I can’t wait to read through the links posted in this thread, I think I’ve probably read over ten thousand pages worth of information in the past couple months, and am only recently going beyond the blender specific stuff into other programs and general animation material, and I think I’ve probably read over a thousand pages worth of that stuff through cgtalk, strutyourreel.com, keithlango, carlosbaena, ed hooks and the other hundred or so bookmarks I’ve made.
I know I can make ok animation, and ok models, it’s only been a couple months with blender, in my spare time, but I can see the improvements through leaps and bounds, and now that I’ve been reading more animation specific things, and the materials for other programs, I can see how much more I can improve, and how quickly that can happen, even if someone else says it takes years. Look at the things our kids are learning today, well, I’m not much more than a kid myself, but even the things I learned in school in the 90’s would put the top students from years before to shame. Learning growth is exponential, don’t ever let anyone tell you how long it takes to learn something. Passion, fire and determination can allow you to learn more in a few weeks than it takes most people a year, that, and you are learning on the shoulders of giants, so the step to become a giant yourself is that much shorter.
When I see “hollywood” movies, and movies like elephant’s dream, polished, professional movies, I see that I can do those things. Sure I haven’t done much yet, I’m still learning, but I see it all coming together. My next great search after overloading myself with modelling, rigging, animation, arcs, timing, spacing, is materials and texturing, when you see the base meshes from these movies, and then the finished products, there is so much difference in them, the texturing and materials really help to bring life and professionalism to the characters, sure the animation and modelling does too, but I’m talking about the polish that comes from a professional looking animated character. When I see mancandy rendered, he looks like he belongs in a movie, a good movie, his material, texture and life shine through to greatness, even without UV wrapping, normaps and bumpmaps that a character like Proog or any of those in a hollywood movie needs. When I see cg movies now, since I’ve seen and read so much here lately, I visualize the techniques used, and how they relate to blender or maya. Sometimes I see where they didn’t take quite enough time to make sure a move wasn’t choppy. Blender has enough in it already to make a hollywood blockbuster.
When I see those posts where people say, “oh that’s blender”, I secretly think to myself, how could anyone be so obstinate to not think that blender could do that. Then I see posts about say Blenrig 1.0®, and that it looks like something out of Pixar, that to me is an insult to blender, we can see that it is capable of it, we know it is capable of it, but we haven’t produced it, given it the polish it deserves.
And one last thing, I dunno about you, but I’m about damn sick and tired of looking at tutorials sites and seeing some old ass blender tutorials when there are so much better out there. You look at the maya, 3ds Max, XSI, etc. and you see some of their best tutorials and work, but then you see the blender tutorial section and it’s the old ones, which are still great IMO, and give you the basics, but blender has grown and can do so much more than those tutorials show, and when you look at them in comparison, it makes blender seem like a haggard toy in comparison to those other professional tools, Blender is a professional tool, it is capable of professional animations. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but it is the community that must band together to achieve these great things. There are beautiful artists here, and great animators, but it seems that there is little direction, a great movie needs a great director, even if the participants are miles apart, I believe it is achieveable, and doesn’t need to take years.
Ok, I’ll shut up now, I know I talk too much even when I’m not really saying anything. I’ve only started 3 threads here, I know that I’m not great, I’m ok, maybe, well, at least not crappy, but I’m drinking milk, heheh. Ahahahahahaah, well, I know I’ll get better, can’t get much worse, :eyebrowlift2:
*edit, and btw, I think the bootcamp is a great idea, but the format used on the forum wasn’t quite what is needed.
It would be indeed a dream, but I think we have a huge way to go before that will happen.
