JWR on a Maya Trip

I'm not dead, yet.

2005-07-12T09:24:00.000+02:00

Oh what a very busy month I have just had. I have just finished the year and now on my so called holiday. Us teachers get nice long breaks. Right now I would love to be enjoying finishing the Mastering Maya course but I have a huge problem, my parents.

My parents have come to visit me from all the way from New Zealand. As this is their first trip anywhere they basicly need to be held by the hand at all times. They a pretty good though as they are willing to give me some time to work on the course.

It has been slow going. I have just completed shot1 in final render. Now I need to finish of shot two and shot 3 in lighting and then render the sucker out and I am done :)

I have learnt so much from this course you would not believe.

Tomorrow I am off to England until Monday so nothing will be done during that time. I hope today I can knock out all the lighting for shot 2 and three and get it ready to render.

I will update again on Tuesday Morning.

Long time no post

2005-06-28T11:18:00.000+02:00

Well, I know it has been a long time with no post but I have been busy with non-Maya things. Work has taken over. It has been so busy that Maya has had to take a back seat for a few days. This does not mean I have not been doing anything but I have not kept to my 3-4 hours a day plan which has been a disappointment.

Now that work has become less of a stress and I have more time I will be blogging what I am doing again. I find I am lacking motivation in the last few days. Last night I only put in 1 hour of work and I would not call that quailty work either. I have just about finished my animatics and I must finish it all by tonight.

I am still waiting for my videos to arrive. They should have been here by now so once again I am a bit dissappointed.

As you can see I am a bit grumpy right now so I will end this little blogging verbal shit and get back to what I should be doing.

Tomorrow expect a much happier and more detailed post.

Secret Squirrel Mission

2005-06-21T07:24:00.000+02:00

Mission : to build animatics of interesting type.
Completion: Very soon.

I have changed what my scene is going to be about. And sorry some people might have thought last night in the chat area they found out. nup, it all changed and I am not telling.

Want more news? Well bad luck cause I am not going to tell you. It’s a secret.

Captain we have a problem!

2005-06-19T10:48:00.000+02:00

I love nodes. I say this because at last I have learnt how to use them without being told.

In the alien model that I have just finished I wanted the eyes to focus. Being new to all of this I had no clue. Then while watching a video on rigging (which was completely off topic on rigging the eye focus) it hit me.

It was a simple link up. First I made a new attribute in the Alien control called eye focus. Basicly I linked (using connection editor) it up to the ramp that controled the eye. When I first did this it was very hard to control so I made a few changes and this time using nodes. I grabbed a set range node and gave myself a buffer for easier control.

What a great feeling. Working out how to do something with things that just sounded scarey for a long time. We were first introducted to nodes with a few hours of video. For that we had to complete an assignment just using nodes. I completed this but I still felt that I was unsure what I was doing. Next, we built the earth and here we used more nodes. Slowly I was starting to understand them. Now after rigging this very simple eye focus I love playing with them. Great, great feeling.

I am off to complete some animatics today. This is where you make a little video of what your scene should look like using stand in objects. It is a quick dirty way of testing the scene.

That's all folks.

Why, When, Where and What the fuck!

2005-06-16T13:44:00.000+02:00

School reports.
How many parents out there? If you a parent and you get school reports, all I can say is sometimes they are just an exerise done just to fill in boxes. I am finishing my reports for my class. Since I work at a private school I am expected to write more than I really need to. Each report is 11 pages long. All I can say is, I have better things to do. They have been a complete waste of time. The crap that teachers write is unbelievable.

Maya, I have been so busy I only completed one video. Not happy at all. Why can't I be a millionare?

Sorry not much more to say. My energy level is at 0.

Day 12,865,964

2005-06-15T09:03:00.000+02:00

Time, do we have enough in the day? I am thinking of asking God if he can extend the day by 6-10 hours and night by around 10 hours. I like my sleep and I don't feel like giving it up.

