Magician and his Assistant

[jebeck]

Hi Chris,

 

I'm not sure what type of job you are seeking but often companies will hire based on what they see in your demo reel or portfolio. Most companies will see the quality of your work and help you transition to 'their' software. For example, PIXAR uses their own proprietary software which no one has access to. They recently developed new software they call Presto for their latest film 'Brave' and they aren't sharing it with anyone outside their hallowed halls.

 

The good news is that a skilled animator can translate the principles of animation to any animation platform.

Getting a job therefore mostly requires persistence and (especially in a field with skilled competition) a lot of hard work.

Basically, it is a lot like getting any other job in this world.

 

So without knowing more of your specific goals or seeing your work I can only answer the question in this way:

 

Target the job you want.

Develop your demo reel and portfolio to hit that target.

Doggedly (consistently) pursue that goal.

Get the job you want and continually set new goals.

 

Glad to see Chinese representation here in the A:M Forum!

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Rodney,

I made a demo and upload it,I want show it here but I'm not sure if I could write a new topic about my new demo in Open Forum~There is no one use AM around me in China,so I need your suggestion and help to go on studying AM.

 

It's my new demo,not very good but better than before.

 

http://v.qq.com/boke/page/m/r/z/m0406xp5xrz.html

 

 

Moderator Note: This topic has been split from another topic.

[johnl3d]

Nice demo!

[jebeck]

Nice demo!

 

 

Thanks!I will try to do it better

[thekamps]

great characters.

[Rodney]

Warning: A few spoilers follow! Watch the video first!

 

I need your suggestion and help to go on studying AM

 

I'm not sure exactly what feedback you need here but my primary advice would be to keep on your current path.

 

I'll echo that praise for your characters as well. All five(!) characters are interesting. (most probably think there are only two)

Some general thoughts:

Composition. It would be nice to see more contrast to force the audience's eye to specific locations (Note: This is rather the whole point of magic performances too... to draw the audience's attention to a specific place (while something else is going on elsewhere). You get a little of this via the vignette/spotlight at the beginning but it could be considerably exaggerated.

 

There is an aspect of the character's performance that suggests he is an amateur magician. If he is in fact an amateur, you could play that up. On the other hand if he is a more seasoned performer then the act and set pieces would echo the magician's experience. Considering this thought further is the thought that if he is a pro he might be dressed in a tuxedo. That he is dressed as he is suggests more of an impromptu performance.

 

Exaggeration seems to be a theme here in that I believe you could exaggerate a lot of things to emphasize key elements or events.

A few examples:

The magic door. The magic door that rises from the floor is a nice design but could be exaggerated even more by making it thinner (in depth) so there is absolutely no way the magician (or robot) could fit inside the side walls. Now, if the suggestion is that the magician is actually inside the wall when he disappears then... you could emphasis and exaggerate that element.

 

In this same line of thinking (exaggeration that is), for emphasis, the fish could appear to be much larger or much smaller.

 

Other odd thoughts:

At first it wasn't clear if the fish pulled from the hat was the same fish as the one whose teeth the magician push in. Because the fish's eyes move the suggestion appears to be that it's the same fish. What am I saying? I'm not suggesting anything change but simply noting there is opportunity here. It's a moment in time where a 'real magician' has the opportunity to perform a slight of hand. Some of this might be related to the fact that the purpose of pushing in the fish's teeth isn't immediately clear. Is the first fish that bites the hand real and the second a toy? I suppose my issue here is one of clarity. Is there any significance to one tooth being left unpushed? It's a nice touch... I'm just not sure what is going on there.

 

The robot appearing through the door. My first impression was that the robot might have simply walked up from behind the door to make his appearance. This could be alleviated if the door rotated left and right on a swivel (a separation near the floor wold also emphasize that there is no way that the robot entered into the door via the floor.

 

There are a few moments where some foley/sound additions would enhance the animation.

A chomp sound effect when the fish bites the hand?

A metallic sound when the door finally locks into place on the stage?

Perhaps some knocking sounds as the door descends into the floor (or some muffled yelling, "Hey, let me out of here!)

There is also that place where the magician speaks... it'd be nice to hear something (Alakazam!) there.

 

Some things I really enjoyed:

Wow. There is so much going on... where to begin!

- Expecting a rabbit to come out of the hat... had to chuckle at getting a fish.

- The conflict between magician and assistant. (I get the feeling things like this have happened before during other performances!)

