1st, some background.....

We all know the most simple and basic economic model is based on supply and demand. There is a demand therefore there is a need to supply that demand. But also more importantly "they are merely 2sides of the same coin".

Supply creates demand because at the bottom, it IS demand. - Henry Hazlitt

And for this industry, this is the rule. The supply of the things we create/skills (shots, lighting, animation, coding etc..) are all that we have in offer for exchange for things that we want. (promotion, more money, etc.)

Similarly for studios it is reputation/money in exchange for shots and to be done for the vfx, cartoon, commercial, video games industries etc.....

And for the movie studios and games publishing companies, its bottomline is money for entertainment.

Of course the issue if you will is that we are working on a movie by movie basis or season by season for tv shows. Sometimes, several movies on top of one another if the going is good. The work may not be consistent depending on if your studio gets the project. And if the shows keep coming, the shots need to get delivered. Often with the release date already locked in.

The shows' release dates are locked in because they are competing against other movies to secure those seats in the cinemas. The cinema owners are assured that there are shows to fill the seats. And they all want hopefully the best selling movies to make the money.

For the movie studios, the more cinemas they get, the more chances they have to sell the tickets. Again provided the movie can sell. Hence the marketing budget for big budget movies are often huge in order to protect their investment. So for the artistes, once the release dates are set, they are often never moved.

This is the nature of the business

At the end, we are creating elements and vfx for the studios that are selling entertainment at $10 a pop to the guy of the street, his neighbour, etc.

Similarly, animation studios pitch and create animation series. Sometimes with funding secured by the tv stations or networks. Sometimes with private investors. Toy makers etc...

Unfortunately there are a finite number of hours programming on the TV station, finite number of cinemas and dates that the shows can run.
And there are ever increasing numbers of shows being pitched, in producing, trying to get sold etc.... all trying to compete for a finite number of options.

You would think that with ever increasing number of choices, the quality of shows out there will increase to better the competition. But as we know the inverse is true. The movie studios, the animation companies hedge their money on safe bets. Sequels, recognized names etc. It is the nature of humans to want to be safe. And this at the end of the day becomes the demand. When there is over supply, they will have to meet the demands of the networks, the movie studios etc. Which are all safe bets.

Of course on the other side is the technology of the business. The latest gizmo/CG techniques that are suppose to be on the cutting edge. Stuff that get published in siggraph papers. All these sell to the movie studios, the ability of the vfx studios and of course attempt to sell movies and games. "Come see the amazing ability to age a man digitally in reverse!" "Come see a whole planet done in the computer inhibited by blue cat like people" "See how we make a hollywood hunk turn into a 70 pound weaking." "Photoreal Realtime renders of trees and water, with everything destroyable!"

Reminds you of the circus. And it is quite a spectacle. I do not mean it in a negative connotation but more of the wonderment when u see it for the 1st time. And I think the technology plays a part in attempting to capture that feeling.Of course the quality of the game/movie is something completely separate.

The major differences between the different types of industry that you are in of course results in different demands and requirements.

And now the competition as well as career opportunities are worldwide.

Part 2 Coming soon.

Fixing it in Post (from david stripinis)

2011-06-22T17:32:00.004+08:00

This is a really informative post by David Stripinis about the evolution of the VFX business in general to its current state. Please go over to his post to read the whole thing.

Some excerpts.
"But the real key moment was their second project as the new ILM - Raiders of the Lost Ark. Both Star Wars and Empire were done for 20th Century Fox under the auspices of Lucasfilm. Raiders was still a Lucasfilm production, but for Paramount. They made a few more films for Paramount, before MGM and Universal and suddenly the VFX Vendor System was how we worked. This system is the fundamental flaw to visual effects as a business, though it did not become apparent for many years."

"Knowing the scope of the work and what was expected, companies could give a reasonable estimation of the costs. This system worked fine for years. No one was getting obscenely rich, but people put food on the table, roofs over their heads, and could even put a little towards stuff to do in their free time."

"CGI allowed for things never possible before in film. But that wasn’t what was revolutionary. It was the freedom it allowed filmmakers to improvise on set. With the camera, with the action, with everything. It took a few years for everyone to realize and fully leverage this capability. Don’t like the sky? Change it later. Boom mike in shot? We can paint that out for you. Have no idea what the creature is going to look like? No problem, we don’t need to decide for another 6 months. ‘Fix it in post’ became the rallying cry of lazy filmmakers everywhere. Rather than having a definite plan of what was going to happen, or even a finished script, productions learned to just wing it. How can you effectively bid on what the fire breathing dinosaur will be doing in the third act when it wasn’t in the movie when you signed the contract?"

"Price for anything is determined by a simple equation: ( Materials + Labor ) * profitMargin. Materials can be steel, leather, corn - whatever. For CG, materials are things like software, hardware, electricity, and the building you put it ( and your labor ) in. Facilities like ILM, BOSS and the like had banks of SGI’s and hundreds of licenses of Alias, Softimage, and Prisms. They had teams of custom software engineers and extravagant benefits like ‘health care’ and ‘air conditioning’. They were competing against startups that were thrown together in someones spare bedroom with five guys from work. Sure, they couldn’t do all 800 shots in the movie ( remember when 800 shots was a big show? ) But they could do that one sequence when the hell-pigs attack the kid in the pool! And for half the price ILM was asking for! We started to see shows split amongst multiple facilities. First just two, maybe three. Today, it’s not uncommon for a movie to have nine or ten different vendors. Often working on different elements in the same shots. This gave rise to the production VFX supervisor. One individual who’s job was to oversee all the different VFX vendors and maintain one common vision."

"Magazines like Time and Newsweek noticed, and touted ‘Computer Artist’ as one of the top ten careers young people could go into. Studios and governments also noticed. Studios, seeing the rapid rise in the costs to produce films with VFX audiences were ‘demanding’, looked for any way to lower those costs. Politicians, always eager to claim they created high paying jobs for their constituencies, began offering tax incentives for doing VFX in their states, provinces or countries.

And so the race to the bottom was on."

"The problem is that any change that makes the lives of VFX workers better makes movies cost more, or less profitable. And that’s something the studios definitely are not in favor of. So when an organization like the Visual Effects Society ( VES ) says ‘the studios are not the enemy’ they are flat out wrong. But because the VES is headed by facility owners, managers and producers who have a vested interest in maintaining a good relationship with those same studios, do you think they wiould ever say that? The other problem is, it’s not the vendors, for the most part, treating artists poorly. It’s the clients ( aka production companies / studios ) putting pressure on the vendors with insane schedules and change orders, all with the promise of future work that may or may not materialize. I don’t need protection from my employer. My employer needs protection from the client."

"Artists are afraid to speak up because they’ve been made afraid that they are replaceable with the guy who just took some courses at a skillmill like Gnomon or fxPhd. So those that are irreplaceable need to step up. And it’s remarkably easy in concept to do."

I do not have any thing much to add to his comments. I think its pretty spot on. Perhaps only that Singapore is one of the countries playing the subsidising game as well.And this is extremely necessary for the local talent to have enough skill set to be up to speed.

And that I think the relationship between the film and vfx industry have to change. And may change to move forward. Withe cost of making movies going higher and amount of vfx work increasing, co-production and co-investment of making movie. Might be feasible to reduce the risk by co-producing. But the Studios would want to keep as much of the profit as well as the well known creative accounting by the studios when it comes to profit sharing with its investors are well noted. It could be a production company and vfx studio makes movie and have the studio doing the distribution. Or like what Kevin Smith did with his own movie "Red State" where he self distributed it himself.

Perhaps in my naive mindset, it does seem that Owning/coi-nvesting in IPs and developing IPS that are relatively well known could be the way to go for the VFX studios?

Observation on the Jap Cg industry.

2011-06-06T02:48:00.003+08:00

Just back from Japan and had a conversation with the an ex colleague over there about the state of affairs in animation. He just had a talk with a couple of schools and the students the night I arrived in Tokyo.

It seems like everywhere in the world, there is a severe lack of competent cg people out there. And not only competent, even just people with the mindset with the proper mindset to survive in this industry.

He was telling me that in Japan, a fresh graduate out of a cg school gets paid less per hour then a dude working at the local convenience store. (Because the hours are long with no pay of overtime). The kind hearted guy that he is, he actually told the students to actually work in convenience store. I actually think they stand a better chance to have a life too.

But then, for the Japanese youth, things are much worse then the locals here in Singapore.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/10/08/f-dale-tokyo-lost.html

And yet more are graduating and hoping for a job everyday.

It is a brutal competition not only with your peers but also the circumstances of the job.

Yes.... its kinda harder to survive in Japan then Singapore with the higher cost of living and lack of opportunities.

Even in Japan, Also most of income that the majority of animation are getting is outsourcing of TV shows from the States as well as working games companies.

The film industry is producing about 300-400+ movies a year consistently But there is no growth in the cg industry since the 1990s when it 1st started. And this is the country where traditional animation are consistent box office successes. (predominately Studio Ghilbi's).

And most of these 300+ movies do not have any budget for VFX. So the capital needed is still lacking. Several reasons are offered but the most consistent one is still the budget for big VFX or fully 3D animated movies is still not present. There is no pipeline that is setup for the execution for a full movie and there isn't really any people who can do it. As you have seen in manga and anime, there are a lot of insanely talented and driven individuals with interesting stories and huge character arcs.

Even the recent live action "Yamato" which was done in house was done at a fraction of the cost. And from what I heard, lots of the guys working on it have not gone home in a few months.

You would think that popular shows like Evangelion, Macross and Gundam surely will get live action big screen treatment.
But the risk and amount of investment for such movies in Japan is just too high even with well established IPs.

And the cost for making a Hollywood adaptation can be deemed too risky as most of these are strictly for fanboys.

So that will still be the continuing situation over there. There are a hosts of other reasons but they still will not be able to make full cg animated movies is essentially because the cost of making these movies vs the returns is still too much of a risk and lack of returns for it to be investment worthy. (One other aspect of course is that traditional 2d animation there is considered mainstream and popular culture. And not only for kids. But there is only 1 Studio Ghilbi that creates and owns their own IPs and makes awesome movies that appeals to a very wide demographic.)

Ahem "Our dying Animation industry"

2011-05-02T04:43:00.007+08:00

I came across this recent post recently about our *ahem* dying animation industry.

One of the paragraph below.

4 years ago, I, like many other animator- wannabes, joined the bandwagon of a series of upcoming courses that promised us a lot of things. They promised us that if we take their diplomas, their certificates, we will join the ranks of animators around the world. With honeyed words, advertisements and more, me and my cohorts were misled and fell into a trap, a conspiracy."

He is bitter that what was promised to him didn't appear after he followed the prescribed steps. And he start blaming the school. And what is most funny and insulting at the same time is the phrase "Unlike most polytechnic students, I and my like-minded friends saw animation not as a fan-boy obsession but a true career."

If this dude was serious about animation, he wouldn't have need to be convinced by *ahem* honeyed words and advertisement. And at the same time, he just dissed his own classmates by saying they treat animation as a fan boy obsession.

Of course it is! Most of us got into animation precisely because we are fan boys (or at least closet fanboys if you want to get laid) For me Star Wars (not ep1-3. I refuse to acknowledge their existence), of Looney Tunes, Miyazaki movies, the awesome Paul Dini's Batman series, hell even He-man and Mask. Why else would we want to be sitting in front of the computer clicking the mouse and getting recurring Repetitive Stress Syndrome. And what the hell is a true career? CPF? AWS? 14 day holiday? BMW?

Sorry to be brutal. But I am glad you is not in the industry because you will become a very angry young man. I think you will be glad eventually he is not working in animation.

Continuing,

"We met this man, an industrial veteran who is the managing director of a local CG firm in Singapore. He offered to critique our work and we were for a nasty big shock.
“You want to know something? The polytechnics have not prepared you for the industry. This kind of portfolio is below the standard of what the industry is looking for.”

And his studio "once had courses that only costed $2K with government subsidy. But now with government funding cut, the courses now costs $10K. These put a lot of financial pressure on artists with the passion for the animation industry but are financially tight."

Have it ever occurred to you that this man who is offering you advice also happens to run a course? That maybe.. just maybe there is a financial incentive for him to offer you the course at the expense of the govt. And perhaps.... just perhaps... the course isn't working which is why the subsidy was cutted? Did you manage to find a job after attending the course? Or did you also conveniently happen to be hired by his company? And is disgruntled because the wages are low because
" To make matters worse, the government managed to woo top foreign animation companies to set up shop in Singapore, effectively killing the local companies. Many of these foreign animation companies hire lesser locals and receive government funding while local companies are left to fend for themselves. If you think about it, with the billions of dollars it makes every year, does Lucasfilm Singapore require that government funding to set up shop in Singapore?"

Dude seriously, I know you are a student and I do not blame you. But such a statement just for sensationalism is dangerous.

Lucasfilm is in Singapore precisely because the govt is partially funding them to be here.

Animation isn't frying char kway teow or making fishhead curry. Or even making lor mee. It isn't a localise skillset that is catered to the local population.

The skill and tool sets that you are competing against is international. Not local.

You can ask all the people working in these multinational companies if they have learnt a lot in there. The companies bring with them skillsets and expertise. And with that, it is opportunities. If not there is no skill or knowledge transference to us.

If the govt make up his mind that bio science is not profitable, they will stop funding for it.

And if the govt makes up its mind in a few years that animation is no longer viable or profitable because they are not seeing any returns for the massive investment they are putting in... then I do not think the big companies will stay for long.

Then long term wise its even more determent for the people who worked in this field. But every country out there are subsidising their companies for a share of the pie until it have become part of the supply/demand equation. And the investment in proven industry players are a safer hedge.

Unfortunately the fact is that for most companies as most businesses they would rather lose the investors money then their own. Its just business and it is in the interest of the company to cut cost. Hence they are here.

You need to understand that it is to their advantage to take in Singaporeans. They are pressured to encourage locals because of the investment involved by the govt. And the govt wants to see returns by locals filling these positions. Unfortunately the level of local hires isn't there yet. But its is getting there. Just not fast enough for you.

The lower wage cg workers is a reality not only in Singapore but all over the world. But if there is two similar level of workers, the foreign companies here have more incentive to hire locals.

While ironically it is the local companies that hire the lower wage workers. Because the quality and skillset that they are have are not at the demand level that can afford otherwise. (I do not like the word lower wage workers. I am sure given the chance they would like to have more too.) And if anything its an uneven playing field to your favor. You have an advantage more then the rest of the developing countries with the high end facilities and internet downloading speed. Do you think these fellow workers have any better lecturers or facilities then you? If so why are they here?

If they succeed, and are good enough, they will raise and maybe get out of Singapore because they can. Would you want to spend 1/3 -1/2 of your salary on rent and eat local food that you are not used to? But you will learn as well (Maybe just from the good ones.)

I remember last year the head of a local studio actually tell the students at a graduation show that he will not hire local students because they complain a lot, cannot take hardship and are pampered. (Not that I cannot see his point, but lets just say that the working environment and working hours there aren't the most socially friendly). I am more pissed off that he will make such off the cuffs comments to students. Then why is he doing at a grad show? Just to put the students down and hunt for cheap talent?

If the locals leave these big multinational companies, they will have more options. To go aboard, or to jump to another multinational company here. Their salary is pegged to the amount of talent and skills they have and shows that they have worked on. If they are only going to be working on cartoon TV shows and commercials (doesn't matter 3d or non 3d), its very hard to move on to movies and full length feature films and get more money. And then you are stuck. But the opportunities are here now. Its just whether you are good enough to get in.

With these skill sets transferred, some may open their own companies, maybe eventually do their own movies and expand the industry. Or even decide this is not the career for them and move on to other fields. (its common). But its options that was not really viable before these companies come in. So I do not think the industry is dying. Is it in the pink of health where everyone can have bonuses, creative working environment and high salary? Hell No. In order for that to work, the companies need to make money. The IPs need to make money. And right now, they aren't. I am more worried about the locals guys in the local companies then the foreign ones. They do not have the mobility because of the projects they worked on. But its in a better state then it was 10 years ago. With more skills and knowledge transferal then some of the hacks that we got. And it will take time for it to filter down and you will need to be ready to work for it.

"My mentor’s studio was far from the only victims. In 2010, Egg Story Creative Production led by a local talent, Nickson Fong, has closed down in light of the recent downturn that hit the industry It has laid off about 30 employees and rendered a major production; Kung Fu Gecko, dead. A word with a former employee there spoke of funding cuts from the government which hastened its demise. Nickson Fong is now nowhere to be seen or contacted."

I do not know Mr Fong. And the word talent is debatable after the media painted him to be the great hope (I blame the media partially). But I believe he popped up in Malaysia where they are offering subsidies too. (hopefully they will offer him the 1.6k salary that he seeks for his staff. Best thing is its in RM)

Maybe someone should tell their PM if he wants to have lunch with Mr Fong too.

There are some policies that the govt makes that I feel is flawed regarding animation.And its mistakes from the early 1990s even until now....

I would not expect them to know what is a good project to invest in. Seriously there is no guarantee. But I take offense with the bloody wayang that is generated. And how everything is swept under the carpet.

Personally, I strongly advocate against govt subsidy courses for the animation industry. It is easy to say from hindsight but I always felt it cannot be subsidised because it is not a real reflection of market demand and is not sustainable. Because its cheap, people will take it and the people running the courses is making a profit from the govt. Its not a reflection of the supply and demand. Of course that might not be the case, but the motive is arguable.

My advice to you, do your best and give it a try. If your talent and skill level isn't going to allow you to compete with these lower wages talent then you are probably not going to succeed at a higher level.

If it does not work out. Then change career. Its ok. I know its a few thousand dollars and a few years down the drain for you. But I have friends who switched career while still relatively young and are happier for it. They still love animation and enjoy watching animation. (in fact even more since they do not have to do it anymore).

You have a whole life ahead of you. To carry so much venom and anger blaming everyone for the next few years is going to be hard on yourself and your family. You need to ask if its worth it.

I agree that the current situation is severely lacking. But it is what it is at this point in time.

IF you wish to vote for a change where there is only perhaps hope for a better system and mentality, then by all means go ahead. Do it with your vote and ask your friends/families too if you feel so.

But if the motivation for writing this article was to blame the state of the industry locally on the govt. Then I think you need to do more research and not do it just to vent your anger. It makes you look bad and to the rest of the people reading the article, the rest of the local animators look bad. We are better then this. We have to be for this industry to work long term.

CG Coach Fundamentals. Good start for solid foundation

2011-04-10T01:03:00.000+08:00

Came across this really neat website of the fundamentals of modelling/texturing/lighting written by some of industry professionals. Some very good and smart tips in there,

If you come across any good cg links please post below. I am trying to compile a decent and quality tutorials depository.

http://www.cgcoach.com/articles/the-fundamentals/

Professional - Perspectives on Work - Takehiko Inoue Subbed

2011-04-09T20:12:00.003+08:00

You write about yourself when making a story. If you are unfamiliar with a subject matter, you can't write about it. As a result, all you can do is pull out the wisdom, beliefs and truths that resides deep within. - Takehiko Inoue

This is a Japanese documentary about Takehiko Inoue. "A very inspirational show that focuses on work ethic, career development and pursuing one's dream. The show follows an individual who is at the top of their industry and briefly delves into why this person is successful." (Part one is embedded below.)

"Drama will unfold regardless of how the story moves forward, as long as what occurs is true to the character and is a necessary development. If a character's humanity is properly depicted regardless of what he/she does or doesn't do it will become a drama. I create based on the belief that the story will unfold naturally as a result of solid character development."

Takehiko Inoue is one of the best selling Japanese Comic artist of his generation. His most famous works Slam Dunk and Vagabond sold in the tens of millions. But it is the visual imagery that he draws in his books that truly sets him apart from his peers. His ability to portray clearly and convincingly the thoughts and struggles of his characters on paper as well as the action set pieces is truly inspiring.

He is one of the few japanese comic artists that I grew up with I followed his work ever since I was in secondary school. I remembered one game in the book can take over 1 year to finish. And every month, we will wait impatiently for the next book to come out. I always found it remarkable how he was able to make us relate so much to his characters.

And this documentary really shows his inner struggles and thought process as he pursue to be as truthful as possible to these characters. It is hard and gruelling but the end result is pretty much a piece of work that so many people around the world can relate to.

If you saw the advancement in his drawing skills from when he started Slam Dunk until now. It serves as a inspiration to me where hard work and perseverance can lead to.

It kinda of explains the reasons I feel like a 2nd class citizen in my own fucking country.

2011-04-03T22:45:00.001+08:00

Nothing directly related to CG/3D but this post really struck a chord with me.

" Our political elite decided long ago that the best solution to the problem of "The little island that could" was to have a powerful government, ruled by the PAP that is for all intents and purposes, THE government. And this government, presumably staffed with the most talented people, would run the country in the best way possible. And politically, this government would be unfettered by irksome little opposition parties that in more ~~democratic~~ inefficient countries, would have to be dealt with, or heaven forbid, accommodated."

The PAP government has conflated its existence and success with the existence and success of Singapore itself. No less than Ngiam Tong Dow stated, "I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP."
By so systematically dismantling and disempowering political opposition, the PAP is planting the seeds of its own destruction. If and when the PAP slips from power, there will be no second chances for it. No renewal for the PAP can come from a desert wasteland if Singapore fails irrecoverably.
In the past few years since the last election, many Singaporeans have wondered if our country has lost its way. It doesn't feel like home anymore. The government appears disconnected from the aspirations and needs of citizens.
If this is what the PAP calls success, I am not sure I would want to stick around to see what failure is like.
If a change in direction is needed in our policies, then it is best that the change be made as soon as possible.
But just as police states everywhere have a nasty habit of tightening controls just as the population gets restive, I have no doubt that the PAP will stack the deck even more heavily in its favor if ever in the future it is at even the slightest risk of losing power.
The PAP is so sure that its policies are the correct course of action that it would persist even in the face of severe opprobrium. The only concession made would be the occasional window-dressing that we are seeing now.
And if anyone believes that current immigration and economic policy is going to be reversed after the election, they will be severely disabused of this notion in a matter of months."

