Waiting for a render?

Sigh… me too.

Fortunately being an animator, I don’t have nearly as long render times as some of the environment modelers.  But still, with a shortage of computers there is NOTHING to do while I wait, so I figured I’d make a blog post.

My demo reel is nearly finished now, basically, all I have left is the tweeking.  Then of course… rerendering the frames that need fixing.  The deadline is soon, but I’m sure I’ll make it.

It’s entertaining to watch the people in class scramble around trying to get their stuff rendered, trying to find a computer, and hearing the groans of them when something went wrong and they get to do it all over again.

Here are a few quick completed renders I have done.

May have been inspired by Back to the future…

Vernon being sexy

Vernon blasting into space

Final shot in the reel

 

BTW! There is a new blog theme, what do you think?  Vernon is up in the corner (above the search bar).  You can click on him and he’ll link you to all the posts in the Demo Reel Category.  Check it out.

All the renders will be put in my artwork section.

That’s it for now, my render is just about done.  Ahh it’s good to be an animator.

Ugh, XSI

I understand that it would be good to know more than one 3D program, but I cannot stand working with “XSI”.  Animating in “XSI” seems to be okay, but I can’t compare it to anything because I haven’t really tried animating much in “Maya”.  We’ve only had one character animation assignment in “XSI” but it was quite a short project, so there’s really nothing to say it’s good or bad animating in it.

I can see that it would be a good program if you were into special effects, particle systems and all that jazz, but I hate working with code and those damn ICEtrees.  Those ICEtrees are AMAZING, if you understand it…. which for whatever reason I really don’t.  I understand enough of them to do VERY basic things, but I’d rather be spending my time doing something more productive.

I’m going to start animating some stuff in “Maya”, just so I can start getting a better feel of what it will be like for my demo reel.  I just really don’t want to have to import all of my models and everything into XSI just so I can rig/animate.

That’s one of the things I actually don’t mind in “XSI”; the rigging.  We did 2 rigs, one of a monster thing with no arms, and then just a biped man.  Both were fairly simple to do.  I just really doubt that you’re able to import rigs from “XSI” into “Maya”.

That’s enough of a rant for now.  I’m sure I’ll have more to ad another time.

-Nick