stuff 2

Final (?!) color concept for a more unifying environment and flora/fungi.

And then now that's set, continue and finished texturing these:

cadence 2 lol

Heeeeeeey MADE!
Stuff breaking geekies!
Shake off your particles and follow me!
We are the MA3D!


Wake up! Wake up! Msc!
We've been up since half past three!
Texturing and animating all day long!
That's what make a movie strong!

Cadence of MA 3D Computer Animation lol is a damn hard course dam u bu

I used to animate flat 2D
Then came a man from MA3D
He said to me!
He said to me!
UV!
UV!
 Good for you
 And good for me

Up in the morning to the risin' sun
 Gonna rig all day, til' the riggin's done
 Harvard reference is a son of a bitch
 Got the missing links and the pdf glitch

One, two, three, four, double that and got my map
One, two, three, four, I love hand-paint every map
Spec Maps!
Bump Maps!
Gloss Maps!
Normal Maps!

I dont know but I've been told
Softimage ICE is actually gold
Looks good
Feels good
Is good
Real good
Tastes good
Mighty good
Good for you
Good for me

I don't want no fancy plug-in
I just want my coffee machine
If I lose all my auto-save
This machine's going to the grave
Ain't no use in mop and moan
Grab another and movin' on

Made from this song:

Reading list whenever possible

Reading list for near future, preferably before end of Master's

• The State of Rendering 1
• The State of Rendering 2
• painted game texture 1
• painted game texture 2
• Machinarium
• Color theme helper
• randomized 3D design boot camp game
• normal map making tool
• Cao Cao

Note to self

It's too easy to panic and be taken over by fear that due to my lack of skills I will fall behind in production and not get things done on time. That panic sends me into pretending I'm making some work while in fact I'm just throwing myself into a quicksand of unfamiliar programs and tools while hoping for the best. That did not work in Term 1, nor Term 2, and certainly won't start working ever. It is like being in the water - panic, and drown. It's all wasting time. The only thing to do is ignore the fear, ignore what other, more skilled people are doing around you (for now), and calm down and do the right thing - dedicate time to get familiar and educated about the process and tools you need for this particular step in this particular project (via tutorial video or text), and THEN start trying things out. Yes, learning and innovating comes from just trying and failing, but it doesn't hurt to charge into the jungle with a compass or a map. It only increase survival rate. In this world, nobody has unlimited HP for unlimited damage-taking from failing all the time at trying to do things. And I'm not even a tank!

In other, normal day, words, finish watching a tutorial, follow the exercise, and stop making shit base mesh.

...

Doing research in the library all day. Noticed: 3D World magazine used to be feared as the art magazine of "foreign language" and kept at awed distance when I go pick up ImagineFX on the next shelf. Now I browse the contents and realize I know 80% of what the article is on, and the other 20% is just different program names.

How NCCA has speed-morphed my library....

End of Group Project et all.

The Group Project ended 11 days ago, and it felt like a month ago. I should've known better than to distrust the tutors' warning that Term 2 would have been the busiest of all terms. Instead, I took on a mural design volunteer project for a local school playground, another volunteer project to do 8 illustrations for a Director flatmate's short film. These are on top of the Moving Image Theory critical essay assignment, and the MA3D Group Project. I thought it would be all be fine if I can just get the drawing stuff out of the way in the beginning before the Group Project heats up. I was naive...

Group Project didn't heat up, it Big Banged in nanoseconds after our groups formed. Long (and tearful) story short, I ended up structuring and typing the entire 2500 word essay within 20 hours. I never knew I could write that much that fast... . Then the animal murals took me 4 nights of little sleep, over 2.5 weeks to finish. Then the 8 illustrations had to be done towards the end of the Group Project, resulting in 3 nights of zero sleep and not going back to the flat except for shower (or not even). Then 7 hours sleep, then again no sleep.

By the time the group project was finished, and I was typing up the Production Report, I would open my eyes realizing I had fallen asleep, but my hands were still typing nonsense on the screen... so the Individual Hand-in definitely suffered from lack of substance.

All that said, the Group Project experience had been stressful at time during the making, but after finishing and seeing the final product, I can't be happier to have been part of this team, this project, done what I did (wish I could've done faster, thus done more variety). The animators were amazing, they knew their stuff, and translated it into 3D wonderfully within just 3 days. The character modeler really turned that 2D cartoonish style into 3D well without losing the 2D cartoon characteristic. Without going into more details and write another essay, I basically learned a lot since everything I did was new, and I remembered the beauty of working in a group project such as At Freedom's Door and this one. There are power in number, in a group that's passionate about the project and working together to make it happen. Good stuff comes out of that. That said, since it was difficult for me to hide stress whenever I got it, I hope other team members don't think I hate them or something, hahaha... because it was usually from frustration with myself - my lack of speed and skills in each tasks I was given to do.

Still can't show the actual animated video because it's supposed to be entered for BFX.

