Space Girl

Here's an image I made in Illustrator this Labor Day Weekend to fill in some down time.


I'm learning some tricks that I am going to use in my new game.

Yet again I have changed priorities and the game I was working on with the vehicles is on hold to make way for a game idea I had that can be done much sooner. The new game is called Cloudee, and it will be awesome.

Convenient friends

Oh, hello blog! Been a while... how are you? Good, good. Me? Well, there is a lot going on, and some big changes are afoot! Here, I made you a picture to let you know I still care.

Love - Ty

Intergalactic planetary

Just a quick update so I can feel like I'm making progress on some of these projects. First off, here is a walk cycle for a project that will be on UK televisions this summer. More on that later. Here is the first pass to start getting the weight down.

Secondly, my game is coming along great. Unity is an amazing tool and I'm very satisfied with the progress I'm making. It took only about a week to get the basic gameplay together. Of course the devil is in the details and there is a ton of work yet to do, but I was very surprised how easy it was to get so much done so fast. Refining the gameplay is one thing, but game assets are going to be the bulk of the work. I'll get some gameplay videos together and offically open my game company website once I have something decent to show, but for now here is a mockup for one of the vehicles in the game.



The colors are throwaway, I just wanted to get this little guy to look cool with the functionality I was going for. I call this one the bullfrog. It is mostly done and in-game now, and I have a cool toon shader that is looking great. I can't get enough of this stuff...

Egg Salad Sandwich

Here is the "finished" product. I would spend a few more weekends on this, but I need to simply take it as a learning experience and move on.

Unfortunately my short film is going on the back burner as I'm gearing up to start making some games for the web and eventually iPhone using Unity. I'm extremely ADD lately with all my different projects, but I think this is the best next step for me and definitely what I'm most excited about.

It's all in the eyes

I work best around the house when something triggers an OCD episode. Some days I just want cereal. Realizing that none of the cereal bowls are clean and there are a sink full of dishes I go into a cleaning frenzy. After cleaning all the dishes, vacuuming the floor and taking out the trash I pour myself a bowlful of tasty empty calories. Why didn't I clean the house earlier? I didn't want cereal.

I'm finding that I work the same in all aspects of my life. I've been storyboarding my short film and fleshing out timing in the animatic, but I really got an itch to animate something. I started to animate a short 40 second acting sequence as an exercise. Now that I'm to the point of animating the face I realized I need a face rig proper to get more facial expression. Another week later and I've learned the ins and outs of building a face rig UI.

Having worked as a programmer for over 5 years now I've realized that I need to script in 3D more because that would be the next evolutionary step for me. Now that I understand Maxscript a whole new world has opened up. I told my wife it's as if I understand the Matrix.

Eye Rig Test

It's simple really, here's the expression to control the upper left eyelid:

brow_factor = brow * .16
angle = (-(top_lid*1.9)+70) +
((-(eye_ctrl_x - eye_ctrl_home_x)) * .03)

if (brow < 0) then angle -= brow_factor

degToRad(
amin#(
if top_lid < -28 then
124
else
amax#(angle,40 - brow_factor),
124)
)

The take away lesson is that Float Script controllers are the way to go. Forget Reaction Manager (if you know how write Maxscript), forget Wire Parameters and forget Float Expressions.

Another change of pace

A friend of mine sent me a video a few weeks ago, and as usual I'm only now getting to it. It seems I'm always about 2 weeks behind when communicating with people online as my friends can probably all attest to the Tyrone time delay. Unfortunately I might have the same problem in the real world, just ask my mother.

There are a lot of great principles in this lecture, but what struck me most were Randy's comments on breadth versus mastery. This concept isn't necessarily new to me, but being reminded of it tonight is a game changer. The most instantly visible change for you, the reader, will be my blog. Originally I wanted this blog to be my professional portfolio, an online extension of my elementary school "show and tell" days, a sterile environment in which I can show you, my captive audience, my latest creations. Perhaps elementary school isn't the best analogy when sterility is a consideration.

I think I see why my friend sent me this video. I need to play to my strengths. In the past I would only post when I had something worthwhile to show in relation to the pursuit of my animation career. I don't have the mastery I would like to feel confident in applying for an animator position. The downside to this world-view is that there is always something else to learn to feel like you've mastered the art. Even the nine old men would say they have yet to master animation.

While I have a lot to learn in the world of animation my value isn't measured in number of successful films completed. Although I'm excited to increase that number, my value as an animator might be better assessed by my value as a person. When I think of it that way I do feel more confident in my abilities. Though I'm still striving for mastery I am confident in my breadth. I want my blog to reflect that.

From now on I'm going to post anything worthwhile, whether it's a new song I've learned on the piano, a new eye opening revelation from an audiobook or a new jQuery plugin I wrote at work. Things will be a bit less sterile and more like elementary school around here. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

I enjoy paradigm changes. Thanks Dave.

Small update

Some sketches of the robot.