anyone here good at 3d animation?

[sermon_of_mockery]

I'm proficient at 3ds max,and maya.Wondering if anyone else uses these programs.

 

[from zero]

That's cool man, proficient in graphic arts AND 3d animation. Are you still in school?

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

yeah,fuck.You ever try 3d?Once you go 3d, 2d is barelly entertaining.

 

[ajtomasi]

i used to be all up in 3ds max. the college i went to taught lightwave since their hq is here in san antonio, but i felt never comfortable with it being one program for modeling and then another for rendering.

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

thats why you master one or the other.

 

[NoDaddyNo]

yeah,fuck.You ever try 3d?Once you go 3d, 2d is barelly entertaining.

??

I don't know, it depends on the project. Whether it is 2d or 3d shouldn't matter if the content is good. A shitty storyline and idea isn't going to be made better by making it 3d. An amazing idea should be amazing in either media.

I've interned at a special effects house working on some shitty projects (I was on the shitty projects - they did some very cool stuff themselves).

When I was in college (art major), I did a few big projects as well. I also worked with some famous artists doing Fantastic Prayers which went around the country (only famous artists if you know the art world, otherwise they are no names to the general public).

I've used Animation Master, Lightwave, 3DS Max, Rhino (only modeling, no animation), shitty stuff on Macs (Bryce and some other crap program that sucked and was more hassle than it was worth), and I was one of the beta testers for Maya when it first came out. I've used Softimage, which I thought was fantastic until I started using Maya more.

I've worked on SGI machines, PCs, Macs, and maintained render farms of Linux boxes (and SGI - but I was less involved with those).

In the end, I prefer Maya, but Animation Master is very impressive considering what it costs.

I also was leaning towards going to grad school for architecture, but then after looking into the economics of that decision, I dropped that idea. I know a lot of the technique and concepts that go into it, but I don't have a grad school level education in it - just what I took in college. And I'm no full engineer. I've used a few different CAD programs and 3DS Max is actually decent for it - although you don't need any of the character animation tools for architectural renderings.

I have seen people do some pretty impressive technical renderings and they can't do shit in 2D.
But not once have I ever seen anything remotely good in 3D animation if the person wasn't also quite good at traditional cell animation and the general Disney type exercises. Which is why if you want a job at any effects house, they will want a demo reel that goes over some of the Disney technqiues (the flour sack for demo or example).
Also, if you ever have anything using Bryce or steal something and put it in a demo reel, consider the fact that you will likely never get a job in that industry since they all know each other and they really get pissy about that sort of thing.

If you have any questions, I might know something about it. I haven't been actively using 3D software in well over a year and probably closer to over 2 years now that I think about it.
At my previous company I did the review of 3D software to advise what to buy - I successfully got them using Maya thankfully.

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

Impresssive scrappy.Did you actually buy All of those programs?Student versions?
What aspect of 3d were you leaning towards,modeling,textures,scenarios?
I'm only in a jc at the moment for 3d animation,and am unsure of whats next to actually head in the right direction to get a real special effects job.Any suggestions would be fucking awsome.Whats flour sack?

 

[NoDaddyNo]

Impresssive scrappy.Did you actually buy All of those programs?Student versions?
What aspect of 3d were you leaning towards,modeling,textures,scenarios?
I'm only in a jc at the moment for 3d animation,and am unsure of whats next to actually head in the right direction to get a real special effects job.Any suggestions would be fucking awsome.Whats flour sack?

No, I didn't buy all the programs. I had a few that were warez off the net, I had a few that were student versions (they were still frickin expensive since I had zero money at all in college), and then mostly they were purchased by groups that I was working with.
The internship at the FX house exposed me to Maya as part of the beta program.
I worked on a few neuroscience programs in school that allowed me to learn a lot of about neuroscience, as well as use Lightwave a lot. That was part of an NSF grant that funded that.
For my own art projects, I used a student version of 3DS Max. Animation Master I bought outright.
When I worked on Fantastic Prayers, we used a wide array of things, but were largely limited to Mac programs during the day (I would use my own system at night to do more and then have to hope that it would import over correctly).
Rhino (like I said, not animation, just modeling) is free for a bit I think.
Softimage was warez.
Am I missing some?

