The issue this week was my inability to manage my time. Plus, my daughter is over for the week and a lot to do for work. I’m surprised anything got done. The good news, I got an ‘A’ in my System Architecture and Integration assignment for the week. Considering the ‘C”s I’m getting out of animation, ironically, getting great grades in the work that means nothing to me. Except for that last class. That particular instructor in my bachelor’s degree was a complete idiot. There were no reasons for me to get the grades he gave me except for being a complete asshole. Up until his classes, I was an A/B student so tell me what went wrong. Just one particular instructor that was being an ass.
Now…. is there a mirror situation with my animation? It’s hard to say. This last assignment where I had to just have a character walk — based on what he told me to do — is coming off boring and plain. I submitted the following for my homework:
I’ll report what grade I’ll get.
To me, it’s simple and boring with no room for adjusting timing without changing the walk pattern. Like, you see the character walk forward and stop. I could make him walk forward faster, then slow down, but it would look stupid and off sync to the reference video. What I’ve learned in this process is all the work is in the blocking. I should spend more time on the blocking process…. way more time.
Well, not satisfied with the walk for the class assignment, I worked on another ‘what I should have submitted’ — not complete — still blocking —- but in a perfect world, I would have sent in this one or something like it:
In effect, it’s a little like the snatch and grab animation I did some 6 or 7 years ago.
With this one, he’s eventually going to do the sprinter ‘set’, ‘ready’, and ‘go’ positions, some of it will be slow motion until he grabs the hat, complete a fast roll and come to a kneel in front of the cone.
Lol. No walking involved here. I was just thoroughly bored with the assignment I was kind of trapped into finishing.
I’ll get a ‘C’… whatever … moving onto the next assignment.
[Update] – Sure enough, I got a ‘C’. Don’t ask me what the hell that’s about.At the same time, I have to say, there are about two-three other classmates that have some astounding animation. I mean — work that’s clearly outside of this level of assignment and simply sensational. Cloth rigged. Added texture. Environments. All sorts of ‘extra’ outside of what we were supposed to do.
At the same time, if you look at previous semesters, they were in those classes, topo. So, if you remember a journal entry or two backward, I mentioned I reviewed other classes teachers and found them in the zoom videos. Interesting.
Meanwhile, I’m struggling with a walking character moving in a straight line.
Am I struggling through? I still don’t like anything I do — then when I see some of the other’s work, and how amazing it is, I can’t see the value in my own. Not at all. Then I get a ‘C’ and it completes the cycle.
Our instructor said that he believe’s everyone should take this particular course TWICE in order to properly get the techniques.
I would agree if he’s willing to pay $540 a month for me.
At my current rate, a ‘C’ student isn’t a failed student — and I’ll be damned to pay this monthly a second time for the same class that, if I need extra time to practice, I can learn from Pluralsight
But the goal is to keep moving forward.
For this class, I have to present and do more. Even though my life, at the moment, is a full plate.
