Not been blogging this thanksgiving week. Too busy animating. Made quite a bit of progress: scene 3 is rendered and scene 4 is almost animated. And scene 5 will be the final one!
The image to the right is not from my animation, but something I created while testing rendering options in Lightwave, the software used in one of the classes I am teaching this fall. And if enough students enroll, again in Spring!
Reviewing what I have been rendering of scene 3 so far, I found out the way I build the flower for my animation is problematic: the 3D program XSI is not consistent in resolving the solution for its leaf, making it shift in between render passes. But I have work-around for it, I think. It involves rendering one shot backwards so at least the end position of that flower leaf is consistent. The image shows a first full composite of scene 3. Have been animating quite a bit on Scene 4 as well over the weekend. But all progress is slow.
I have sort of thought up a new ending to my animation. I need to figure out how much work creating it will be. And I should probably change the title.
Reading it, everything seemed quite familiar. Okay, the book is almost half a millennium old, so I should not be surprised. But I think that its reasoning has become so engrained in Dutch culture that reading the book is akin to meeting an old friend. And that's always enjoyable!
I did not know he was friends with Thomas More, whose Utopia is a classic still on my to read list. Time for the bookstore!
With scene 3 of my animation I am now in the stage where the computer has to do a lot of work for me: rendering the images. First up: the lighting passes. This means that animation-wise I'm moving on to scene 4 finally.
That's the name of the play I just saw at the Dreamcatcher Repertoire Company, where I occasionally volunteer hanging lights. A review can be read here, which I luckily read after seeing the play for it is one of those extreme spoiler reviews, albeit a very positive one. It was indeed a very fast and witty performance that had the occasional deep meaningful moment always immediately interrupted with a quirky remark. Happy to have seen this very funny play.
Image shows actress and artistic director Laura Ekstrand, from the linked review
Did I mention I spend most of today working on my animation?
... is the best state to be in. Said Anthony Hopkins during today's lunchtime rerun of Tavis Smiley. I think he also referred to it as "making scambled eggs of your thoughts". Why is it a good thing? Because it makes you reassess everything, makes you get out of the usual hypnosis. I think that is what I would like my animation or videos to do: turn your brain into an omelette and serve it for breakfast
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