VTS discount sale extended one week

I've had some folks ask if I could extend the sale into January a little bit so they could get some VTS videos at the huge discount price. There's been good response to the sale, so my inner Scrooge can't really see a good reason not to extend it. So there you go-- the 75% (or more) off sale on VTS back issues will be extended until January 7th. That way if you did the nice thing and spent all your money on holiday gifts for your friends and loved ones in December, now you can blow a little of that money on yourself. Or, if you neglected to get a holiday gift for the animator in your life, you can now try and make up for it and claim that you're really celebrating something like the Greek Orthodox Christmas on January 7th instead. Or for your Armenian friends that'd be January 6th. No matter what, we got you covered. Anyhow, after the 7th the prices will go back up. Thanks again to everybody for the support over the years.

Storyboards

Here are a few panels from a story animatic I just finished cutting together.

What does this mean? What are these for? We'll see what 2011 looks like.
Happy New Year to all and may you all find God's best for you this next year.

Xtranormal starts charging to make & post content....

I (sardonically) talked about this software some time back. Regardless of what animation pros think of it, Xtranormal seems to have gained quite a user base and following. But with popularity comes cost. From Yahoo news...

Animation website Xtranormal — whose cartoon-making tools have spawned viral videos of cuddly puppies debating such topics as quantitative easing and the iPhone in stilted monotones — is no longer offering free, unlimited use of its tools.
The change reflects the higher costs of running Xtranormal as the site's popularly grew.
More than 2 million people now use its simple moviemaking tools, up from about 500,000 in June. According to Xtranormal, those users have published about 9.3 million videos so far. Some of the videos have received thousands or even millions of views, further boosting Xtranormal's popularity and usage.

This will be interesting to watch develop. I recall having some lively conversations a few years back with friends in the media biz and stating that the day will come when the cost for user-made content will shift from the consumer (via micro-payments, paywalls, ads, subscriptions, etc.) to the producer. my logic was simple- hosting these things costs a lot of money and somebody has to pay for it since viewers have proven rather unwilling to do so. A ton of hot social media sites are facing this issue. Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Youtube is a bit of an exception since it has the Google sugar-daddy to keep it in heels and fur, but for the rest it's not as simple. How do you make money and not sacrifice the user experience which was so vital to getting popular enough to survive the start-up and attract some nice Series A capital investment from VCs? The Dot.Com boom of the late 90's taught us that investors are only so willing to keep pouring money into hot online spaces with no real business plans. As noted, consumers of user-created content have shown little willingness to pay for content and online ad rates are so depressed that only the largest of aggregators (ie: Google) can survive on the micro-finance level of online ads. Sooner or later someone was bound to try and see if the content makers would be willing to pony up some cash in order to have access to the big microphone that is the internet. Vanity publishing goes digital age.

A reminder...

"At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant.
And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.
That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”


Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them."


Wishing you and yours the very best this Christmas.

It's not Maya, but hey....

.. for non animator folks this CrazyTalk Animator app could be interesting. I think tools democratization is an interesting thing. It certainly doesn't remove the need for talent or skill in story telling (no more than using a word processor makes you a better writer), it just removes barriers. Certainly not suitable for all needs, but I could see it being a fun way to do a quick little short film. Watch the cheesy promo video below.

Call me crazy, but I like this trailer...

Who knows if the movie will be any good, but they've succeeded in getting me interested. Indeedy.

Yeah, I'm behind a day or so....

Meet Buck from TeamCerf on Vimeo.


Lots of fun stuff to look at. It's a good example of animation on 1's mixed with a natural media type rendering style that works- mainly because the animation is pretty over the top. Most typical on 1's CG animation when mixed with natural media emulation just comes off wrong. Congrats to the crew.

VTS December blow out sale!

In time for the holidays I'm offering an absolutely bonkers blow out sale on the entire catalog of back issue Video Tutorial Service (VTS) animation training videos in my online store. For those of you who don't know, the VTS videos were made over the course of 5 and a half years where I made a new video each month for my paid subscribers. Earlier this year I shut down the subscription service due to work obligations and time constraints, but the videos are still available as back issues. Overall there are 64 videos (the first two I made are free on my Youtube channel), covering a ton of different topics on animation. Each video is about 45 minutes long on average, so we're talking about nearly 60 hours of animation training videos (that's a lot of video). Anyhow, the regular price for each back issue VTS video is $18.95, but starting today the price has been slashed by almost 75% to just $4.95 each. 

That's not a typo. Each VTS video is now under $5. You think that's crazy, wait until you hear this: If you buy all all 60+ videos in a bundle you can get them for $3.95 each, or $240.00. What does Otto think of these prices?

Even Schmitty is at a loss for words....

So if you never got any VTS videos now is your chance to get them. Did you buy some in the past, but couldn't get as many as you wanted? Now is the perfect time to complete your collection. Has downloading them from a pirate torrent left you feeling guilty? A clear conscience has never been so cheap!  Heehee. 

So if you're an animator, an animation student, or even just mildly interested in animation- this is the deal for you. Want to get a cool, practical holiday gift for the animator in your life? VTS videos are the way to go. Purely 100% digital delivery means no wrapping or postage. I'd even say these videos will make you a better person/laundry washer/lover/pet owner, but I don't want to over-reach.

Anyhow, even if you're not interested in getting any VTS videos, feel free to pass on the news. The prices are scheduled to go back to normal Jan 1st, 2011, so get cracking!

