BAJA'S BLOG

I am kinda frustrated with the myself because I can't seem to be able to figure out these Maya problems. One of the problems I am encountering despite following the tutorial 100% are:

1st is the bouncing ball with the rotation, once you input 70 at a keyframe, the ball doesn't rotate like is shown on the video.

2nd is the crane shot, dolly shot, and pitch shot, none of the cameras seems to be following the keyframe. the problem i am having with those tutorials is that, once you put a keyframe at 1 and another at 70 or so, the camera simply won't move from point A to B.

Where am I going wrong?... Are there any kind of tick boxes that I should be aware of?

I would greatly appreciate your help

Thanks

Hey Phil, when you get the time could you please provide me all the blogs of the 2nd Year and the 3rd Year students?....

I'd like to follow all of them. Thanks :-)

I have come across a certain problem, which I can't figure out despite following the tutorial step-by-step. Anyone know the solution to this problem?

As for the story of the drunken stapler I am thinking of ending the stapler's chaotic scene by stapling a forehead of the worker in the office. Just to show how painful stapling a forehead can be I have provided a video.

If you don't like blood, please don't play the video.

this post is in progress...

As part of the animators research for the essay I have chosen to do my research of Ray Harryhausen. In my opinion I believe he is a genius who revolutionized the art of Stop-Motion animation.

I grew up watching some of his movies and I totally adore his work, although at the time I used to get scared by the monsters.

Nevertheless I believe he has contributed a lot in the animation industry and therefore he is an important person to talk about.

I seriously can't sleep these days and it is affecting my concentration level when I arrive at my lectures. I am going to use this opportunity to do some more research for my project and perhaps try to refine my story.

I have been looking up on YouTube for movements of drunk people and I would try to study their motion to my best ability and apply the drunk motion on to my stapler.

Here are some footages taken from YouTube









The last one is the most hilarious one, I just couldn't stop laughing all the way.

So as to designing my stapler I have looked up on some funky Staplers and here are my findings:

• The Stapler who gets drunk everytime when it staples
• The stapler perhaps feels dizzy when he is manhandled and is forced to staple papers

• The Stapler that loves to staple anything it sees

Homeless Category

• Rusty old Stapler

Broken Category

• Broken Stapler left in the darkness (somewhere inside a house)

I can't quite get a story into my head at the moment but I think if I put them in categories I guess could come up with a good conditional story later in the evening or by friday at the latest.

Just got back from my lecture and I have acquired my two components and they are

• The Inebriated
• Stapler

Now the only task left to do is research and development. My purpose is to research in depth for the above components and elaborate it into a 1minute original 2D hand drawn Animation within 5weeks - starting from today.

I looked up the word 'inebriated' in the dictionary and here is the definition

• Exhilarated or stupefied by or as if alcohol; intoxicated

The real purpose is to give life to the objects that we have randomly been given to us. Our quest is to find out how to make it look alive. How can a stapler look alive? - What are the key ingredients to a successful animated Stapler? and most importantly ... How can I make a stapler become drunk?

To answer those questions I must research back into the History of Animation and widen my research.

I have just looked at the brief for Unit 5 and I am over the moon. I think it's finally going to be our first original animation based purely in 2D. I am quite excited about the experiences and knowledges that we are going to acquire during this project.

I have still got to get my two components to start with my project and I feel I can finally produce some quality work for this project.

One of the reasons I am excited about our next project is the fact that we are going to animate with a pencil and we would have the opportunity to learn from the best to succeed.

Let us begin our next quest!

Now I gotta go to my lecture

Red-Bull with Pro-Plus caffeine tablets is the worst combination to digest when you are in need of help. But I have come to realize that these two do not work quite well and it has made me feel sick for the last 2hours. I have been working on the project all night and yesterday and the last 3 days almost non-stop... perhaps maybe that could be causing me the trouble or maybe I just consumed a lot of Red-Bull or Caffeine tablets :-(

I am still currently working on my Pre-Vis on Maya and having some trouble wit the animation even tho it might be simple, it is time consuming.

I blame myself for all the red-bull and I don't think I should risk going Uni for today.

La Jetee was very influential juxtaposition film, there was no action footage involved but it carried a very strong sense of mood and story. It is a compilation of pictures put in certain order to tell a story, and it was done beautifully. I started to feel that some part of the idea was taken from the methods of Matrix the manga. However, it served clean narrative throughout the whole duration. It is the exact influence for our project of how it should be done to deliver a story in exact 1min.

After watching the film, I didn't understand the full context of the film, so I researched online for more in-depth details as to the story. After some extensive research I came to realize, how important La Jetee served in the history of film-making. After I had done my research I started to adore and respect the story it delivered with only pictures. Of course, sound, was the driving force behind the story, especially with the heart beating sound makes the audiences feel quite uneasy and instantly draws their attention even more. 

I tried redesigning couple of different shoe types for my final scene, however for each attempts, the shoe or the trainers, never appeared better than my first version. So I think it is better for me to stick with this version of my trainer to be put as my final.

