After Effects Update: Dear Diary, I need a rest.

This is another "Dear Diary" rant. 

This past couple of weeks have been the most stressful in my life. I did touch on this in my last post.

However I have just had a weekend away from my screens and all university work, to do my seasonal job. It was actually a welcome relief- i thought i would absolutely hate going back to my job, but it was a different kind of stress, a more manageable kind of stress. The kind that you can actually do something about, rather than have it loom over you like a deadline. 

From the past couple of weeks and my obligatory weekend halt. I have realized I do actually need to stop and get away from all my work and screens when I feel them consuming me, or else i go into a cycle of just mentally torturing myself; tricking myself into believing I have been productive but really all i did was put the laundry on and draw a doodle. 

I have now put into my packed schedule Netflix, gaming and craft nights so I can just actually relax. Just designating a couple of hours of 'not work' i think will really help. Where as before I will be forever chipping away 24/7 at my work. 

In other news:

I have just handed in my draft Methodology and Literature review, which has given me more air to breathe. Although i think the draft is really bad and sketchy, i know I have at least made progress. The deadline was today. 

I have missed most of my Halloween celebrations due to work/deadlines. But there will be next year. 

"Dear Diary..."

I just wanted to take a moment to step back from everything I have been doing since the start of the academic year for a small breather, to collect my thoughts.
This post is more of a 'dear diary' rant. Feel free to ignore.

I have been thinking long and hard about what I want to do for a career and it honestly terrifies me, I have always known I need to be in the art/media industry but I have these bouts (like I assume many other artists do) of feeling worthless and pathetic or just not good enough at what I do.

Today I have been to the first animation grill I have ever been too (an animation grill is place to get your work critiqued by people in industry and make connections).
I know this is where I belong, but perhaps in illustration or concept design. I don't feel I am ready yet to take the plunge into animation as a career, maybe I will when the year it up but that is quite a while away. I have also been contemplating doing a masters if I don't feel ready yet.

My first step is to get known; I need to make all my social media coherent and upload more of my work; nobody will know of me if I don't post it- kind of obvious, but I never really post much of my work. And I need to update my blogs consistently.

My second move will be building up my portfolio and show reel this year and taking things to the monthly grill. I am aiming to go under some major character development and just kind of pull my finger out and get stuff done!

To tie all this together I am sticking to a rigid timetable and hoping that it will pay off in the long run. To get on top of all my work that I have neglected doing so far, either through panicking about it or having no time in the day.

Recently my life has been very hectic and busy. The roller coaster that I am on feels like it is currently low and upside-down. It is just the usual things getting me down; finance and work getting on top of me and other none uni related issues. But I do tend to wallow in it and keep everything bottled up until I pop. I'm going to change it though, onward and upwards!

Righto, time to get some stuff done!

Update #2 Business & Animation

Business
14-10-16



Animation
14-10-16
My projects is about 70% complete I started it today, i justa have a few more things to fix tomorrow and iam going to do all the coding tomorrow so i have time to fix it. However an issue i repeatedly keep bumping into, Flash (animate) keeps crashing and i have no idea why. I have nie folders, i don'tt have as musch stuff as other people, i know there is a lot going one but Flash should be more duarble than that surely.
todolist for tomorrow:



15-10-16
For context: I have a cat sat on a shelf, it has an on going animation of its tail swinging off the edge of the shelf on loop, i am trying to demonstrate that i can use the bone too (this project is about what you know not specifically the quality of the animation). Context-context: the Bone tool is pretty much what it says, you have an image, in this instance a tail and you can use the tool to put 'bones' inside the tail, this them makes it so yor static unanimated iamge felxible and you can then move it to and bend it to where you please as if it has bones and joints.
My issue: I have tried and tried and treid, to get eh bone tool to work today, what should of been a 5 miute job has turned into a 3 hour job and i just can't think what is wrong, i have checked every single thing for a mistake and there are none. It just doesn't want to work.
update on the chrashing software, it is getting beond rediculous now, it crashes every half an hour or so i'm glad it has the recovery function but it is so stupid, espcially when it takes longer than a minute to save. I just dont know what i am doing differntly to other people, as they dont seem to have that issue.
the only thin that iahve done differetnly on this one is have a bitmap fill (basically, a fill that is an image).

I am literally having a timeout to write this becuase I am so frustrate that teh bone tool simply won't work. I am going to give it ONE last try then i am animating it.

and another thing that is super getting on my nerve, even though it has just save my life, id auto save every five minutes!! please how do you turn it off!!!



