Maya

For our next module, Acting For Animation, we have another presentation and two animations to do. My presentation is going to be on psychological gestures which, when our tutor gave us the gist of what that is, sounds like something I really need actually! Watch this space for research on that!

One of the animations we are going to do is the March 11 Second Club competition which should be fun. No idea what the clip is going to be but we'll see in March! I think it's going to be a dialogue, or at least our tutor seems confident it's going to be.

The other animation is going to be a team effort about mime auditions. In groups of 3 we have to decide on a location, the stage, lighting, layout etc and animate a character each who is auditioning for a mime position of some description (could be a talent contest, screening for a kids party etc).
For the team animation, I am going to learn Maya because it's a program I've been meaning to learn (because a lot of job advertisments seem to want you to be able to use it) and my team mates (Rachel and Raf) also use Maya. So that's going to be fun...

I haven't decided whether to stick with SoftImage or use Maya for the 11 second club animation. It depends on what the clip is and if I'm allowed to use Malcolm. As far as I'm aware, there are certain rigs you are not allowed to use (if you are entering into the competition anyway, which I might because why not? haha. No seriously, it'll be interesting to see what feedback I get from the community there and if it helps me improve my animating skills then it'll be worth it!) and Malcolm belongs to AnimSchool, who have certain rules about using him, so I'm not sure if he's allowed. It's hard to find decent, WORKING rigs for SoftImage. It also depends how I'm getting on with Maya. I'll be playing around with Maya this weekend.