The struggle with Maya continues; this week my thanks go out to Jacob who rescued me more than once! That said, there were brief moments in Tuesday’s session when I started to feel maybe all hope was not lost. What was that!? A faint glimmer of understanding? That might be putting it too strongly, but it’s just enough to stop me giving up. I’m still frustrated by my choice of computer at the back of the room as I am continually twisting around to see what is being demonstrated. Maybe - as someone recently suggested to me - that’s why we have chairs that can spin!
So, a little less negative this week I hope; fingers crossed that by the next session I have retained some of the information we learn this time around. The tuition seems a little slow, but I think it is inevitable when teaching a group of this size. I think I would personally prefer it if we had more intensive training sessions in smaller groups. I am annoyed with myself for not understanding what we are doing in Maya, I can’t quite make the connection between the tasks we are asked to perform in all the various modes, (object, vortex, whatever), and the results. I want to be good at it straight away, but at the present time I’m a long way from building a convincing chair.
With the presentation looming, I found it quite challenging to keep my mind on what we were working on in Maya at all. A little voice in the back of my head said “you should be doing more research; you’re letting your group down”. Oh well. I now think I know more about Halas and Batchelor than I ever realistically wanted to and it’s probably still not enough. I have always been aware that there’s a lot of information in the world that I’ll never know or understand, but even when you narrow it down to one specific area of study such as animation, then one studio, then one film…
2 comments:
I seem to pick up a lot of frustration from these notes, but lets pick up on the positive notes. Tell me about the design process for the Maya chair. What was the inspiration behind the chair design. How did you find the actual design process of transfering your ideas from the design to 3d?
On a technical point, Richard is alway around to help out with anything to do with Maya...grab him from his office and get him to sit down with you..he is our dedicated technician, so feel free to use him.
I didn't really know where to start with the chair design, so I went back to an old favourite: the triangle. I drew the chair to be angular, with pointed corners and sharp edges. I actually found it quite difficult to create these edges, as everything in James' lessons had been about making curved shapes, and so I felt reasonably pleased when I succeeded. However, at my tutorial with James he seemed to say that I had limited myself by choosing a less rounded design, which I'm a little disappointed by as that was the whole point of my chair.
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