First Month in ADM(Art Design and Media School of NTU)

Hello again!

A month has passed already since I started studying in NTU and I can't believe it went so fast... It’s incredible how fast time passes when one has so much to do! Class has been great and life here too. I’m making a lot of new friends and the Locals are very nice! Weather is bliss! I really don’t miss the cold weather in Germany… although it is freezing here in all the labs! And I can’t really work that much at home since I have only a 10” Netbook with me =D But it’s ok, I gotta live with that.

There has been time for everything, new friends, sports, party and work. Each week they send Assignments for each course and I’m really not used to that. In our university we just had to attend classes and do the final assignments. Here each week is like a final assignment! It’s a lot of workload but its fun and one can manage some free time too. 

I’m getting special Assignments for Character Animation and Rigging for Animation since we are beginning with the basics. It’s really nice that the teacher actually cares about you improving and sends special assignments so that one doesn’t get bored only animating balls. But it is still very rewarding going to class to reinforce knowledge, especially when one has learned everything the hard way all by himself. It’s nice to have an experienced teacher showing you what you had to kind of deduce n_n. Here are my first 2 assignments for Character Animation 1.

Assignment 1:

 The Bouncing balls from different materials. I know the Stretch doesn’t really follow the line of action but the rig wasn’t really good. I had to modify it to even make it squash and stretchable.

Assignment 2 & 3:

I had a little issue with this one… Assignment 2 was to originally do a walk- and a runcycle but my thumb drive got stolen with the animation I had done… So yeah… I had to repeat those and do a mooncycle too, a lot of work and I didn’t have much motivation repeating them… 

For rigging I rigged the character for the short film I have to do for Animation Seminar. I finished it today, can’t wait to start animating! =D The story is already done and soon I will begin making the look for it. Ill post more on it when I have something to show.

Digital Painting is also fun too, We are still kind of doing more compositing than any other thing but well, Digital Painting can be seen as compositing too. We were masking hair, using layer blends, clipping, matching colors, just experimenting with the tools most digital painters use.

So that was it, it has been really fun and look forward to all the things that are still to come. I hope you enjoyed your stay n_n

Have a great time,

santy.