Squirrel Skins for All!

Well, for one squirrel at least....


I got Mr. Squirrely's texture done and started needlessly playing with some mental ray subsurface scattering and ambient occlusion. I gave fur an attempt but it just takes too long and I don't wanna mess with it. So there.

Little more progress on the little Squirrel that could...

Pretty much all that's left is giving him a tongue and figuring how I'm gonna do a bushy tail. I'd prefer not to go the fur route...we'll see....

Chip off the old block...of polys...

Started blocking out Squirrely a couple of days ago and put some more time into him tonight in ole' Silo. That's not his real name, but it works for now. My modeling skills needed some exercise anyway while I wait on some crits from Bokser for my latest blocking on a shot.

I'm sleepy and it's midnight. That is all.

Something neat from an old teacher...

Larry Lauria was my first traditional animation teacher at SCAD and grounded me in the basics. He's just releasing a new set of classes partnering with Digicel Flipbook (which still finds a place on my desktop). It looks like the basis of the Introduction to Animation I had with him back in the day and it was a great class then. Check it out if it floats your boat (not too pricey either).

Squirrels...

....I like them. :)

Flash drawing with substance...

Dan Paladin (what a sweet name, eh?) is an amazing illustrator and animator for that matter and I can't wait for Castle Crasher's to release. In the meantime here's some great workflow vid from him. Comic-Con 2008 Flag Design from The Behemoth on Vimeo.

Scripts, Podcasts and MacGuffins!

Been working some on Bokser's film and enjoying that. I can't wait to get past blocking and into animating after the assets are finaled. In the meantime, I think it's time to get some back to the basics exercises going.

• Updated jbExportQss - Got some insight from a poster on Cgtalk and adds some new abilities and squashed some bugs. Still available here. After this one, I think I'm done mel scripting for a while...my brain hurts.
• Andrew Stanton Podcast - A nice long interview with the director of Wall-E and Finding Nemo.
• Big MacGuffins - I had never heard this term but this was a great introduction to it and an insightful pose. My meager education in storytelling continues.
• Another Episode of Simon's Cat - I love these.
• Some amazing concepts - Check out the work of Harald Siepermann.

jbExportQSS

Quick selection sets are something I use a lot. And I got tired of setting the same ones up repeatedly for work and home projects. There's lots of scripts out there to make working with selection sets easier but I couldn't find one that exported them to use in other scenes, so I rolled up my sleeves...

Download here

TITLE: jbExportQSS
VERSION: 1.5
AUTHOR:Josh Burton
www.joshburton.com

DESCRIPTION:
Script to aid in the redundancy of setting up quick selection sets all the time
for the same assets but in different files. Exports a mel script that will set up
the identical quick selection set in another scene.

Exporting:
1) Select a quick selection sets in the outliner to be exported
2) Run script - it will export a mel file to recreate the sets

Importing:
1) Run the mel in your new file you want to set up the quick selection sets in
2) It will ask you want to add a prefix. If you're using a referenced asset
put in the prefix. If not, leave it blank:)

Features:
1) Checks for referencing data and removes it in the exported selection set
2) Can do multiple selection sets at once
3) Will account for prefixes on import if desired
4) Reports if set members aren't found in imported sets

Thanks:
To David Bokser for answering my many questions and Scott Englert for my picking apart some of his scripts

History
v1.5 - July 14, 2008 - Added the ability to export multiple sets at once into a single mel file, making importing easier. Also,
little quick selection window doesnt' pop up any more due to a flag on the "sets" command I hadn't known about. Several bug fixes
as well
v1.0 - July 3, 2008 - Initial realease

Bolt Trailer!

Not sure what to think yet, but it's looking promising. Some of the animation looks great and I dig the little hamster (giving me some inspiration for a character I've been thinking about). Part of my still prefers the old character design (aka American Dog) by Chris Sanders, but it looks like the story has gone through several re-evolutions since then... New link, embed link was removed. Thanks Ale!