Half an hour later, no ia m animating hte damn thing. bone tool you suck.

I have a strong opinion on Flash/Aniamte
most of it is bad, just to my experinece surrently, but i do see its potential and hope that iwill use it again in the not to distant furture, but it really has some issues that need attending.
I lovethe coding and especiall making custome cursors that is great! but there are the little things that need changing, maybe take a couple og leaves of other softwares books.

Google Doodle

Flash/Animate Research

Videos on Flash

·         annotated notes on the video and my own tests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM_svH50fmM&list=PLDlmSvJODS_JHa6rax-gxKleCe44G4Opq&index=1 Growing vines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELwNvq3n_a4&list=PLDlmSvJODS_JHa6rax-gxKleCe44G4Opq&index=2 Fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64iA7lKQU5Q&list=PLDlmSvJODS_JHa6rax-gxKleCe44G4Opq&index=3 Elemental fire/magic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q9gCeRK6dg&list=PLDlmSvJODS_JHa6rax-gxKleCe44G4Opq&index=4 follow the cursor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uQwgwlIcOc&list=PLDlmSvJODS_JHa6rax-gxKleCe44G4Opq&index=5 How to make eyes follow the cursor.

Written tutorials on Flash

30.9.16

http://blogs.adobe.com/animate/welcome-adobe-animate-cc-a-new-era-for-flash-professional/

http://www.angryanimator.com/word/

Research on industry

Looking at flash in industry: a list of cartoons that have used flash.

 How else has flashed been used ?

Google Doodles

I have looked at lots of the creations on the google doodle page mainly for inspiration and what kind of interactions are generally in a google doodle. Although some are not Flash I found them super helpful for ideas

https://www.google.com/doodles/day-of-the-dead-2014

Day of the dead video…

https://www.google.com/doodles/halloween-2014

This doodle is lots and lots of different animated doodles, just refresh the page to see the rest of them.

https://www.google.com/doodles/halloween-2013

I love this one, it shows how much interaction Google allow. It is very fun and entertaining.

There are more inspiring doodles in the PowerPoint document, they are gifs so I couldn’t put them in a document and describe what I liked about them at the same time.

My Ideas

Storyboards/Thumbnails

Side not for self look up Yoann Lossel 

Flash/Animate Animation: Update

Just an update with my Animation process today.

Brief: Create an interactive Google Doodle.
The Due date is 17th October!

Just a few photos of my Planner. 

Being as I am nearly at the end of the project I'll just go ahead and post where I am up to.
I have an idea, have done numerous test when I was researching Flash/Animate and also looked into how it is used the industry. Now i think i have a substantial amount of tests, I reread the brief to see if i was missing anything, besides the final product.
I may attempt an animatic, however being as my idea is mostly interactive, I am not sure how to do this in animatic form. Besides i have a simple storyboard of how i want things to go and how things will work and I have done the appropriate tests to prepare for my final piece.

Every day I have a day plan that I stick to as well as an online hourly schedule - this year i just wanted to prepared for everything. My plan this far is to start my production tomorrow (Thursday 13th) and working through the rest of my to-do-list; I am still contemplating the style I want to go for, being as I'm not well practiced at Flash yet, I'm thinking simple and clean even though my usual style is a bit 'scruffy' or grungy.

Water Colour styles

I am currently looking at styles today, however my original plan was to go into Uni and power thorough making some extra last minute tests (pretty ones to show that I can actually make pretty tests). But I am here writing my blog and tying up loose bits of my project because there are currently not many computers left.

 As it stands I think I am on time, I am only lacking exploration of styles, but I know I need to keep it simple enough to put in Flash. I have considered having "cut out" style but I don't think that would be appropriate at this stage.
I will think about it.

Simple and bold 

Back to University Update

Hello!

Just a small update on my 3rd Year at University, studying Animation!
We have been plunged straight in to working this year, we have practical, critical and business.

For Practical we are using Flash to create an interactive Google Doodle this is due next week so i will be updating again on that soon!

In Critical we are starting our dissertations! It is super scary and i have kind of put it on a back burner for the minute, but still doing little bits as and when I can. I will be doing updates every so often on this.

Finally we have a new module this year, Business. It is perhaps the scariest lecture I have, as it is preparing us for our future and we have to really think where we are going to be and what we are going to be doing when we leave university. I will probably updating my breakdown regularly.

I have other things going on at the side of uni this year, so there should be some updates on my general life as well.


That is all for now!