“Slow Motion” from Matthew Ward on Vimeo.

Something Left, Something Taken- Full Version from Tiny Inventions on Vimeo.

I spent days on the Troll rig and in the end it only got 12 frames on screen! Not even a second on screen. Hilarious. But that’s the way editing works. And I believe in the art of editing so that’s the way it goes. It’s a pretty decent trailer. check it out:

I’ll be giving an hour-long presentation. Get your Tickets soon!

Then show briefly some reference video, several animation passes, then the final rendered version. Explaining how triangles are everything in 3D!
The goal is to get all the kids and adults excited about math and geometry.If I can create a link to their favorite 3D cartoon character(s) they can see how math and geometry are an important part of art and entertainment today. Goal accomplished.

Special thanks to Bobby Beck at AnimationMentor for letting me use Bishop as an example for all the kiddies!

I really had a lot of fun at this studio. Made a lot of great friends. The next couple of months are going to be a blast (all things considered) while we wrap up Mars Needs Moms. We used to have fun at our first location (Thorndale) then it got stuffy when we got too corporate. Now it should revert back to the fun days for the next couple of months.

I bear no ill-will toward Disney. Three years is a good run. I love Bob Z and would work for him again in a heartbeat. Maybe Roger Rabbit 2??? If it ever goes from rumor to real.

I was actually thinking Disney might see IMD as “not useful” after Alice in Wonderland posted such high opening weekend profits. And after Avatar set the bar for motion capture films. We (IMD) were definitely ranked 3rd or 4th on the totem pole of “motion capture awesomeness.”

Anyway, I just graduated from AnimationMentor in January. I love keyframe animation and rigging. I really want to rig some tooney stuff and animate it now. I see this as an opportunity to do that at another studio.

It’s time to update my scripts section to python-PyMel in the scripts section and post my animation reel from AM.
I no longer code in MEL… and you wouldn’t either if you knew PyMel.

The future is bright. Time for beer.

Roshambo has a lot of work left to be done; here’s how I plan to tackle the project’s remaining tasks. I have made a grid of boxes of all the remaining animation tasks vs. color code of the difficulty (two characters contacting each other, vs a moving hold, etc. ):

I will pick a square (or two) and perform that task every day. Some days I’ll only have 2-3 hours so I’ll take on an easy task like going from layout to blocking. On days where I have more time, I will tackle a more demanding box or boxes. I need to do as many boxes a day as I can because if I add up the box count right now it’s over 6 months of work left to do!! I don’t have that kind of time. So I’m going to shorten and speed up some shots. and double up tasks on the weekends. I’ve already started. And need to animate a little today.

And when I don’t feel like animating at all, I’ll rig or play the ukulele. Or go out and record some foley.
I have another grid for rigging tasks and sound tasks that is not shown.
When Roshambo is done — and it will get done — I have another project that is an even more insane amount of work. So this is just practice for the big one.

Related resolution:
Learn and record 12 Christmas songs for the ukulele. Send it out as a Christmas gift 2010. I’ll post the MP3s here in December 2010.