Keane, Koch and... K..adobe?

• Glen Keane is my hero - The title has little to do with this vid, but just thought you should know. Watch it anyway - great stuff. A buddy at work pointed it out. It's Glen talking about Ollie -
• Another great animation blog - Kevin Koch has some great experience working in both traditional and cg animation. He also has a great animation blog. Thanks to Kyle for my finding it.
• More flash goodness - Here's a great little piece done for some sort of Adobe competition. The animation in particular is a good example of seemingly simple design handled exceptionally well. Oh, and here's some behind the scenes stuff on it.

Out of this world pictures...

...get it? :)

Here are some absolutely amazing pictures of and from our little sister planet- Check em out!

Pixar and Snipers!

• Not sure how long this one will last on the net, so enjoy it while you can. Fantastic animation there - the texture of the swift against the still is magical. Can't wait to see the whole thing!
• Here comes the sniper - yet another fantastic little shot into the life of a character of the insanely popular Team Fortress by Valve.

He can write too!?

Buy it if you like

"Oh, yes, the people of Skree were quite free, as long as they were in their homes by midnight. And as long as they bore no weapons, and they didn't complain when their fellow Skreeans were occasionally taken away across the sea, never to be seen again. But other than the cruel Fangs and the constant threat of death and torture, there wasn't much to fear in Skree." -excerpt from above book:)

So Andrew Peterson is one of my favorite musicians mainly cause I think his lyrics are fantastic. So much so that I've quoted them more than once in my blog here. Couple of weeks ago I was looking to see if his new album was out yet and it was not, but my search uncovered a book he'd written. So, I went on Amazon and took a look and it got some pretty good reviews so I ordered it.

And consumed it.

It was a fantastic tale for the young and young at heart. Witty, humorous and with more than a twist or two along they road- A wacky ex-pirate grandfather, dangerous Toothy Cows, the Fangs of Dang, Peet the Sock Man and three kids bound for mischief. I was impressed on all fronts and can't wait for the next installment.

My nephews will be getting a copy.

And, my friends over at Portland Studios did the art and cover design for it. Nice job, guys:)

Some Great Video Game Cinemas...

One of my favorite series of games is the Oddworld series. Fantastic art, comedic, good gameplay. The last outing in the series, Stranger's Wrath, had some particularly beautiful cinemas. I wouldn't mind playing through it again but I don't have my original Xbox anymore and its sadly not on the backwards compatibility list for the 360. You lose a little context just watching them back to back but you can surely appreciate the cinematography and design seeing them. Don't watch them if you might get a chance to play through it as you don't wanna ruin the surprise.



I hear they're working on a game again and I can't wait to see what they brew up. The First 10 Years Art of book has a special place in my collection.

Grats Scott!

A buddy of mine from college, Scott Spencer, apparently wrote a book on Zbrush. He's a gifted sculptor and instructor and I imagine it's a good book so give it a look:)

Master Classes and 2d Animation...

• Richard Williams Master Class - This is the guy that wrote the animation textbook that most animators, that I know of at least, cut their teeth on. Turns out he's releasing a DVD masterclass that looks to be pretty amazing. When I first saw the price, I gasped a little. Then I thought about how I'd thought about Animation Mentor and how little traditional animation training I actually got at college (2 classes). Thinking about what those cost put the price into perspective. Listening to The Animation Podcast and hearing how all of these animation greats trained under greats of their own days makes one yearn for those days. I do believe that Animation Mentor is trying to capture some of that magic again but I'm thinking a seminar that I can watch repeatedly might be a better investment. That's not to knock Animation Mentor - I think it's a great program and I wish it had been around when I was starting out. However trying to work it in with a full time job, home life and working on short films in the spare time doesn't leave a whole lot of extra.
• Kung - Fu Panda - Here's a sweet traditional animation credits sequence for it. Ben's name is in there too! No I haven't seen the movie yet. I was in Arkansas last weekend hanging with my wife's fam. However, we're gonna catch it this weekend and I'm super excited. Gonna push Wall-E till next week or so for the crowds to thin a bit.
• Art of Books - Picked up The Art of Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E. Can't wait to dig into them but holding off until I see the movies...alas....
• Irma's Car - Nice bit of work combining 2d and 3d by Crew 972 out of Tel Aviv.
• Great bit of 2d animation - A great take on the 11 second club by Ivan Oviedo. He's got great other stuff too, check him out. CATS FINISH from ivan oviedo on Vimeo.