I wanted to get into movie special effects - had wanted to ever since I saw T2 as a kid. When I first started looking into it, people would work for a single FX shop and they would stay there for all of their projects. It was hard to get into them, but the salaries were high. You would pretty much live there (bunks at your desk) but it was fun work and cool people with the high salary.
By the time I graduated and was going to start sending out a demo reel, the workplace had totally changed - the internet boom was going on. FX shops stopped holding onto people and instead laying off most of their staff when a project was over and then hiring up again when they got a new project. People weren't really tied down to a shop and more like temps that would move around from project to project. The salaries dropped a ton, but the work level stayed high and hard - sleeping at your desk.
I interned at a place and thought I would love it - and I did - I loved the work. But the people sucked. There was a lot of attitude with people that they were the best and it was useless to try to be as good as them. A lot of backstabbing and since there is so much competition, it was a nasty environment to work/learn in. Also, being that I was low level, I had to do all the shit jobs - which until you get more experience, is pretty much all you would do. It is hard to get experience too.

I found that even though I could draw very well and was pretty good at modeling things in person clay and whatnot), I wasn't very good at it on the computer. I learned the tricks, but I didn't feel it was the same as "real" art and felt it was more just little hacks to get things done - didn't like the feel of that for whatever reason.
Textures were cool, but there is a lot of math in it. I love math, but the work to reward ratio there wasn't really enough for me. There are programs that make it easier for you, but I'm stubborn and don't like it when I have a wizard helping me, I like to know what exactly is going on. Textures have come an amazing way since I was learning it. Just Max Payne alone is about is good as some of the movies that I got to look at and see worked on (I was not allowed to work on those - I got to work on a children's movie that I'm not even sure ever got made).
I really enjoyed the storyboarding - that was cool as hell to me - but it was (at the time) pen/pencil/paper, and I was gung ho to get into animation, that was what I wanted to do.
The animation was really fun and based on pretty much everything combined. The more you knew about anything would help in animation, real life experience or watching movies, physics, math, and how the other aspects of the job - the modeling and textures - would interact and effect what you were doing - then the better it would all turn out.

There are colleges in Pittsburgh (I think part of the Art Institute) that do special effects CGI animation training.
The ones that are really highly respected are in Canada though - there is at least one in Vancuver and there are two or three in Toronto. Those have lots of connections to the industry.

The flour sack that I referred to is part of what Disney does (a great job to get, but once you are in Disney, you can't leave - or if you do, you can't go and do anything else in the industry really - no idea if that is still the case, but was a few years back).
There is a book that is great if you want to learn all about what they have done historically - it is big and pricey as I recall, but a great read and very useful. It is "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation".
The "flour sack" idea is usually part of a demo reel - it is the idea of taking something totally inanimate - like a sack of flour - and making it come to life and look believably as it is walking around and whatnot. People do a variety of things, but the sack of flour is usually a starting point. Using the corners of the sack as the hands and feet.

The demo reel is what gets you in for an interview, and then the from there it is what they think of you. They (every FX house) get shitloads of demo reels all the time and they will frequently just throw them out before looking at them.
It (not sure what has changed) consists of a VHS tape of your work. Usually stills of your drawings, rough sketches, life drawings, ideas and whatnot. They will want to see animations - computer or not, they like to see 2D a lot since that means that you grasp the concepts and don't need the computer to do all the work through tricks.
They don't want to see Bryce, and they don't want to see work that isn't your own.
If you want to get into the game world, that is huge right now (and perhaps slightly easier to get into). That is very similar, but you should include a game on CD that you have written yourself - or rather done the work on yourself. Whether you put it into the Quake 2 engine, or if you have a friend did all that and you did the graphics.
Not as if you just made some new skins - but do something cool and new and you will catch their eye.

There are newsgroups and discussion boards that the guys read, but for the most part it is retired guys and then people trying to get in - the guys actually in the industry are all too busy to post.

There was a guy on the board that worked in Vancuver or at least BC and did XBox games. His avatar was a guy on a bike doing either an endo or a wheelie - don't recall which.

Anyway, not sure if any of that was of help or not.

 

[ajtomasi]

holy shit that was a long post

 

[NoDaddyNo]

holy shit that was a long post

holy shit that post was one line

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

games are boring to me,but might be a good start.I know of a few maya based schools in L.A.,gnomon being the most recognized I hear.Looking into going there,but moneys kickin' my ass.
What is it your doing now?And what the fuck is in bermuda:/

 

[NoDaddyNo]

games are boring to me,but might be a good start.I know of a few maya based schools in L.A.,gnomon being the most recognized I hear.Looking into going there,but moneys kickin' my ass.
What is it your doing now?And what the fuck is in bermuda:/

I'm pretty much entirely driven by money after growing up very poor. As a result, I'm going where the money is.