This is another old post by the same dude.

"Conversely, what I would like to see Singapore spend less on: market investments, perks and incentives for foreigners, especially non-PRs, money spent to attract high-rollers here (Formula 1, Sentosa Cove and Jetquay all irritate me, as they serve only to remind us that we are second class citizens in our own country). If these were private ventures, that’s perfectly ok. But should tax dollars really be providing the financing for these high-roller investments? And as for incentives for foreigners, if we're already spending generously to make Singapore a great place to live for Singaporeans, we should have no problems attracting foreigners at all in the first place. That we have to tack on extra incentives that Singaporeans are not entitled to gives the impression that foreigners need a hardship allowance to set up shop here. Which, in a manner of speaking, could be painfully close to the truth. "

Visual discipline and training the critical eye. AKA I hate drawing! Why do I need to do it if I am doing 3D? Part 2

2011-03-22T00:53:00.004+08:00

Continuing from this post

The distinctive disadvantage that the average student in the local primary and secondary schools is that art is placed very low in priority in the curriculum compared to mathematic, science etc... And even drawing is also a repeated process of copying their favorite cartoon or comic characters. It is not a gripe but more of a reality check. The really driven ones will push themselves to educate themselves.

The good and positive news is that I have seen that once they understand why and how they are drawing, most student's skills will dramatically improve over a few months. But it will take a few years of building up their visual instinct.

Visual Discipline

No one is born to draw, even the most talented artists. They may pick things up faster then others, or their defination of form and structure is stronger then others. But it still takes time and dedication. You can only get better by doing it again and again.

The word discipline is used is because you have shown discipline in committing to that line. The drawing u produced is the final result of a series of conscious decisions made by you the artiste. By creating that image, that picture, you have shown your ability and more importantly, your perseverance and willingness to dedicate yourself to accomplish it. And to the art director, to the potential employee, it says so much about you as an developed artiste. Rather then just a software user.
By drawing, you are not just looking at shapes and curves, you are also looking and understanding lighting, shading. Things that are crucial in defining volume and form.
By learning how to visualise and conceive complex graphical shapes in your head, it is much easier to implement them in 3D. Again it is making an informed and educated decision.

And by constantly drawing, you are developing muscle memory of different shapes and volume. You are eliminating errors, inconsistency in your shapes and become more acutely aware of the space between the lines rather then the lines themselves.

And eventually you will be able to visualise how they are intermixed to create completely new form even before putting pen to paper or vertex on edge.

Its like drawing hands, the 1st drawing is going to be very hard but then by the 500th, its not even about if you can draw the hand but what do you want to tell with the pose of the hand or even the design of the hand. Is it the hand of a old person or of a baby.

And this is at the level you have to be. Be it as a modeller or in texture painting. The discussions should not be if the model is proportionate but more how to convey the characteristic.
My boss/lecturer said "Once drawing becomes 2nd nature like walking and riding a bike and all you need to worry about is just using drawing to solve a problem like does this design fit the character and no longer if I can draw a hand or an eye."

The best thing with discipline is that it breeds confidence in your own work. You are confident in your decisions and choices, since they are informed and educated choices. And once you get good at something, you will enjoy it more.

An obvious beneficial product of repetitively drawing and drawing, is that you are also building an mental library of references. These are of styles of different artists, different anatomy, designs of characters and environments and more importantly, developing a broader understanding of what is appealing and what is not. Hence it is directly related to training the critical eye.

critical eye needs visual discipline + muscle memory

On top of that, if you want to excel in this field, observation and attention to detail is crucial. And having the critical eye through visual discipline helps you notice details that previously you have never noticed before.

And this is a learning process through your studying and working life. The more you absorb and apply, the better you get.

And this is the foundation that the actual act of design/creative process is built on. Something that learning a software cannot teach.

In later posts, I will attempt to create a few concept designs and explain the thought process.

Visual discipline and training the critical eye. AKA I hate drawing! Why do I need to do it if I am doing 3D? Part 1

2011-03-10T00:16:00.002+08:00

This is going to be a rather long post with a part 1 and 2. But it is not a rant for once. So bear with me. It should be worthwhile. There will be some iterations along the way to help shape it.

A very simple but very crucial question posed by a student almost 1 year ago. Why do I need to do drawing if I am doing 3D? I can just model/zbrush whatever I want.

This is a question and bugged me for a very long time. I can understand why the question was asked and I understand the reasoning as I have experience it when younger before and since appreciate the importance of drawing. But I lacked the vocabulary to adequately explain the reasoning or justify it at that time. Except the lame answer that drawing is faster then modelling and also refining and helping you develop the hand eye coordination.

This question keeps popping up when current students also complain about having to draw. And that it is tiresome. But all I could say was just stick with it, you will get better at it. But that isn't going to help the students easier to do life drawing. To them, its just repeating for the sake of repeating. And I hate to do something without knowing why.

For those that love drawing, its not so much an issue but for the rest of the students who struggle, I could not motivate them to do it. How to present it in a logical and easy understand why they are doing it? And it sucks because I genuinely believe that you can teach anyone to draw. Even the weaker students who have trouble understanding or are slower in class. I was reading Betty Edward's Right side of the Brain and it reinforced how it can be taught but not really explain why should students have incentive to learn drawing if they are doing 3D.

But finally it all start to come together the last few days. After talking it with my boss (who contributed significantly to this post), an ex-student who found life drawing suddenly liberating and our guest masterclass lecturer who is an art director at a big games studio.

I even think it actually also contributes significantly and have a direct contribution to the gap in quality and mentality for local students compared to their international peers. (from a purely technical standpoint and not taking into consideration emotional factors like motivation and determination.)

The Critical Eye.

In the process of drawing a picture similar to modelling in 3D, the brain is doing several things at once. Thinking of an object and translating that down as a picture or a 3D model on the computer screen. It is effectively problem solving. How long should the object be, how thick, how round. The distance from the brow to the nose is like this long... or may this long... Not sure. Every one of these decisions is made by the brain mostly subconsciously like if its long or short. But it will become conscious especially when you are new at or have difficulty visualising and judging the distance or unsure about the perspective.

This is because the brain does not have enough information in its memory to make the correct analysis. Just like how you cannot think of abstract and complex thoughts and concepts if you don`t have a good command of language.
If you don`t have a good command of visual language, you cannot conceptualise or visualise complex shapes and concepts. That is where life drawing comes in.

One of the most challenging approach to improve a person's cognitive skill sets is the ability to understand and percieve shapes and training the hand eye coordination to achieve it. This takes time

Training your eyes what to see and how to see. And drawing is part of that. It just needs to be taught in a manner that is easy to understand. Remember its all about shapes and most importantly volume.

And growing up locally, art education and drawing have not traditionally played an important role in our education. Sure we have art classes and drawing classes. But the ones I attended was just here is a drawing, trace it the best you can. Or go to the zoo and just draw. The best drawing win a price. There isn't really any teachings of why draw. And the problem solving aspect of drawing.

I feel that this lack of understanding could have contributed to our inability to explain or visualise a concept or idea and ultimately lack of critical thinking.

Going back to Betty Edward's book. Drawing is actually used extensively to visual ideas and concepts. And she conducts workshops relevant to this. Because at the end of the day, its still thinking and making decisions.

One of the students I worked with before says this :

zs★ says:
drawing helps to cement and solidify what was a floating thought in the head
anything that is in the head is like a cloud, it will keep changing
until you put it down in ink, you will only grab cloud if you reach for it
a lot of times I have some poses for animation that I came up with in my head
I think it`s damn cool
but when i put it down on paper, I realise it`s not working or it just plain sucks

I think at the end of the day, drawing is a brilliant way of communicating anything.. kinda universal language of industry. Drawing is an artist's way of studying and understanding the world and not just putting what you see on paper.

3D have the luxury of providing instant feedback but you still need to understand how topology is related to the flow of curves and muscles of the body. It just means that you are better at this tool then the other. But you still to have the critical eye. To see what is wrong with the proportions and the volume. Once you can see the flow, shapes and the proportions of an object, You can actually use it to make a decision. And the more you draw, the easier it gets because the library of shapes and curves and volume is built up in your mind. And also you will also at the same time build up an aesthetic sense of what is appealing to you with this infomation.

Best thing is there is no undo button when drawing. So when u do something wrong while drawing, u erase it or u start again.

NO undo. Undo is like a safety device that prevents you from commiting to something. nvr mind lah... Can undo, Especially for singaporeans, that is so awesome. If I fail, can just undo. Brillant right?

NO!

Making mistakes and learning from them is how you learn. Making mistakes is actually good while drawing. That means you improve. ANd learning from mistakes breeds confidence too,

Akan Datang.

local interview with Steve Wozniak at New Nation.

2011-03-10T00:07:00.001+08:00

Despite the rather misleading headline, this is an interview with Steve Wozniak. One of the co-founders of Apple who was in town to impart their knowledge and experiences on innovation solutions and applications for competitive advantage and business excellence” to eventually “build a more productive, high-performing work environment”. (sic)

Some excerpts.

" Ms Jose enthusiastically rolled out the reasons why Singapore should innovate, what the government is doing to help PMETs and why we should achieve innovation excellence.
Now you can start scratching your head. Innovation excellence? That’s like saying ‘creative best’ – and what marks the difference between innovation excellence and innovation mediocrity?"

One educator asked Steve, who volunteers as a teacher, how to ‘teach’ his charges ‘to be creative and innovative’. Our man, clueless about the very Singaporean tendency to conflate processes and goals, replies that he frees his students up to explore their own directions. His innovation is in the delivery of the teaching content, and not the content itself. This point may have been lost on our local educators.

And

"in Steve’s world, the trend-setters get space to be creative, support to be innovative, and… free speech.
We have to be kidding ourselves if we think we can buy ourselves to becoming an innovation hub by splashing out a billion bucks on a productivity scheme and inviting big shot speakers over.

Fundamentally it even seems conflicted to bring a speaker to speak about innovation when all you’re really after, are solutions to be productive.

When laundry services evolved from Dhobies balancing sheets on their heads to rows of washing machines in shopping malls, it didn’t require much innovation. Just some product research and capital investment. Furthermore, innovation requires certain amounts of inefficiency, redundancy, unaccounted-for ‘play time’ and the freedom to do nonsense that won’t immediately be anything more than nonsense. Tough for a government so hell bent on results."

All the above pretty much sums up the mentality we have here. Good thing is at least they are hellbent on results.

creative use of paperclips and fruits.

2011-03-08T15:45:00.000+08:00

Modest pear.

Thoughts on the local animation industry in Singapore - For the Students

2011-03-06T06:13:00.009+08:00

I wrote a really really long post about the mental state of local students for the last few hours, About how pampered and sheltered we were/are. How gullible and lazy we were/are. How other countries' students are hungrier, that they have more to fight for, to live for blah blah. How this country and its education system caused the students to be this manner.

How much of what I just said was true or false. And that it was unfair to blame the local students. How the easing of immigration laws and foreigners not needing to do NS is causing a disadvantage to them.

Then it started feeling like a damn lecture. And I hate lectures. Fucking fucking hate it.

And it reeks of excuses. And I hate myself for giving more excuses. Loathe it.

The worst is I felt like a FUCKING preacher. Telling people what is right and wrong. Hell no. No way in hell am I going down that path. We have enough of those pretentious fuckers around. So I deleted the whole damn lot.

All I keep thinking back to is this quote which I playback to myself every few months.

"When things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it."

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody!"

"But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain't gonna have a life. Don't forget to visit your mother. " - Rocky Balboa.

All I put forward is a seed of thought. To think for yourself and not let other people think for you no matter how tempting it is. Its your god damn life.

If people are too good to you, there is a motive. Always a motive. Even me.

Always ask why. That is the some of the best advice I have ever received.

Those who want, will. Those who don't, won't

conversation with a Student 2 about Visual Discipline

2011-03-06T04:37:00.002+08:00

Short version of visual discipline after another conversation. Big ass long post coming up in the next few days.

hilscreate says:
visual discipline
i was asking why learn to draw if you can model it in 3D.
my boss told me today
its visual discipline

zs★ says:
Can elaborate?

hilscreate says:
Drawing is Interpreting a shape's form with lines and curves
I.E Looking at a subject matter and Analysing it (Analysing is the key word here)
After which you make a informed and educated decision by putting it down as a line. Whether you meant it or not, that line that you put down on paper, is a commitment to the decision that you are making.

zs★ says:
The way I see it is that it`s a kind of practice for your eyes to work
seeing one thing and understanding what you see is two different things

hilscreate says:
Yes. The ability to analyse what you see, i.e shape, form, perspective and extrapolate from it.

zs★ says:
by learning to reproduce what you see, you are understanding it
and by understanding it by drawing, you can also extrapolate that understanding to 3D softwares

hilscreate says:
hold on
the key word here is discipline
the drawing u produced is the final result of a series of decisions made
the word discipline is used is because
you have shown discipline in committing to that line.
That line or curve does not lie
You cannot cheat
like zbrush
or mudbox
there is no undo button

zs★ says:
Hmmm..

hilscreate says:
You can only get better by doing it again and again

zs★ says:
I guess that can be one way of looking at it, but I don`t really follow that way of thinking

hilscreate says:
how come ?

zs★ says:
because that`s assuming you are just drawing with line
I`m thinking and answering the question from the assumption that why I learn to draw, when I am doing 3D arts

hilscreate says:
yes

zs★ says:
which as no direct link to traditional art

hilscreate says:
It does
completely

zs★ says:
yes, I know
what I meant is on the surface
there is no direct link
because the visual discipline that you have described seem to be more relevant to traditional drawing rather than why we learn to draw when we are doing 3d
line confidence is something I actually learnt quite late, in fact only recently
and it is something that is very very advanced

hilscreate says:
i dun understand the statement why we learn to draw when we are doing 3d

zs★ says:
I mean I meet a lot of people who believe that
if you are doing 3D graphics, you are just clicking mouse buttons and you don`t need to learn to draw, because that has nothing to do at all with doing 3D [that`s what they always say]

hilscreate says:
ok

zs★ says:
for me, what I gained out of learning to draw with respect to doing 3D stuff
is that I learnt good and sound principles of design
and a lot of visual principles
on top of learning how to visualise and conceive complex graphical shapes
which I do not think I would have been able to think of if I had not learnt to draw
because you are able to visualise like how a person can stand or pose in your head through repeated drawings and constructions, you can go through many ideas in your head, then solidify them on paper
then put them into the computer
the commitment you mentioned just now isn`t the exact idea that I had in mind, though there are some things that I agree with
like how you are making informed and educated decisions

hilscreate says:
hmm good point.

zs★ says:
for me, the commitment thing is strictly a drawing thing, because the fact that you do not undo is critical on paper

hilscreate says:
yes

zs★ says:
but the confidence of you not doubting and therefore repeatedly pressing ctrl-z
is also quite relevant

hilscreate says:
but what u are saying is repetition
muscle memory

zs★ says:
Mmmmhhh
half half la I guess
since we all learn through repetition
through repetition we learn new stuff and discover new thing in what is previously just old
actually, you know what
I think upon thinking on it more, your boss is actually right
I think what he was trying to say is that
you are confident in your decisions and choices, since they are informed and educated choices

hilscreate says:
yup

zs★ says:
and as such, you do not keep going back to undo and re-do it

hilscreate says:
yup
u are training your critical eye

zs★ says:
That makes sense

hilscreate says:
critical eye needs visual discipline + muscle memory

zs★ says:
Yeah
because eventually yo uneed to stop brainstorming out all the ideas
and pick the best one and stick with it all the way

hilscreate says:
yes. Its like drawing hands, the 1st drawing is going to be very hard but then by the 500th, its not even about if you can draw the hand but what do you want to tell with the pose of the hand.

zs★ says:
and you need that critical eye to spot which is the best choice
and say NO to the rest of the not so good ones

hilscreate says:
YES! then drawing becomes 2nd nature like walking and riding a bike and all you need to worry about is just using drawing to solve a problem like does this design fit the character and no longer if I can draw a hand or an eye.
The best thing with discipline comes confidence. Hence line confidence. And once you get good at something, you will enjoy it more.

Choosing a local animation school and the problems w solutions. part 2

2011-03-06T01:41:00.007+08:00

continuing from here

DISCLAIMER (not the movie) : Most of these thoughts are gathered from my personal working/teaching experiences as well as talking to students, ex students, friends who run studios as well as friends who work in small and big studios as well as friends who have lectured. It is not based on published facts or figures. All comments are my own. No names of schools or companies are mentioned because I do not want a lawsuit and frankly I cannot be arsed to be sued.

Having a chat with my ex-lecturer just now. And I think there are some more stuff to be said about the local education locally. Specifically animation.

Fact. There is a HUGE gap in the quality of animation graduates that is coming out of tertiary education and the quality that is required in the industry to be hired. And that includes technical and artistic level.

Fact. You know Singapore love to blow its own trumpet. Number 1 in this, Best in that. As long as there is something that can be blown, it will be blown as long as it gets them paid and/or laid. (haha.....yes. innuendo intended.)

That is why you will never see any published statistical chart being shown how many percentage of graduates are hired DIRECTLY after graduation. Its grim reading and a huge lost in face.(Singapore is huge on surveys. Whether they get revealed to the public is another matter)

Unlike Marketing or Business Administration, there isn't really a ready industry for graduates to step into. So there isn't really enough of a demand to have the luxury for all graduates to learn on the job.

Or a pool of good and successful experienced professionals that you can tap into since they will probably be working overseas if they are.

Funny thing is similar courses like Communication Design or Motion graphic graduates are getting hired and quality of work is actually every high. And salary is actually decent. Again because there is a HUGE genuine demand and market for it.

And there fore a pool of people that you can tap and harness. And to be honest, the amount of technical requirement isn't that high. Photoshop and AE.

You will be hearing about how much politics and bureaucracy is going on in the institutes. And let me tell you this, there is fucking heaps. But then, no more then other govt sectors. Its the nature of the beast and it comes with the territories. Its not at a level that for animators/artistes a level that is not accustomed to or comfortable with. I am not saying you should. I am just explaining the rules.

Fact. Singapore is result based and very pragmatic environment. Singaporeans are too afraid to fail rather then failing to succeed. How much money can you make and how can you make it in the fastest time possible. Its an national obsession.

Now, let me tell you, these heads, professors and what not in tertiary education get paid lots. Lets just say is about 3-8 times your salary. Easily. And that is not including bonuses. And govt gives out generous bonuses. (At least compared to the industry that gives fuck all.)

(Not normal lecturers though. They are like Enciks or WOs in the army. Bo pian one. Gets the short end of the stick to deal with the shit. Respect. Unless they are like the encik that everyone hates because he is smoking one corner and just arrow people and dun take care of his staff. Just tahaning for long service award. Completely utterly useless.)

They got mortgages, cars, families and I am pretty damn sure a standard of living that is pretty comfortable. I mean fair enough, its just reward for bending over, playing the bureaucratic game to climb the ladder over the last 10-30 years. Right ? They are comfortable with their power and jostling for the next promotion. They know the game and plays it well.

"Hey why not just actually hire a qualified animator with years of studio experience training young people to run the course?"

"No! They do not know how the system works and will actually change stuff!" What if they are too good and actually take my position! Heavens!"

"They are ang mohs! They will get more pay then me for being an expat. How can?"

"How can you do that, what about that new section head scholar? He is one is us. He knows the system. And we can use him".

So now, imagine you are finally the Department Head at a tertiary institute in animation. And then when they do a survey, and they find that 1/2 of the graduates in your course are unemployed after graduation. It does not make for great career prospect to further your career or bank accounts. Right? Can you imagine how much bonus they are looking at not having if the number of graduates are down or the rival institution get more grads?

You would think the good thing to do is to actually do something to get the course to be better. Get qualified and talented lecturers and let them do the job.

1.) No... how can, later they too good, take my job, They must be in my control or I will lose face and people will say I cannot control my staff. Make me look bad.

2.) Later they are loose cannon and affect my rep.

3.) They are ang mohs! They will get more pay then me for being an expat. How can?

4.) There is no academically qualified lecturers. Woe is me.....

5.) Aiyah the other polys offering the same courses are getting more students..

6.) I hate this. There isn't actually enough talented or academically qualified lecturers to teach and there isn't an industry for the graduates to go into.

7.) "How about that new fresh graduate with the college degree? He is fresh and naive. We can use him, Maybe we will take a risk on the ang moh, He will offer something new and refreshing as well as he plays by our rules and under me".

You get the point.

I mean tough luck for the students, but I got a family and a career to care about. I didn't just put up with all over the years that just so that I will climb up here and die.

So how? hmm.... Will just try to make sure that the students all have good grades, less failure rates. More passes even if they suck. Who knows, art is subjective right.? I think.....

I know, raise more awareness of the dept. Organise more things like leadership and more govt projects. Raise profile. Big advertisement in the MRT stations and papers, more profiles of ex students, Big shiny brochures. Happy smiley faces PEOPLE! I demand it!

Big wayang until I get out of there and let the next guy who I hand picked so he will not sabo me to handle the shit.

If you are offended, please refer to the chorus of Cee-Lo's number 1 hit.)

