Wishfull Thinking

I opened up Gene Youngblood's "Expanded Cinema" once more and was amazed by the optimism in the book (it was published in 1970). On page 260 he writes about the coming expansion of the amount of channels available to viewers and how the advent of Community Antenna Television (CATV) will offer customers as many as eighty additional channels. He states: "Much of this programming obviously will constitute the personal aesthetic work to be discussed in this book". Video art on cable, multiple channels of it no less? Sweet! But didn't happen of course&hellip

The closest thing to a channel of time based art I have seen was broadcast on local cable in Amsterdam in the nineties and only at night time. That broadcast encouraged viewers to tape the entire show, stating "Steal This!". There may be quite a few now obsolete VHS tapes out there filled with Video Art.

Now I get it!

I always enjoyed animation but now I should also be able to comprehend its deeper meaning. Last night I finally finished reading Paul Wells' "Understanding Animation". There seems to be quite a bit wrong with it, but that did not keep me from enjoying it. There are not that many books out there taking a serious look at animation. If you do not mind having to skip pages, you can read most of in on Google Books

I did find it rather odd that he often referred to an animation as "text". Somehow his tools are not entirely adequate for the subject matter. Maybe that is why he in those instances focuses on animation which can be described, whose story can be translated into words. Cartoons that is. The book does cover a lot more though!

Eye Brain in Maya

I had been working on my Eye Brain animation in Lightwave 9.6. At school we switched to Maya, and so have I. To get an idea how much work it is to port the whole thing, I exported the last Lightwave Scene I created as FBX (using the standard settings) and imported that into Maya. Not too shabby! The first render came out all white since all the lights, which were all spotlights with falloff and shadow, were imported as point lights with no shadow or falloff. Most UV maps even came through, unfortunately only one per mesh though. Oh well.

To get everything back to where I was is going to take a while though. What to do, what to do…

Hello World (Working Title)

As promised, sketches for my new project that is currently filed under "Hello World (Working Title)"

These images of the initial character design and a pivotal scene from the beginning of the animation (the walls of the room / large cubicle fall down to reveal a big open space) were created during SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans. The story has evolved somewhat, but is nowhere near finalized. The screen is no longer attached to the guy, may be floating. The chair still is.

The world that is revealed could contain the Eye Brain…. The whole thing should be somewhat dream like.

Animate I Must!

And a happy 2010 to you too! I do remember last years resolution, so I had better get going and create new work. Now, I do have three project I could work on. Since it is (or was last week) the season for lists, here is one:

• The experiment that created the image for the previous post could yield a Multidimensional Eye Virus 3D, created in a 3D package in stead of a motion graphics package.


• I could convert the Eye Brain to Maya (The original brain model I created in Maya 1.0 back in 1999) and work on that animation. Do not like the story I have for it now though.


• I also have a new project in development. I am working on sketches, storyboards. Will need to build a lot of assets for it though, so will take quite a while to complete. Will post some of the stuff I have been working on for this project soon, the working title is "Hello World"

Whatever the project: Animate I will!

The image is taken from the University of Bremen and shows that there is no sea ice where my wife is heading. She left today