- Cute fish!

- Smooth animation (very impressive!)

- I really love the fact that you (errrr.... the magician) shows us the inside of his hat before performing his trick. Nice!

An especially nice aspect of this is the changes of shape you achieve via the manipulation of the hat. Now THAT is what animation is all about!

 

I really enjoyed that.

 

 

 

There is only one place where I thought you might have fallen short in the animation department and it's a very minor one (perhaps even done intentionally).

After the robot finishes waving his waving hand stops in a hold and it would be nice to have it continue down slowly (and this would echo that the robots enthusiasm has diminished). I assume you might have done this full hold on purpose because the character is a robot... so follow through might not be necessary? Because our eyes are drawn there... I'd say some minor settling down of the arm/hand is needed there.

 

All this to say... I enjoyed it... and really have nothing to critique!

[jebeck]

Thanks for your encouragement!

 

I know that I have a lot of problem just as you say,such as the "light" and the Lens law or Lens expression,and so on.

 

Now I'm a Graduate student about Animation director,and my job is a Teaching Secretary in CAFA(Central Academy of Fine Arts).

 

I find AM is a good Assistant for outstanding personal abilities,so it's good for the students whoes need moer individuation or art in Their demos too.The most important is anyone clould express his idea by himself in AM。It lowers the threshold of three-dimensional field for them。So I'm not sure if should I take my students into AM。Another problem is how to protect AM，you know piracy will ruin it（I love animation,I love AM,and I have the Western beliefs,so I keep protecting AM）.

 

Oh,come back.All these are just my tentative plan of future direction.I have a long way in AM yet。What's your idea about the developing of AM in China ？

[Rodney]

What's your idea about the developing of AM in China

 

I'm not quite sure I should comment on my general ideas of 'developing' A:M in China or anywhere else and I suspect perhaps you might mean 'promoting' more than 'developing'? I suppose I could summarized my approach to development as a grass roots effort bubbling up from the bottom... thusly:

 

1. Get A:M into the hands of those that instinctively know it is a good fit for them (this in my opinion is often artists who know very little about programming and don't particularly want to learn to program).

 

2. At the same time introduce them to some basic programming approaches (programs like Alice... 2.3 moreso than 3.0 currently for reasons we wont get into here) but Alice is very similar to A:M in very interesting ways... better in a few... no so much in many others) There are many other programs out there (Khan Academy, Scratch, etc.) but few have the 3D character based approach that Alice does. To a good extent they can they learn A:M while learning Alice and vice versa. There are many incompatibilities but heck... that's half the fun of the exploration.

 

3. As they learn A:M they will also learn to code their own solutions and in time develop their own approaches to using/developing with and for A:M on their own. Getting to know their limitations better can produce some very innovative results!

 

There is a very interesting aspect to A:M that IMHO places it ahead of many other 3D programs in that the ease of moving things around in A:M is in it's own way a form of coding without the need to know programming.

 

Ultimately, I don't really know enough about China to speculate but with a few billion people running around I'd say more than a few would eagerly take to A:M as it is without any further development. Just subscribe, install, activate and get to work!

 

You are a great example to follow!

[NancyGormezano]

2. At the same time introduce them to some basic programming approaches (programs like Alice... 2.3 moreso than 3.0 currently for reasons we wont get into here) but Alice is very similar to A:M in very interesting ways... better in a few... no so much in many others) There are many other programs out there (Khan Academy, Scratch, etc.) but few have the 3D character based approach that Alice does. To a good extent they can they learn A:M while learning Alice and vice versa. There are many incompatibilities but heck... that's half the fun of the exploration.

 

That's a terrific link Rodney. I wasn't aware of alice.org

 

Similarly, here is another link for funding an effort (in Mountain view, Ca) aimed at getting 5+ year olds programming robots!

 

I want one.

[Rodney]

That's a terrific link Rodney. I wasn't aware of alice.org

 

I had seen the site a long time ago but it's much improved since those days.

I will note that the current version does not allow any import/export of models (in a convensional sense) so that's why I recommend Alice 2.3.

If anyone wants to know more about how to get an A:M model converted for use with Alice 2.3 let me know.

 

Similarly, here is another link for funding an effort (in Mountain view, Ca) aimed at getting 5+ year olds programming robots!

 

I want one

 

Nice! As if it wasn't already too much fun to be a kid!

[thefreshestever]

this was nice!