Xbox 360 Animation

I saw this on Youtube, and had to share it. It's a really cool animation advertising the Xbox 360.

Fan Art, Kinda

Here's a little art done on my site that I received from a friend a long time ago. He was using the drawing fun game type thing I have on my site and went crazy with it. It wasn't really used as it was intended for, but hey, I did say, "Heres a little thing I made that you can try out for fun or just if you are bored. ".

Video Tutorial Ideas

Here are some ideas I have for video tutorials. At first I was thinking about doing them all together and selling them as a group, but I really don't know the software well enough to teach how things work, just how to do some things, so I'm not so sure about charging for them right now. I haven't really tried making a video tutorial yet either, so my first one may tell me whether I should do more or if I shouldn't. Hopefully I'd improve in technique wise as I'd more as well. There are quite a few things that go into it that may need fixing. Anyways, here's a list I made up a while ago, not all are Blender related. These are just ideas if I really get into it or something.

Credits/titles
color manipulation
overlaying
green screen
erasing wire
compositing digital effects
particles
-fire
-smoke
Sequence editor
Nodes
Virtual Dub
-deshaker
-deflicker
-other filters
Gimpshop

Claymation Update: Video

Here's the short animation I did not too long ago. It's nothing that great. I really need to work on timing and stuff. This is also the first time I've ever really done post-processing on an animation as well. I adjusted color, sharpness, and a few other things.

Claymation Update: New Charater WIP

Here are a couple images of the new character I'm making. So far I only have the armature done and have covered it with clay. I'm not sure what I'm going to sculpt yet so it may take a bit longer until I actually finish it. This is the first puppet that I will make using Van Aken clay and 1/16 inch aluminum wire.

Virtual Dub

I haven't been using Virtual Dub very long or very much, but from what I've already seen from it, it's got some potential. It's another free video editing software that you can use to edit your shot footage, add sound, apply filters, and do a number of other things.

The couple of things that I've been interested in it for are some of the downloadable filters that you can use to Deshake and Deflicker your clips with. The Deshake really works well, and if you have some really shaky footage, it will do a couple of passes and work to stabilize your video. Deflicker simply helps take out the flicker a little that may occur in some animations because of unstable light sources, you wearing white that reflects light, and some other reasons.

Like I said though, I don't know much about the program and how to use it, but I'll be sure to post some of the things I find about it that I think will help you learn more as well.

Blender 3D

For anybody who doesn't know, Blender 3D is an open source program that you can use to model 3D objects, edit video, animate, and a do a large number of things with. It does take a while to learn, but once you get the hang of the interface and many hot keys, the work pays of and you can do some pretty professional stuff, all for free.

What does this have to do with clay animation? Well, first of all, you can edit footage with it, using Blender's Video Sequence Editor (VSE). If you know how to use it well enough(you really need to know quite a bit), you can even composite special effects and CG into your animation like fire, rain, or even completely CG characters. Some other uses could be to simply put in an animation title, color correct, sharpen, or do a number of other simple things to your video. 3D animatics are another thing that would be possible through Blender for use in the Pre-Visualization stages of an animation. The list could go on for quite a bit. So, in this blog, I'm probably going to post about Blender every so often, just because I use it as a hobbyist, and because it does benefit the film community. The posts may be tutorials, new functions I've learned or tested, and more.