Animateducated Blogcast 002

Animated Educated is a great channel. It gives animation students and fans access to great experience, and the backgrounds and insights of very talented guests. I've been lucky to work with Jim Richardson back during my time at Woodbury University's animation department.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPETaABtv6Un8YMQ4d0Y57w

CTN Expo 2018

 It's November, and the rock concert of all animation conferences will be here again at the Burbank Marriott Hotel. Various Schools, Lectures, Seminars, Book Sellers, Artists, Celebrities, and the Big Studios will be there to celebrate the Animation Industry. I hope you can enjoy it.

https://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/

 https://www.facebook.com/ctnanimationexpo/

(my photo from CTN 2015, characters copyright Disney)

Watchcat xmas 2016

http://watchcatfiles.blogspot.com/

Watchcat teams up with Ol' Saint Nick to foil some last minute Holiday crimes. Looks like Santa has learned to handle himself over the years!

(copyright Jim Richardson)

CTN Expo 2016 photos

A few snapshots of CTN Expo 2016 photos...

 

Woodbury University...

with its media heavy presence...

Me old Alma Mater, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.Go Fighting Scots!  Good to see Mike Penz again.

The Animation Guild, my other bread and butter! Should be everyone's.

The stars from Moana... (copyright Disney)

And Woodbury's neighbor across the way, Disney. (copyright Disney)

 

The new tent was HUGE...

 Had some hassles with the rain, and a minor power failure, but it was CTN's largest and most impressive Expo yet. Congrats to Tina Price and everyone!

3D print dragon

Finally got my female dragon head. The resolution is a little low, 

but it gives the figure an interesting texture.

Sculpted in Maya, "Cassandra" was made in 

Woodbury University's Digital Fabrication Lab, kudos to Matt and his crew!

Here is the Dimension UPrint + (SD) unit that did the dirty work.

Super cool! Good modeling experience, 

but I need more practice in modeling the interior 

to get the proper wall thickness.

She has a few errors on her surfaces, and the eyes 

didn't print for some reason. Will have to go over that again.

Matt and William use Rhino software to convert .obj files into .stl (stereo lithography) files.

Have a good summer gang, school starts at the end of August.

Learn Maya in 1 hour - Speed Course

Courtesy of CG Meetup

                     

http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/learn-maya-in-1-hour/

CTN Expo 2015

My first photos from the 2015 CTN Expo:

I met the stars from Disney's next animated feature, "Zootopia"...

(copyright Disney)

Helped set up our table for Woodbury University...

Saw another ghost from he past...

And witnessed more signs of the craziness yet too come!

I'll try to update this with more useful information asap.
http://ctnanimationexpo.com/

Basic City - Basic Mental Ray render

Just some basic polys; simple Physical Sun and Sky in Mental Ray. Gives a fairly dramatic layout, imho.

CTN Expo 2012

Quick snapshot of Woodbury's stop motion set up, created by Ric Heitzman. Canon Rebel EOS camera with DragonFrame stop motion software.

Factory window in Maya

Simple polygon model of factory window.

CTN Expo

That's me, on the job for Woodbury University.

More fish and starfish acting

This exercise is just to show basic blocking and timing, but I like the starfish going "Huh!?" as the little fish slips past him. I should push the poses harder.

Maya in a nutshell

Some thoughts on teaching a basic Maya class:

Maya- student is climbing two mountains, technical and creative;
each factor affects the outcome of the other.
Student may go off in different direction.

Students may have very rigid preconceptions of how their 3D projects should look
Some students become hung up on using very specific menu commands and/or procedures that distract them from easier work arounds.

Students are very resistant about buying Maya text books

Learning interface,

Modeling polygons; polygon components

animation, graph editor

lighting & rendering

Putting final reel together

* * * * * * * * * * *

Subjects for projects, General catagories:

Monsters, soldiers, action
Cute characters
Castles, temples, furniture, landscapes, dungeons
Effects-fire, lightning, fog
Photorealism (rare)