Build, Pose, Animate!

Wow, where have I been to lately? I noticed how long it was since I last posted.

I mentioned how I wanted to continue doing my tutorials on building, posing and finally animating a scene in Flash but I might have accidentally deleted the tutorial files that I needed to make them. The enthusiasm that I had going early on sort of fizzled out once I discovered that said files have gone missing.

I am working on one project at a time lately, so my weekends are free. I was intending to use that free time to redo these tutorial files but I felt like it is becoming a chore and find no fun in it. So I bummed around rather than proceed working on it. I feel much happier that way.

I just completed my two-week posing project and I am now moving over to animation once again. Shifting from posing to animation, I had to take this weekend off to completely recharge my brain. I need a different mindset whenever I do animation; the procedures differ a lot from posing and requires much more effort and concentration.

The past three weeks were pretty significant for my wife. She has started to learn how to drive and has been very good at it, albeit still a bit unsteady, being that she is a complete beginner. She has trouble driving using our van so we had to get something that would be easier for her to practice with. We ended up leasing a car that is just the right size.

I might write about the adventure we had negotiating the lease for that car. It was a very pleasant experience made easier through a lot of research on the how-to’s of buying or leasing.

Until then, I better get back to work. I need to kick-start this animation project and get into gear!

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Sunny The Day Before And Now…

I woke up this morning and saw this:

We are in the early part of Spring, and yet there would be mornings like this that makes one think about how fickle the weather is in Calgary.  

It’s more glaring to me because I came from a tropical country, the Philippines, where the only change in seasons that we know is hot weather and rainy season.

By noon the snow would have melted.  And then it would be what my wife and I call “yucky road”, when the melting snow mixes with road dirt and become some form of road slush before finally drying up.

Darn, I just had my car washed yesterday!

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At Work With The Wacom Cintiq 20WSX.

I’ve been working on my animation project using the Wacom Cintiq 20WSX for almost a week now.

I am happy to report that it is performing very well.  I have gotten so used to working using the Cintiq that switching over to a regular Wacom Intuos3 Tablet feels really odd.

The natural drawing position is so…natural!

However, I must admit that I did not gain any major benefit when I use it to do animation in Flash.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is not much drawing that needs to be done in Flash animation. I only had to move elements and symbols around and let the computer assist me in doing the inbetweens (although that is easier said than done sometimes).

If I were to do a traditional style, purely hand-drawn animation in Flash, then I can see that the Cintiq’s qualities will probably be beneficial.  I might try that sometime.

It was also wonderful when I was using the Cintiq to do posing work, so much so that I kind of miss working on the posing project that I just concluded.  There are a lot of drawing that needs to be done in Posing work; when I threw the Cintiq into the mix, the speed in which I finish a scene almost doubled.

All in all, I am highly satisfied and I am glad I have this awesome piece of hardware in my arsenal.

Oh, and one great benefit of having the Cintiq is the huge amount of desktop space that I have right now:

As can be seen in my current set up, I have Flash launching on the Cintiq. Everything else such as the PDF storyboard, Quick Time preview and the Finder are on my 30″ Apple Cinema Display, making it possible for me to open as many applications and windows as I can without compromising the space I need to work in Flash.

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Animating With The Cintiq: First Impressions.

I have finally started working on my new animation contract.

Like every production that I am just starting to work on, there is a mix of excitement and apprehension involved. Excited because of the new characters to meet and scenes to animate. Apprehensive because it is relatively new and I have to grope around blindly at the onset to get a feel of the animation style of the show.

This will also be the first time I will be animating something in Flash using the Wacom Cintiq 20WSX that I have leased. It has proven it’s worth when building and doing posing, especially when drawing new elements. I now will have the chance to run it through it’s paces in an animation production.

My first impressions are very positive. I have been using the Cintiq for more than three weeks now and I have grown very, very used to it that shifting back to a regular Wacom tablet has become an oddity. In Flash, moving elements and symbols around using the Cintiq came very natural and easy. It feels like I am really using the Pen to touch and move things around.

The only thing that I noticed was that since I am working so close to the surface of the Cintiq, I had to lean back very often to look at what I am working on in it’s entirety, much like when I draw on regular paper and I have to lean back and hold the paper out in front of me to review my work:

I also had to frequently move my right hand and arm out of the way just to see how things are working out on the screen of the Cintiq. This is very opposite when using a regular tablet where you can see everything on the monitor unhindered because your hand and arm are at your side working over the tablet.

These minor quibbles do not impact the ease of working with the Cintiq, though. It has really grown on me and I have come to accept it as a vital cog in all of the productions I am working on.

I shall give more of my impressions on the Cintiq in future posts as I immerse myself in my work. Until then, have a productive day!

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