About four months ago I received an HTC Flyer. I am a 3D Animation Professor, a Student and Tech Enthusiast. As an art student, I wanted a  tablet that I could not only take notes on but also sketch in. The HTC flyer was the perfect fit. If you have ever tried to use your finger to paint or sketch on a tablet, you know how difficult and unnatural it feels to create an image.  I find my finger is too big. Where is the point of my finger? Where does the line I’m going to create start? etc. Sometimes it can feel like you are creating cave paintings.  With the Scribe, it has a point like a pencil.  You don’t have to get an after market capacitive touch pen that has almost as big of a tip as a finger. HTC recently updated the Flyer to Honeycomb.  With this update, many features of pen based navigation and creation has been improved tremendously.  The Flyer in combination with Autodesk’s Sketchbook Mobile is the perfect combination to getting ideas out quickly and sending them out via email if needed. The note taking ability of the Flyer is incredibly useful as well.  I am able to record my lectures and take notes at the same time.  While taking notes, the Flyer makes bookmarks in the time line so that when I’m reviewing my notes, I can quickly go back and hear what the professor was saying at that exact time.  I don’t have to type my notes with the keyboard if I don’t want, I can write with the Scribe just as I would a pen to regular paper. There is a down side that I wish that in this app, the buttons would move to the top of the screen so that my hand does not accidentally press the home or back button, but overall I love being able to use it like traditional pen and paper. There is also an option to be able to save and sync your notes online which allows them to be accessible from my phone or any computer with an Internet connection. Also as a student you don’t want to have to carry more than you have to. I don’t have to bring a big spiral note book any more. I just pack my Flyer and books.  I also really enjoy the seven inch form factor.  The main reason being it is big enough to see and interact with the device, but it is not too big that I have to treat it like a book.  It is thin and small enough that I can easily slip the Flyer into a jacket or jeans pocketI

As a Professor of 3D Animation, I was looking to have the Flyer enhance the way I teach.  What I have found is that I am able to critique students and give them feedback on their work visually rather than just trying to explain what I mean.  For instance, in 2D animation, the professor could essentially draw on top of a student’s work to show them the correction or place a piece of paper over the student’s work and draw the corrected frame.  In either case, the incorrect frame is visible at the same time the corrected frame is shown.  In 3D If I were to try and correct a student’s work, I would have to explain the correction of the animation, or physically move the character to show the student how I feel it should be animated.  I can’t write on the screen to show the correction, so what I have done is to use the Flyer’s camera to take an image of the animation and then use drawing capability to show students how I think their character should move in order to get a believable action.  This has been a tremendous help in having students see the proper timing and spacing of their character’s movements! I have included some images showing a my process of critiquing using Raymond McCarthy Bergeron’s and Meghdad Asaldi Lari’s animated short BeanCaught coming March 2012.


Capturing the current frame





Writing my notes on the HTC Flyer





Actual image and notes taken on the Flyer which can easily be emailed to the student.

Zbrush

Zbrush just keeps getting better and better!
Watch "ZBrush 4R2b Morph Target Guided with FiberMesh" on YouTube

The new face of Spike

I call him spike 2.0. I think he should be the new face of Animation Mentor. LOL Or at least there should be a good animation of them fighting over being the mascot.

4.9.1 Political platform

This is the current dialogue project I am working on. I'm really into this piece. I feel I've got some really good poses. I just need to refine the timing in some areas and transitions in others.

Comments and Critiques are welcome!

Latest Unfair animation

So here is the latest version of this animation. I haven't posted in a while and we've moved on to another project. So I'll have to continue refining this a bit further on my own.

Comments and Critiques are always welcome.

3.10.2 Continued Polishing Unfair

So I tried to bring this to as much polish as I could get this week.

I think I was able to make the follow through go through the entire spine rather than just the top. I think my major problems are that right hand though. I wasn't able to give it as much "love" as the rest of the animation. And the eyes, I was able to fix some problem spots. I still want to keep the eye roll in there. I took out some of the other eye darts after that point that were muddying it up. Ok....Crit away.

More Splining 3.9.2

Well, I did some more of the entire animation splined. I think I really need to concentrate next week on the part right after the throw area and the LT hand from 90-116. It's still a little goofy there. But here is the progress so far.

Getting into splining...

Well, I started refining the animation. I first changed the ending a bit so it's more of one motion when she comes down from the large inhale.

I then went to the beginning and started smoothing out the movement up until she hits the bench the first time. It's not completely done, but it's a start.