Sure, you will see newspaper cuttings of ex-alumi of this institute or that working in the big companies and/or overseas. What they never say is how long these guys took or went to another school to study before getting in there. Every article is censured and re-edited to paint the best scenario.

Trust me on this, these institutes will find any and every leverage to cover in whatever credit they can squeeze.

Now again, I am not playing the blame game. I am just explaining the rules. And how you can work in these rules.

So for the good news and how you can work within the structure.

1.) The computers are fast and powerful in these schools. More then enough for your reel. One thing that you can't fault the govt is splashing the money on hardware. Unless you are lighting FG, GI with 10 mil polys with SSS. Then you are an idiot. A pile of shit is still a pile of shit even if you photographed it nicely.

2.) Identify which lecturers are the onz ones. And which ones to stay away. How to know, ask the seniors. Treat them good and give them respect and they will give you their time. These don't last long. So grab them while they are there.

3.) The libraries are well stock with DVDs of CG tutorials and books. They are your friends.

4.) If you hate animation and are just looking for a way to just pass the course so that you have a cert. please refer to the chorus of Cee-Lo's number 1 hit. (kidding, just do whatever it takes. doesn't matter since you won't ever be doing this again. Or honestly find another course that is easier to pass. I been down that road.)

5.) Exercise your most Singaporean right, complain! And when you are done. Complain some more. The one thing that bureaucrats fear is anything that will jeopardise their position. Remember they want to appear in control. In power. Play with that.

6.) Your best ally and friend are classmates. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Share ideas and you will learn faster. Sponge off them and you will be an island very quickly.

7.) Stay away from wayang projects. Even if they threaten to fail you. Its just to score brownie points. Focus on what is at hand. Getting better. No one is going to care about the stupid project 2 months down the road. And no one is going to care if you have some leadership certificate but you can't draw for shit.

8.) I repeat, Focus on what is at hand. Getter better. CG forums, tutorials. Be Relentless and train your eye. It will come but it takes time.

(Disclaimer 1 : If it doesn't work and you blame this blog for instigating you to do this, I will come to your house and laugh at you for the lack of brain usage)

(Disclaimer 2 : If you try this on me, please go ahead..... I beg you.. please...... make my day.)

Any other ideas, just post them below.

My one and only post about unions in Singapore.

2011-03-04T02:35:00.003+08:00

Anonymous says:
yo
hilscreate says:
sup Anonymous
Anonymous says:
what are your thoughts of starting an animation industry union in singapore?
hilscreate says:
u been reading vfxsoldier ?
Anonymous says:
hahaha
that too
hilscreate says:
nvr ever going to happen
Anonymous says:
you think so too
?
hilscreate says:
govt will nvr allow it and they are da law.
Anonymous says:
it might hurt our image of cheap labor too eh?

hilscreate says:
if we puny animators can be in a union, what after the cleaners
dun u think they need a union more then us ?
Anonymous says:
i think they do too
trust me, we're not much better off than them
hilscreate says:
no way. but nvr ever going to happen
singapore is pro biz
Anonymous says:
true
hilscreate says:
they won;t do anything that will jeopardise that
if can, u think other industries won;t start already ?
only pilots have that
even doctors dun have
Anonymous says:
but that's also what's causing the split between the rich and the poor
hilscreate says:
do u really think having a union will change that ?
Anonymous says:
it won't change it drastically, but not doing anything about it will only make it worse
i mean, cleaners dun have OT...we OT like crazy
hilscreate says:
nah
cleaners get paid like $700-1k a month
their pay actually decreases over the last few years
because precisely of the import of cheap labor
if u actually have a union
and the cost of that noodle became $12 instead of $3
do u think people will be happy
u will get mass revolt
Anonymous says:
hahaha
true
hilscreate says:
yeah
Anonymous says:
i was thinking the similar thing during egypt's revolt.......if singaporeans did it, we'd jeopardize our image of a safe country to do business in
hilscreate says:
yups
exactly
Anonymous says:
singaporeans won't do it for sure
hilscreate says:
we want stablilty
"revolt erupt not because of absolute poverty but in response to the unequal distribution of the benefits of modernisation." - Jonathan Eyal
right now in singapore
the unequal distribution is to the poor
which is still a small percentage
Anonymous says:
really...i thought the middle class is the worst hit
hilscreate says:
there is still a huge middle class
that is too afraid of losing
of the uncertainty
its not so bad to an extend that they will sacrifice it for a revolution
Anonymous says:
true
hilscreate says:
u know the spark that started the whole thing off over there ?
Anonymous says:
dun remember
hilscreate says:
a stall holder set himself on fire
Anonymous says:
it was cause mubarek extended his term
hilscreate says:
no
well yes
but its an accumulation
the stall holder cannot tahan
being oppressed by the police for constant brides
bribes
and being treated like dirt even after giving them that
Anonymous says:
ok
hilscreate says:
it was the tipping point
it gave the people courage to say
enough is enough
even malaysia in their last election
also had crazy results
because the many had enough
that the few held all the power
and there was no prospect.
In Singapore
do u think the middle class will give up their mortgage and their car so that they will potentially be jobless and homeless
they have too much to lose
haha
Anonymous says:
hahah
i agree they are
hilscreate says:
:)
stay there and nvr come back
Anonymous says:
i totally understand what's the problem
nah...vfx is dying here

conversation w a student 1

2011-03-04T01:17:00.003+08:00

zs★ says:
Hey
hilscreate says:
sup
zs★ says:
I ask you ah
Are employers very discerning about like
hiring people who have proper training
like people who have proper design and art training
as compared to software monkeys who can churn stuff out?
I`m thinking, would a company pay, say 2.5k or 3k to hire a uni grad in animation[like me, if I graduate], compared to a software monkey who learned how to animate
and can do all sorts of tricks, and is only asking like 2k?
hilscreate says:
u say leh ?

zs★ says:
That`s why I ask you what, I don`t know
hilscreate says:
u think that software monkey will take 2k if he can get higher ?
and
u think that the software monkey dunno about design or art training ?
zs★ says:
Hmm
hilscreate says:
ya
u asked the wrong question
zs★ says:
Then what should be the question?
hilscreate says:
the question is really simple
how good can you be
zs★ says:
Hmm
hilscreate says:
right ?
zs★ says:
You`re right
it`s a very daunting question
hilscreate says:
it is
and the answer is ?
zs★ says:
Not very good.
HAHAHAHA
You`re right, it`s a question I try to avoid all the time
it`s so easy to get stuck in a rut and lose sight of the entire industry on a global level and just compare yourself on a local level or school level
hilscreate says:
:)
and u got to look at a global level
the answer is actually as good as you can be
then the question will be how to get there
zs★ says:
Yeah
It`s so easy to get sidetracked in school
I see you post on your blog
like the quality of students a bit chui leh
got students walk out of masterclasses
hilscreate says:
haha
welcome to my world
can I put this msn on the blog ?
zs★ says:
Sure

Dealing with failure.

2011-03-04T00:35:00.006+08:00

I was going to write about this but i recalled an awesome post written by another local 3D artist know as "The Hand" a few years back that was working as a part time lecturer as well.

And I could not write it better then him so I would refer you to his post HERE.

Some excerpts

"And then there are the unlucky few who struggles for everything- people with so little innate talent that everything seems like a herculean task to them. Simple concepts which most students can grasp quite easily are usually next to incomprehensible to them. Its not that they are not trying hard enough, but sometimes even the best efforts may result in nothing. I can understand exactly how they feel."

"I suppose it might be a good thing for me to simply advise them to drop out- after all the fees are really expensive and the their chances never did look good. Some had hardly picked up a pencil to draw since they were a toddler.
But I don’t. I never did and I never will- because sometimes you just never know. Some may be late bloomers who just need a little more time. I guess it might be a fool’s dream, but I think everyone deserves a chance, even a fool’s chance.
So I just teach them like I would any student. By advising them to drop out would have been the equivalent of me quitting on them. How could I, if I taught them not to quit on themselves. The only thing I will do is to warn them of the consequences of not working hard and and not putting their heart and soul into what they do. I don’t believe being a CG artist is something that one could do if his heart is not into it. I don’t sugarcoat things for my students but neither do I want to crush their dreams. The only thing I can do is to like them know the truth. Its a hard industry to be in, but the payoff is you get to do something which you have always dreamed about."

I wish that I one day will have his compassion. But I realised something that I probably overlooked. You see... I am making an assumption that people who take up this course or who want to enter this line really really want to do this line. Like there is nothing else I would rather be doing then this, maybe even more then getting laid. And its just a matter of getting them motivated to reach the level necessary.

But I also realised not all students are in this course because they want to be animators working in Pixar or whatever or even aspiring cg artistes. It could be just something that they thought to be an genuinely interesting career to have. Might as well give it a go. The problem comes in when they realise that the amount of work and inherent ability that it takes may be too much.

I am not going to condemn them because they realised how laborious it is for them to make it. It just means they are not cut out for this industry or its not their cup of tea. Its not about giving up on them at all. But I would and have advised them to quit early and save on the fees and time that you will need to spend if you are miserable studying. Its easy to say but very hard to do. So I would just advise them to consider what they want out of this.

But if they want to persevere because it is something that they are genuinely interested in, of course I will push them to the best of their abilities. But I will ask to give up clinging on to a goal they are not cut out to be if it is brutally apparent that they are not cut out for it.

(good thing I do not have to be retaining head counts for the course or if losing them will incur a loss to the course).

The problem of course is that quitting or leaving a course is considered to be being a loser and shameful. As well losing that piece of paper and all the money that the parents put inside.

And we are so afraid of losing.

But I think his statement here summerises beautifully.

"Sometimes failure is not the worst thing in life. I don’t believe life has a better teacher than failure. If you fail once and you don’t give up on yourself, failure can only motivate you to fighter harder and work smarter. Sometimes failing also lets you know the limits of your ability, helps you to know yourself better."

Here in Singapore, we have a saying "kiasu". Or to simply put. Afraid to lose. We are a nation that is afraid to lose. It is cultivated in all out mindset. And it can be over crippling. Actually it is crippling. Definitely for me, and to a certain extend even now.

I will not discuss the reasons of how our country arrived at this stage. There are articles written about it by scholars, politicians and educators. I would just say it is one of the price of progress here. It does give a easily manageable population where the majority of the mindset is making money. (Including mine).

But it have breed a couple generations of students that are adverse to risk taking and taking the safe route and the repercussions this have even in this the industry. (more on this in a later post)

I will also examine how I tried to develop critical thinking in a later post. (this was one of the several reasons I left production work.)

Maybe if there is something that you have to share, please do.

Character Design Links over at Parka Blog.

2011-02-28T01:07:00.002+08:00

Over at Parka Blogs, he have a whole list of art blogs on the internet that he compiled. Very useful links for character design references and inspirations for doodling your own stuff.

http://parkablogs.com/content/art-blogs-of-note-2011

Also more importantly, he reviews art books! Lots of them. And most of the ones you want, I bet he have already reviewed!

Also is this really useful one for more character design. If you have any more links, pls post them below. Thanks.

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/

Student's attitude part 1

2011-02-27T02:17:00.009+08:00

A student really tested my patience last weekend with a really shitty attitude. Whinging why does she have to come in to school on a Saturday to attend a animation masterclass and why must she have so much work to do.

My 1st reaction was "How ungrateful is that? We arranged for a senior animator from a huge
animation studio to come in and give a master class in animation. Do you know how impossible it was during my time for that to happen?"

She sulked through the whole masterclass falling asleep dozen of time before taking her bag and walked off deliberating showing us that she is going off. She is not the only one, some other students sneaked off or didn't even bother showing up. I even have students not showing up the while semester and not even producing any work at all. I even caught them torrenting on school comps.

I love students like this. I really do.

I will not have any remorse about failing them at the end of the semester if they cannot produce the required work. Just another one in many students that chose animation as course because they think its a hip or easy course to pass and is stuck when they realised its more then they bargained for just to get the piece of paper qualification. I actually suspect some of them just need the student visa so that they can stay in Singapore and work part time.

I will focus my effort and energy on the students who actually want to be here.

You might say its a bit harsh. That she just does not see the value of hard work and perseverance until she actually matures or grows up. A lot of these students pick animation not knowing what kinda of hours and sacrifice it takes to actually hopefully get to a certain level.

Maybe my expectation is too high. Some people are just trying this out to see if this is something they can do. And I understand that at that age, they have many other distractions like relationships, crushes, growing up etc....

I agree to a certain extent but we can push and encourage them but if we have to drag you all the way to the finish line while spoon feeding you all the time because they are too unmotivated to lift a finger. Well tough. This is life, you are competing against your peers for a job in the industry. Not only your peers but also students from around the region.

It is a weird experience coming from the industry where people are so hungry to get a job or a break by starting as runners or receptionist and working in the nights to learn stuff.

Some may succeed other might not, but they gave their all. And can look back with no regrets and hopefully take something from it. These guys even if they do not get it but try and stick at it, I will give as much time as I could to help them.

For these students, if they want to cruise through life. No skin off my bone. Life is really too short to push and urge students that do not care or worse still can't be bothered to care.

So I will change to a " good luck and good riddance aka live long and prosper" mentality with a big fucking smile on my face. So much fun. So you see I do love these students.

Choosing a local animation school and the problems. part 1

2011-02-27T00:45:00.011+08:00

DISCLAIMER (not the movie) : Most of these thoughts are gathered from my personal working/teaching experiences as well as talking to students, ex students, friends who run studios as well as friends who work in small and big studios as well as friends who have lectured. It is not based on published facts or figures. All comments are my own. No names of schools or companies are mentioned because I do not want a lawsuit and frankly I cannot be arsed to be sued.

How to choose an animation school if you are interested in going for animation? (Can I convince you to pick up accounting/banking/law/property development instead?)

There is a few really good article here and here

A few good pointers.

1.) Dun "go to a crash course program like Mesmer f/x (which teaches you about brand X software in 3 short weeks), put together a rather weak demo reel in the same timeframe, and then hit the streets looking for a job. These people, in my opinion, have no training at all because they know nothing of the art of animation, nothing about lighting, nothing about story telling. They just "think" they know the software. The majority of the failures occur amongst these individuals."

2.) "Get in contact with schools and ask for a free info packet, they should be more than happy to provide you with one and this will give you a good opporunity to see what they offer and teach. If you can, visit these schools and get in touch with former students. There's nothing like seeing a school first hand and touring the facilities, but if you can't do that, contacting former students will give you a good idea of what the school is like."

If the school is just concerned about money you can give them, it will reflect in talking to the students. There will be students that are lazy or unmotivated. But most of them knows it. But whether a school is genuinely concerned about the development of the students, the ones there can tell you best.

3.) "Make certain your school of selection has a proven record of accomplishment for turning out effective graduates that have fared well in the work force." Every school can claim that they have students that are working in the big studios. There will be talented individuals who are driven to succeed regardless of where they study. I know ex colleagues who got the job based on being self taught doing their own stuff in their own time and desire to succeed regardless of the odds.

The real question is the ratio of graduates that have graduated and have found a job. And lastly pls take a look at the reels that the students produce. Not just the excellent ones but also the ones that didn't make the reel and find out why they didn't succeed and what did the school did to push them. For the driven talented student, all we have to do is point the way and they will go. It is the rest of us that needs some pushing and encouragement to reach the destination. How good are the lecturers in that school to push you? Even if the students don't make it out there. Have they learnt anything from the course that is going to be useful to them?

4.) For me, the most important to be taught isn't the latest software or techniques. Or tutorials. Software come go, techniques evolve with the software. The most important thing that can be taught is thinking and the mindset. Critical, analytical problem solving skills. These are the most crucial thing to teach to local students. Especially Local students who have been spoon fed all their entire lives in this environment that is Singapore. And you will not find that easily in any of the institutions because that is not the culture. But they are there. U just need to go and see.

Previously on this post, I talked about the problems with the education model for animation in Singapore.

"From personal experience and observation, a lot of the people in animation education field are in it precisely because either they cannot find a good enough job as a professional or is worn out by the animation industry and wants a slower pace of life. And the good, genuinely sincere lecturers last a few years before get worn and beaten down by the bureaucratic political hoops they have to jump through. As well as the top down mentality so prevalent in our culture and society. For a student, it is important to find out who the people they will be learning from are and the quality of education that they can acquire. "

A great lecturer can make a HUGE difference in shaping the mindset and path of a student's career. Not only imparting the technical skill sets but also cultivating the mindset and attitude to hopeful sustain in the industry. Not to mention pushing and motivating the student to strive to be better then they think they can.

I was very fortunate to have been under 2 such lecturers. Without them, my career would have been very different. Probably selling char kway teow in queenstown hawker centre or somewhere.

You are going to spend a lot of money and more importantly time that you cannot reclaim. So do your research or the person that is going to lose out is you.

Lastly just because its a govt sanctioned school or course does not mean its actually any good. Lots of schools are jumping on the band wagon because its an area that the govt is giving out lots of money to promote as an industry. Polytechnics and universities which are mostly govt funded do not want miss out on the cash being doled out. Private institutions also jumped on the bandwagon because there are more demand for such courses after the big push by the govt.

Problem where are the lecturers going to come from.

Talented artists with industry experience who are also excellent communicators and also more more importantly motivated educators are extremely extremely hard to find anywhere in the world. Much less Singapore. So where are the lecturers coming from and why are they teaching? :)

Singapore education system...... actually pretty much most of the public companies and institutions have a top down mentality. The senior management says they want something to happen, the middle management try a way to get it. And the rest just follow orders. No consultation with the staff. It is just make it happen. The opinions of the rest do not really matter.

For them, its all about career advancement. And that is all about facts, figures and most importantly being seen to be doing something that will raise the profile of the school so that they will get more money from the govt for the next financial year.

Seriously. The people (not all) who head the dept at the govt run schools are ex MOEs or people who do not know about the animation industry. They might be good facilitators but I also seen some of the curriculum of some of the modules offered that students have to take at some of the schools. South east Asian history (I am not fucking joking), leadership community course blah blah thingy. Really? These are modules to go visit old folks home and make the school look good.

Bloody wayang to score brownie points. If the course is worth it, you just have to grin and endure it.

Let me say, there are great lecturers out there in the schools. I know them personally who will give time and effort to encourage and push the students. But really its the luck of the draw because even in the same school, you might get assigned someone that sucks.

From the excellent movie "The King's Speech."

Lionel Logue: [as George "Berty" is lighting up a cigarette] Don’t do that in here.
King George VI: Why not?
Lionel Logue: Sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
King George VI: My physicians tell me it helps to relax the throat.
Lionel Logue: They’re idiots.
King George VI: They’ve been knighted.
Lionel Logue: Makes it official then.

PART 2

Thoughts on the local animation industry in Singapore - Short courses

2011-02-24T01:26:00.005+08:00

Previously on this post, I talked about the problems with the education model for animation in Singapore.

"The most critical flaw with the current model of having specialised courses just so that the students can get into Lucasfilm, D Neg is heavily flawed. Because all you are churning out students who are one trick pony following tutorials and step by step in doing a prescribed way of working. They are severely limited by the skillsets that they have. "

I want to add that the problems actually go down deeper.

vished posted a link from the online citizen website last year.

The part that stood out was "An individual whom I know on a professional basis recently graduated from a private animation school in Singapore under a government-funded diploma program. He was scathing of the standard of teaching (by a former graduate of the same course). It’s easy for me to criticize competitors but a specific claim this school makes is its faculties are current industry professionals. Clearly this is not the case but who’s going to complain?
The person I know said everyone passed their course and received a diploma when some clearly deserved not to. One of the reasons I believe what I have heard from this individual is because I know how the scheme providing the grants works. If the student doesn’t pass the course, the school doesn’t receive their fees from the government. If that happens, it’s bad for business."

Incidentally, this was a post written by the boss of another animated school in Singapore who also happens to run their own production studio. (loads of animation schools in Singapore eh?)

Discounting that fact, what is said does make sense. If the biz model is that you get paid for each student that you pass then where is the incentive to fail bad quality student and producing quality students?

Think about it, if the school fails a student, it doesn't get paid. There is no incentive to actually have any quality control. When these students do not get a job, its easy to say there is no demand for the job rather then their work sucks.

I am all for short courses to upgrade a artiste's skillsets and ability. In fact I view them crucial to the development of the artistes.

But I question the the materials and also the qualifications of the lecturers and that are teaching the course. It is one matter that the course materials are written by people who might work at the big "overseas" studios. It is another matter of who is teaching them.

Do they have the practical experience to have actually done it for a professional company? There are professionals who teach on the side to supplement their income. There is nothing wrong. Especially with the pay locally so low and cost of living so high.

But the schools should be forthcoming about who is teaching the courses and their background experiences.

Even the school themselves need to be checked. Its very to claim its endorsed by the Govt and by EDB/WDA etc.

Some of it is common sense but do your research if not you are the one losing out.

Secondly, teaching students who prior have no animation or cg education only a particular skillset is a HECK of a shitty idea.

Computer Animation is a craft, I do not care how talented or gifted you are. To learn and to even get to an acceptable employable level takes a lot of effort and most importantly time. Time for the brain to absorb the sheer amount of information and translate that to completed work that display your ability.

And worst of all, it is actually detrimental to the long term future of the industry locally. Currently the industry is overwhelmed with one trick ponys. Or I suppose graduates from these schools who call themselves "ahem" modellers, animators, clowns or whatever the fuck they self proclaim themselves to be. Only to be completely shocked by the level of work that is required to be hired.

Modellers who zbrush or mudbox are dime in the dozen. Really. Fucking loads.

Download some evaluation software. Some online tutorials and you can sculpt away in a few hours. It is just sculpting in the computer. But to master it takes an aesthetic eye and also technical knowledge of edge loops and also how anatomy and muscles work during animation. And that is something that needs understanding of different disciplines and also time to understand and apply.

