Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Working as an animator
To become a Computer Animator, or any type animator for that matter you NEED to develop your artistic skills. The number one advice you get from an animator is draw, draw, draw. To get a job at a big studio like Disney or Pixar you DO NOT need a degree of any kind. It is reccomended you take classes in the subject at an art school and get a degree but again, it is NOT necessary. You do need skills and a demo reel to prove it. Art schools and animation schools help you learn skills to be able to do this. A demo reel is basically a visual resume of your work which studios use to see what you can do. For Pixar in particular, you do not need to learn a specific software package (until you get the job) because theirs is proprietary and they don't judge you on what you can do on a computer but mostly on how well you can perceive movement in 3 dimension, that can be on paper, with clay, or on a computer. So what I would do is just get your art skills at their very best by taking art classes and drawing a lot! Also make sure you like what you're doing, becasue it's not all funa nd games, unfortunately.
Regarding salaries, it is very varied, from $30,000 a year to $90,000 depending on where you work and what position you have.
Here are some links taht may help you:
Pixar (http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/ca…
Quote: A Pixar Animator should be able to bring life to any object or character, showing the character’s internal thoughts and feelings through its physical external motion. To do this, the Animator must be a good actor. His or her work should communicate clearly, containing simple ideas with which an audience can empathize. The animation should be entertaining to watch, employing good timing and relying on individualized, believable characters to put forth humor and emotion.
Software doesn’t matter; learning to animate matters
Disney (http://www.disneyanimation.com/careers/f…
Quote: Generally, any open position will require a strong resume, and if applicable a portfolio and/or reel, shot breakdown and submission form which address the requirements of the position. You must love making movies, solving creative problems, and working in a team environment.
Hope I could help. :)
Source(s):
Pixar.com
Regarding salaries, it is very varied, from $30,000 a year to $90,000 depending on where you work and what position you have.
Here are some links taht may help you:
Pixar (http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/ca…
Quote: A Pixar Animator should be able to bring life to any object or character, showing the character’s internal thoughts and feelings through its physical external motion. To do this, the Animator must be a good actor. His or her work should communicate clearly, containing simple ideas with which an audience can empathize. The animation should be entertaining to watch, employing good timing and relying on individualized, believable characters to put forth humor and emotion.
Software doesn’t matter; learning to animate matters
Disney (http://www.disneyanimation.com/careers/f…
Quote: Generally, any open position will require a strong resume, and if applicable a portfolio and/or reel, shot breakdown and submission form which address the requirements of the position. You must love making movies, solving creative problems, and working in a team environment.
Hope I could help. :)
Source(s):
Pixar.com
Utility Nodes
Been trying to brush up on my already limited knowledge of the hypershade to help me get my head around this rigging lark.
Just had a bit of a breakthrough, so i'll put it into writing before i forget what i've done...
The example is from a tutorial on the rigging101 website (www.rigging101.com) and the goal is to add a unity node network to a sphere and a cube, so that when you move the ball, the distance the cube moves is the outcome of the equation.
So, the equation is;
pCube.translateX = (pBall.translateY * 1.5) + (pBall.translateZ / 2)
which means the value of the cubes translate x is equal to the balls translate Y multiplied by 1.5 PLUS the balls translate Z divided by 2;
ie. if the ball moves in the Y 5, the cube will move in the x 1.5*5 which equals 7.5 in the x direction.
The instructions on the tutorial were as follows;
drag the ball and cube from the output window to the hypershade, 2 nodes will appear.
drag 2 multiply/divide nodes over from the utility dropdown
drag a +/- Average node across
Connect the translate Y connector to the output 1x into one of the multiply/divide node
Connect the translate Z connector to the output 1x of the other multiply/divide node
Now this is where i ran into problems. The multiply/divide node is like the multiply divide buttons on a calculator. They do exactly the same thing. So any value input for translate y fed in goes into the multiply divide attribute. You then click on the attribute editor to tell maya what you want to do with it. In this case we are multiplying it by 1.5, so we input 1.5 in field 2x.
Now heres the tricky part. We're gonna get two values from the two sums, because we're calculating two equations, this is where the +/- Average node comes in. In the tutorial it says you can simply plug both multiply divide straight in giving them a sequential name (ie, 1,2etc), but for some reason maya doesn't offer that option (which seems strange because you can't do an addition with just one number).
I've emailed the guys who produced the tutorial, and had a look on some forums and found a solution;
When I linked the output from the Multiply Divide node, I had the MEL window open to see what the script looked like. I then copied that script, selected the other Multiply Divide, pasted it into the MEL window and executed it. Voilla! two connections to choose in the connection editor.
The only problem now is the equations don't appear to be working properly. When I tyranslate the sphere in the Y, say 5, the box moves 5 also - it should move 7.5?
Hopefully this is down to the way i've input the factor in the Multiply Divide node.
Rome wasn't built in a day!
Just had a bit of a breakthrough, so i'll put it into writing before i forget what i've done...
The example is from a tutorial on the rigging101 website (www.rigging101.com) and the goal is to add a unity node network to a sphere and a cube, so that when you move the ball, the distance the cube moves is the outcome of the equation.
So, the equation is;
pCube.translateX = (pBall.translateY * 1.5) + (pBall.translateZ / 2)
which means the value of the cubes translate x is equal to the balls translate Y multiplied by 1.5 PLUS the balls translate Z divided by 2;
ie. if the ball moves in the Y 5, the cube will move in the x 1.5*5 which equals 7.5 in the x direction.
The instructions on the tutorial were as follows;
drag the ball and cube from the output window to the hypershade, 2 nodes will appear.
drag 2 multiply/divide nodes over from the utility dropdown
drag a +/- Average node across
Connect the translate Y connector to the output 1x into one of the multiply/divide node
Connect the translate Z connector to the output 1x of the other multiply/divide node
Now this is where i ran into problems. The multiply/divide node is like the multiply divide buttons on a calculator. They do exactly the same thing. So any value input for translate y fed in goes into the multiply divide attribute. You then click on the attribute editor to tell maya what you want to do with it. In this case we are multiplying it by 1.5, so we input 1.5 in field 2x.
Now heres the tricky part. We're gonna get two values from the two sums, because we're calculating two equations, this is where the +/- Average node comes in. In the tutorial it says you can simply plug both multiply divide straight in giving them a sequential name (ie, 1,2etc), but for some reason maya doesn't offer that option (which seems strange because you can't do an addition with just one number).
I've emailed the guys who produced the tutorial, and had a look on some forums and found a solution;
When I linked the output from the Multiply Divide node, I had the MEL window open to see what the script looked like. I then copied that script, selected the other Multiply Divide, pasted it into the MEL window and executed it. Voilla! two connections to choose in the connection editor.
The only problem now is the equations don't appear to be working properly. When I tyranslate the sphere in the Y, say 5, the box moves 5 also - it should move 7.5?
Hopefully this is down to the way i've input the factor in the Multiply Divide node.
Rome wasn't built in a day!
Monday, 13 July 2009
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Monday, 6 July 2009
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