I am really loving this course. last night I just chatted on Buzznet trying to solve the problem of animated textures. After about an hour of discussing we never came up with an easy way. I think you could just use files like the console shaders activity and then just keyframe what textures I want to use. I want to see if you could use an avi as a texture. I found that you could by using the movie node but I could not find for the life of me where the frame extendsion on button was. I need this to turn the avi file on. When I told it to run by an expression I had no problems to start the avi but I want to start the avi running at a set time. Any renders that I did with an avi just turned out very poor. As I am making this, buzz has not explained how to use the movie node I was really just shooting in the dark. In the end I became fustrated and just left it. I am sure to come back to this soon as I am going to need it for my alien project.

From the course all I did was the cluster weight painting. I had to restart it three times before I started getting the hang of it. I watched the video more than once and found the trick that Buzz was using. after that it was much easier. I am by no means am I now a pro but it is not as hard as I first thought.

Not sure what I will get done tonight as I have work to finish by Thursday. Since work pays the bills they have to come before enjoyment. Damn it, why can't I just be rich so I don't have to work. :)

My plan for the alien project:

Space ship comes into view over Earth. I am thinking about have two spaceships but we will see there. The alien looks at a sign bobbing in the air pointing towards the Earth saying "earth pop: 6,000,000,000" He gets an evil thought and speeds off to the earth. (I did want the hitchikers guide to come out but I want to finish this project this year so I canned that idea)

Cut to the yard. The beachball is sitting in the sand pit. In bounces the talented ball right up to the beachball. he looks at her lovingly. Cut to under spaceship, doors open. cut back to the yard. The light goes on the beachball. talented ball pushes the beachball out of the way and gets dragged up (fighting all the way). TB (talented ball) get sucked into the alien ship. the ship flys off ... alien not a happy as him and TB are fighting (scene above the earth).

I have cut many ideas from this as I have to keep it short.

The day after yesterday and the day before tomorrow

2005-06-14T10:21:00.000+02:00

I have continued to work very hard on this course. I should get a picture of all the post-it notes I have through my note book. It is so much easier to read now.

I have seen some people not sure if they should take the course on the 3DBuzz forums becuase of the amount of time that this course takes. I can't lie, this course will take up a lot of your time but so far I have found it very do-able. I have a full time job where at this time of the year I am very busy but I have kept up with the work load.

I am working as hard as I can. I need to finish this course earlier than the given time. So to those that read this are worried about the speed that things are getting done, stop it and sign up now. If you think you can commit 3-4 hours a day then you will finish this course. I am not saying it will be easy but it will be a lot of fun on the way.

So far I have rigged the spaceship and rigged a lot of the alien. I just need to do a lot of tweeking tonight. At one point last night I found myself not understanding anything that Buzz was saying so I just went to bed. I guess doing 4 hours of learning can do that to you.

In the rigging videos it is just Buzz talking. I still find it interesting but I prefer to have zak along for the ride as they work very well together, it also keeps me awake after a hard days work. I'm not saying Buzz is boring, just that you get used to listening to 2 people, going to one if just different. Still learning, still much more to go. I'm dreaming Maya (damn you Buzz)!

I am loving this course.

If you are reading this and thinking of taking this course and you have a full time job, if I can do it so can you. Sign up!

This day is named after my fridge. Fridge Day

2005-06-13T08:25:00.000+02:00

Weekend over and back to a place without Maya. I think I have competely fried my brain once again. As I study differently I find my progress has slowed down to a point where I am getting nowhere fast. The thing is I think I understand what I am doing. The worst thing about all the hard study is that my parents are coming over to Germany on the 5th of June so during their stay I most likely will forget everything. Damn parents!

I finished the shading videos this weekend, not as far as I wanted to but I will live with it. I am giving myself 2 days to complete the 4 hours of rigging videos. Lets hope I can do it.

I still have a to do good shading network for my little alien. I have a few ideas what I am going to do. I will try it tonight.

I will post a picture of my spaceship and alien tomorrow.

Captains Log: day 12.86909645a

2005-06-12T11:43:00.000+02:00

I have now changed the way I wish to study for this course. In the first project I followed along as I wrote notes. When I look back at those notes they don't help me very much because I was just following along rather than taking good detailed notes. When trying to do many of the things that were taught in project one I felt that I have not learnt it to the degree I would have liked. Sure, I could go back and watch them all again but will I do that?

So I have a new plan. I must watch the videos first, taking notes as I go along. Once the video is finished I have to follow my notes to complete the task. If I am unsure of something I look back at the video and then update my notes.

