Posts may be slower than usual over the next few weeks as I try to figure this thing out:
What you see in that picture is my son, Sebastian, who was born this past Saturday!
Being that he's my first child, it's going to take me a while to figure out all of the bells and whistles, unless I can find an owner's manual somewhere.
Things are going great, and look for posting to resume soon!
Take care.
-Dave
Bleeding Pixels now has 100% more Digg functionality, so feel free to Digg away! Of course, I have no idea why you'd ever want to Digg a story that I probably stole from another site, but just in case the mood should strike you, the option is there!
"Better never than late," I always say.
Though it may seem like it to some of you, I'm actually alive and well. I've been looking for things to post all week, but there just hasn't been much at all to report. I did get the inside scoop from someone working on "Bee Movie," that they had their wrap party last week, so that one is now on to final post production and will be in theaters soon.
Outside of that, my only other real news worthy item this week is that I got my boxers caught in the zipper of my shorts at work and had to rip them in order to get them free, in turn allowing me zip my fly closed.
I'm in talks with Pixar to turn that harrowing experience into their next movie.
In the meantime, just know that I'm still looking for stuff to post, so if you find anything, toss it my way!
Thanks.
Interested in helping take Bleeding Pixels to the next level? Know anything about website creation/coding? Want to work for no pay?
Then have I got a job for you!
I'm looking to take Bleeding Pixels a step or two further than it currently is, but the problem is that I'm about as dumb as a wet napkin, so I'll need some help. I'm looking for someone with some web coding experience who can help me make Bleeding Pixels more than just a blog. If you're interested, drop me a comment or email me (davesj-at-gmail-dot-com) and we'll talk. It's not something that needs to be done overnight, so it won't take up a ton of your time, and I'll take care of all of the costs, such as hosting.
If you're interested in helping out, please let me know!
UPDATE: Well I'm back from hanging out with Britney and visiting Paris in jail, but it just happens to be a slow news day. I'll post as I find stuff.
I'll be out Thursday and Friday, as I'm making a trip down to L.A. for a motion capture session with my company. Now before you all grab your pitchforks and start coming after me for even typing the term "mocap," let me assure you that I'll do everything in my power to let everyone know how much better keyed animation is the whole time I'm there.
Look for updates to kick back in around Saturday.
A week or so back, I set up a forum here on Bleeding Pixels.
Now normally I don't ask much from the readers of this blog. Actually I don't really ask anything, other than you putting up with one of my crappy animations from time to time. That being said, I'm asking now that you please take advantage of the forums.
I know there are industry people who read this, as well as people passionate about breaking into the industry. If we could get some good discussions going in the forums, I think it would be a great way to share knowledge across the board.
Not only that, but if you have yet to visit the forums, you'll find that there are also places to discuss Music, Movies, 2D Art, and lots of other topics. So don't feel like you have to just talk shop, in terms of 3D Animation.
The one thing I ask above all else is this: Take a quick 5 minutes to register. I'm not asking that you post anything, but if you just register now, you might see something that catches your fancy that you can post on later, and registering now will save you the trouble then.
Again, I hope you take advantage of them. Networking is always a good things, and forums such as these are one of the best places to do that. At the same time, you may just make Bleeding Pixels an even better place to hang out.
Thank you.
The Bleeding Pixels Forums
Frankly I have no idea if these will get used or not, but... forums!
I hope you folks decide to use these, as they took me at least 15 minutes to set up, and I'd hate to see all of that hard work be for nothing.
In all seriousness, I hope you stop by and chat. I promise to do my best to keep it a very positive and relaxing place to hang out at and discuss the world of animation and beyond.
Swing by and let me know what you think!
The All-New Bleeding Pixel Forums!
Last night we here in the Seattle area (and surrounding states) were hit with a horrible storm that brought with it flooding and wind gusts as high as 90mph on the coast (60mph inland). Power finally came back on at around 9:30am this morning, after being out since around midnight.
