Liquid Animation

Thanks to Katharine Nicholls, I have now been introduced to Liquid Animation, these guys are, AMAZING, I love their VFX work, they've worked on the video for "If you keep losing sleep" By my favorite band in the world Silverchair. They also have some absolutely fantastic animation and are seemingly contracted by Disney. I am hoping that I will be able to have some contact with the guys there due to Kathy's contacts with them.

They're based in Brisbane in Australia, which is again another possibility for me. I'm really looking forward to getting out of the UK and working elsewhere for a while, getting to know a new culture, be it anywhere in the world. But with my Best friend out in Adelaide in Australia, it seems like a good place to Start.

EDGE

Just a quick post to say, if you're interested in Game Development at all, or going into it as a Career, check out Edge Magazine, especially this month's. This month's Issue not only covers some things that I'm very excited about, MMO releases from Blizzard and ArenaNET, a look at Dragon Age 2, and talking to one of my favourite producers in the world of Gaming, J Allen Brack Senior Producer at Blizzard.

Also, I'd suggest getting it for the insight into the industry it gives, and the Job opportunities that arise from it.

Tx

Exciting Stuff.

Now as many or few of you may know. I am a MASSIVE fan of the work done by The PRA. Which is "The Peoples Republic of Animation" who are based out in Adelaide where my best friend moved to 4 years ago.

So this morning as I was talking to Kathy about working out in Australia and finding myself an Animation or Games Design Mentor that I would really like. I thought, why on earth not. Why not try and contact them and see what Information I could get. As the evening has set in,... or should I say night, as it is half past 11 now. But I received an e-mail on my phone. Looked at it and quickly took to my computer to read it in a full view. I don't think I still believe my luck.

Sam White, The Managing Director of the PRA responded personally to my E-mail. Saying that as it was a unique request and that he would pass on the e-mail to his producers to see if they would be willing to help. Even if they cannot with their busy schedules, I feel really privileged to have received such a nice E-mail from someone who's running a Company that I really have the time of day for. In fact... More so, I really really respect and admire. I also now have the names of the two producers who work within the PRA who hopefully even if nothing comes of the E-mail I will be able to find some information on their specific works and gain an insight into the work that they have done. I really look forward to maybe hearing from either Renee Boucher or Hugh Nguyen in the near future, and if not hearing from them, at least following their works with now names to give to the animation I watch.

Again if you follow the Link provided above, you can have a look and see what I mean about this studio. Give them a visit and you may see some cool animation you didn't know which studio to give credit for!

Tx

For Kat

Kat asked me to post an update on my little sprites the other day when I'd done an update and I didn't get round to it in the afternoon, so here's the line up so far.

Check Kat out at the Link provided above. I love her art work and she's great to work with, really seems to be pushing herself this year, and I'm really looking forward to working with her, she's going to be working with me a while on Sarah's Project, doing storyboard touch ups, but in the mean time, pop over to her blog and give her some love.

Class Photo

I know I'm normally updating this with no pictures, and normally my blog seems quiet bland and boring, but today I enlighten you with a little project I'm doing. I aim to pull together an Animation class 2011 photo in Pixel form, and hopefully portray some of the Personalities that I've encountered over the past three years in a bit of a homage! These are what I have so far. From Left to Right..... Infact,.... I'll just let you guess.

On another note..

Trying my hardest to get in contact with Industry folk to give me a chance to prove my Metal. I'd really like to be able to go back to Leicestershire this Christmas and maybe get in contact with the guys at RARE, a games company from near my home who produced classics such as Golden Eye, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo Kazooie. I can hope for the best, Also looking into Codemasters in Warwickshire!

2 Weeks Until Rendered Environment...

And I'm pretty confident for The LT Team.

The Last Trophy on Friday came into their last day of Character Modelling and thus starts the Texturing and Modelling of Environments yet again. Also tweaking of the Block through to continue and to hopefully be some what 'Finalized' by the 10th. (As we know tweaking will go on throughout, BUT we hope to get this out of the way by the 10th) Also Rigging is to start and to at least have a Basic Rig for our Human Characters and of course Bap.

The one thing I am concerned about is the Dissertation and the Rigging/Animating going through Christmas, I think this is somewhere I am going to end up losing time and end up using the Contingency time I set in place. I wish to a point that I had gotten the rigging and character modelling out of the way earlier, but these things couldn't have gone any quicker and I'm pleased with the results the team has achieved.

Here's a List Collated by Roy on what we all have to get done by the End of this University Term, we will of course continue to work into the Christmas break and New year, but this is our little deadline for ourselves.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY DEADLINE (December 10th)

Tom

Collate final work for design bible.

Talk to Rich about Music.

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Simon

Colour storyboard.

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Roy, Emma & Oddne

Finish refined block through.

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Matt L & Simon

Final render of blimp interior.

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Matt B

Skeleton, Orient joints and IK Spline (including tail) for Bap.

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Each person has decided for themselves what they believe is achievable in that time, thus we all agree to get these things done. I am going to start doing Dailies again by request from a few members of the team. Which I'm really happy about to be honest, before I just felt I was wasting my time at points with attitudes from different ends of the spectrum.

In Other News....

Sarah's Team are now underway with testing the Eye movement, after a long chat with Sarah (and the refusal of a fiver on the 41 from town) we have both managed to come to terms with the fact that 1. She's going to have to make compromise on certain things, and trust her team members with her baby. and 2. I'm going to have to learn new ways to approach members of teams differently. Should be good fun none the less.

The Musician

Yesterday, I had a somewhat 'eventful' Day, and as a result, I've began producing Sarah Crombie's Stop Motion group.

Consisting of:

Sarah Crombie

Orla McElroy

Jessica Bane

I'm glad I'm getting the chance to work with Sarah again, as she's a member of the Animation group I really admire, Her art and Dedication to the Idea. She's got a brilliant eye, and I love the darker side to her story. Orla & Jess are both people I haven't had the chance to work with but really look forward to it as they are both talented in their own respective fields. I hope that by setting small deadlines and getting things on the production line that Sarah can finally reap the rewards she deserves seeing all the hard work that herself and her group have put in come to fruition. Currently the group are working on getting test animation and shots done, getting the script and thumbnails finished this week and then next week Sarah and Orla are going to start on their Character Designs and Environments, focussing mainly on Environments to help Kat to finish of their storyboard.