Once I have recreated the scene I then start all over again trying to do as little as I can without the notes. After I have made the scene I do it all over again not touching the notes at all.

I have had two benefits coming from this. I am understanding what I am doing (nodes are ok I guess) and I am getting much faster.

The only con of this is that it takes a long time to do but I want to learn Maya, not just follow along what other people can do.

I spent all Saturday doing one thing, The Earth. Simple, many of you that are not on the course might be thinking but not when you find out what we have been taught. Firstly, this is not just a sphere with a full texture on it. It is layers of textures that I have control over. Below you will see an animation of what completed. Sorry about the speeding up at the end, I set it rendering last night and I didn't notice that extra key frame. Oh, the earth is the right way up!

notice:

- The earth gets darker and lighter and it rotates

- Mountain, cloud bump

- Specular only on ocean

- City lights that turn off at day time (they turn on at night too)

- The blue glow (atmosphere) around the earth.

The rotating Earth

Day something and rather (11 and 12)

2005-06-11T02:01:00.000+02:00

Oh my head! Thursday was my personal hell night and this time it had nothing to do with nodes or learning basic maths. I spent my night watching 5 to 11 years olds singing and playing the recorder. My mental synapses were completely shot after watching 100 untuned voices mimic something that some might call music. Right after this explosion of sound I made a bee line to the closest pub for a long cold beer (and a place where children were not allowed).

Friday did not go much better. After waking up to find my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth, I had to head back to work. After spending my day finding a magnitude of different ways to entertain a group of tired children I tried once again to get my head into learning Maya.

As drool dripped from my lips as I slept on my keyboard I slowly began to realise that the video, intro to advanced shaders, that had been playing on my computer was not even penetrating into my thick skull, I decided that Maya learning in this state was pointless and headed off to bed for a power nap. Of course, this power nap turned into a full nights sleep.

Quote of the day (after explaining about my need to take all 4 of the advanced courses 3DBuzz has planned) “Do you think you will remember who I am by this time next year?” – Julia Roos, my lovely girlfriend (referring to the hours I spend with my headphones on not talking to her)

Lets hope Saturday brings better fortunes for learning.

Day double figures (10)

2005-06-09T07:20:00.000+02:00

Last night I didn’t manage to get much done. I finished off the basic shaders videos and my scene. I was meaning to start the advance shading section but I became preoccupied with … buzznet chat.

It started like most days, when I arrive home I kiss my girlfriend and tell her that she looks lovely (this get me on her good side), next I log onto Buzznet and fire up the Maya chat room. I often stay here for 5-10 minutes at a start just to run a few errands like insulting cleaner and make fun of any silly Belgian’s. The off I go to the Video and learn stuff. After every hour I log back into the chat area for my rest time.

Yesterday was different. It all started the same way as normal, I kissed my girlfriend and told her she was lovely, logged onto the chat and insulted cleaner but then it all went pear shaped. I couldn’t stop! I found myself insulting, being made fun of, talking hockey with csfer, discussing my point of view of American women and British women; both ugly but I think American women are fatter. Basically, I wasted a good two hours chatting away but I enjoyed myself.

I listened to Buzz’s radio message. He is having a hard time with injuries and by the sounds of it, the American medical system. When talking to the Buzz community, they were very supportive and I for one am hoping that his body will heal without surgery. Buzz, you have given us more time now so take a rest or you will end up with bung body parts like me, stupid knees. Sir (and mighty good looking) Zak said he might have to take over for Buzz while he is healing. Zak is just the best and …. Insert other butt kissing comments here.

At about 10pm my time, after countless hours of trying to get away, I started working on the Maya course. I finished the basic shading. At the end of the videos Buzz mentioned that after the advance shading videos I will be able to improve the yard scene. My goal this weekend it to improve everything I see. I will take that challenge.

There won’t be much of an update tomorrow as tonight I am busy watch my student sing badly for their concert. Afterwards I will need a drink.

Until next time,
JWR

Day 9

2005-06-08T07:26:00.000+02:00

I have finished making the back yard and added some colour in the back yard scene. As there were no more videos I stopped there for the night and went to bed.

