You know what time it is…

Translate Z
and Rotate X,
one false move
I’ll split your vertex

My cut faces tool
will extract you fool,
Don’t try to subdivide
Or our meshes might collide

You’re like the kid in class
who keeps hitting the caps lock key,
and can’t figure out why
Nothing’s happening when you press P

You’re workflow is outdated,
Like yesterday’s news
So forget about Ctrl+Z
With those finite Undo’s

Tim Sormin over at Anim-o-holic pointed out this awesome tutorial by Victore Navone. “a 10 frame facial take, broken down frame-by-frame.”

Images from www.navone.org

You know what time it is! Time to completely humiliate your co-workers in front of your friends and peers with your massive CG Rap ego.

What’s a matter son?
Render globals got your tongue?
Is that why
your fingers glued to F1

I’ll smooth your proxy
quicker than you can hot box,
space bar, two clicks…
to late, I just closed the option box

I’ll discipline you like a child
quicker than you can Shift+P,
and forget about undo
I just deleted your history

Better Ctrl+H your selection
before I Boolean > intersection,
I convert Nurbs
to Polygonal perfection

Ooooooh! I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that thrashing… how embarassing.

Here are some new rhymes for those Maya users out there who like to battle their co-workers about who is better at their part of the pipline. Don’t pretend like you’re not one of those people.

I’ll planar map you
To the bottom of my shoe,
Leave your UV layout
Looking like a pile of poo

Better be on the lookout
For another job possibility
Cause I’m coming to visit
And clean up your topology

Normalize your UV’s
Before I clamp down your keys
Spline it
Refine it
Modify > freeze

Select plane
Modify > Make live,
My dynamics
will send you back to Maya 6.5

Pendulum has updated the “recent” section of their website to include Paraworld and Mark Antony, as well as some nice screen shots.

Motion capture is something I generally want to avoid in my career as an animator, but I was excited to be involved in the development of the new Facial mocap software, Stretchmark©, that Michael is developing at Pendulum, in conjunction with House of Moves. In this project I got to use Stretchmark to push and pull points around on the characters face to exaggerate or correct the actors performance. The only things we animated from scratch were the eyes, tongue, shoulder pads, and the characters sword. Congrats to Michael, Brynn, Matt, Gina, Reed, and the rest of the guys who brought this to life.

Watch Mark Antony

Do you ever find yourself with a problem that you don’t know the answer to, or in a situation that you have absolutely no clue what to do next? These few verses have been very valuable to me recently…

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. ” James 1:5-8 (NASB)

Sometimes I have a hard time letting go of doubt but whenever I do God always comes through just like he promised.

Here are some other verses that comfort me in times of stress:

John 15:5
Philippians 4:13
Philippians 1:6
Philippians 2:13

Happy Sabbath

“Peeking into Paraworld with the artists of Pendulum, Part 3″ has finally been posted on CG Society so be sure and check it out. The animation section of the artcle includes a behind the scenes video with myself and Emil Bidiuc. You must be a registered member to view them, so for my friend’s or family member’s that aren’t I’ll let you borrow mine (:

This was a huge project to work on, especially for only two animators fresh out of school. It was an amazing learning experience and has made my confidence as an animator even stronger.

Watch the trailer

Keith Lango has just posted another great tutorial on his website titled “Do Me A Favor: Favors, Eases, and other Mysteries of Space.” It gives excellent examples and definitions of the differences between timing and spacing, and what it means to ease in and out of a pose or to favor one pose or another.

For a collection of some of the most… interesting CG on the web, check out the Gallerie Abomin8 (I can’t actually spell out “abomin…” because spam bots automatically leave porn comments).

I just updated and added tons of bonus to the animation page, so you go now and check it out! I like, you like? Very much… Jagshemash!!!