Even those who just want to do animation only, unless you are a born and talented animator, the chances are that the quality of work that you have done on your short course won't make the grade.

Every year there are so many of these cg "artists" that go into the industry with the impression that with a modelling reel of turntables or just pure animation reels, they can find a job. And I will bet 70-80% of them will not have a paying job at all because there are already too many of them out there. And there are more coming out.

The good thing is these short courses are spring boards or a spark for those that are driven to have some understanding of the different aspects of animation. And decide that this is something that they can do. But the percentage of those are small.

And for the rest that after a course realises that animation isn't all that they thought it would be, will move on to do other stuff without sacrifacing 3 years to find that out. Unfortuntely, most of it will be taxpayer's money going into the pocket of the schools that conduct these courses.

Cost of living and salary in Animation in Singapore.

2011-02-21T23:56:00.007+08:00

DISCLAIMER (not the movie) : Most of these notes are gathered from my personal experiences as well as observation and talking to students, ex students and friends. It is not based on published facts or figures. All comments are my own and rough gauge.I will not be responsible for you do not land a job here or you end up giving up a comfy job overseas because overquote or underquote a starting pay because of what I posted here. IF you are stupid enough to do that. I will just laugh at you. Mercilessly.

In recent months I saw a rise in the number of people from Malaysia, Indonesia and the States on the blog looking at this post.

I bet this is a interesting topic for some people who are thinking of working in Singapore. Especially students from nearby countries who want to consider working in Singapore after graduation.

Also I have talked to some guys who came over from the States and also UK to work locally. And the most shocking aspect of it was how expensive it was to live in Singapore compared to the States or UK.

So I think it will be a appropriate post to write for those that is considering coming over to Singapore. I suppose the big studios won't be happy about it. But being in the same shoe before, from a fellow artiste to another, I think you should know about a few facts locally that you probably never consider.

Lets start with salary on the lower scale. If you are a fresh graduate, regardless of degree or diploma. You are looking at a starting pay of about S$1600-S$2500 or about S$90-S$120 a day of work. (Hours can range from 8-12 hours a day).

Look at here from last year's survey based on graduates from one of the local Universities that offer animation as a degree.

That is actually on the higher end of the scale. Of course for the fresh grad, if you can get above S$3k, you will laughing. Although I have hear of people getting paid S$1.2k a month. And you will be competing against a lot of other regional artistes with a few years of experience working for the same types of job. There is a huge income gap. And you will need to secure a work visa.

For the industry pros that is thinking of coming here, the good thing is income tax is low. About 10-12 percent. Food is cheap if you eat like a local at the food centres and food stalls. There are other stuff like CPF which I am unclear about if you have to pay and really cant be bothered to explain here. You can read more here.

Understand that the majority of work being done here is sub contracted work because of govt subsidy. So adjust your expectation accordingly.

The major cost expenditure is RENT. It is a killer. To rent an unfurnished 2 bed rm apartment in the current climate starts around S$2.4-2.8k a month. And this is about within approx a 20km radius of the city central. And it goes up the nearer you are to the city. Have a look at the local property websites for a estimate.

The other problem is if you have a family. School fees for kids in international schools can range up to S$20-30k a year. And the insurance cover the company gives you will not cover them at all.

Medical is actually decent for common aliment like flu and cough etc.. About S$30-$50. Again more info here.

Food is expensive only if you dine out in restaurants and cafes. Groceries are more expensive then some countries because we import everything.

And booze is really expensive. A bottle of stella is about S$14.00. And shots start at S$10.00. Singapore is a expensive place to have a good time.

Finally the mexican food is actually fairly decent in 2 places. Nothing too fantastic. But very expensive. Would you pay S$25++ for a burrito?

Children transform relative to their parents in Maya.

2011-02-17T01:12:00.000+08:00

Simple but Awesome revelation from Malcom Gustave from www.ikfk.com who gave a masterclass in rigging.

It completely makes me see things in Maya so much simpler and helps understand offset groups and zeroing out groups so much easier to explain.

When an object in Maya is created, you can consider it to be parented to the world because it is taking its transformation relative to world coordinates 0,0,0.

So when a child is parented, its transformation values will be then relative to the parent and no longer the world.

THIS is the key to offset or zeroed out groups.

sweet.

Parent vs Constraint Differences in Maya

2011-02-16T23:51:00.004+08:00

From CG talk.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-739070.html

parent object

An object or other item that controls the attributes of one or more child objects. A parent can also be the child of another parent.

parent constraint

A constraint relating the position (translation and rotation) of one object to another object, so that they behave as if part of a parent-child relationship.

The parent constraint allows you to keep elements within their own hierarchy and not have them contained within a larger and hard to understand hierarchy.

the parent constraint is more computationally expensive.

the parent constraint will give you some extra options such as just constraining the translation, rotation and scale.

When and where to use grouping, parenting, parent constraining is more up to the set up you have/what needs to be done.

Parenting is easy for just making something move with something else, but you can still animate the object that is a child freely.

Parent constraining will move one object with another like a normal parenting, but it will lock the childs translations, so that child through the constraint will move in world space or what ever space it is in relative to its parent's movements. With this in mind, people will often use point constraints because a point constraint has offsets you can animate if you wanted.

So really, that parent constraint can return values to control other objects that would otherwise be difficult to find without the parent constraint.

Like lets say you make a locator and a sphere, move the sphere off to the side and parent constrain it to the locator, when rotate the locator, the sphere will receive translation values. Where as if you just parented the sphere under the locator, it will just say the amount you moved it away from the locator, and that number wont change when you rotate the locator.

-----

But the one thing that parent constraining is really nice for is having multiple objects control one object. Like if you select two locators and then a sphere, applying the parent constrain will average the locators' movements onto the sphere.

Closure.. for now.

2011-01-18T21:35:00.021+08:00

Its been a while since the last flurry of posts. A lot of contemplating the last few weeks and taking a short break while adding the finishing touches to the animation short.

Honestly it was getting a bit depressing writing those posts and listening to replies and comments. I got suck a little into feeling aggrieved with the situation.

My primary motivation to write was a selfish one. Initially it was an outlet for venting my frustrations as well as putting down my thoughts so that I can hope to find a answer to various questions. And that I can appease some guilt I have when some talented and hardworking graduates are having difficulty finding stable jobs while more schools are churning out graduates by the bucket load seemingly caring only about how much cash they can get from the students and government.

Initially I thought this was my way to help potential students understand what the industry is like. To examine themselves to see if they are good enough or have the initial ability to be polished or taught to be able to compete for a job.
If I was a supervisor reviewing reels of potential people to hire, I have to make an informed choice of who who be a good fit of the department and will work within the confine of the system. And everyone else essientially was " not good enough or too expensive or pain in the butt to work with, better luck next time".

I thought my responsibility as a educator was to train they to be at a level to be able to get that job. Or that 1st step in the industry. And not be the ones not selected.

And also questioning if I can continue my path into education and away from production work with a clear conscience.

It took an extremely enlightening talk by my ex-lecturer/now-boss to make me realise how arrogant it was of me to feel that way and how narrow my vision is. It is not just constrained or restrained to animation/vfx. I have become so small and less confidence at at the future of the industry in my own eyes that I could not move away from this and become angry or frustrated at the situation. Saying stuff like if you are not good or talented enough do not bother with animation. What does to all do?

Crush people's dreams and aspirations? And who am I to tell people that they cannot do it? That they cannot make it?

This post at cartoonbrew about Yoshiyuki Tomino's well meaning but pragmatic response to a aspiring animation student's dilemma came at the right time and lets me know how to write this post. And more importantly the many different and opinionated responses in the comments.

The basic human right is having the freedom to make choices. I have come to believe that there is no right or wrong choices. Just choices that affect you in many different ways. Regretting and hoping that you did not pick this path or that you wised things work out better or wishing that the government gave more benefits is a moot point. Because we do not actually have a time machine to go back and fix stuff. But if you go back and tell your past self not to do choose this path will he/her believe it and then that will royally screw up the whole space time continuum.

But what we cannot deny is hope. It is one of the most basic human feeling that drives the whole race.

Having a choice to make and making a educated choice pursing what you want/interested in is I feel the fulfillment of potential. Whether you make it or not, is secondary because you won't know unless you have tried.

At the core, it is still a idealistic mindset and I refuse to lose it despite how cynical I become. Because without this, what is there to work for? To live for?
Have a read about the lost generation in Japan. People of your age and mind and even younger. What prospects or even choices do they have?

I say sod it. Not to the industry. But to the worries. I refuse to be a slave to my worries.

Nor worry about this industry in future. Things will be how they will be. All I feel could be done is equip the students with the long road ahead and encourage them to walk down this path fully knowing the path ahead won't be smooth sailing. But rather then worry and be cynical about it, take it with a smile. There are other shit out there to worry about soon enough.

The middle management in the animation/vfx industry and you. Part 2.

2010-12-25T01:18:00.006+08:00

continuing from part 1

The following post will sound like sour and bitter gripes of previous experience. But they are all teach me something.

One of the common issues arises is when the middle management look after their own self interest 1st while preaching teamwork and taking one for the team to the artistes.

In a corporation, there are a lot of these middle managements all looking out for themselves. Hey, for a lot of people, its human nature to want to climb the ladder and be in a position of power.

A classic example would be the production manager to tell the artistes that they have to work through the weekend to get the shot out and then himself taking that weekend off to some beach resort.

Of course there is nothing technically wrong with the above scenario since its the artiste's job to deliver the shot, not the manager.

Another is the promise of time off for the weekends you burnt for meeting the deadline but not forthcoming once the deadline have passed and another one looms ahead.

I could go on and on but you get the picture.

But would you like to work under or with a guy like that? And more importantly, is this someone that you think can be trusted or reliable to help together develop in the company?

Good thing most of these people are so concerned with establishing their own foothold in the company that they do not realise or underestimate that they still need artistes to help them climb the ladder. And most often shoot themselves in the foot.

But there is a demoralising effect on the artistes when they see incompetent coordinators and managers still being retained in their jobs or worse still promoted. The upper management may have a different view of the situation because most of their perception of what is going down in the trenches are regulated precisely by these middle management.

It is a very tricky road to navigate in the the big corporate company. And a lot of it will be down to your ability to read the individuals around you and if you will, play the game. How you play the game is really up to what you want to achieve and how good a player you are.

All I can say this for an fledgling artiste, keep your head down and doing your best work. Once its good enough, you will have more options.

the good side.

2010-12-24T22:36:00.001+08:00

this is the season to be ranting.. tralalalala...lalalala...

with all this perceived negativity in the air...... let me remind myself why I got into this industry.

Its a playground. You can create anything. Seriously anything that your mind can think of in CG. Entire civilizations, worlds, creatures, spaceships and for the sadder ones, digital fantasy females. And make them come alive! Living breathing digital entities. (can't shag them though but if you tried, I do not want to know).

Even things that you didn't think of via noise frequencies as well as modulation of particles and geometry. .

man.... You get to play god! How cool is that. ( I can see the messiah complex thing in a lot of guys in the industry) But seriously that is awesome.

Z-brush and mudbox man.... u can sculpt something out of a cube with no mess and almost infinite Undos. Its a awesome tool for a creative outlet. I wait for the day that we can sculpt in holographic mode.

And you can get some pretty pictures even with a simple 3 point setup, you can move and frame the camera to get the perfect composition. And animation wow..... making your creation come alive. That is the ultimate coolness.

But most importantly you want to tell stories. Stories that people can feel for and like.

But that is something that CG can't do. Which is to tell stories. It can create the most amazing worlds and creatures that is beautiful to look at but if there is no story, there is no soul to your creation. Its the stories that define and shape who the people that live in your world are. Their hopes and fears, their advantages.

And that to me, is the allure, the addiction and the magic that is animation. The POTENTIAL in all of us to tell stories with these really amazing tools.

Ideas to help improve yourself and have fun at the same time.

2010-12-24T10:13:00.002+08:00

Often after graduation, The skill sets that you have won't be production ready. Even if you have been working in the industry for a while and you want to take the next step up in technical skills or learn a new software, its quite draining and daunting to start.

I personally found it very very hard to get motivate to start. After working long hours, how can you find the energy to do more stuff? Its a hard and long climb by yourself. Facing the computer at home after work with so many distractions not very conducive. Its like dieting,you know eating healthy and less food is good for your health but its so hard to maintain a diet especially during liulian season.

One suggestion I have to get started is if you have like minded friends or colleagues of similar interests but different skillets, get together and do small non commercial projects for your reels. No man is an island. It is so much easier to much more fun to bounce ideas of each other and have each other pushing each other. Add you get a sweet test or animation that you can enter into festivals and get your name known out there. Just be careful of who you pick to work with if you do not want more stress then needed.

Or if you know of someone at work who knows more about the tool or technique, ask them nicely to spend some time to explain to you how it works and start you off. I am sure they will be more then happy to help out. Alcohol and food probably won't harm. The rest is really up to you to go find out. Once you shown that you get it and have results, they will be willing to help you more. And who knows maybe if there is a opening, they might consider you for showing the initiative.

Or just quit your job, take on freelance flying logos and do your own movie and on the way learn about cinematography, pacing, directing, producing, build your profile and meet more people. (yeah right.... in pressure cooker Singapore... who the fuck is crazy to do that?)

The middle management in the animation/vfx industry and you. Part 1.

2010-12-23T23:03:00.005+08:00

Who are they, where do they come from and do they actually do? And most importantly how do they affect you as an artiste.

If you work in a big vfx/animation/games studio as an artiste, you will have dealt with these guys.

Who are they?

These are the executives who "manage/coordinate" the talent, the schedule, the budget and everything else in the middle.

Where do they come from?

From all walks of life. Graduates from art school, film school, computer animation school, business administration. People who are interested in film, movies and want a career in this industry. There are some who cannot hack it as artists or find the life of an artiste too hard/ prospects limiting/not their cup of tea therefore they will move to the production side.

There isn't a specialised technical skill set but more about their people skillz. Ability to manage people.... duh.

What do they do?

Ideally, they compile these data and forecast who to hire, how much money to spend, when is the shot going to get done. And plan the budget, schedules for the forthcoming weeks and months. They report to the producers and the money men and may make recommendations who makes the big decisions. Eventually they may or may not raise up to be managers of departments, producers and facility managers.

They generally do not do any of the actual work in creating the lighting or animation of a shot. Although I have known a lot of them who ended up being great computer artistes.

They are a vital clog in a production facility to maintain it running smoothly. They have to manage the expectations of the supervisors and at the same time make sure that the artists a can produce the quality of work needed to get it approved. As well as allocate what assets to the suitable artists and having to withstand and deal with the tantrums of juvenile or egoistic artistes and being pressured to give a accurate schedule/costing estimate with limited info. Won't really say its a easy job.

Most of them do care for the well being of the artistes they work with and to maintain the peaceful harmony in the team. And as they say, it takes two hands to clap.

I personally believe that artistes as a paid professional have the responsibility to deliver the shot/model/texture/comp to the expectation of the supervisors/leads/directors. And their position is to ensure that these targets are met within a reasonable planned and allocated time/budget with flexibility for adjustments, revisions and amendments.One handles the creative issues while the other handles the logistical issues.

And most these people that I have the pleasure and fortune to work with are really good at their jobs. But I think also partially because I understand this and I strive to maintain this relationship as well as they are good people managers.

The problems starts when things start to deviate away from this equation. That is when it gets really fun. Its like seeing a train wreck happening with the casualties being jobs, egos and mental well-being.

Akan Datang (More coming soon)

Planning for a career in animation locally and overseas.

2010-12-22T17:43:00.011+08:00

Let me tell you something you already know....

You will not get rich becoming an animator, td or modeller in Singapore. No. Fucking. Way. For those that is stepping into the industry and harbouring illusions of owning a new Lamborgini or a BMW, definitely keep on dreaming. Life is meaningless without a goal.

But unless you wrote a software that will be bought by a major company or a game changer, its a wee bit hard to retire at 40 or even 50. Or you convince the Govt to give you money to conduct subsidized courses or open a company for outsourcing/collaboration work and you take the middle part. Even then, compared to the Shenton way crowd, the amount is insignificant.

For the rest of the people in this industry, if you are talented, hardworking, easy to work with and most importantly lucky, you should have have a fairly comfortable existence. Job satisfaction and long hours not withstanding.

The problem is long term wise, this industry is still very dependent on contract work. People work for a stated contracted period and then take a few weeks off and then start again. And even then no CPF contribution. Or if you are lucky to be a full time salaried staff, you will get a stable job but the salary won't be the greatest and more often then not, their is no bonus at the end of the year and/or the job isn't the most rewarding/challenging/satisfactory. It is very hard to break this cycle.

As mentioned before, locally animation still functions as a service provider so the money you will get is based on the market rate and the company you work in. Like in other industries, you get stressed because you are working the long hours but you are afraid to leave because jobs are hard to come by. Or the new job may even be worse then the current one. So it becomes a chicken and egg situation. And like the last economy crisis, the 1st thing to go is marketing and advertising budget. Also gone are the investors willing to invest in new content.

If you want to survive in this industry, you better know how it really works. And vfxsoldier does a better job explaining the reality of the industry on his site then I ever could. There is a lot of talk about unions for the VFX industry in the States which of course isn't realistic locally. And also posts about outsourcing which is what Singapore is. So there are a lot of very useful articles like especially this and this to absorb which is a very real reflection of what is happening out there.

There is also this article from a vfx artist.

The faster you figure out the rules of the game, the faster you can adapt to it.

For graduated students, never ever work for free on a commercial project or for a company. If you are starting out and a company approaches you for a offer to work there and learn at the same time, the basic courtesy is still to pay them a allowance. I personally do it believe that and I pay the guys I work with an allowance for non commerical work. (Unless of course, they owe me durian, subway or ramen to improve their reels).

Think about it, if its because you are really crap or ill prepared, why would a company waste their resources and time training you on a paying project where money is at stake? Have a read here If they think you are worth the risk, you are worth an allowance.

From the lessons learnt personally, I feel that means you need to be thinking what is the best for yourself rather then for the company on a whole.

Loyalty to a company is not something that is very common nor recommended. If the manager/boss in a company is facing difficulties, they will get rid of the staff then lose more money. That is just instinctive human nature for big corporations regardless of which industry you are in. (Of course there are exceptions and norms, there are companies that treat their staff well and try to keep them motivated and happy.)

So let me tell you another thing that the bosses and managers do not want you to know. It is necessary to actually job hop.

With every job, your pay increases because they need people for a project and will pay a bit more. You get to know and work with different kinds people and expend your social network. Also get more experiences of how different studios work and more stuff on your reel. It is quite a nomadic existance.

A manager's job is to convince and keep you on because its easier/cheaper to keep you then to hire someone else new. Until the project finishes that is. How many manager/producer got to where they are staying in one place? They follow the same pattern to climb up the ladder.

You owe it to yourself to find the best deal for yourself. You can listen to the managers talk about the fact that things will improve, good things will come, you will get more money once the series sell etc ...... You need to make the call. What is truthful and what is spiel that they have to say to get you to stay at the current price.

Of course money is the prime motivator. But the working environment, colleagues, opportunites to grow and also type of projects you are working on contribute to your decision making. Stress level and working hours will become a factor as you get older. There is no one solution. Everyone wants different things.

So the only way you can get out of your current position is to be actually good at what you do or make the company believe that. (although if you try to smoke too much, you eventually get found out unless you are a master smoker. For some reason, these guys also end up having their own companies, probably because they can sell their business plans to gullible investors ...haha.)

Of course the problem is there is only so little companies in Singapore to go around. S0 you better do your best to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE for greener pastures. (Another thing I feel is crucial). How? Constant improvement, more techniques, learn more tutorials. Be active in promoting your work online and also keep a look out what is happening in the industry.

Once out there,you will be exposed to different working environment,techniques, networks and of course better salary. Make sure you try to get to a high profile company that does a higher profile work. (i.e Hollywood movies) then the current one you are in.

A lot of guys that have gone, do not come back except to visit family and for the food. But if you have family and obligations here that you cannot leave behind, or you just love Singapore food too damn much, then what to do? Try to have the best of both worlds.. try to get into the big boys.. Lucasfilm, D Neg, Ubisoft and learn as much as you can there. They are the big boys for a very good reason and to get in is hard because the level of expectation is high. (Or you can try to get in on a non creative positon like coordinator or production assistant and go from there)

If you cannot make it then how? Then try to get into the local companies or freelance for the psot production houses. Most of them do children TV shows, ads, digital content for web etc...

Some companies are pretty decent. (can count on one hand) and the rest either pay very little and most definitely work very long hours. Some will hope to sell you the spiel to work for "passion". You can tell these companies to take it and shove it where the sun dun shine.

But always always keep improving..... and strive to go higher. In this industry, the only constant is change.

Most importantly, on top of everything else, regardless of where you work and for the long term, you will need to learn about SUSTAINABLE PASSIVE INCOME. Learn how to generate have passive income.

Regardless of what industry you are in, this is the number one priority you should need to learn.

If successful, it takes out or minimise the worry of the job. A Its a pain to learn and not the most interesting thing in the world for a lot of people but in the long run, you will have a better peace of mind and go to work because you want to, and not because you have to. It is a liberating feeling not having to feel that pressure of worrying about the pay or the bs politics in the office.

But how do you do it? Ah... That is my new year resolution for this year. And it should be yours too. haha. Forget about those adverts you see everyday is the papers cliaming you will earn 10k in 3 weeks and all the BS. If they are already earning so much, why do they need to pay ad space and ask you to attend their talk and pay money to buy their software and methods. Fuckers.....

