Has been a week since my Last Journal, but here's what I been up to..

I have been cracking on with my lip sync animation, its been a lot of fun, I am enjoying it even though it takes a great deal of time.
I recently was given a tutorial by Steve about lighting, I play to use it for my sequence. As it has light coming from two lamps to light up one side of the characters face. I think it will have a pretty interesting affect.

Since my main focus for this project is character animation I have been trying to give them as much life as i CAN POSSIBLY SQUEEZE OUT OF THEM.

So far, I think i HAVE OUT DONE myself up to this point of my development, these are some excellently expressive sequences by my own standards. I will be looking forward to when video reference wont be as vital to a great animated character for me.

Recently, Alex Hulse has been VERY helpful with advice for Maya, we had advice for compositing in after effects, rendering using the college render farm, which i think i will definitely need when I have a big enough project, and also attaching a camera to a motion path, which is REALLY great, the kind of thing i REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW GREAT.

Most of my time in college is only useful for connecting with my group, we share a lot of good ideas, I plan get onto that soon, its just my lip sync animation is taking a lot of my time.

I have got a few problems i would like to solve: my second character in my scene is meant to be an alien, I have found an alien looking model online which is fully rigged, only problem is I cant resize him. I am thinking of just having two Moom's do all the acting, although I would prefer an alien looking model as it will be the visual gag I am going for.

Also i want to model an ammo belt the alien can wear around him and a bandana. Since in the scene Christopher Lloyd's character refers to Hulk Hogan as "Some sort of Alien Rambo', I just wanted him to look exactly like that.

Its just i don't know how to model an object and attach it to the 3D character. will b something to as Alex Hulse next time I see him.

Other than that , the only other problem is the first shot, trying to get the match move to work. I did get the Tutorial Steve gave us on Maya Live ad I have followed it well. The results were pretty good, a little bit jumpy, I guess spending some time adjusting it frame by frame would fix it, but i don't have the time.

I have an opening shot that requires maya live, its just it didn't work out well the first time I tried, I will upload my play blast of the result. If I cant fix it this weekend I will ask Steve if i can fix the one i have already done. I think the problem might be the targets didn't stay perfectly onto the objects i assigned, but anyway, if i try again it usually is an improvement.

and that is about it. The only other thing i NEED TO DO IS start researching for my Essay! I have just been so caught up in animating so far. But never fear, since my Essay involves the game industry, and I am visiting sites to do with the games industry just about every day, i will set aside some time to look at more reliable sources.

Anyway the group task is progressing very well, most people seem to be pulling their weight, just some peoples jobs only involve concept n not much else, so they end up stuck for things to do. I want to model something for the group, but as i SAY , ANIMATION seems to be holding my attention a great deal right now.