CGI vs. Practical

   This article discusses the differences in CGI and practice effect and how they are both necessary to make something look realistic. This reminds me a lot of the arguments between digital and traditional art. They both have their advantages. I'm not sure how well they could be used together but I'd imagine they could be. I agree that there are certain scenes that just look better in CGI or practical and there are also many that work well in both. Effects improve greatly every year and normally you see a good combination of both types of effects used to accomplish that. 

The Pendleton Ward Experience

   Adventure Time is one of my favorite shows and Pendleton Ward is one of the animators I've grown to admire. Reading how far he's come to share his creation is pretty inspiring and seeing how far it's come is more. I've always wanted to have my own cartoon and hope other's feel as much love as I put into it. It's sad to see how he's worked so hard for it to be too much and end up quitting being the showrunner. But I'd imagine it's still honorable to have created it and still be a writer and storyboard artist. And now that he has less pressure to perfect Adventure Time he finds more time to enjoy his work. As he says, "Whatever the next thing is, I just want my brain to be happy doing it". Trying to perfect something can sometimes cause you to forget why you enjoyed it. 

Weekly Comments

   This week was pretty uneventful in my short. I'm almost done and probably will have it done next class or the following. Some things disappeared in my animation, sadly. Like the sound and his arms. I have a week to figure that out, though, so I should be fine. I hope to learn how to use the effects to fade parts of the opening. That would've been all I needed to do if things hadn't vanished on me. I'm getting a little anxious for break and just looking forward to no school for a bit. After that we're moving to 3D, but I don't know if I'm excited or not. I've always been interested in pursuing 2D. 3D is great and I admire it so I'll just wait to see how I feel. Who knows, I might end up favoring it. 

This isn't relevant to what we're doing right now but it's really helpful. It shows how Pixar designs characters. Explaining both the writing behind it and art. 

http://pixar-animation.weebly.com/character-design.html

Animation as an Industry

   This article was about how far the popularity of animation has come and how large and demanding the jobs are. It gave me a good idea of my chances of getting into the animating field. Though I've known animation is a growing industry, it's cool to see just how much it is. I'm glad that I'm in the generation of strong animated films. I suppose if I weren't I might not have loved it as much as I do now. The best thing about most animated movies is that they do appeal to all audiences. Not only are they kid friendly but they have in-depth stories that adults can get into as well. And that's what makes them so popular and why it's such a thriving industry. Or as the article states it's why "you get box office magic". Now Best Animated Feature is in the Academy Awards. In 2001 Shrek was honored the first of this award. And I'm glad, too. Animation is really the only category I pay attention to in the Academy Awards. 

Weekly Comments

   So I still have about 24 seconds to go in my 2D short. I'm not too confident that I'll get to 60 seconds, but I really can't tell right now. From what I have there are some things I should fix and movements I could add but this week I've focused on getting the gist down and then hopefully later I'll have time to improve it. It's still frustrating and when I go home I still think it's fun. I just hope I find a good and fitting way to lengthen my short. I think I've learned the run/walk cycle better from all of this. I definitely need to work on the bounce in the step though. I also figured out that you can change the size of your frames in your timeline in order to have more viewing space. That's neat but it kind of makes it difficult to click the frames if it's too small anyway. 

This article is of James Baxter explaining character animation and the process of it; using The Croods as an example. 

http://mobile.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/motion-graphics/james-baxter-reveals-secrets-of-enchanting-character-animation/