Python

"...sometimes it's better to just RTFM..." python lecturer. Nobody RTFMs in this room... everyone knows we should.

CAT Comparative essay and MIT Critical Essay

I got the marks for the CAT essay today, and it was surprisingly better than I expected. Guess all those weeks spent researching and writing during Christmas break actually returned some profit! Unfortunately for this MIT essay I cannot afford anything like that in terms of time, resource, and help.

Animation test

In-class animation exercise on the act of pushing:

ICE

This shit is complicated. I got lost. I started messing with the dummy. This reflects my state of mind by end of class.

More scripting

If it's understood, it can do magic for animators, especially game animators. So far it's been foggy for me.

Anatomy lesson

We had human anatomy lesson today, with pretty cool 3D models. Me and my foxhole buddy played with posing them while half paying attention to the lecture...

CAT essay

The Brief: 1.) Compare and contrast the aesthetic qualities of early animated films from 1920 to 1940s with animated films from 1980 to 2012. Support your claims with relevant examples and citations or references from relevant literature. 2000 words.

I seem to have ambition, but horrible at figuring out how to carry them out. For this essay I thought I'd write about Japanese animation instead of western ones, but can't come up with a decent hypothesis to support with all the material I've gathered so far.

[edit]

So the research and determining which book to grab out of the library before it closes for Christmas was about 4 days. Then I got lazy for the next week or so, just watching anime-I-mean-research, spamming 5 different series. One of them actually was of use to this essay so I won't say all that time was lost. And, hey, it was Christmas break so I can take a break yeah? Alright, after that I spent another 2, 3 days looking through online ebook and ejournal and various online articles. After that it was 4 days of painful writing to finally get a 2000 words essay that kind of supports me thesis.

Conclusion: 2k word essay, almost 2 weeks work doing nothing else but the essay.

MA3D Life log 3

I just missed my Taekwondo yellow belt qualification exam because I'm dying to try and get my Billy Bob animation to a presentable state as a whole. If I really want to do more than just animating in this program, I will need to learn ruthlessly efficient time management. I need to be a remorseless dictator to my minutes.

MA3D log 1

I'm stressing out a lot over Billy Bob project not going anywhere and running out of time. Last night I had a nightmare about being back on the assembly floor, but all the tools and parts have changed, and they're even more expensive now each part. And I screwed up an entire batch because everything has changed during the time I was gone trying to make this master degree work, but failed, hence back on the assembly floor.

Python scripting

It's taking rather depressingly long to do these python assignments that are basically fill-in-the-blanks scripting. The fact that I zoned out during 1 of the class when he was going over random, math, and elif only added to this confusion and time consumed. But I got creative with the display messages. Fueled by a whispering thoughts of murdering something out of frustration.

It took me almost 11 hours to finish this little scripting assignment. Granted there were lots of small breaks, eating, and some talking to people, but still. That's a lot of time. I don't hate it, python scripting is very fascinating and even beautiful when I finally understood how it's doing what it does. Like magic almost.

Lecture quote

"... and we'll go over and hijack the BA lab so we have 20 extra machines for render..." Because we're Masters, bitches.

"Take breaks! Socialize! Have personal lives! This is not a job, guys! Oh and here's 2 essays to think about over the break, project, and practices for this program. k bye relax and have fun!" AHAHAHAHA. O_O#. Need: Haste spell on self, Slow Time on rest of world, or 30 hr/Day. Failing all, need Pheonix Down/stimpak/medi-gel.

[edit] I noticed there are fellow classmates who come not too early before class, and leaves at a reasonable hour at night (7, 8pm), do their work quietly in their spot without walking around much, and get distinction marks. So it's possible. Task and time management. But I won't do what they do, because it's not that relaxing for me in my flat. Too much noise. I'll keep staying late night in the studio.
~~~

Finished handing in pre production report. That was a report on research, character sheet, time allocation planning chart, color and light design, storyboard, etc. Took surprisingly long. Also because I spent some time playing Skyrim this week, which I now realize need to be skimmed down or I'll suffer very soon.

Yesterday one of our main lecturer told us what's up there, and we were all pretty much in disbelieve. Probably especially for the ones like me who has no prior experience with 3D and/or animation whatsoever. It just feel so overwhelming from all the lectures the things we need to look at, practice, explore. We might be able to grab a drink on campus with people in our own class, but going out to socialize with other, equally busy, media department, is another big extra effort. At least for me, who don't actually like socializing or talking a lot to begin with. It's like I have to become masters in our trades, smooth politicians, and inventive theorists all together at the same time, in 1 year. I have to enjoy the training and acting, and not do the thing I actually enjoy, to be enjoyable. ...?

This is a tight program. A few days of slacking really hurt very quickly. I have another problem on my mind that isn't completely school related too. Old problem that I just can't seem to fix, even with a clean slate. It's been two months. At least, I can, and must, focus on graduating honorably. Prove I can get something done right.

Scripting - python

Named after Monty Python.

• http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/sbell/publications/
• http://www.python.org/