And be careful of financial advisers. Their job is to make money. but who do you think they will look after 1st? Themselves and their sales target or you?

Look..... I won't lie to you, its tiring and a struggle at 1st. And may be even in the middle and at the end. The uncles and aunites selling tissue paper at the hawker centers are already evidence. The prejudice against older workers here means you got only a certain window to make your mark..... and lastly....fucking 6 million people cramped inside here in the next few years. (okok... I will stop. cynicism is a vicious friend).

Unless you are rich man's son, living in Singapore is tiring and stressful regardless of what industry you are in... haha. (sound like uncle)

So seriously, if you have the opportunity/skills and do not have much attachment and do not mind being a 2nd class citizen elsewhere, get the fuck out of here. Come back for a visit once in a while and eat in Malaysia. Or you can retire there! The food there is way better and cheaper too and just across the causeway. Plus decent dive spots.

Or you can stay here, do your part for the country and help the "industry" grow. How? I have no fucking clue besides being another another service provider. Another post on the local industry soon.

Oh yeah and buy 4d/toto/lottery every week. Its less then the cost of a subway and the chances are ridiculously small...... but like I said, definitely keep on dreaming. Life is meaningless without a goal. What is yours?

Do you really want to step into the animation industry? Part 3.

2010-12-15T13:04:00.007+08:00

Continuing from my previous post....

recently in the Straits times, there were articles about the closure of a few "big" animation companies in Singapore. Big being relatively in size compared to the rest of the cg/media/animation company in Singapore.

One part of the article "Egg Story closes down" stood out for me. Which is that "while Egg Story Creative Production closed down, Egg Story Digital Art School is not affected by the closure."

The fact that the education industry for animation is actually doing relatively well while the actual animation industry in Singapore isn't, for me is a very worrying sign.

I think that the reality of the situation here is actually pretty dire. The market is getting crowded with a lot of graduates jostling for a shrinking pie.

The major polytechnics NYP, SP, NP, TP, NTU are offering diploma courses. NTU, LaSalle and I think Digipen offering degrees. Tisch I think is offering a Masters. As well as those on WDA courses from 3D sense, Egg Story and CG protage. Not to exclude those that came back from overseas for studies and in some of smaller private schools.

A lot of graduates are finding full time employment hard to come by. Besides the big companies like Lucasfilm, Double Negative, and to a certain extend Sparky and Frameworks in Batam etc... animation graduates functions more on a freelance basis dependent on the needs of the companies. There are of course boutique shops that service the local media industry as well as architecture visualisations for new property development. But these also extensively use freelancers based on projects.

For local students this is still sustainable but for foreign students on govt grants bonded to work in Singapore, this put them at the mercy of companies that may exploit their predicament. There is little or no CPF contribution from these companies as well.

These graduates quickly discover that the pay does not really matter on the qualifications you have but the level of skills they possess.

Unfortunately even then, there is a dwindling number of companies that they can apply to.

The REALITY of the industry here is that turnaround for profitability for animated TV shows and movies is still slow and companies need a huge cash flow to survive the gamble that their shows can sell. Often companies cannot manage to survive the gamble even with generous subsidies from the govt.

If you count the number of companies that have opened and closed shop over the last 10 years, the statistics make for grim reading.

On top of this, despite the cost of software and hardware going downwards, salaries remain the biggest expenditure for companies here. And yet on average local animation graduates are among the lowest paid compared to the rest. Obviously the inherent artistic ability that an individual have and the quality of education they received plays a huge part in their salary and potential career path.

Unfortunately the animation industry locally really still functions as a service provider. No different from manufacturing or fabrication. Animators and the like functions more as craftsman and artistes that is dependent on the appeal that the shows they are working can sustain. And companies will always source for the best available quality at the most efficient cost.

Singapore animation companies cannot compete on a global stage staying a service provider long term. Against China and India where there are academies with thousands of hungry and talented trainees run be state funded companies, these are overwhelming odds to overcome for costs and efficiency. Previously we could claim that our exposure to the east and west cultures could have placed us at an advantage. But not so anymore. Have a read here.

http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/the-vfx-scene-in-china/#more-684

Understandably in China, they are caught in a price war.

Even if we are to create independent IPs or co-production, we are still gambling on a rapidly moving and expending chessboard with many companies overseas creating their own IPs and actually owning the distribution companies.

I believe that for Singapore to survive in this industry is to improve the odds. And to do this is with the quality of your skills and education.

When I mean skills, I do not mean how well you can model a car. But the nuts and bolts of how 3D works mathematically. How a vertex is translated over space. What a sprite is and how is it displayed. The not so sexy but very very crucial stuff. This is what will keep you employed and a step ahead of the competition. PERL, and scripting. The more skillsets that you have that others don't, will make you more employable and get you more pay. Again, supply and demand, If you can something that others can't, you will be in demand. So why are these not taught in schools? :)

The most critical flaw with the current model of having specialised courses just so that the students can get into Lucasfilm, D Neg is heavily flawed. Because all you are churning out students who are one trick pony following tutorials and step by step in doing a prescribed way of working. They are severely limited by the skillsets that they have. And once you are in the industry, it is very hard to have time to improve them. And not to mention when they are in production, the lack of understanding in other areas affects their ability to trouble shoot and problem solve.

I will probably get a lot of stick for this but I feel that the level of education in the polytechnics
and private institution severely still lacking. From personal experience and observation, a lot of the people in animation education field are in it precisely because either they cannot find a good enough job as a professional or is worn out by the animation industry and wants a slower pace of life. And the good, genuinely sincere lecturers last a few years before get worn and beaten down by the bureaucratic political hoops they have to jump through. As well as the top down mentality so prevalent in our culture and society. (More in a later post).

For a student, it is important to find out who the people they will be learning from are and the quality of edcuation that they can acquire. I will touch on this later on a later post.

A accreditation of a school by an independent recognised body is the bare minimum and crucial for the students to have the assurance that the school they are attending meet the guidelines and determine the standards that they must meet.

Often I have to work with fresh graduates for the various schools on projects and the skill set levels differ by a fair distance from those that only stick to the books and those that seek out knowledge by themselves. This is a unrelenting and everchanging industry. If you are to survive and thrive as an artiste, besides being artistically inclined, the skillsets that you have possess must constantly be upgraded.

Animation is still a technically laborious career and. And to acquire these skill set requires years of practice and training for even the artistically inclined. But this is the reality of the situation here. And I feel this is what will eliminate those really interested in this field compared to those that feel it is just something cool to tell their friends.

If you are working the 50-70 hours a week being perpetually behind a deadline , it is very hard to have the energy and more importantly the drive to pick up new techniques and maintaining an interest in it.

I hope that students thinking about stepping into this line and career understand what they are getting themselves into before getting drawn into the "cool" aspect of the industry.

Its still the choice of the person making the decision. All we can do is to give as much information for them to make an informed choice.

The Action Movie fairy Tale.

2010-10-23T23:01:00.001+08:00

80s and 90s action movies were often maligned not just for their violence, but also for their lack of depth and psychological sophistication. "They're not important."

But these movies built a generation of men who are now in their 30s and 40s.

They didn't learn that killing is cool, which was the worry of people who didn't watch those movies and didn't understand. This violence was central to the cinematic experience, but incidental to the story.

The complainers ignored the story because they thought it was basic, trivial. Wrong. Write down the plot synopsis of every action movie, and awareness will come over you:

A marginal guy must save a hot chick from bad guys; when he does, he gets the girl

II.

A generation of adolescent boys learned immediately three things:

1. marginal guys are the real heroes.
2. heroes never die.
3. bad guys exist as bad guys, not as good guys who went bad, or bad guys with some good in them also. Darth Vader was unquestionably bad starting in 1977, unimaginable that he was once a sweet young boy with good in his heart. That story had to wait a whole generation to be told.
4. in order to get (active verb: to obtain, procure, convince) a hot woman to fall passionately in love with you, you have to do do some extraordinary things: take out thirty terrorists, master kung fu, be in the special forces, etc.

Interview with the directors for Pixar's Toy story 3.

2010-10-23T16:06:00.002+08:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130646919

I found this awesome interview. Goes into the thought process of crafting the story for Toy Story 3.

Interview Highlights

On speaking to adults and kids at the same time

Michael Arndt: "Your first concern when you take this over is you're just trying to make it all fit together on a basic narrative level. ... We did 60 different drafts of the scene before we got to the final version. ... It was really only after we set up the narrative structure of [toys realizing they're going to serve their careers being played with by children and then 'retire' to the attic] that we realized how emotional it was, and how much it played into people's fears of obsolescence. ... I think everybody feels the way these toys feel — like they've given themselves over to this child, Andy, and given him 100 percent and played with him and given him so much of their lives, and now he's going away. And they don't [really] want to go with him to college; what they really want is acknowledgment, and I think that's a universal thing. I think a lot of people go through life feeling like they work really hard and they're doing a good job and they just want some sort of emotional acknowledgment."

On writing animated features vs. nonanimated features

Arndt: "You can't make any distinction between a live-action character and an animated character. They're all real characters. To me, Buzz Lightyear is as real as Olive Hoover [from Little Miss Sunshine] is. You want to take their problems as seriously as they take them themselves, and you want to be as emotionally honest and intelligent about what they're going through as you can possibly be. But it does put you in these sort of odd situations when you're a writer and suddenly you have to think, 'OK. I'm a little rag doll and I've just been put into a knapsack,' or, 'I'm Mr. Potato Head and I've just lost my parts. How do I feel about that?' There were times when I thought it was funny to be writing scenes like that, but you have to take it seriously. You have to put yourself in that position and think, 'What would I do if I were in that situation?' "

Arndt: "The great thing about animation is you get to see these actors record their lines ... and that does inform how you think and write about the characters. So you can add parts of Tom Hanks' personality or Tim Allen's personality or Don Rickles' personality to the characters. It creates this feedback loop in animation. You get to go watch the actors perform, and then you can go back and write a little bit more incorporating what they've done and then you can record them again."

On writing for toys

Arndt: "When we're in a story meeting and we're trying to figure this stuff out, we usually go to the human analogue. We don't talk about, 'Well, if I were a rag doll,' or, 'If I were a plastic dinosaur,' because you want to get to the emotional truth of this story, and you want to get to the emotional truth of these characters. So you say 'OK. Woody: He's a little bit like a helicopter mom. He's a little bit like a mom who can't let go of her child.' So we always try and figure out the human equivalent of these characters."

Lee Unkrich: "But then the fun thing is, once we have that figured out, we try to figure out ways to make their issues particularly a toy's issue. I mean, Ken [of Ken and Barbie] was a great [example], and we made endless fun of Ken. Ken is a whipping boy. We thought, 'What is it like to be a guy who is a girl's toy?' You're a guy, but you're only played with by little girls. And further, he's just an accessory for Barbie. He doesn't carry equal weight to Barbie. He's really no more important than a pair of shoes or a purse or a belt to her, and we knew that he would have to have a complex."

Arndt: "You go, 'What are going to be the issues of a character like Ken?' What's going to be the stuff that keeps him awake at night? So immediately, you go, 'Maybe he's a bit insecure about the fact that really he's a girl's toy. Maybe he's in denial of that. And then this whole sort of richness opens up."

Guillermo del Toro's words to live by.

2010-10-07T09:04:00.002+08:00

From his book reading stint at Portland's Baghdad Theater & Pub. Some choice snippets.

When asked about he assembled his filmmaking team: "I draw and sculpt, but I'm not a great sculptor, I'm not a great draftsman. So you hire people who are better than you, and you are loyal to those people... The rule is to work only with people you admire or you love. Or both."
"When you tackle a 'B' premise, you need to tackle it like an 'A' premise," he said, noting this is the case regardless of what you're working on, even if it's something like Blade II, which some people (incorrectly) assumed was a "paycheck movie." "I'm not postmodern," he said later. "I absolutely hate being smarter than my material." He's excited beyond belief to do The Haunted Mansion for Disney, a ride he's been collecting ephemera from for years. "The flavor of that ride is unlike anything else in the world."

On adapting other peoples' work: "Once the material is out, it belongs to all of us." And: "Adapting material is like marrying a widow. You have to be very respectful of the late husband's memory, but at some point you've gotta fuck."

On writing: "If you get bored with nothing to do, you are not a writer." "We are in the business of reproducing reality from nothing. We are the biggest liars in the world, seeking truth." There will be a collection of his short fiction published, at some point, by Harper Collins.
He thanks people for listening to his DVD commentaries. He prepares his DVD and Blu-ray special features "very carefully" so that they're "as educational as possible." "DVDs are the most democratic way to teach film."

"If you're not operating on an instinctive level, you're not an artist." Later: "Reason over emotion is bullshit, absolute bullshit." And: "We suffocate ourselves in rules. I find fantasy liberating."
"We live in a world that creates impossible standards... I say to all of that, 'Screw you and die.' We should celebrate imperfection, because that's the one thing all of us can achieve."

"Do whatever the fuck you want, even if it's wrong, and then tell about it with honesty. That is filmmaking to me." And: "Success is fucking up on your own terms."

Texture Painting Notes Level Up Part III

2010-09-27T00:09:00.005+08:00

A callout sheet is a condept design from the concept designer or art director telling you what kind of look should your final character look like. A more detailed call out sheet can also be done by you to get a buy off from them before proceeding to start the texture painting process. This can then be used too project straight on to the 3d geometry as a base map to start painting on before proceeding to clean up the seams and the stretching from the projection.

Texture painting can be boiled down to 2 basic methodology. Creating a texture map from scratch with nothing but different brushes and then photograph manipulation. These of course are not mutually exclusive to each other.

It is more about choosing which method to use to and how much these 2 methods overlap over the creating of an issue that is the challenge. Predominately, the ability to paint is essential. I have seen many painters that are over-reliant to photo manipulation whereas a few simple brush strokes here and there might just do the job.

A color corrected photograph might be a ideal place to start. And the details can be be added on top.

There is a certain feel of liberation that a brush gives you, the confidence that if the painting is screwed up, u can just paint over it. Again, how this is applied needs to be defined on which layers are to be done.

The transition from one part of the body to another is based on what kind of character it is. Amphibian or mammals etc.. Looking at different references are important to understanding the different types of surface materials and making an informed decision on the what is a suitable and aesthetically pleasing surface material for your asset.

Do you really want to step into the animation industry? Part 2

2010-09-26T22:28:00.006+08:00

One of my previous students told me a very valid point after reading my previous post,

What I am doing, is explaining my experience of what I have gone through these few years and putting my thoughts down. As well meaning as that may be, I may have miss a crucial detail. A student's priorities and perspective is different from mine because of precisely that. They have not experienced what it feels like. Therefore it is hard to relate to it and measure it against more pressing concerns like relationships and hormone changes. And more importantly, each individual's reaction and personality will be different in the same situation.

What I have failed to also realised is that the role of a educator is to inspire and encourage as well. The students have to walk their own path and forge their own future andI have no right to deprive them of the opportunity for them to experience for themselves. I may point out the potential pitfalls and the negatives of this industry. But I have no right to discourage them. I think I finally understood this. Everyone have their own perspective of this industry and I should allow them to form their own opinion about it. They might forge their own paths or find their own niche in the industry. Or this path might led them to something else completely different and they are better for it from this experience.

But there are a few constant in life regardless of which industry that you are in.

Kindness, humility, and self-awareness are good start. Hard work and dedication is something that is a constant regardless of what you want to achieve in life. And that is something that I hope everyone can strive for. There is a article that I posted before about the anatomy of determination which I think is most useful.

Being a blowhard, egoistical and even arrogance is successful if you can pull it off and if you can back it up. How it works in the animation industry is slightly warped in that unfortunately, you do have to sell yourself to a certain extend.

For more common sense, the list below from Bill Gate's speech is a good indication.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=152862328071768&id=150221854991848&ref=mf

Texture Painting Notes Level Up Part II

2010-09-15T09:54:00.004+08:00

Just to expend a bit more for creature texture painting Color Maps, which also expends from

Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.

1.) Have your approved reference. Remove specular highlights either by Replace Color in photoshop or clone tool or just paint over.

2.) Pick out some color values from the images and build a rough color map. Just the very rough version. You can even just slap on the color corrected reference images. It doesn't matter. We just want the color and tonal values.

3.) Run your turntable and your subsurface scattering shader if you have one. Use the color that is around the softest part of the creature for the color.

4.) Color correct your color maps and reference images to compensate for the sub surface color.

You will be extracting stuff from the reference images, so that is why you must also color correct them.

5.) Overlay your converted 8 bit extracted displacement maps over and build your color maps with brushes and stuff. Use the extracted displacement as guides. Extract low and high freq maps and overlay them if needed.

6.) PAINT.

Next up interpreting Call out sheets.

My views on the local state of affairs

2010-09-13T01:56:00.003+08:00

This is probably a bit of old news and I wrote this in early Sept but I let it simmer for a while and and reflect on it. Its not often for me to rant, but I do tihnk things need to be put out there for some perspective.

Cynicism. But I have been reading a lot of the negative posts online about the YOG. The empty seats, the wayang show that the gahmen is putting on, that they are more interested in promoting singapore rather then letting the games take place. And of course with it, the chest beating by the local media.

I was truely agitated for a few weeks. What a waste of tax payers money... etc.. What a wayang govt we have. How hao lian we are . And the more i read, the angrier I get. But the thing that came over me was the cynism that I had. And also the bitterness that I see in some of the local websites which aggrieved the situation. What is the point. These blogs criticising the govt... what do they hope accomplish? And how am I suppose to feel. What alternative solution is there? We voted the govt in, we are also conditioned by the environment to be what we are. So why do we complain:? I feel that we are a cowardly lot. We are. It is easy, satisfying to complain. It feels like we are deferring blame on the govt. We complain about the salary that they get. The perks that comes with the job. The grass is always greener. Time to show you the mirror and ask you to look into it.

What is the best use of my time and waking life? I think that is being happy. Do you think these nay-sayers lie a happy life ? Expending so much energy complaining takes a lot of time and effort.

The old uncles and aunties pushing the clean up cart. Collecting coke cans and selling tissue papers. I feel for them.These naysayers say the govt should do something for them. Welfare etc..... Do you think they don't know, they can't see?

It can be viewed they are warning signs for the rest of society. That if we dun work hard, we will end up like that. The thought is if they help one, they need to help the next, then where do the helping stop?

I have tremendous respect for what MM Lee have done to turn singapore into what it was.

There is a juncture that you face. What do you want singapore to be like. Do we really want foreigers workers serving us, cooking our food ? Cleaning the streets ?

What kind of society do you want to be?

I tell you if you give the locals 1 million dollars they will still find something to complain. Emotional Satisfaction. That is the 2 words that I am is looking for. And I am aiming towards that.

Do you really want to step into the animation industry? Part 1.

2010-09-13T00:21:00.007+08:00

I am typing this isn't really as a guide for anyone. This is me thinking out loud and formulating my own thoughts or ideas.But any input is helpful. I will probably be re-structuring the paragraphs as I go along.

Students told me that after knowing me their morale become low. And that I am being cynical. But am I really? I think its more of knowing what the situation is out there so that you are prepared for it.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

No one wakes up one morning and says I want to be an animator or a artist! You are probably affected by something u saw or read that excited you, or sparked something in you. And probably made you happy. And most of the time it is this happiness that you are trying to re-create by taking this path. I think it is important that you are aware of this. Nostalgic memory is a very powerful source. Or it is a form of escapism both rebelliously and/or passively.
Or you have stories to tell. Tons and tons of ideas inside you that is bursting to come out.

Or you can draw really well and if you do not draw for a day, you will go all twitchy.
Or just so that you do not have to conform to a path that is the norm.

How do people get into the industry? Understanding and recognising what you are thinking of. Compare it to other industries and also to the other average occupation. Similarity and differences. And lastly the reality of the situation you are in. Back again to the supply and demand chain. If you are an aspiring artist, as with times long past, you are going to have to come to grips with the economic reality of a real world. I.e you need money to pay the rent, put food on the table and to get laid.
Commitment and Talent. The word Passion insults me. I cringe whenever someone uses that word in association with this line of work. Passion to me feels tainted because it is easily brandished around by people trying to make use of gullible students to work for free or to work for peanuts. And it is a word associated with short term lust or desire with no regards for consequences and responsibility. It is a offense word. (Ok. I made my point) If you are passionate about animation, go watch the animated movie that you like then watch it again until you are sick of it then move on to something else with your life.

Commitment on the other hand, includes a drive and responsibility to yourself to succeed. If you want to strive and excel in this industry, that is one word that you need above the other. Commitment. Bear in mind that it is something that will come in handy when you need to get the animation fixed and approved for the 20th time because the client/director/supervisor cant make up his mind.

Talent is not really subjective. You either got it or not. To a certain extend, talent can be trained but only so far. I believe different people see things and the world differently. It could be just adjusting your frame of mind. To see things differently. And add to your ability. But if you do not have some level of talent, then you are going to need to work that extra harder.

For me, Animation in itself is a self indulgent exercise. The primary function in itself is to create entertainment. Hoping people will see your animation, or you have some message to convey or educate. Hence forth there is really a simple supply and demand chain. You must have something that you think people will want or hope to see. Or you just want to animate stories for yourself?

I read somewhere in a book that all people want to live their lives to the fullest. To its most fulfilling and to their best of their abilities. It is also to be happy. That is a given. No one is born into this world wanting to be unhappy. Everyone's definition of happiness is different. And also changes with time and growth. It is also the circumstances of not achieving happiness that causes grief and frustration.

Animation itself compromise of a multitude of skill sets and uses both the right and left side of the brain. And needs you to toggle between them.

