Hello there my avid, loyal readers! I must beg your forgiveness for my absence. I’m sure you were wearing out your refresh key, waiting for me to come back and write more. Oh! And before I forget, would you say ‘hi’ to my other imaginary friends for me?

I’m afraid (in case it hadn’t been noticed) this whole blog thing has been put on the back burner in favor of all the master’s thesis completion, demo reel compilation and job-searching. Realistically, it may even have dropped behind the stove… So now, here I am, trying to minimize contact with the thing while I pick the dust bunnies, hairs and bits of petrified zucchini off it. (Wow, did I drive that metaphor into the ground, or what? Vroom-POW!)

You can now check out both my latest demo reel and my thesis project to date by clicking on the appropriately labeled links up above.

The thesis project is still, unfortunately, in WIP status, in that it, also, is behind the stove to the demo reel/job-search stuff. All I really need to do to it is the lighting and rendering, for the most part. Been trying to set that to run during the nights, so that’s creeping along, a scene at a time. I also have an appointment to do the sound design this coming Thursday at Outpost Studios, who apparently give deals to starving college students.

And now, I’ve got a slew of demo reels to send off to eagerly awaiting employers. Cheers!

So I just finished writing a new script. I found myself performing the same operations on my animation again and again, so I thought it was high time to automate it. srElasticKey (right click and save as “srElasticKey.mel”) creates a “wind-up” curve leading into a set of animation curves or an “overshoot” upon exiting a set of animation curves. You use it on a curve like this:

You select a keyframe, in this case, going into the curve:

On the UI, you select “Into Curve,” then decide the magnitude of the wind-up. “Absolute displacement” will measure in keyframes, “Percentage displacement” will measure relative to the other end of the curve. Then hit “Apply.”

Or, on a keyframe coming out of the curve:

We switch to “Exiting Curve” (and we’ll demonstrate the “Absolute” time displacement option while we’re at it):

The script creates a baseline key which acts as an anchor, then changes the value of the selected key or keys in inverse proportion to the value change of the original curve. Users can choose the placement of the baseline key either in proportion to the duration of the curve, or in an absolute number of keyframes. Value displacement of the selected keyframe can be modified by percentage of the original curve’s value change over that duration. It also works on multiple curves simultaneously. Okay… but it sounds much more complicated than it is. Try it! (right click and save as “srElasticKey.mel”)

This script, created by Cameron Fielding over at fliponline.com has been saving my life lately. It’s a nifty little tool that lets you see the arcs that any given object makes as it moves though space, rendering them out as nurbs curves directly in your scene. It even drops little spheres along the curve to represent the distribution of frames thoughout its duration. On top of this, it updates each time you adjust your animation curves. I’ve restarted the ‘Monkey jumps from the tree across to the other side of the trail’ scene, and it’s going ever-so-much-faster this time. And it just looks so much better when you can see what you’re doing.

Against my better judgement (not about the fact it needed to be done, but that I should keep working on it now), I went back and re-adjusted the timing on the whole Monkey intimidation scene. I feel a little dumb not working on any of the other 29 scenes that I still need to animate, but I think it’s sort of important to actually have a thing or two just completely done. And this sequence is pretty much the meat of the whole piece. Once I put the polish on this stuff, I am going to make a point of keeping my animation chopped, channeled, and dumbed-down until the rest of it is done. So here is the sequence, revised:

So part of my decision to do this blogging thing stems from a need to be journaling for my thesis project, which I’ve been neglecting rather miserably. So the idea was that this would serve as a double-edged sword; both fulfilling the thesis requirements, and providing another venue in which to network. And it’s fun. Three! A three bladed sword! (Aw hell, let me come in again).

So here’s the animation I’ve been working on lately! This is the bit in which Monkey goes nutso. What started out as a typical kung fu intimidation sequence has now degenerated into primate dominance display.

Still need to work out the bugs, do some more secondary motion on Monkey, and some reactive animation for the troll. But I want to run it by some folks before committing to that level of detail.

My problem is a tendency to beat the hell out of a dead horse. My scene times tend to drag on and on. In this sequence, I was going to have the monkey run back and forth a couple times, but decided to leave it as it is instead. I think I’ll have him running into the next scene, and skidding to a halt near his staff, where he was originally going to end up. Like so:

I’ve barricaded myself in the apartment with as many weapon-like objects as I could scrounge. Unfortunately, the only gun I have is an antique English fowling piece that shoots led shot the size of table salt, propelled by black powder. So far, it just seems to piss the zombies off by, er… exfoliating their faces. Not to mention the fact that it takes about three minutes to reload each barrel.

So while the screams continue outside, and the thump of increasing numbers of undead bodies shake my boarded-up door, I sit here and animate. I figure sooner or later, the power will go out, but until then I just have to keep working. The only thing I fear more than zombies at the moment is my impending thesis deadline.

(In a surprise twist at the end, I’m sure my entire thesis committee will turn out to be undead.)

Oof. Okay, with a lurch, I start my infamous online writing career. I am now a ‘blogger.’ (In a way not-dissimilar to Bill Muray, tied to the mast of the sail boat in What About Bob, rapturously calling out, ‘I’m sailing! I’m sailing! I’m a sailor!’) And gods below, what a lurch it was. It all sounded so simple; just set up my website (which has been languishing since July 2006), then just pop off a few pithy, witty comments on this here blog, and break for lunch, right? Ha! I had to fight tooth and nail with two different software packages, and let’s just say I’m not as tech-savvy as I was in my days as Mr. Helpdesk Support Voodoo Dolly Pincushion. Let’s also say that that was about a day and a half that I REALLY REALLY REALLY should have spent animating. More on that later.

So here I am. Blogging! I’m a blogger!

Yeah, I know. Not much to look at yet. This is more one of those ‘principles of the thing.’ I’ll try to have more content (read: animation… FINISHED animation, preferably) very soon. So sit back, relax, and hit your refresh button incessantly until I post again.