Duncan Brinsmead is not only the principal scientist with Autodesk, he’s also the creator of Maya Paint Effects, Maya Hair, Maya Toon, and he also put considerable work into Maya Fluids and nCloth too.
Have a look at his blog, and some of the demos of what’s possible in Maya 2011
Be careful. Some of these demos can be hazardous if you’re not wearing protective clothing.
The (British) animation forum and employment agency, Festivus, have updated their website to reflect changes in the organisation.
The expanded job board and information section is now called AnimationBase, while the social and networking activities remains under the Festivus name.
The link for AnimationBase is here, and the Festivus Facebook group is here.
It’s easy to register, and the Festivus gatherings (normally in central London) are very useful for networking and getting to know the people and the gossip in the animation business. Take loads of business cards with you!
Posted in animation, Careers & Money, Networking
Recent surveys of animator’s salaries in the U.S. show healthy recent rises, despite the gloom of recession.
… Latest salary information figures as published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the salary for animators in the country today is between $50,000 and $100,000. In reality, there are a few professions today that are offering such a huge average salary.
The salary data statistics also reveal that the average salary today stands at $56,330. While the starting wages are $31,570, those offered to the most senior people often exceed $100,000 a year. The salary chart also discloses the growing trend of many animators working on a freelance contract basis. In fact, some of the most experienced and highly skilled workers are now opting to go on freelance contracts, rather than working on a full-time contract.
Read the whole Webwire article here, and here’s a link to AnimationSalaryData.com
Get better and get earning!
All the best,
Michael
Posted in animation, Careers & Money, News
(Click the pictures to enlarge them, please.)
If you have never seen a Jacques Tati film, it would be a good idea to rent one of the six films he wrote, directed and starred in, and appreciate his understated comic genius before diving into Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist“.
Here’s a short interview with Sylvain Chomet after the premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival on February 16th..
There are more clips from the film in this Russian teaser.
The art direction in this film is stunning. It started off in the care of Evgeni Tomov, who worked on early concepts, but the production art direction that you see in the final film is by Bjarne Hansen. You’ll find his credit on this IMDB page.
Posted in animation
If you’re working with several saved versions of a Photoshop PSD file, this is a mighty useful tool for examining and comparing your PSD files, layer by layer, to make sure that you open the correct version. And you don’t have to open Photoshop to do so! Better still: It’s free!
Here’s the link.
(Please click this image to enlarge it)
Head over to the MaPZone website to discover what’s special about this texturing tool.
Link to MaPZone site
Link to Wikipedia article about Procedural generation.
Amazing statistic: There are more than 5,000 Marvel characters.
Posted in Uncategorized
Mind mapping software won’t actually start breeding ideas for your essays on its own, but it will certainly help you to organise and structure your thoughts, and many other useful things besides.
(Please click this image to enlarge it)
FreeMind is very highly thought of, because of its ease of use, and its ability to deal with many types of information input. Give it a go! It’s Free!
Here’s the FreeMind wiki, and there’s a good explanatory video to download here. Here’s the all important download link. Because it’s written in Java, it will run on Apple, Linux and Windows. (Check that download link for details).
Ideal essay writing tool.
If you prefer to share your mind maps with a group online, have a look at the web based MindMeister.
Get brainstorming!
John Lasseter, Andreas Deja, Bruce Smith and others discuss the resilience of 2D hand drawn animation in Disney’s forthcoming release, The Princess & The Frog.
An ecstatic Disney 2D animator.
Here’s a link to what AWN TV calls a “featurette” on its website.
Passion Pictures has released a fine looking cinematic for Beatles Rock Band game on their website.
The 4 moptops dancing on the Liverpool skyline
Client: Harmonix/MTV and Apple Corps
Writer/Director: Pete Candeland
The full cast is displayed in an overlay next to the clip, here.
And still counting....
Posted in Uncategorized
This man thinks that schools discourage creativity...
It’s worth taking 19 minutes 24 seconds out of your busy lives and watching this video from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in which educationalist Ken Robinson argues that in the future, your future, creativity is going to be more important than academic attainment in education. He’s funny, too.
Here’s the link to his talk. Please take a moment to post your reactions to his ideas in the comment box, too.
Posted in Uncategorized
Only a couple of days after its release, Lou Romano has posted nearly 60 visual development paintings and models from Pixar’s latest release: “Up”.
Here’s the link to the blog post, and here’s his IMDB profile.
In the header image (top of this page) you can see part of a colour script of 120 storyboard mood panels from the film. Link to big image.
Posted in animation, Header Image, visual development
Make your fingers more productive.
Posted in Uncategorized
Eating too many mushrooms, perhaps.
Kid Icarus
Download links:
Link 1, and for some really old skool game desktops, Link 2
Posted in Backgrounds, download, fun