Before animation was invented/discovered in the 1900s or whenever, the people who are gifted or inclined with these skill sets, have assumed a variety of roles through history. Craftsman, artists, storytellers even generals and engineers. Being "gifted in animating" can be broken down into several human traits. Same as texturing painting or lighting.
For the aspiring students out there thinking of making animation a career, please consider carefully what you are getting yourself into.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-japan-anime-20100819,0,7946983.story

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/working-for-free-again.html
http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/wage-story.html

http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/the-vfx-outsourcing-boogeyman/
Below is a short excerpt from http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/aspiring-artists.html

"Yesterday a woman called me from Atlanta. She wanted to know about getting into the hand-drawn animation business in Los Angeles. She had her heart set on it. I told her:

"It's tight out here, there's lots of competition for just a few jobs and those we've got are taken by veterans with lots of production experience. You'd be really smart to stay where you are and not come."

But she's probably coming.
It's hard to dissuade people from their ambitions and aspirations. If you want to be a cartoonist, or writer, or tightrope walker, who am I to say the field is too full and the competition too stiff? There's that one in a thousand chance that you're the genius with the natural gift and work ethic that will knock everybody's socks off and you will be wonderfully successful.
Jaded as I am, I know there are times when following your passion is the best road to travel. Added to which, job opportunities rise and fall, and it's tough to predict whether a segment of any particular market will be roaring or foundering when you're ready to jump into it. (Could anybody have predicted the 'toon boom of the nineties in, say, 1985? That in 2010, animation would be a major driver in full-length movies? Could my predecessor in this job have forecast that the 700-member Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists over which he presided would morph into the 2900-member Animation Guild? Doubt it.)
The future is always unknowable. Even though it's a reasonably safe bet that hand-drawn animation will not be regaining the high-ground it held in 1994, and that a chunk of lower-tier animation work will be outsourced to low-cost providers, the market is ever-changing, and it's not insane for a twenty-something to chase after her dream job. (At that age she has the time and the opportunity, so why the hell not? My only advice would be to pursue your heart's desire in an area of art that is robust rather than fading.)
If you don't grab at that brass ring when it floats by, the chance to yank it free might never come again. No matter how long the chances."

Continue Part 2

Texture Painting Notes Level Up.

2010-09-02T23:14:00.003+08:00

Some texture painting notes off the top of my head.

1.) Look at natural occuring patterns. See the rhythm and shape of dirt, stains. Leaves. For a painter, you need to see a lot. This is most crucial when painting skin and organics surfaces. A lot of painters face this difficulty because they have not look and study at patterns long enough. See the recurring patterns and commit to memory. When you do that, things will fall into place when u look at shapes and patterns during painting.

http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual-math-natural-fractals.html

http://web.mac.com/camazine/Camazine/Self-organization_files/Patterns%20in%20Nature.pdf

When designing fantasy floral and fauna surfaces, the key is believability. Not realism.

2.) Low and high frequency levels. Near and Far. Details needs to oread both from near and far.

3.) Spot the Hardness and Softness in transaction. Both in color and in tone. And how to apply them in painting.

4.) Clearly be able to dissect from a reference image, what can be created as specular, color and displacement maps.

5.) Color maps - Do a quick and dirty maps and set the render up b4 tweaking. Just to see how the lights are interacting with the maps. Balance out your shaders, define you color space Then Paint. Do not go back and forth, render, re-render, paint, etc... very time consuming.

6.) Color grading of references. Before u do this, u need to define the color space. Is it gamma 2.2 or 1.8 or whatever. Then again u can color correct and use curves to a photo to match the lighting in the turntable or shot so this is really a moot point. Just make sure that it stays between around 15%-85% brightness.

7.) Letting Go. Dun go into a detail on a particular area and focus on it. Remember you got to do the same for the rest of the model. UNless that area is in the money shots. Get a overall look 1st. U might get away with more then you know. Different people look at Different shapes, different details. That area that u been busting ur balls over, people might not even care or notice.

8.) Layers, Keep it low, keep it simple. Easy to fix. Too many overlays/softlight confuses you. Once you like a look, flatten it. UNLESS its a decal or something that needs to fix. Dun be too depend on it. You are a texture painter. Paint.

9.) Brushes and Channels are your friend. Learn them well and you will prosper.

10.) Color Picker. USE IT.

11.) Reference. Do not just use a few. For color, preferably ones that are well lit with little or no specular. For specular reference the object in different lighting conditions and with flash/no lfash helps.

12.) Reference. There is such a thing as too much reference. Pick the good ones and stick with it.

13.) See how the light hits the object. How it breaks up the surface. And also if there is any white balance used in the photo.

14.) Specular maps are ur most important weapons.

15.) Paint the full range of values for scalar maps. i.e displacement, bump and specular. no use painting only 60%-40% gray for bump. Use the full amount and then u can adjust in shader. If the shader permits, use low and high freq maps separately for greater control. Else, have them in photoshop layers and combine them as 1 map like the old days. Of a more civilized time.

Thats it for now.

Carlos Baena Educational Posts.

2010-06-16T09:55:00.002+08:00

A compilation of Carlos Baena's previous posts on his thoughts of animation. Very very useful Stuff.

Primary, secondary and teritary shapes.

2010-06-06T23:56:00.002+08:00

From Neil Blevin's website.

This lesson is all about Primary, Secondary and Tertiary shapes, what they are and how to use them. This concept is also sometimes referred to as "Big, Medium, Small", as in, if your image has a nice distribution of big (primary), medium (secondary) and small (tertiary) shapes, the resulting image will tend to be more pleasing to the eye.

First, a definition. Primary shapes are your big shapes. If you squint at an image, the details tend to disappear and you're left with only your big shapes.

Secondary shapes are the smaller shapes that either sit ontop of, or help make up the primary shapes.

Tertiary shapes are again smaller than the secondary shapes.
First off, what should the size of these details be? Well, that depends on personal taste. I like having the primary details being huge, almost the size of the image itself. And I like Tertiary details being really small, sometimes the size of a pixel or two. From there you can decide the appropriate size for the Secondary Details. Of course, not all details should be the same size, it's more like a range of sizes, so not all secondary details should be the same size, but should be in a similar range.

So these could be primary, secondary and tertiary shapes....

Next comes the distribution of these details. Take a look at this image, it has all 3 levels of detail, but the tertiary shapes are in one uniform block...

Animation : Strive for Simplicity

2010-05-21T12:07:00.002+08:00

AGAIN FROM ASTERISK ANIMATION'S BLOG.

notes from Tissa David's lecture on 11/16/89.

Camera moves shouldn't be visible and obvious, they should be felt.

When zooming go in a straight line [important note for motion graphics]
EXCEPTION: unless you are following an action.

Jump cut should have a visible difference in size.

Timing: correct way of saying something you feel. Leading into something
Timing will show emotions by the pacing.

VERY LOUD beat can be two frames ahead of the beat.

Gestures 6 frames ahead can help a loud beat (impact)
lead ball falling down, the effect comes after it is bouncing off.

Gestures before or after the statement are more effective.

using joint movement gives smoother, looser animation otherwise it would be stiff.

cycle: should be simple (it would be less obvious)
strive for simplicity

You need 6 frames to see anything.

[illustrated example of lifting a heavy rock]

1) anticipation of weight
2) lifting of the weight
3) actual weight

Animation is acting

Light scarf will move very slowly and flows.

leaf [illustrated example]

drop of water [illustrated example]

Fast actions will overlap.

Its not necessary to overlap action generally.

[illustrated examples: finger pushing, ball, ball bounce]

Budgeting for animation Part 1 From Asterisk Animation

2010-05-21T12:04:00.002+08:00

FROM ASTERISK ANIMATION - PART 1

Here's how the SUMMARY OF PRODUCTION COSTS works.

This budget is a variation on the AICP budget form. That is designed for live action. That budget form contains (literally) one line for "animation". Each of the production categories are culled from there.

We figure there are 5 phases of production as far a budgeting is concerned. Future posts will explain these in detail.

In general, it's best if "animation" covers about 30% of production costs. When we get into categories, you'll see this means labor/production costs of animators, assistant animators, inbetweeners, etc.

In this model, lines A-E total $90k. All of that should be detailed in the body of the budget.

Now for the next lines.

In work-for-hire, the producer isn't supposed to mark up director/creative fees. When we get into line items, we'll describe what this does and doesn't include. It's customary for a director to be budgeted somewhere around 10% of A-E. This is listed as "Creative" under "Subtotal A-E".

"Production Fee" is "mark up". This includes a lot of things. One thing is profit. Another is contingency. Another is operating expenses (like tax preparation, water, and daily costs of running a company). This is not entirely overhead, a lot of your overhead should be covered as line items.

In the good old days of advertising, it was common to mark a 28% production fee. These days it seems like 15% is closer to the norm. Some clients will insist on it being even lower. In those cases -since the Production Fee represents many real costs -those numbers just get shifted to line items.

Insurance is another figure which doesn't figure into the Production Fee. This is figured at 1.5% of A-E.

Eyjafjallajökull Time Lapse Animation.

2010-05-21T11:56:00.001+08:00

Awesome video of Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Time Lapse Animation.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

STORY

2010-04-02T19:35:00.003+08:00

Synchrolux had quite a few awesome posts about Story

http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=40

http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=277

http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=284

http://www.synchrolux.com/?p=289

Very very good read.

I will break them down later,

F$%k Yeah!

2010-04-02T18:57:00.002+08:00

From IO9.com

The 5 Types Of Fuck Yeah Moments That Make You Buy Into A Character

It’s a simple enough idea: a F*@% Yeah moment is something in a work of art that stuns you with its total coolness and wrenches the phrase “F*@% Yeah!”

1) The awesome inspirational speech.

This is maybe the most basic, and yet the most vital. Anybody can kick you in the head. (Unless you're tall, and they're short, or just out of shape.) But giving an awesome speech that gets your blood pounding — that requires some mojo.

2) Outnumbered or totally pwned, but the hero still won't give up.

There's a reason Kirk's shirt gets shredded in almost every original Trek episode — and it's not just to show off the results of Shatner's bench-pressing. His final speech (see #1) is that much more impressive when it comes on the heels of Kirk getting put through the ringer.

3) The surprise turnaround, when you realize someone was one jump ahead all along.

Otherwise known as the "Batman" category. You think Batman's about to be whupped by Prometheus, the guy with every known martial artist on a CD-Rom in his head — but Batman has reverse-engineered Prometheus' helmet and swapped it out so that the only person whose physical skills he now possesses is... drum roll... Professor Stephen Hawking. (AKA Cunning Bastard Trick)

4) The moment of amazing altruism or saving others.

Six words: "Get away from her, you bitch!"

5) Someone takes the plunge into the unknown.

Any time someone's faced with an impossible or bewildering situation, and takes a leap into the dark, it's hard not to buy into that character a little more.

Some Links

http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2006/01/f-yeah-files-movie-version-1.html

http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2005/10/f-yeah-files-1-flashs-mid-air-rescue.html

Irvin Kershner Empire Strikes Back DVD audio commentary.

2010-01-04T17:11:00.000+08:00

I was watching the audio commentary of Empire strikes Back DVD. It had George Lucas, director Irvin Kershner, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and actor Carrie Fisher. All five sat separately for this compiled commentary.

Compared to the New Hope and ROTJ commentaries, I really enjoyed this one. Because of Irvin Kershner.

His notes and comments about film making in general shows a man who really enjoys his work and his time making this movie. There is a sense of excitment and purpose in the way Mr Kershner explains his experiences of making the movie. Some basic but very helpful pointers. I really wished I was in his class at USC that he is teaching.

I have compiled some of his comments into point form below for my own references.

- Within a scene, the rythm of the actors, the rythm of the speech, the rythem of the movemeent, the rythm of the staging. This is locked in time. This is the biggest guess of all

- 2nd Act of a film -> more characterisation and less action. The problems are explained and a advertisement for the 3rd Act.

- The length of the cuts are important to the rhythm of the film. Necessary to keep the rhythm of the film. On staging of scenes within the cut, I have to keep the rhythm going. So its the same pace, same rhythm. A lot of guess.

- Showing the reaction of it (an exertion) is important. like being chocked, and the chock is released.

- The more difficult you make it for the hero, the better it is.

- Hitchcockian principle - You need a terrific antagonist for the protagonist to flourish.

- Emotionally healthy

Violence isn't usually the issue for younger people. Its really how the violence is portrayed and the consequences of the violence. And what it means in a cultural context. Do they have respect for human life ?

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for Writing a Short Story, with a Bonus Rule

2009-12-14T17:13:00.001+08:00

From SyncroLux :

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Starting Point By Hayao Miyazaki

2009-10-18T02:48:00.002+08:00

I am reading this book and I have to say that this probably the most important animation book out there for me. Even above Illusion of Life.

Unlike most how-to animation books that focus on breaking down about theme and story structure, character's motivation, this is a book that talks about the philosophy of animation and thought process through articles and interviews of Hayao Miyazaki collected over a 17 year period.

Below is a few notes from a review by Mayer Masterson on the book.

"Having said all this, if someone were to ask me what the most important thing is when creating a new animated work, my answer would be that you first have to know what you want to say with it. In other words, you have to have a theme. Surprisingly, perhaps, people sometimes overlook this basic fact of filmmaking and overemphasize technique instead. There are innumerable examples of people making films with a very high level of technique, but only a very fuzzy idea of what they really want to say. And after watching their films, viewers are usually completely befuddled. Yet when people who know what they want to say make films with a low level of technique, we still greatly appreciate the films because there is really something to them."

"I like the expression "lost possibilities." To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, and a life. To exist here, now, means to lose the possibility of being countless other potential selves. For example, I might have been the captain of a pirate ship, sailing with a lovely princess by my side. It means giving up this universe, giving up other potential selves. There are selves which are lost possibilities, and selves that could have been, and this is not limited just to us but to the people around us and even to Japan itself.Yet once born,there is no turning back. And I think that's exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us. And in this sense I think that the animation we see today often lacks the vitality of older cartoon movies. Economic constraints in production are often said to be the main reason, but it seems to me that something spiritual is also missing. It would be stupid to turn my back on the times in which we live and act arrogrant about it all, but I always find myself thinking that the old cartoon movies were indeed more interesting and exciting that we have today."

"I think there is is no way we can live and "not cause difficulties for others," as the saying exhorts us. I have come to think that even when we are overflowing with love and goodness, the world of human beings is one in which we cast our shadows onto each other, giving each other troubles as we grow and live.The question then becomes, what it is hope? And the conclusion I'd have to venture is that hope involves working and struggling along with people who are important to you. In fact, I've gotten to the point where I think this is what it means to be alive."

The Anatomy of Determination

2009-10-15T12:28:00.002+08:00

Very interesting article about the anatomy of Determination. And its relationship with Ambition, Willpower, Talent to succeed.

"We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination.....But while it certainly helps to be smart, it's not the deciding factor. There are plenty of people as smart as Bill Gates who achieve nothing."

"I can't think of any field in which determination is overrated, but the relative importance of determination and talent probably do vary somewhat. Talent probably matters more in types of work that are purer, in the sense that one is solving mostly a single type of problem instead of many different types. I suspect determination would not take you as far in math as it would in, say, organized crime."

"The simplest form of determination is sheer willfulness. When you want something, you must have it, no matter what."

"Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline."

"That word balance is a significant one. The more willful you are, the more disciplined you have to be. The stronger your will, the less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself. And someone has to argue with you, because everyone has base impulses, and if you have more will than discipline you'll just give into them and end up on a local maximum like drug addiction."

"If this is true it has interesting implications, because discipline can be cultivated, and in fact does tend to vary quite a lot in the course of an individual's life. If determination is effectively the product of will and discipline, then you can become more determined by being more disciplined."

"In fact the dangers of indiscipline increase with temptation. Which means, interestingly, that determination tends to erode itself. If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great things, this will probably increase the number of temptations around you. Unless you become proportionally more disciplined, willfulness will then get the upper hand, and your achievement will revert to the mean."

"I think there probably are people whose willfulness is crushed down by excessive discipline, and who would achieve more if they weren't so hard on themselves. One reason the young sometimes succeed where the old fail is that they don't realize how incompetent they are. This lets them do a kind of deficit spending. When they first start working on something, they overrate their achievements. But that gives them confidence to keep working, and their performance improves. Whereas someone clearer-eyed would see their initial incompetence for what it was, and perhaps be discouraged from continuing." I think you definitely need a certain amount of hard headedness and warped sense of reality to succeed. Since young I was too concerned with other people's opinion as a gauge of my self worth)

"There's one other major component of determination: ambition. If willfulness and discipline are what get you to your destination, ambition is how you choose it."

"Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age."

"Achievements also tend to increase your ambition. With each step you gain confidence to stretch further next time."

"So here in sum is how determination seems to work: it consists of willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition. And fortunately at least two of these three qualities can be cultivated. You may be able to increase your strength of will somewhat; you can definitely learn self-discipline; and almost everyone is practically malnourished when it comes to ambition."

"Note too that determination and talent are not the whole story. There's a third factor in achievement: how much you like the work. If you really love working on something, you don't need determination to drive you; it's what you'd do anyway. But most types of work have aspects one doesn't like, because most types of work consist of doing things for other people, and it's very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to align exactly with what you want to do."

Indeed, if you want to create the most wealth, the way to do it is to focus more on their needs than your interests, and make up the difference with determination."

"For example, willfulness clearly has two subcomponents, stubbornness and energy. The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert. The second alone yields someone flighty. As willful people get older or otherwise lose their energy, they tend to become merely stubborn."

'Ponyo' and lessons in storytelling

2009-10-07T19:15:00.003+08:00

Afterward as we walked the few blocks back home, Luke and I recounting our favorite moments in the film, he said, "It's interesting that there weren't any real bad guys in the movie."
There are characters and circumstances which provide a temporary oppositional dynamic:

* Fujimoto (voiced in English by Liam Neeson), Ponyo's father, who seeks out Ponyo after she disappears, uses his wave spirits to 'steal' her back from Ssuke (voiced in English by Noah Lyndsey Cyrus), and stands in opposition to Ponyo's desire to become a human.

* Toki (voiced in English by Lily Tomlin), a cantankerous resident of the senior citizen's center where Ssuke's mother Lisa (voiced by Tina Fey) works.

* The maritime job of Ssuke's father and Lisa's husband Koichi (voiced in English by Matt Damon) which separates Koichi from his family.

* A huge storm that puts Ssuke and Lisa's lives in danger on a perilous car trip home, turns Ssuke's house on a cliff into an island, and represents the front edge of an "imbalance" that threatens the very order of nature.

These narrative elements basically pass the antagonist baton to generate a sense of tension, but none of them is a classic "bad guy". And yet, the story works beautifully.

Which got me wondering: What other 'traditional' movie-narrative elements are not present in Ponyo. Here is a partial list:

* A specific Nemesis character

* Hardly any conflict between characters -- apart from one funny 'argument' between Lisa and Koichi played out using Morse code signals from electric lamps and one confrontation between Fujimoto and Ponyo

* Action that builds to a big Final Struggle: Since there's no Nemesis character, there is no classic 'battle' between Protagonist and Antagonist. Rather everything builds to a 'test' - of sorts - where Ssoke has to answer a question: Where Granmammare (voiced in English by Cate Blanchett) asks Ssoke if he can love Ponyo as a fish as well as a human. He answers yes, Ponyo becomes a human, and balance is restored to nature - just like that. Moreover the biggest action in the movie -- the huge storm -- occurs well before the story's climax which also runs counter to 'traditional' models of screenplay paradigms.Ponder that for a moment: If someone came up to you with a script they had written and they said, "The story doesn't have a Nemesis, there's hardly any conflict, and the Final Struggle is carried out not through action but in dialogue," you -- and I as well -- would almost certainly be concerned about what we were being asked to read.But, as I've noted, Ponyo works as a story.

Let's take a look at what Ponyo does have in the way of narrative elements:

* Engaging lead characters with clear goals: Ssuke wants to find and care for Ponyo. Ponyo wants to go back to Ssuke and become a human.

* Emotional connection for viewers: A father (Fujimoto) concerned about the well-being of his daughter; a boy (Ssuke) who finds a new friend (Ponyo); a fish-girl (Ponyo) who desperately wants to become a human; a mother (Lisa) concerned about her son (Ssuke); a son (Ssuke) in search of his mother (Lisa); old people who wish to become young again. In sum on this score, Ponyo is a deeply personal movie.

* Mythology: The world of Ponyo is a hyper-reality infused with rich, meaningful mythic elements -- the sea as Creator and Destructor, the Great Flood, the child as Seeker, wizardry, and so on.

* Nature: The movie revels in the outdoors, both aquatic and dry land, each (and especially the sea) visualized in rich details.

* Depth: The story is an intimate one - the friendship of Ssuke and Ponyo - but also one of great depth, taking the theme of their 'friendship' and expanding on that to explore the relationship between humanity and Earth, most vitally our 'friendship' with the sea.

And there's this: "Quiet moments." Anne Thompson has a great column about Miyazaki here in which Pixar visionary John Lasseter offers his thoughts (on video) re the great Japanese animator, writer, and director - and one of the reasons Lasseter admires Miyazaki so much is, "He celebrates quiet moments":

Maya HyperShade Stuff And Tutorials

2009-09-09T23:06:00.001+08:00

http://www.outside-hollywood.com/siggraph/

http://www.tokeru.com/t/bin/view/Maya/MayaLightingShading

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2005/08/hue_falloff_in.html

http://ncca.bournemouth.ac.uk/gallery/files/innovations/2005/Hales_Nicholas_59/NicholasHales_Tutorials.doc

http://ucbugg.berkeley.edu/tutorials

http://accad.osu.edu/~fkalal/753/hw7/hw.html

Intellectual Curiosity

2009-08-15T15:18:00.002+08:00

Intellectual Curiosity - A desire to learn more about a person, or a thing, or a way of life.