My aim was to create a cartoonish theme into my Uncanny project, my influence was brought forward from a student made short animation "The Cricket".

A constructive feedback about my final project from myself would be that I don't like the way my trainer looks. It is just ridiculas, and my mum thought it was a mobile phone. LoL. Hopefully soon enough I would learn to make anything I want.  

...

Not just blogwise...but also with myself...

OMG....I haven't seen such high quality 3D movie in anywhere. Every hardware in this CG is REALISTIC... I am totally gobsmacked with the high quality of this movie, the storyline is ok -not strong enough. Anyway...I won't blaff much...I will let you all see the experience.

For some reason it all worked, Maya suddenly decided to function with me. Connecting the strings together was easy of course but it frustrated me a lot because things just didn't work out as the tutorial no matter what I did.

Alan told me to select the Show Hidden features (even though I did that process before and it didnt work) and now it worked ^-^

I must be very unlucky, always obstacles and bricks on my path. *sigh -_-

Anyway here are the results.

I have hit a jackpot....not money wise but in reference wise. I like blue-prints and they help me to guide with my modelling. I have always had hard time looking for a nice blue-prints of items and cars....however I have across a website where they have THOUSANDS of Blue-Prints in most cases cars, airplane and hard models. Check out the link below and I hope the website will come useful and please guys try to spend sometime to model things in your freetime apart from Uni projects.

CLICK HERE

"Run faster than the time, because the time will never wait for you." ^-^

I have been trying hard to connect the SamplerInfo to the Ramp in HyperShade for Water, Blood Vessel and X-Ray. However, no matter what I do it just wouldn't connect.

I have just come to realise as to why it could have and I think it is because I am running Maya 2010 version?... am not sure. Everyone else seems to have successfully completed that tutorial and maybe they used Maya 2009?... I think I might come to Uni on Monday and try on 2009.

Do you think that is the cause?...

I have followed your video tutorial step by step ^-^

Thanks

Before I started my course here in UCA, I was doing research and wanted to find out more about the student works. However, I also wanted to see some videos on YouTube, as I hoped there would be much more videos regarding about UCA and the lifestyle but no result except few videos, which was uploaded by the students themselves.

So I am just wondering and as a request to UCA -if possible- if UCA could create an official YouTube page just like any other Universities and I think that would be very good and attract more bright students to UCA.

Afterall, we are creative University that deals with Arts

an example of a very good official University page on Youtube would be :

www.youtube.com/user/VancouverFilmSchool

I am happy to receive my next Unit and was eager to find out what the project would be for this unit. Story-telling is my weakest subject but I would strive to create this Unit to be my first fully finished Unit as I am determined to prove I am worthy.

As for my three story components they are:

• Scarecrow
• Vacuum Cleaner
• Zoo

At the moment I am working on my Uncanny project to finish up the last pieces in Maya.

One thing I am confused about this Unit is that, do we have to model these three components ourselves using Maya and then produce the animation?.... or will they be provided to us and then we would have to animate them?... my understanding is a little blurry in this part.

As for the texture and the theme I wanted to create a childish and cartoon style onto my final render image. I looked all over the place just the type of vision I have had in mind and finally found the right one.

Below is a student made film by Ben Stern at VFS (Vancouver Film School) graduate in Canada.

Enjoy ^_^

This is my final chosen angle for the camera - I am not entirely happy with the result because I don't have texture and not enough details as I hoped. In the beginning of this project I wrote a post regarding about the concept idea for this piece and the meanings.

The Self Portrait and The Uncanny projects has awaken my long suppressed memories of my childhood. I was one of those kids who used to get bullied in a daily routine.

The Self Portrait piece was inspired from my childhood lifestyle and I used a timeline feature to indicate certain time changes.

The Uncanny Project is similar to the stories of bully but taken to another level. In one of my previous post I included a concept of a room visualising from a persons viewpoint but Phil said it needs more understanding and meaning. So I kicked back and thought a lot about rooms and interiors as to how I could draw and deliver the message that I am trying to make. However as time went on, it started to eat itself and I lost track of time. I guess most of us did.

In my previous post I mentioned about suicide, which I tried to attempt in my childhood days. There used to be rail bridge that needs to be crossed in order for me to go to my Tae-Kwon-Do lessons in Czech. That bridge was known as -The Death Bridge- reason is simple -suicide-.

That rail bridge was used a lot by people who committed suicide,(never seen anyone jump off that bridge but at least that was the rumour back then) I still wonder today as to why no one ever built a barrier to stop or even protect people from jumping off the rail bridge. Anyhow, I had everything planned to jump off from that rail bridge but was haulted at school during my lesson time by my sister.

Nothing brave to post about it but I feel this would be the most creepy or uncanny piece.

The view of the image below is visioned from my own viewpoint - What if I jumped off that bridge and what would I see before my death?...

I call it...

Render without texture using MentalRay and Realistic Sky and Sun

The Shoe

This is my train in process