This morning I have noticed the next set of videos are ready so I'm looking forward to learning how to use adv shaders.

In the next two days I won't be able to do much on my scene as I have school work to do. Firstly, I have stupid school reports to finish writing and then on Thursday night I have to be at the school concert watching my class sing a few songs. I feel I need some Red Balls to keep me going.

When this course is over I think I will have to go over many videos again. I feel some information is going in one eye and floating out my ears after 10 minutes. I do remember when I look at my notes but things like softbodies just hasn't fixed in my piddly little brain yet.

That is all I have to say today, back tomorrow with an update and some pictures. Thanks maharzan

edit: I showed my students what I am doing today. Even though I am not impressed with my efforts of the bouncing ball they thought it was cool. I am going to make that bouncing ball again when I find the time. Of course I will post it here. Now I just have to find time!

Day 8

2005-06-07T07:28:00.000+02:00

Tonight I finished my alien and his (na, screw it, HER) spaceship model. It was a fun exerise. To complete the model wasn't like normal 3DBuzz VTM's where you learn everything by making the model. The first thing we did was go over some of the main tool sets that we were going to use. Buzz amd Mr Zak gave a quick run down on how the tool works. I am sure they did this just so I would fill more pages of my note book. I have found the way I like to work which is through the shelf and the hotbox, mostly everything else is turned off.

Once those videos had been watched it was off to using the tools to build my little alien and her spaceship. I added a little more detail just for fun. I didn't know much about how to add detail to NURBs before this but I am starting to learn now.

I have handed the model in and have passed. Next I have to model the playground on Earth. I am already thinking about how I can change this to make it look better. I have something in mind that I might add to my final scene but I am keep it under my hat (can't have Neelz stealing my ideas).

Loving the course as I feel more a part of a community now. The Buzznet ap helps out so much with this.

Buzz will need to send a letter with my CD's saying sorry to my girlfriend. She isn't a happy camper that I am spending all my hours enjoying myself. She is German so she believes that having fun is wrong, and of course I am writing this when she is not around cause she would beat me up (please I need the letter) :).

I need to learn how to add pictures to a blog. If the guys who know can drop me a line I will start adding pictures of what I have done to my blog.

well, time for work, until next time.

Day 7

2005-06-06T08:26:00.000+02:00

I have now started project 2. Buzz and crew go through NURBS in this project. It seems like a very good project to do, much harder than the talented ball.

I worked very hard on the course during the weekend and my brain feels a little fried so I won't write much. I finished the Colour Wheel which took me a day and a bit to do. Understanding the nodes was the easy part, remembering basic maths was the hard part. BUzz has now put up 3 more projects on nodes which I wil have to try out.

So far I have watched all the videos for project two up to the modeling part. It was full on trying to remember all the things they said but since I am writing notes as they talk it makes it much easier later.

My workflow is speeding up. I am comparing the tools from Max to Maya a lot. If anyone knows how to hinge from an edge in Maya let me know.

Other than that, I need a sleep.

Day 6

2005-06-05T00:42:00.000+02:00

the Colour Wheel is out the door. I understand the nodes but when I have to use them oh god it was hard on my poor little brain. You have to remember simple maths for this to work. It became my problem as being a primary teacher you forget the simple stuff like -1 * 1 = a negative!!! oh god, I will need a good sleep after this one.

The buzznet community is great. everyone helps each other out and keeps you motivated during the hard times (damn nodes).

Day 4

2005-06-02T21:39:00.000+02:00

More video's and more work to be done.

I have finished my talented ball project. After looking at what other people have done I feel a little down that I didn't put more work into it. I had so many good ideas but my lack of knowledge of how to move them around prevented me from doing more cool stuff. I learnt a lot from this project and I am hoping that it will pass. I did have some problems with some frames not doing what I asked them to do but I found a work around.

The main things I picked up here was how to use the animation graph editor, how to set keys, set driven keys (which I love) expression (again very cool) and a lot of cool hints and tips with rendering and shading.

My note book is looking a bit messy so now I am reorganising it so I can understand the important points later.