Again from Animonday about comparing the Animation Block Party and the 47th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

"just about every entry was bogged down with the trappings of pop culture, animation self-referencing, and light-weight themes and ideas. None offered much (or any) insight into important issues, the state of world, the human condition, or even simple human relationships."

"Despite endless possibilities, many animation artists would rather contemplate how to use any story set-up as an excuse to create an epic fight scene. Among the most technically polished pieces in the ABP show was a seemingly endless film that featured a pint-sized character rambling on and on in a post-game locker room. The attractive design work and subtle character animation were not enough to generate interest in the tedious film. Can you imagine a live action equivalent, with great lighting, art direction and cinematography but no story, just a guy rambling on and on? If you're doing a narrative film, it’s not enough to have good animation or high production values. A narrative film requires structure and interesting characters working through something the audience can relate to."

"A personal film has the opportunity to explore areas that a big budget theatrical animation or an animated TV series couldn't touch. But, many personal films are love letters to those very institutions, repeating themes and scenes and jokes we’ve seen before, with the effect of diminishing returns."

"It’s ironic that animators are the first to defend the potential of their medium and are also the least likely to exploit it. What does it say about us that we are more concerned with getting a cheap laugh or recreating a fight scene from “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” than we are about really saying something?"

"What some of these student animators are choosing to express does not give me hope that they have the needed intellectual curiosity to create work that will surprise the older generations like mine and inspire the generations after them."

Creative Currency.

2009-08-15T15:10:00.002+08:00

From Animondays a article about creative currency.

"To develop a pitch is to develop your voice as a writer and an artist. Even being strung along by an insincere development executive (no, they are not all insincere) doesn't change the fact that you created something that you may take with you to greener pastures."

"I share this story because I think it's evidence that pitching is only a waste of time when you choose to pin all your hopes on one idea or on one particular opportunity or executive."

"I have come to believe that development executives will always let you down; not that they intend to but there's just no way they could ever be as excited about your project as you are. And in turn, most creators they strike deals with probably disappoint the executives since it's got to be tough to live up to what an exec might imagine your project to be before it's made.In the end, it's up to you to make sure that pitching isn't a waste of time. All your efforts travel with you and build up your creative currency over time. "

What's at stake is nothing less then life and death.

2009-08-14T11:30:00.005+08:00

In the making of my animated short, I felt that there was something lacking in the emotional investment that the audience needs to make. That statement above pointed out in neon bold letters the problem I think I had.

The one below struck me.

"Remember the goal we are after? We want to give the audience an emotionally satisfying experience."

It was a section from a book "directing the story" - by francis glebas. Just started reading this book. Most of it is something that is common sense about but not really something that you give serious thought. Other parts I can understand but not really agree to.

Some useful notes about it.

- "The most important thing about making a movie is that it must be about something big, important and significant. Otherwise why should we care. "

It has to say something important about the particular subject matter. i.e friendship, love.

- "Show the audience why your characters are absolutely driven to do what they do"

- "Characters drive stories, like characters who go after a goal and face obstacles, make decisions, then take actions of life changing consequences."

- "It has to speak to something that we can relate to". Does not have to be a big story. But got to be big issues. e.g family, honor, law, crime, freedom, guilt. etc...

- "Something has to be at stake" e.g Have to show what the consequence is if the mission fail."

There is a paragraph about the hero's journey, about creating obstacles which is already covered in many other books. So I wont get into it.

But in summary

- We watch movies to feel good. Meet that need in your audience
- Make sure your story is about something that matters
- Aim at providing an emotionally satisfying experience for your audience but works at a structural level
- The secret of storytelling is story-delaying. There is a whole repertoire of story-delaying tactics based on the control of info of who gets to know what, when and how to tease your audience by making them wait.

Story Development in Animated Features

2009-07-06T02:04:00.002+08:00

"How much time is typically devoted to the story making/boarding/animatic phase of a movie? How well can you tell if the film will work when it’s in animatic form? . . . do stories come out weakly because they didn’t have enough time to keep tightening them, or because you can’t get a good enough idea of the final product from just the boards?"

The entire process is actually a series of overlapping processes, and while the goal may seem to be to satisfactorily complete one phase before moving on, that never happens.

Inevitably, more story and character changes ensue during the animation process, when the folks in charge figure out the real heart and soul of the film, so that much of the animatic is revised or thrown out as scenes and sequences are reboarded, redesigned, reanimated. The story department is usually still hard at work on a film up right up until shortly before animation finishes.

So how well can you tell if the film will work from the animatic? I’m not sure the animatic is the thing anyone should be judging. The typical animatic, despite how detailed these things have become in just the last ten years, still lacks any acting. In CG features, they’re far less expressive than the storyboards. And the animatic production values (lighting, cloth, effects, score, etc., etc.) are crude at best. So animatics can be deceptive.

Super_Villains__The_4_Major_Food_Groups and Why We Deserve Better Villains — And How To Get Them

2009-07-05T20:34:00.003+08:00

http://www.ifanboy.com/content/articles/Super_Villains__The_4_Major_Food_Groups

Cant agree more.. Awesome article.

From io9.com

http://io9.com/5039185/why-we-deserve-better-villains--and-how-to-get-them

Villains do not need no reason. They are because they are evil. Explaining villains are lame-o.

How villains lose their shit: 1) They get redeemed. Like Sylar, supposedly. Or, I suspect, like Ben on Lost, who's already becoming a much more sympathetic character. (Although he still has the immoral psycho edge, as when he's willing to kill everyone on the freighter to get revenge on Keamy.) The ultimate example of a redeemed villain who loses his mystique is Darth Vader, whose redemption at the end of Return Of The Jedi presaged his whoah-TMI over-explanation in the prequels, which brings us to...
2) Too much information. Even Doctor Who's archetypal nasty, the Master, isn't immune. He went around killing and wreaking havoc for 30 years without any explanation other than "he's a sick fuck." But "he's a sick fuck" wasn't enough for writer Russell T. Davies, who had to give the Master an origin story that explained how he became evil. It was the weakest point of an otherwise great story. Sometimes, knowing why the villain is a psycho isn't the point. The best part of TDK's Joker is the fact that he keeps telling different origin stories, all of them completely fishy3) They become analogs of real-life nasties. It's just way too easy to make your villain just like Bill Gates, or Dick Cheney, or Hillary Clinton, or Ahmadinejad or whoever. (I almost wrote "Hillary Klingon," which I would pay to see.) In a few rare cases, it can make villains creepier — as in the plethora of Margaret Thatcher monsters coming out of England in the 1980s — but most of the time, it's just a cheap shortcut.4) We see too much of their world. James Callis, who plays Gaius Baltar, said recently that he thought bleak space-opera Battlestar Galactica made a mistake by letting us inside the Cylons' Baseships and showing us their internecine bickering and weird internal decor sense. We stopped thinking of them as the implacable masterminds of human genocide, and started thinking of them more as The Real World: Baseship. 5) Too many defeats. This is one of the things that went wrong with the Borg. (The other one being the ridiculous "Borg Queen" which I think comes under the heading of "seeing too much of their world.") When we first meet the Borg, they're so unbeatable, Captain Picard basically has to beg Q to get the Enterprise away from them. And then the good guys defeat the Borg once, against tremendous odds. After that, every victory gets easier and easier, until finally Captain Janeway is reducing the entire Borg collective to rubble with a few well-placed kicks. 6) Too many victories. This is why I'm somewhat startled that the movie version of the Joker has so much power: he's a dillweed in the comics. The comic-book Joker is a victim of his own success. Where do you go after you've killed Robin and destroyed Batgirl in the same year? Away, that's where. The Joker should have been retired in the comics after "A Death In The Family" and "The Killing Joke," and in fact he did disappear for a year or two. But it was too tempting to keep bringing him back, and he's stuck being a has-been villain who can never top his best (worst) year, which was 20 years ago now. I've read hundreds of Joker comics published since 1988, and none has left much of an impression.7) The villain that's a reflection of the hero. This is really where Iron Man and Incredible Hulk fail. (Someone emailed us about this a few months ago, and I'm afraid I can't remember who now.) You have a guy in super-powered metal armor? Who should he fight, if not another guy in super-powered metal armor that's a knock-off of his own? A big green guy? Let's create another big green guy from his blood and make them fight. A unified theory of villainy: We need good villains, for the health of our society. Good villains make great stories. A truly chilling villain makes the hero seem more important because the stakes are important, and the hero's actions matter.

Up Color Script.

2009-06-05T11:51:00.003+08:00

This is the color script of UP by Lou Romano. Very cool work. It is used to conceptualize the atmosphere, mood, tone for the entire movie via colors before doing it in 3D. Very useful way of working and awesome work.

Shatner Kirk vs Pine Kirk.

2009-05-16T19:57:00.003+08:00

"One thing I liked about the original Captain Kirk was that he was the best captain in Starfleet, not becuase he'd been anointed as a young man, but because he was just the best. It was a singularly old-school idea of heroism: He came up through the ranks, he passed the same tests as everybody else, and he just happened to turn out the best."

Damn straight. None of these new emo spoiled annoying rebel shit.

the light bulb that came on..... finally.

2009-05-16T19:31:00.007+08:00

i always had this nagging feeling about joseph campbell's hero's journey. It is a compelling concept that I thought of using for my short.I can understand its significance but it is repetitive in a majority of movies in recent times ....... Cookie cutter. Below is the jeez of it.

It confuses personal growth with solving problems.

"Sometimes in order to defeat a great evil, you have to learn an important personal lesson and grow as a person. But often, you don't. Oftentimes, defeating a great evil just requires fighting like hell and doing what has to be done, and there's no time to meet the goddess or touch your magic wand or any of that stuff. Campbell's monomyth is unrealistic and spreads the idea that war is therapy."

This caused me so much angst trying to find a cause or some kinda of journey that the damn hero have to take during the writing pharse. but then I realised sometimes you just got to bring-it-on.

Below again. Why is one hero so special anyway?

The hero doesn't just get the "call to adventure" because everyone's getting it. He gets it because he's the most important person alive, with the most special skillz or the biggest brain. Everybody who's not him sucks and should go away. It plays into people's fantasies that they're secretly amazing, without having to work for it. But for those of us who aren't Ender Wiggin or Luke Skywalker, it's just pointless.

http://io9.com/345313/eight-reasons-why-the-heros-journey-sucks

cinematography notes

2009-04-16T01:11:00.004+08:00

http://mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com/2006/09/art-of-visual-storytelling.html

http://livingromcom.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/ingmar_bergman_.html

"“A motion picture doesn’t have to look
absolutely realistic,” Nykvist says. “It can be
beautiful and realistic at the same time. I am
not interested in beautiful photography. I am
interested in telling stories about human
beings, how they act and why they act that
way.”

“The truth always lies in
the character’s eyes,”
Nykvist says. “It is very
important to light so the
audience can see what’s
behind each character’s eyes. That’s how the audience
gets to know them as human beings. It opens up their
souls."

Sven Nykvist

http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/htmfiles/cinematography.htm
http://www.wildsound-filmmaking-feedback-events.com/cinematography-shots-and-camera-angles.html

http://www2.english.uiuc.edu/lnewcomb/English%20117/cinematography.htm

http://courses.csusm.edu/fmst300bc/kinetics.html

http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/anatomy.php

books and dvds to buy or borrow.
vison of light http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Light-Cinematography-N%C3%A9stor-Almendros/dp/630583685X

the cutting edge http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Edge-Magic-Movie-Editing/dp/B0009PVZEG/ref=pd_sim_d_1

cinematic style http://www.amazon.com/Cinematographer-Style-Roger-Deakins/dp/B00197POY0/ref=pd_sim_d_5

painting with light http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Light-John-Alton/dp/0520089499/ref=pd_sim_d_6

cinematic storytelling http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Storytelling-Powerful-Conventions-Filmmaker/dp/193290705X/ref=pd_sim_d_4

quotes from james cameron.

2009-03-28T12:26:00.003+08:00

"But the beauty of movies is that they don't have to be logical. They just have to have plausibility. If there's a visceral, cinematic thing happening that the audience likes, they don't care if it goes against what's likely."

"I don't think anything resembling The Terminator is really going to happen. There certainly aren't going to be genocidal wars waged by machines a few generations from now. The stories function more on a symbolic level, and that's why people key into them. They're about us fighting our own tendency toward dehumanization. When a cop has no compassion, when a shrink has no empathy, they've become machines in human form. Technology is changing the whole fabric of social interaction. We're absorbing our machines in a symbiotic way, evolving to become one with our own devices, and that's going to continue indefinitely."

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/17-04/ff_cameron#

Mental Ray Sites

2009-03-11T10:13:00.003+08:00

http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/MentalRaySampling.htm

http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/UsingFramebuffers/UsingFramebuffers.html

http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/MentalRayHide_Shaders/MentalRayHides_shaders.htm

http://toi.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/index.php?title=Rendering_Mental_Ray:_Common_Render_Settings

http://toi.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/index.php?title=Rendering_Mental_Ray:_Anti_Aliasing_Settings

http://toi.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/index.php?title=Lighting_and_rendering

Maya 3D Space - Global, Object, Local

2009-03-09T09:01:00.005+08:00

3D positions and transformations exist within coordinate systems called spaces.

World space - the coordinate system for the entire scene. Its origin is at the center of the scene (0,0,0). The grid you see in view windows shows the world space axes.

Object space - the coordinate system from an object’s point of view. Each Object have its own object space. The origin of object space is at the object’s pivot point, and its axes are rotated with the object.

* If you freeze the transformation of the object, the axes will align back to world space but the origin remains at pivot point of the object.

Local space - similar to object space, however it uses the origin and axes of the object’s parent node in the hierarchy of objects. This is useful when you haven’t transformed the object itself, but it is part of a group that is transformed.

You can choose to move the objects in its local, world or object axis. If the object is not parented, the local axes orientation will be that of the world.

rigging tutorials

2009-03-09T00:15:00.002+08:00

Simple Rigging Tutorials.

http://www.imanishi.com/mayablog_en/maya/mayaanimchara/

start at the bottom, and work your way up.

Pre-rigging Check Lists.

2009-03-08T22:07:00.001+08:00

From An Essential Introduction to Maya Character Rigging by Cheryl Cabrera.

Before rigging a character, a couple of things to check before proceeding with the rigging. This will save a lot of time and reduce mental stress later.

Check that you do not have double spaces and weird modelling artifacts in your model.
- Do NOT smooth the model which will slow down the rigging and skinning process.
- Make sure the model is facing front in the front view. And in the center of world space.
- Make sure all the geometry are labelled.
- Make sure the size of the character is not too small. At least 20 units tall.
- Make Sure transformation is frozen.
- DO NOT parent geometry pieces to other geometry pieces unless you have done so to create blend shapes for the face.
- Research and plot out the skeletal structure of your character. e.g how many fingers does the character have. Does the model have a neck, if so how long is it etc....
- Think about each appendage as an individual joint chain. So seperate chain for each leg, arm, finger, head, torso. You can also add chains for articles of clothing or props.
- Place the geometry on a seperate layer so that you wont select the geo by mistake.

Maya Joint Tool for Idiots.

2009-03-08T19:35:00.006+08:00

Animation -> Skeleton -> Joint Tool

Creating Joints are literally creating a parent and child Hierarchy. The more joints you create, the more parent-child relationship there is in the hierarchy.

When you move or rotate or scale the joint, its child, and subsequent children will be affect by it.

The Joints have their own local axis. It is determined by the position of its child. If it does not have a child, the local axis will align with world space. If a joint has a child, by default its X axis points towards the child.

*Important* The bones between 2 joints are just visual connections. They do not really exist in the scene. You cannot add weights or parent objects to bones. Only to joints.

The size of the joints and bones can be changed in the tool settings of the Joint Tool. Adjusting the size will not affect how the joints work. This is not to be confused with actual scaling of the Hierarchy.

You can also use Display -> Animation -> Joint Size to change the size of the joints.

*Note* Scaling or rotating the hierarchy WILL affect how the joints work. If a joint is rotated or scaled, you MUST freeze transformations on the joints to reset the values. For joints, Translate values will not freeze. There will always be a value so that Maya knows where that joint in world space in relation to its parent joint. So do not freak out.

Joint Should be placed in the Orthographic Views as it can only be place on a grid.

maya rigging joints simplified.

2009-03-08T14:28:00.005+08:00

In order to animate a modelled character in maya, there are 3 process to do before we can start animating.

1.) Create BlendShapes. (Different facial expressions as well as any different geometry deformation during animation).

2.) Create a Skeletal Rig. ( The bones and controls to animate the character)

3.) Bind the Rig and BlendShapes to the model. (aka Skinning, assigning vertices of your geometry to the skeleton)

A skeletal Rig in Maya is predominationly built using joints. (Animation -> Skeleton -> Joint Tool)

Each appendage is its its own joint hierarchy. And they will be controled seperately. So separate chains have to created for Hands, Arms, Legs, Foot, Spine etc... These are then parented together into one big hierarchy.

The skeletal Rig should be believable and and functional. As in reality, the position of the joint is important to have the character move in a believable manner.

We will need to understand how Joints and Local Space work in order to better understand the rigging process.

Animation Notes From Richard Williams and Ollie Johnston.

2009-03-08T14:09:00.004+08:00

After animating the open few shots for my short, I realised to my despair but relief that my animation skills while passable, are not as good as I think they are. I will need to improve my animation techniques before I continue.

Below are some of the notes I gathered, while researching online. I will have to put these into practise on a few test scenes. It will take some time but hopefully the quality of the animation will improve.

http://www.3dark.com/archives/animation/richard_williams_notes.html (From a Richard Williams MasterClass by Dave Bailey. )

What is animation?
- Change is the basis of all animation
- There are two types of animation Morphing and the type that gives the illusion of life.
- Animation is all in the timing and spacing
-You must show where the weight is, where it is coming from and where the weight is going to.

KEY FRAMES - are the story telling frames (The story board drawings)Frames where the character makes contact (heel strike pose, touching an object, etc.)

EXTREMES - are the where there is a change of direction. They are NOT Key Frames.

BREAKDOWNS are the middle or passing position.On breakdowns always add an extra bit of movement -- almost anything will work.Don't go from A to B. Go from A to Z to B

Methods of Working:
1) Straight-Ahead - Just start and see what happens. (Creative but lacks control)
2) Pose to Pose - (Lots of control but restricts creativity)
3) The "Best" Method - A combination of "Pose to Pose" and "Straight Ahead".

Steps to take before animating:
1) Before working turn off all other stimulus --"UNPLUG"
2) Write down what you want to do
3) Act it out
4) Work out the timing
5) Then animate

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/ollie_johnston.htm
(Animation Notes from Ollie Johnston - from Course 1 at SIGGRAPH 94, "Animation Tricks".)

1. Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions.
2. Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes.
3. If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression.
4. What is the character thinking?
5. It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting.
Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter and walks away.
OR
A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out.
6. When drawing dialogue, go for phrasing. (Simplify the dialogue into pictures of the dominating vowel and consonant sounds, especially in fast dialogue.
7. Lift the body attitude 4 frames before dialogue modulation (but use identical timing on mouth as on X sheet).
8. Change of expression and major dialogue sounds are a point of interest. Do them, if at all possible, within a pose. If the head moves too much you won’t see the changes.
9. Don’t move anything unless it’s for a purpose.
10. Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean.
11. Don’t be careless.
12. Everything has a function. Don’t draw without knowing why.
13. Let the body attitude echo the facial.
14. Get the best picture in your drawing by thumbnails and exploring all avenues.
15. Analyze a character in a specific pose for the best areas to show stretch and squash. Keep these areas simple.
16. Picture in your head what it is you’re drawing.
17. Think in terms of drawing the whole character, not just the head or eyes, etc. Keep a balanced relation of one part of the drawing to the other.
18. Stage for most effective drawing.
19. Draw a profile of the drawing you’re working on every once in a while. A profile is easier on which to show the proper proportions of the face.
20. Usually the break in the eyebrow relates to the highpoint of the eye.
21. The eye is pulled by the eyebrow muscles.
22. Keep skull size constant but get a plastic quality in face — cheeks, mouth and eyes.
23. Attain a flow thru the body rhythm in your drawing.
24. Simple animated shapes.
25. The audience has a difficult time reading the first 6-8 frames in a scene.
26. Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it?
27. Don’t animate for the sake of animation but think what the character is thinking and what the scene needs to fit into the sequence.
28. Actions can be eliminated and staging "cheated" if it simplifies the picture you are trying to show and is not disturbing to the audience.
**29. Spend half your time planning your scene and the other half animating.
30. How to animate a scene of a four-legged character acting and walking: Work out the acting patterns first with the stretch and squash in the body, neck and head; then go back in and animate the legs. Finally, adjust the up and down motion on the body according to the legs.

more notes at
http://www.packthecat.com/PersistenceOfVision/Notes/Index.html

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/character_animation.htm

The last are a few of John Lasseter's old Siggraph notes that I will breakdown later.

If you have any good animation notes, please let me know.

ta.

Blend shape notes.

2009-02-23T14:40:00.007+08:00

Before anything, freeze the base geo and delete history. make sure its at world space.

blend shapes things to note.

1.) Do not smooth the object before doing the blend shape
2.) Make sure to rename the blend shape geo before applying the blend shape deformer.
3.) Do not delete history on the geometry after the blend shape deformer is applied. But u can do it before.
4.) Do not rotate or scale the blend shapes geo on a object level and never freeze transformation.
5.) Do not delete faces or vertices from the blendshapes.
6.) Do not freeze transformations on blend shapes. You can freeze before the blendshapes are created, however once the target shapes are created, do not freeze transformations on the base or target shapes. If not the base will fly back to the origin when animating.
7.) When defining a blend shape, the base shape must be selected LAST.

animation notes for oneself.