In Bermuda are hedge funds and tax havens (sort of - more of a legal haven if anything). And it is warm. And my fiancee lives here.

I am the head of an IT firm here, the head of an IT division of a financial company, and I'm starting my own financial type company.
I'm trying to get a position as a portfolio manager ideally - but that is hard to get without experience.
Hoping to day trade heavily once I have enough liquid captial with which to do so.

My artistic side comes out when I have no money. I now am artistic through my math and computer side. Creating programs can satisfy what a drawing or animation would have done.
Plus, I like to learn and just do new things.

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

would you think a trade school for animation would be a good next step for me?I have zero interest in general ed,and would prolly drop out if I tried.I realize they're pricy,but I think I have the drive.You have any old 3d art you could show me?Stills,animation?Let me see you sack....of flour.

 

[NoDaddyNo]

would you think a trade school for animation would be a good next step for me?I have zero interest in general ed,and would prolly drop out if I tried.I realize they're pricy,but I think I have the drive.You have any old 3d art you could show me?Stills,animation?Let me see you sack....of flour.

Art schools such as the Art Institute of Pittsburgh are essentially trade schools.
If you didn't mind being in Canada, I would look into the schools up there - for the most part, college in Canada is usually very cheap - but I don't know about those schools.

I would show you my portfolio, but it is long since gone. Even all of the physical stuff eventually didn't make it through all of my moves. My last move I gave away all of my paintings on the street outside of my apartment. I wrote my e-mail address on the back and said to keep me posted of where they end up. I saw a few people taking them, not sure what happened from there.
One of them was a portrait of Kobe Bryant done in red with a silloutte (sp?) of a reclining woman in yellow overlayed on top of him - that was done in 1999, well before any of this scandal stuff - wonder where it is now.

If you look around for some of the newsgroups and discussion boards, there are some good amounts of people talking about their demo reels.
There is a guy, I think his name is Jeff Lew - he is very good. Does animation very well, not the best at modeling since he doesn't have to be. He has some clips out there of a kung fu coffee bean - I think it is coffee - definitely some sort of bean that fights with guns and I think even does bullet time.

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

did'nt you work on movies,advertisements?Which ones?

 

[NoDaddyNo]

did'nt you work on movies,advertisements?Which ones?

I interned at an FX shop, worked on a neuroscience project, and worked on an art project that has toured.

When I was at the FX shop, I worked on something about "Mr. Popper's Penguins" (not sure that is the right name). It is a children's book that was going to be made into a movie. I animated penguins so that they were integrated with real life scenes.

A guy I went to school with asked me for tips on a project - I didn't ask him then what it was for. He then came up to me later and told me that he had gotten a job with Square Soft. He is Japanese and speaks fluent English and Japanese. As a result, they were very pleased to hire him since they have a base in Japan and in Hawaii.
Last I talked to him, he was working on a big movie project for them, I thought it sounded cool... turns out he was working on their movie feature - bastard.

I never worked on feature movies - during the time I was at the FX shop, they were making their money off of theme rides at Universal - they were doing the Spider Man ride. They had done a lot of shitty movies in the past. They have been involved in X-Men and the like, but I wasn't there during that.
Never been part of a commercial.

 

[sermon_of_mockery]

If I'm all about special effects in movies,or ads,should I put all my eggs into maya?I've been told that maya is basically the industry standard.Seeing as I've worked with 3d max,I'm somewhat ahead in some aspects with learning maya,just need to learn where the buttons are now.You know of any good(meaning cheap)sites,or places to buy maya?Them shits is pricey:/

 

[NoDaddyNo]

From what I have seen, Maya is used for everything these days. In terms of animation at least. For actual rendering, they usually use a renderfarm with a customized RenderMan system.

It used to be, and may very well still be, that 3DS Max was used for games animation, and Maya was used for the movies, commercials, and games.

Maya used to be insanely expensive and now they have a stripped down version that still has everything you would need for much less (but still a lot in relative terms I guess - I think $800 or something - they have it all on their site what the different packages are).
Or look into someone getting a student copy.
I haven't tried to find warez type stuff in awhile, so I have no clue if it is out there, but I would imagine that it is since it is such a big deal.