My wife and I were very lucky in that we are safe and suffered no real damage to our property. However, people lost their lives, homes were destroyed by massive trees that couldn't stand up to the abnormal wind, and thousands are still without power. It's a horrible mess to say the least.
Needless to say, I won't be updating the blog until late this afternoon, if at all. I'll try to get something up over the weekend, but you should expect normal updates to return on Monday. I apologize for two delays in posting in one week, but I hope you can understand.
Thank you.
CNN's Coverage of the Storm
EDIT #2: The link to my progress reel has now been fixed. Thank you to all none of you that let me know about that.
EDIT: As promised, here is my completed progress reel for my very first class at Animation Mentor.+of+titlecard.jpg)
Dave's Animation Mentor Class 1 Progress Reel
Original Post:
Sorry for the lack of update(s) today. I'm currently hammering on my final animation for my very first quarter at Animation Mentor.
Having just completed my first quarter (or at least I will have by Friday), I can safely say that, at least so far, Animation Mentor is worth every penny. To take a step back for a moment and think about all of the things I've learned in one short quarter makes me quite excited about what's to come at "The Ment."
If you, or anyone you know, is considering a career in animation, I can't recommend AM enough to you. In my class there are people currently working in animation (film as well as games), and others attending very well known schools such as the Academy of Art University. Everyone seems to agree that AM matches, and in most cases exceeds, any training they've received so far.
So if you've got the desire to be an animator... make sure you give AM a look.
I'll post my progress reel for you sometime this week, as well as the normal crappy blog updates you've come to expect here on Bleeding Pixels.
The Animation Mentor Website
The Website of My Class 1 Mentor, Ray Chase
Sorry for the ol' switcharoo on the URL here at Bleeding Pixels, but with the recent name change, the old URL didn't make much sense. I hope this one is a bit easier for everyone to remember, since it's the title of the blog.
Please update your bookmarks and links accordingly.
Thank you!
So Blogger, which this fine blog is hosted on, has made some updates to their site, which allow for some cool new features. The tradeoff is that for the next day or so, while I get things ported over to the new system, you may see some wonky things here on the site, such as content missing from the right bar there.
Stick with me, as the news stories should continue to roll in from time to time. My hope is that I won't lose too much in the way of my old info, and that the site will be better for it once I'm done.
You can already see the changes sneaking in now, such as the "Labels" tag put under each story. I went back and added labels like this to my last 50 posts, so that now you can click on one, for example "Sony," and it will bring up all of the Sony articles that have been published on the blog.
Pretty sweet.
Today I decided to change the name of this here blog to "Bleeding Pixels." The reason for this is simply that I didn't want it to carry my name any longer as I am totally ashamed of this blog and the work I've done on it over the past 5 months.
Actually, the real reason is that the focus has shifted off of me and squarely onto the world of 3D Animation where it belongs, so there was no sense in having my name on it at all. Nothing is going to change, and it will sill be updated on weekdays as I find things to post. There also shouldn't be any need to update your shortcuts or links, as the actual URL will remain the same.
ONWARD!
I forgot to mention that I'm out on a short vacation. I'll be back at the computer tomorrow (9/20/06) and updates will resume at that time.
Sorry to all those who checked in yesterday and were greeted with nothing but an utter lack of updates. If you will send me a postage paid box and $300 to cover shipping and handling, I'll get you a nice gift to make up for it.
See you tomorrow.
Blogger has been rough this past week. I managed to piece together a couple of stories, but from about Wednesday morning on through Friday, was met with "Page Cannot Be Displayed" errors and images that wouldn't upload. Luckily this was a slow news week, so it didn't really matter, other than the George Schermer 10 Quick that I really wanted to post. I tried on multiple occasions to do this, but anytime I tried to upload the multiple images for the blog entry, the blogger system would choke.
Not only that, but it must have been just the server that this blog resides on, because I could post just fine to my 2D Blog.
It seems to be better now, so let's plan on that 10 Quick going up first thing Monday morning.
Sorry to George and everyone else for the delay!