Cool little short made with open source cg software...

Not bad at all. Nice lighting, impressive fur (especially for free stuff). Take a look at what some folks did with Blender. Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

This one's for Matt...

Man, I keep getting called out by my friends. Gotta work on being more on top of things. And speaking of things... Things are going well, been adjusting to working from home which can be a challenge. I have to say I miss working with folk face to face. For now, this will be just fine. Mainly working on The Wheelman now for work which is coming along well and the short film project is a lot of fun in what spare time I can carve out. Need to shoot some video reference of a "flowery dance" as Dave called it. Worked on a little number this weekend and need to get his approval before spending time in the computer. Been trying to plan shots better to work most efficiently with the little animating time I have. Houston is warming up as is the box office - ton of promising movies coming out. The soonest being Iron Man which I'm hoping to catch in the next week. What else...

• Orphaned Works Act - I've been reading about this bill for awhile on different sites with differing opinions. If you're an artist and don't know about it. Educate yourself.
• Mac jump - I'm pretty sure now that I'm gonna make the shift to macs for my personal work. I just can't seem to decide whether a desktop or a laptop. It doesn't help that I'm such a scrooge that the idea of spending that amount of money causes me to hide my wallet from myself - quite a feat mind you - made possible by my horrible memory.
• Work flow- Yet another informative animation work flow article.
• Animation notes - From a seminal with John Lasseter. Where have I heard that name before...it's on the tip of my renderman rendered mind...
• Wall-e Stuff! - Four minute featurette! Wow...
• Avatar is back - Again...they really need to be able to schedule their shows so they can show more than a couple of new episodes every few months...

Don't forget Mother's day, peeps!

For Ben and other Bits...

What's good from the net this week...

• Karate Kats...er...somethin - Having been called to the carpet by my buddy Ben....YES, I am excited about Kung Fu Panda. The art looks awesome and from what I've seen and read, it's shaping up quite nicely. I know I'm buying the artbook at least. :)
• Animation Workflow - Seeing how other animators work is a great way to keep growing as an animator. Here are some fantastic insightful reads:
• Mike Walling Workflow - Animator at Bluesky and worked on Horton (which had some fantastic
• Cameron Fielding's Dinosaurs aren't nice Workflow - Animator at Propaganda Games on workflow for some sweet human vs dinosaur animation
• Castle Crashers is still very much going to be Awesome - There's a blog to chronicle its awesomeness and the art is beautiful. And speaking of workflow... Marsh Land Construction from The Behemoth on Vimeo.
• The Batman Animation Law - Dictates that Batman in pretty much any animated form will rock. I'm definitely looking forward to this incarnation. I will say the original animated series from the mid 90's is still my favorite and I think the Justice League version lost some cool factor (way too big of ears...)
• Some GREAT Disney Art - LINK

Major Changes and TOONs!

Lots of stuff been going on. Got married to an amazing woman, a bit of snowboarding and snow shoeing in Vail, getting set up to work from home via VPN AND I ate a huge turkey leg at a rodeo last night! Oh, and chuck wagon races rock. Lots of great animations burning up the internets lately:

• New Wall-E trailer. This film looks better every time I see a trailer. I cannot wait for it to come out. Watch it!
• Horton Hears a Who is coming out to play this weekend and I'm going! Hope the who is fun. Thanks to Ray for the link to this vid.
• Cat Shorts - Simple design, brilliantly executed, especially humorous for anyone who's ever had a cat. And there's another!