TD Matt blog

Matt Stoneham, a Sr. TD at Ninja Theory, has started up a good blog for those of you who are into rigging and other TD type stuff. He offers up some cool detailed how-to's, scripts and such. Some nifty nuggets for sure. There's not enough of these types of blogs out there, if you ask me. Definitely check it out...

http://td-matt.blogspot.com/

Citrus Cel Animation festival call for entries

This rolled through my inbox recently and I thought I'd share it.

Citrus Cel Animation festival is in its second year and they're looking for animation to showcase. Anything made in the previous 2 years works for them. There's no entrance fee (which is cool) and it seems they have a schedule of speakers and events surrounding the fest as well. Could be neat. Find out more at http://www.citruscel.com.

email

I get a lot of email.
I kinda always have, really. The problem is that lately it's been increasingly difficult to answer it all. In fact, it's pretty much become impossible. And it has been for at least a year if not more. Between work, family, other life commitments, APT students-- I just don't have the time to get to everybody's email. Going forward I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything. Please don't take it personally, though. I appreciate everybody taking the time to write me.

So if you sent me a kind note of thanks- thank you so much! If you sent me a demo reel to get some feedback on, I apologize, but I just don't have the time to look at all the reels I get sent to me. If you sent me an email asking for career or school advice, I apologize if I couldn't answer you. I try my best, but I am but a solitary man and the days only have 24 hours. I feel like a heel not being able to reply to everybody.

In the meantime I am going to try the three sentences approach to email and see if that helps me. I don't have high hopes, though. :(

Les Metiers

Very charming! I love the simple (but robust) character designs. Animation style isn't overly fluffy, but it doesn't need to be. Nicely done.


LES METIERS : LE BOULANGER from lam le thanh on Vimeo.


Found via 3dTotal.com

Manfred

I liked this little short by Arjen Klaverstijn. Nice style, simple idea, clear characters. Pretty solid for student work.


'Manfred' an animated short by Arjen Klaverstijn from Arjen Klaverstijn on Vimeo.


found via 3dtotal.com

Portal 2 - Co-op Trailer

Valve finally got around to releasing our latest Portal 2 trailer on their YouTube channel. I've been neck deep in this project since last Christmas. This trailer features some really sterling work by some amazingly talented folks. The bots were designed, modeled & textured by Tristan Reidford, rigged (mostly) by yours truly, animated by Andrew Burke, Noel McGinn, Matthew Russel, Mike Belzer and (again) yours truly. Andrew also acted as a kind of director/editor for the trailer- well, as much as anybody I suppose. Things like this are very much a collaborative creative effort at Valve. Mike Morasky composed the music, Gautam Babbar did a bunch of environment development as well as the killer final test-chamber in the trailer. Others contributed as well- too many to list here- since the trailer leverages a ton of in-game assets. The entire thing was rendered in our Source game engine using our Source Film Maker tool, previously used on the Meet the Team shorts for TF2 and the Left4Dead trailers. Not too shabby for a game engine render, huh? The trailer was shown at our theater style booth during the recent Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) game convention here in Seattle.

The game is an absolute blast to play (both single player and co-op), and so far it's been a ton of fun working on it. It's scheduled for release on Feb 9th 2011. The trailer is linked here, but go check it out in full HD glory on YouTube.

abAutorig part I Pyro tutorial :Animation with a moustache

Former APT student Olivier Ladeuix has put together a nice collection of rigging video tutorials based on the abAutorigger from Supercrumbly. It's a pretty good system for those who want to rig up their own characters, but may not be riggers at heart. Olivier does a nice job of thoroughly stepping through the process. Super extra bonus points because he uses my favorite TF2 character, too! (which is another reason I dig Valve- we release our rigs and assets to the world to play with. Not many [any?!] film studios are willing to do that.)

Here's his first part (there are 4 parts to the entire series).

abAutorig Tutorial Part I from Olivier L. on Vimeo.

Be sure to check it out.

Values in a Drawing- Mark Kennedy

Another great post from Mark Kennedy's Temple of Seven Golden Camels blog- this one on how to use values in your drawings to heighten and carry a scene. This has come at a very handy time for me as I'm curently boarding out a short film idea. My drawings are crappy enough as it is, so any trick or technique that can help me convey an idea is like gold from a camel to me. Check it out and learn.

On making a short film...

On the surface, this blog post from Software by Rob on surviving the 'danger points' in running a startup business have absolutely nothing to do with making a personal short film. But if you replace a few key words ("startup" for "film" for example) I think there's a lot of solid advice involved. I say this because from my experience I've found that making a short film is in many respects very much like starting up a new company. Some good excerpts. First, on choosing an idea...

But if you tend to over-think your decisions, then choosing a product idea is going to take months…nay, years. That’s right – odds are high that by the time you figure out what you want to build you could have built and launched multiple products in the same time frame.

I'm definitely guilty of this. The goal is to get something done. I often get bogged down doubting if what I want to do is even worth doing. Classic over-thinking.
And on budgeting your workload...

The first way to combat this [problem] is to have a detailed feature list and an estimate for every task on that list. This list should include marketing tasks and anything else you need to get through your launch date. This list will be large; likely 80-120 lines long. With an estimate for each item you should be looking at 400-600 hourstotal. For everything. If you’re over 600 hours you need to cut something.

Anyhow, check it out. Might be handy.

Skhizein

This was should have been nominated for an Oscar a little while back. And for good reason. It's really just brilliant.
(ht: Bob in the comments on straightening me out on the nom mistake)

Fun films I've seen whilst strolling the intra-nubs

Something refreshingly different from Gobelins



And a Sheridan effort...

APT registration is now open

This is for the October 2010 class. Here's the page to sign up. Hope to see you there. :)