I have now started on Section 3 - the Maya Architecture - Theory. In the first lesson the crew looked into the two types of graphs. The Directed Acydic Graph (DAG) and the Depency Graph (DG). These are all about nodes and which nodes you find in each graph. The second lesson was about Network Dataflow. It discussed how nodes send data to each other and how important it is to notice which way the data is flowing.

These current videos are all theory. I am building nothing here but in saying that I find it very important to understand what happens when I do things within Maya.

The assignment for this current project seems very hard as I have seen no one pass it yet. I think I have seen 5 people fail. I hope I will understand it enough to get a pass the first time but I won't be upset if I don't as the feedback you get back from Buzz and Zak is A+.

The feedback is all in video form for everyone. They give you a two minute run down on what you did well and what you can improve next time. The best thing is you can see other peoples feedback so you can learn from their mistakes. In the colour wheel assignmnet we can not see the feedback though.

All in all, it is going good. I am keeping up with my peers and still have good energy left to keep going hard.

until tomorrow goodnight.

Day 3

2005-06-01T07:29:00.000+02:00

As I have no videos to watch and I was very tired, I past out at 7:30pm. So I did nothing today. I am planning on doing more tonight (Wednesday).

Day 2

2005-05-31T07:01:00.000+02:00

Finished all of the project 1 video's. Since it is past 12am it is now Tuesday.

I have learnt a lot so far and it has only just began. I am glad I have done all of the project as I need a few early nights so when the next bunch of videos arrive I will be fresh. I also think I better spend some time with my girlfriend.

I am now going to make the Talented Ball a little longer doing a few things that I have learnt. So far I have used expressions to control the bend and next will make the ball go a little crazy.

Tuesday nights plan:
- storyboard remaining animation.
- start putting remaining animation together.

Please leave comments and tell me where you are up to.

If you are not taking the course but are thinking about it, beg, borrow or steal the money to do this course as it will raise your skills faster than you can say "insert something witty here".

Day1

2005-05-30T00:06:00.000+02:00

Wow, doesn't time fly. I have just about completed the animation section of project 1. All I have to do now is create an automation rig for my little guy. once that is done I will be off to ad some colour to my talented ball.

Buzz and Zak have held my hand through all of this. Some parts I have gone through very quickly because before the course I was trying to learn as much about Maya as I could. I have found that wasn't needed because these guys are going through everything very slowly. Since I know some things at times it is too slow but I am not complaining.

Unlike many other tutorials that Buzz.om has done, they are not always working on the current scene. Often they step away to explain a concept in detail before applying that idea into the scene. Because of this approach I have learnt a boat load and my little note book is looking very messy. I am glad I have the videos so I can go back over many things here another day. If the course didn't have so many hours of video to watch I would be taking my time more with each topic but I am pushing myself to complete everything under the time limit (5 weeks).

I am really enjoying the course right now and the Buzz crew has done a good job.

2005-05-28T13:02:00.000+02:00

I have downloaded the first videos and watched all the intro movies. Next, I am starting project 1 tomorrow as I promised my girlfriend this Saturday to her.

On a quick review on what I see, it is bloody good. The videos are fun to watch and Buzz and Zak's wit and chemistry keep you motivated to watch the next video.

If they keep up the energy throughout the course I think watching the 65+ hours will not be as hard as it sounds.

Next update will be Sunday.

Intro and the first set of news

2005-05-27T05:20:00.000+02:00

Hi there, my name is James Rodgers and I am about to start on an adventure of completing a Maya Fundamentals course that has 70 hours of video content and work to be done on top. All of this has to be completed within 5 weeks. I am not sure how I will last so here is a little blog to let you know which part of my body gives up first. The course is being offered my www.3dbuzz.com

There is a lot of fear for many people taking this little mind drumming course, myself being one. Since we are the first bunch of people we have no idea what to expect. From some of the messages that have been from Zak and Buzz (they two guys offering the course) it sounds as if they want to push us until we pop and then push us some more.

I believe I will be able to cope but of course I will need support by all you out there. Engines are about to be started.

Buzz has just posted that in a few hours he will send out the links to the first round of video's.

2005-05-26T23:20:00.000+02:00

After waiting a few hours on a Thursday night I had to call it quits and hope that tomorrow morning brings the links.

no doubt the link will arrive as soon as my head hit the pillow.