2009-02-18T12:37:00.001+08:00

1.) key frame the key poses 1st. then the 2nd motions.

2.) try to keep the keyframes for the key movements of different relating joints on the same key frame. (Note down the key frame numbers).

3.) Only after the key poses are established, then work on the 2nd motion.

4.) little pauses in the animation. inbetween keyframes is good.

5.) What the character is thinking at each key pose.

6.) remember, there is follow through in animation. it is not one pose to the next, to the next.

good cg creation links.

2009-02-08T13:35:00.003+08:00

http://www.cgsharpe.com/?cat=20

http://www.cgsharpe.com/?p=55 (Maya / Mudbox: Street Cop Workflow by mashru mishu)

http://student.vfs.com/~3d68max/ingridwip.html (making ingrid bergman by max wahyudi)

independant animated movie links

2009-02-06T00:16:00.004+08:00

Doing some research on different film maker's experiences while making their own movies... just a few links for further reading.

http://leoanimation.blogspot.com/

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=689065&goto=nextnewest

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=663849&highlight=film+marketing

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=692957&goto=nextoldest (killer bean by jeff lew)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=723127&goto=nextnewest (MeetMeline.com)

film marketing...

2009-02-05T16:06:00.009+08:00

doing some research now for some kinda of promotional ideas for the animated film...

for no budget, facebook and youtube seems to be the places to promote the trailers and posters. Plus CG talk and cg websites.

From http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/19/090119fa_fact_friend?printable=true

"Modern campaigns have three acts: a year or more before the film débuts, you introduce it with ninety-second teaser trailers and viral Internet “leaks” of gossip or early footage, in preparation for the main trailer, which appears four months before the release; five weeks before the film opens, you start saturating with a “flight” of thirty-second TV spots; and, at the end, you remind with fifteen-second spots, newspaper ads, and billboards. Studios typically spend about ten million dollars on the “basics” (cutting trailers and designing posters, conducting market research, flying the film’s talent to the junket and the première, and the première itself) and thirty million on the media buy. The hope is that a potential viewer will be prodded just enough to make him decide to see what all the fuss is about. It’s the “belt and suspenders and corset and parachute harness” approach."

“We have to yell loud and long enough to perfectly inflate the balloon on the day of release—and yet not so loud that we pop it.”

So even if got no money, the idea of using the 3 act ideas can be applied to the animated short.

Interestingly, there have been many recent Hollywood promotions of the web that haven't initially mentioned the name of the film ("Cloverfield" and the recent efforts behind "Quarantine" come to mind). Doesn't calling attention to the movie to early hurt the chance for the promo to go viral? Could it still work with a slate at the end for the film's website?

I will sound out my stratgey in a later post.

for now some links...

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/movie-marketing2.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/filmmakingguidemarketing

http://mag.awn.com/?article_no=671&ltype=Special%20Features

http://www.moviemarketingmadness.com/blog/

diverging edge loops

2009-02-05T11:46:00.009+08:00

often I have to diverge or redirect edge loops by re-organising the topology of a geometry.
this is a really simple one that I just realised after a lot of convoluted clickings.. gr....

step 1
step 2

step 3

Done - orange lines show the change in flow!
edge loop tutorials and theories...
http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35554&postcount=3
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8000 (more advanced theories for edge loops.)
http://zoomy.net/2008/04/02/modeling-with-edge-loops/

http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907

subsurface and fake sub surface scattering

2009-01-31T22:15:00.002+08:00

http://www.danybittel.ch/t_sss.html
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=214189

Camera Projection tutorials online

2009-01-31T21:55:00.005+08:00

simple but good camera tutorial.

http://qvolabs.com/otis_cam_proj_mp_01.html

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?p=891111

general camera projection notes from DannyGuertsen.

1.) make sure maya to Motr is loaded in preferences

2.) select camera

3.) duplicate and rename to renderCam

4.) select camera -> attribute editor -> display film gate (this is based on camera aperture)

5.) lock it.

6.) Render the scene.

7.) Paint on it (Twice the res, uncompressed)

8.) Hypershade -> Create lambert -> map the texture to incadescence -> zero out all the values.

9.) Go to the render node -> 2D textures -> as projection -> filein Node -> load the painted map.

10.) Projection Node -> attribute editor -> projection type -> prespective -> camera projection, link to camera you want .

11.) Projection Node ->Effects -> filter 0.1 (important)

12.) FileinNode -> Effects -> Filter 0.1 (important)

Baking Projection on to Object UV

1.) select objects you want to bake. Rendering -> Lighting/Shading -> AssigntextureBakeSet-> Attribute Editor -> texture bake set 1 -> Color Mode -> Light&Color

2.) filename Prefix -> blahblah (important to name it)

3.) x-res, y-res up to you. Fill texture seams -> 2-6

4.) Create a directional light and set to 0. This switches the default light off. ( so that the bake will be pure color)

5.) Select the objects + the shader with the projection.

6.) When both are selected, under Lighting/Shader -> Batch bake (mentalRay)

7.) Make sure camera is set to right one and convert and close.

Live projection (no baking)
From 1 camera angle, you can duplicate it and use it from another camera angle. This way you can have a 2nd live projection. By combining these 2 projections via a layered shader, you can have more flexibility.

Then you can use lighting in the scene.

Ambient Occulsion tutorial.

2009-01-20T22:31:00.002+08:00

good ah........

http://toi.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/index.php?title=Mental_Ray_Ambient_Occlusion_tutorial

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/spotlight-articles/1317-tutorial-ambient-occlusion-maya-alchemist101.html

next one camera projection....

my opinion on movies

2009-01-09T15:37:00.001+08:00

Personally, movies are a form of escapism and a source of entertainment. And through the years, it makes me appriciate movies that have well rounded characters and developed stories. The really good ones makes me think and reflect on things in the real world. BUt the primary focus is still escapism. There are much better people out there who are totally into the the dramatic and serious subjects in film.

At the end of the day, I want to be able to suspend my disbelief, be entertained and be brought to another world/time/dimension/galaxy far far away. If it is thought provoking, awesome. If it can give a warm fuzzy feeling inside, lagi best. Personal tastes have different views on what constitutes a good movie. And it is hard to pin point. But damn it, I want a happy ending. If I want a sad ending, I just have to look around in reality.

For me, I know that I do not like the following

1.) Horror, gore movies. (I want to laugh and be inspired. Not scared shitless or even worse waste time on "not scary" scary movies.

2.) Period British/American drama and gansta rap movies. (Just different upbring, zzzzzzzz to death).

3.) Mindless violence. (Violence is fine if there is a motivating factor. But violence for just the sake of violence is lazy and lame)

4.) Abstract movies. (aka arty farty movies about nothing or something that no one can understand except the film maker)

5.) Gangsta and gritty detective movies.

Things I like in movies. (reminds of the nokia video cam handphone commerical)

1.) Big explosions and loads of destructions. (I paid $10 for 2 hours of my life. Show me the eye candy)

2.) Realistic, high quality, I cannot tell what is real what isn't visual effects. (not some cheapo TCS visual effects done by students in poser)

3.) Good dialog and humor. (good dialog does not have to mean loads of dialog.

4.) Robots, Monsters,battle planes, martial arts, aliens and super heroes.

5.) Cool non-regurgitated story and non-lame plot that do not drag. ( I have ADD so I like movies that move at a decent pace.)

I do not know if these tastes are reflective of the average movie goer but hese are my own very biased, myopic preferences. of course I do appriciate a well directed, well writtern and well acted movie regardless of the genre. But I am more of the fanboy type of audience rather then the hard core movie affectionatos that knows all the weird quirky movies.

The Resident Tourist

2009-01-04T00:30:00.001+08:00

The Resident Tourist by Troy Chin. Part 1 and 2

I 1st came across these books when I came back from NZ a few weeks back. Saw it at Ani-PLay in sunshine. It was interesting but I did not buy it. Later end up like most local comics. All cannot make it one.

But I finally got a chance to read part 1 in kino at Taka. Some joker tore the wrappings and left it there. (not me). It was really good. I was pleasantly surprised how good it was.

Just finished and re-read all the books again. And it does get better on a 2nd reading.

His art is decent (still way better then me). But it was his story telling skills that really stood out. There is no judgemental tone in the book nor did it felt dumbed down or exggrated just because its a comic. Its kinda of reminded me of yotsuba in terms of the feel.

For me it really connected with me as the issues that he faced and things he is going through.

Its a autobiographical account of his return back from singapore after working in NYC. There is a really good review of the book at http://textfiend.net/zerohero/?p=636

You can his website and other short stories here

http://www.drearyweary.com/

I am waiting eagerly for the 3rd volume and I wish him all the best in his writings.

New Year 2009.

2009-01-01T08:12:00.005+08:00

2008 have passed by in a relatively quick flash.

It is also one of the more fruitful years in terms of personal developement and opening the mind to different things.

2009 is a brand new year ahead and a lot of things to look forward to.

Key Challenges for the New Year.

1.) Have a healthy lifestyle and lose weight.

2.) Finish the animated short.

3.) Stop buying too many TOYS AND BOOKS.

4.) Write down thoughts and rants here for more creative contemplation.

5.) Have a more balanced lifestyle. More diving and less work.

6.) Expend my horizon and way of thinking.

7.) Less cynisim and more positive spirit.

8.) More tolerant towards idiots and pricks. (actually screw that, pile on the pain on them)

I hope it to be a challenging and satisfying year ahead for everyone.

problem focusing.

2008-12-18T00:41:00.005+08:00

I have a problem with focusing. It seems whenever I have to do something that is percieved as work, (regardless if its paid work) my brain just break down. On the bus, on the MRT, even walking.. there are a million thoughts and things going through my brain. And I keep thinking, these are good ideas for analysis or just starting point for stories. But surely enough, when I get in front of a computer, the mind goes blank, actually it just refuses to think. Sort of like a instinctive rebelling through force of habit. (oxymoron?)

Very annoying. need to look into solutions.... but then that brings me to the next problem. Procrastination. and there is no cure for that.

Back to it.

2008-12-14T23:28:00.000+08:00

To self -> its been a few months since i touched this blog. Will be more active with this. And at the same time will use it now for writing my own thoughts about the industry, toys, movies and anything that comes to mind in general. Use it as a spring board.

Eye Movements 3 - Saccades and Fixations

2008-04-23T20:20:00.003+08:00

Great Article about the different ways of animating eyes from Synchrolux.

"Convergence
is a motion of both eyes relative to each other that ensures that an object is still foveated by both eyes when its distance from the observer is changed. The closer the object is, the more the eyes point towards each other. This movement can be voluntarily controlled, but is normally the result of a moving stimulus.
Saccades
are the principal method for moving the eyes to a different part of the visual scene, and are sudden, rapid movements of the eyes. Saccades can be initiated voluntarily, but are ballistic: that is, once they are initiated, their path of motion and destination cannot be changed. Visual input is suppressed during a saccade.
Pursuit motion
is a much smoother, slower movement than a saccade; it acts to keep a moving object foveated. It cannot be induced voluntarily, but requires a moving object in the visual field. One frequent failing of thoughtless animation is having the eyes demonstrate pursuit motion when there is no object being followed by the character’s eyes.
Nystagmus
is a saw-toothed pattern of eye movements that occurs as a response to the turning of the head (acceleration detected by the inner ear) or the viewing of a moving, repetitive pattern (the train window phenomenon). It consists of smooth `pursuit’ motion in one direction to follow a position in the scene, followed by a fast motion in the opposite direction to select a new position. This is an eye movement that has probably never been animated, and if it was, it would probably get rejected by the supervisor or director because it would look so odd.
Drift and microsaccades
occur during fixations, and consist of slow drifts followed by very small saccades (microsaccades) that apparently have a drift-correcting function. These movements are involuntary, and their function is in question.
Physiological nystagmus
is a high-frequency oscillation of the eye (tremor) that serves to continuously shift the image on the retina, thus calling fresh retinal receptors into operation. Physiological nystagmus actually occurs during a fixation period, is involuntary, and generally moves the eye less than 1°. As with microsaccades, you’d need to be in an extreme close-up for this to register, but it’s another reason the human eye looks ‘alive’ in live-action extreme close-ups.
Rolling
of the eyes is a rotational motion around an axis passing through the fovea and pupil. It is involuntary, and is influenced by among other things the angle of the neck. Although this is also something we can safely ignore as animators, some rigs will automatically provide this when using the ‘eye-target’ controller.
Of the above, it’s really the first three we’re concerned with. Because of the precision that CG animation allows, we can (and should) pay much more attention to these types of movements than is typically done in hand-drawn animation.
Convergence is fairly straightforward. In a properly rigged character, convergence should happen naturally as the eye target is moved close to the character’s face. If a rig lacks this function, or the eye-target control isn’t being used, it should be a simple matter to manually add in some convergence when a character is looking at something very close. You don’t need to go too far with this to portray convergence.
Pursuit is also straightforward. I like to use the eye target to match the motion of the object being tracked, and I like to make sure the head motion (if the head is rotating in the direction of the object being tracked) is somewhat out of phase with the eye movement, otherwise the sense of the eyes actually moving in pursuit motion is lost.
There really aren’t any timing considerations to convergence and pursuit, but there are for saccades. I’ve heard various rules of thumb regarding how many frames* a saccade should take, and how long the eyes should fixate between saccades. Rather than regurgitate those, I’ll lay out some data from physiology studies. I encourage readers to do their own research — look closely at reference like I’ve posted above, and see what the eyes really do."

Painting on the Nitendo DS

2008-01-22T13:26:00.001+08:00

How cool is that!

Short Film advice.

2008-01-22T13:05:00.000+08:00

Important points from a article from Mark Kennedy's website about animated short.

- There are few limitations and very little guidance as to how to proceed and what kins of subject matter to tackle.

- Do you know enough about life and experienced enough to express what you want to say ?
The important part of the decision is to pick something that will sustain your interest and passion long enough for you to finish the damn thing.

- Shouldn't do what you think OTHERS will think is cool or funny or clever or intellectual etc..
Should do what you actually find interesting, engaging and insipring enough to work on 24 hours a day for the duration of the project.

- Biggest problem is trying to over reach in terms of complexity and/or polish.

- Audience always always always respond strongly to entertainment that holds a mirror up to the human condition.

- If you can show people a glimmer of truth about themselves, they will enjoy it and remember it for a long time.

- There is nothing that connects to an audience like seeing ourselves up on screen and make us laugh at outselves.

- What something that you've noticed about people that only you can express?

- Real humor and comedy comes from well made observation about who we are, not "funny" lines or "wacky" characters.

- Focus on something real, and true, something you actually believe. Don't try to make a grandiose statement but a small one. Better yet, don't try to make a grandiose statement but try to find something that you think is entertaining.

- Don't think about what's funny or going to get a laugh, Be sincere and simple, that always work.

- The MOST important thing is to be true to yourself. Pick something to do that you really like. If you find it entertaining and worth your time to do, then an audience will find it that way too.

- Really be honest to yourself and analyze why you picked your idea before you begin working on your film.

- Are you trying to make a film that you think other people will be impressed with, or that you think others will enjoy ?

- Is your film REALLY something that you would enjoy sitting through if you hadn't made it ?

- Be honest about what you really like and make a film that you would actually like to see because if you would like to see it then others will as well.

- Failure is part of everything and an artistic life is going to be full of failure. Failure is the best way to learn so don't be afraid of it. Becoming afraid is failing before you even tried.

Ridiculously Good CG modellers

2007-11-18T08:52:00.000+08:00

Peter Syomka
http://syomka.cgsociety.org/gallery/

Lee JinWoo
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=43&t=307349&page=1&pp=15

The Lightspeed Automatic Interactive Lighting Preview System

2007-10-28T03:49:00.001+08:00

yes.....

Finished sunset.

2007-10-26T21:40:00.000+08:00

This is the finished Sunset.

Final is 7k 180 degree panoramic.

Great learning excerise.

Photoshop sunset Painting tips

2007-10-18T22:56:00.002+08:00

This is the final image.

This is a newer wip...

Below is a simple compilation of steps basically for reminding myself (getting old) the steps I did. I always just fudge along until sometime works and den totally forget it the next day. And its getting tedious. Anyone seeing this, if u got some tips, pls comment.

- Breakdown into background, midGround and foreground.

- Use different flat colors and layers to differenciate them for a start.

- Using different colors and gradient tool, adjust saturation and opacity to give the image some subtle color changes.

- Use Soft brush with Shape Dynamics. Use broad Strokes to lighten section of sky. Again just to introduce some difference in density in the sky.

- Add far clouds on new layer.

- USe custom brush that is soft and cloud-like..... Pay attention to where the light source is. Also paint contrastingly to light the clouds from background. E.g light on dark, orange on blue. Use Low opacity(like 20% and below) on brush and build up gradually.

-Remember to maintain the illusion of volume of the clouds.

- Use color dodge to get the strong rays of light hitting the clouds

- If you fail to paint manually or is a lazy git, photo manipulation with cut and paste saves you a lot of time. But the rules above the apply in terms of colors and how light works

- Reference, reference and more reference.

- IMPORTANT! Be careful of the range of colors used. As intense as a sunset is, the colors are fairly consistent. Eg. The strong highlights should all be the same hue. But as the sunlight travels further into more atmostphere. The color gets redder and less intense.

Below is an earlier attempt that was quite simply fugly. For your amusement on how not to paint a sunset.

Painting Clouds Tutorial.

2007-10-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/lessons/arialpersp4.htm
Great tutorial about how to paint the shapes of clouds.

http://painting.about.com/cs/paintingknowhow/ht/Howto_Clouds.htm
this one is about the different types of clouds

http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/htmltuts/cloud_tut.html

http://www.androidblues.com/cloudtut.html

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=260976

and these are just different techniques

Sunset painting theory science.

2007-10-18T22:14:00.000+08:00

1st some simple science lessons that I really should have research before I started out.

- The atmosphere of Earth is made up of particles that filters white light.

- When the sun is overhead, the sky appears blue because the light is filtered, allowing the short wavelengths in the color specturm to be visible.

- When the sun is setting or raising, the light have to travel a further distance. Therefore it is the thickest amount of atmosphere the light have to pass through than at any other time during the day.

- This causes the short wavelengths to become scattered and deflected as the rays pass across the curved surface of earth.

- The sky is then slowly illuminated with longer light waves; yellow, orange and red. Sunrise are usually less intense because the air particles settle during the night.

- Under certain conditions, like after heavy rain, the sunsets can be bluer whereas in polluted cities or low lying cloud, they often become redder. It all depends on the density of air particles and distance the light have to travel.

- The thicker the atmosphere the deeper the red. Thinner atmostphere will produce orange, then even thinner, golds and finally yellows.

- The red light sometimes strikes the underside of the clouds directly overhead and turns them red, yellow and orange depending on the wave lengths of light that have managed to penetrate the earth's atmosphere.

-Before the sun completely sets, the light travels up the atmosphere, there is less particles there. Which is why, you can still see some blues.

Above is just simple color gradient demostrating the different type of atmostphere.

U can read more about the theory below.

http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/lessons/arialpersp2.htm

real transformers

2007-10-18T04:00:00.000+08:00

sweet......

TAG Blog: Imagi, the Asian Pixar?

2007-10-17T22:23:00.000+08:00

TAG Blog: Imagi, the Asian Pixar?

Interesting article at TAG about Imagi and globalisation.

"Globalization raises its unlovely head. American animation staffers fly overseas to train their replacements, and we kiss the domestic industry goodbye, correct?

Dun like astroboy new look.

2007-10-12T22:20:00.000+08:00

Just saw the image posted online of the new CG astroboy movie. It really struck a nerve. I think they have americanised the look of Astroboy. Looks like Jack Jack or Dash from Incredibles. There have been many different subtle changes to Astroboy since the 60s but most keep the look of it.

Unfortuntely or fortuntely, the animation market is already structured that the content have to suit an percieved taste that the studio think the general public will go for. With so much at stake, I think the design seems to be a safe way out although it does alienate a certain share of astroboy fans who aren't too keen on his new look.

I did a quick photoshop for fun just to see how it compares.

before

after

What do you think ?

Kazuo Oga Art Collection Gallery in french

2007-10-12T02:54:00.000+08:00

Another french site (yes.. they do like their japanese stuff.) with quite a extensive galleries from Kazuo Oga Art Collection artbook.

Kazuo Oga is a art director and primary Background Artist for many Studio Ghibli films. His quality of work is quite amazing.... The color palette of his paintings reflects perfectly the mood of the movies.

If anyone else have good reference of his artWork, please let me know. There is a remarkable lack of good japanese anime background painting.

French Website about Japanese Super Robots

2007-10-12T01:23:00.000+08:00

Came across this really cool french website with quite a bit of in depth article and pictures of about the evolution of the Japanese Super Robots.

The translated version is http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://artslivres.com/ShowArticle.php%3FId%3D443%26Title%3DCESSE%2BPhilippe%2B-%2BRobots%2Bet%2Binconscient%2Bcollectif%2BI&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://artslivres.com/ShowArticle.php%253FId%253D443%2526Title%253DCESSE%252BPhilippe%252B-%252BRobots%252Bet%252Binconscient%252Bcollectif%252BI%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

The translation is quite readable.

They have loads more pages about Super Robots as well as on the Tokusatsu genre.

Below are some of the translated links

http://66.249.91.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://artslivres.com/ShowCat.php%3FId%3D449&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://artslivres.com/ShowCat.php%253FId%253D449%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff