details

Date: 25, May, 2009
Place: Audivisual Hall
Time: (2 Sessions)

1.00pm - 2.00pm
5.30pm - 6.30pm

Participants

Open to students taking (or have taken) photography/video class, i.e.:
(AD/DG/IL81/, AD/DG/IL/MM78, AD/DG/IL/MM75, AD/DG/IL/MM71, AD/DG/IL/MM78)

* Attendence for the briefing is comulsory.

** If students are having class at that time, they may ask permission from their respective lecturers to release them early, or make sure there is a class representative (or maybe more) to receive the briefing details

:D

Hey all! JN asked me whether I would like to contribute to this blog, so yea why not, thanks for the invitation. I really like to share something here, and hopefully we all can learn and improve together. So yea, with this brief introduction, I would like to include a small sharing.

http://keithlangotutorials.blogspot.com/
He's just a great animator, also we will have our break coming soon. So if you really want to learn animation or would like to know how it's done, just go to his blogspot and click on the 'free tutorials' tag and be amazed by its content.

Here's some of his sample of work:
http://www.blur.com/gopher_broke.html#
http://sph3re.tv/download/the-lunch

Brilliant ain't he? More in his blog.



On the site note, JN: I think this template is something wrong. The rss is gone, and there's no button to post comment, the title should be an active link too so that it's easier to refer a particular post.

Labels: Animation

3D Advance modeling
feb10 130pm

3D Animation Basic replacement
feb10 4pm

tell me if i am wrong.


cheers.

This week The McKinsey Quaterly asks: what does stimulating the creativity of animators have in common with developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs? Apparently, a lot.

In Innovation lessons from Pixar, McKinsey writes:

Brad Bird makes his living fostering creativity. Academy Award-winning director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) talks about the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of “black sheep”—restless contributors with unconventional ideas.

Steve Jobs hired him, says Bird, because after three successes (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2) he was worried Pixar might struggle to stay innovative. Jobs told him: “The only thing we’re afraid of is complacency—feeling like we have it all figured out,” Bird quotes his boss as saying “…We want you to come shake things up.” Bird explains to McKinsey how he did it — and why, for “imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.”

The piece is behind McKinsey’s pay wall, but we extract its 9 key lessons below.

Lesson One: Herd Your Black Sheep

The Quarterly: How did your first project at Pixar—The Incredibles—shake things up?

Brad Bird: I said, “Give us the black sheep. I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to. Give us all the guys who are probably headed out the door.” A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things, but there was little opportunity to try them, since the established way was working very, very well. We gave the black sheep a chance to prove their theories, and we changed the way a number of things are done here.

Lesson Two: Perfect is the Enemy of Innovation

The Quarterly: What sorts of things did you do differently?

Brad Bird: I had to shake the purist out of them—essentially frighten them into realizing I was ready to use quick and dirty “cheats” to get something on screen… I’d say, “Look, I don’t have to do the water through a computer simulation program… I’m perfectly content to film a splash in a swimming pool and just composite the water in.” I never did film the pool splash [but] talking this way helped everyone understand that we didn’t have to make something that would work from every angle. Not all shots are created equal. Certain shots need to be perfect, others need to be very good, and there are some that only need to be good enough to not break the spell.

Lesson Three: Look for Intensity

The Quarterly: Do angry people—malcontents, in your words—make for better innovation?

Brad Bird: Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.

Lesson Four: Innovation Doesn’t happen in a Vacuum

The Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team?

Brad Bird: I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person… I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together…

Lesson Five: High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap

The Quarterly: It sounds like you spend a fair amount of time thinking about the morale of your teams.

Brad Bird: In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale. [what’s true for a movie is true for a startup!] If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

Lesson Six: Dont Try To “Protect your success”

The Quarterly: Engagement, morale—what else is critical for stimulating innovative thinking?

Brad Bird: The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. … “You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

Lesson Six: Steve Jobs Says ‘Interaction = Innovation’

The Quarterly: What does Pixar do to stimulate a creative culture?

Brad Bird: If you walk around downstairs in the animation area, you’ll see that it is unhinged. People are allowed to create whatever front to their office they want. One guy might build a front that’s like a Western town. Someone else might do something that looks like Hawaii…John [Lasseter] believes that if you have a loose, free kind of atmosphere, it helps creativity.

Then there’s our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center—which initially drove us crazy—so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.

Lesson Seven: Encourage Inter-disciplinary Learning

The Quarterly: Is there anything else you’d highlight that contributes to creativity around here?

Brad Bird: One thing Pixar does [is] “PU,” or Pixar University. If you work in lighting but you want to learn how to animate, there’s a class to show you animation. There are classes in story structure, in Photoshop, even in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Pixar basically encourages people to learn outside of their areas, which makes them more complete. [and more creative].

Lesson Eight: Get Rid of Weak Links

The Quarterly: What undermines Innovation?

Brad Bird: Passive-aggressive people—people who don’t show their colors in the group but then get behind the scenes and peck away—are poisonous. I can usually spot those people fairly soon and I weed them out.

Lesson Nine: Making $$ Can’t Be Your Focus

The Quarterly: How would you compare the Disney of your early career with Pixar today?

Brad Bird: When I entered Disney, it was like a classic Cadillac Phaeton that had been left out in the rain… The company’s thought process was not, “We have all this amazing machinery—how do we use it to make exciting things? We could go to Mars in this rocket ship!” It was, “We don’t understand Walt Disney at all. We don’t understand what he did. Let’s not screw it up. Let’s just preserve this rocket ship; going somewhere new in it might damage it.”

Walt Disney’s mantra was, “I don’t make movies to make money—I make money to make movies.” That’s a good way to sum up the difference between Disney at its height and Disney when it was lost. It’s also true of Pixar and a lot of other companies. It seems counterintuitive, but for imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.

还有中文翻译。

Lesson Two: Perfect is the Enemy of Innovation

第二课：完美是创新的敌人

The Quarterly：你以不同的方式做哪类的事情呢？

Brad Bird: 我不得不把他们从纯粹主义中摇醒—— 从根本上吓唬他们，使其认识到我准备好用快速和不太干净的“欺骗”来获得屏幕效果。。。我说“看，我没必要非在电脑上做水的流体模拟不可。。。我对在一个 游泳池里拍摄的水花飞溅的效果很满意，只要合成进去就行了。”我从来没拍摄过游泳池溅起的水花，但是这样说话有助于每个人了解到我们不必做从任何角度看起 来都漂亮的东西。不是所有的镜头都花同样的气力来创建的。有些镜头需要很完美，其他的需要非常好，而还有一些只需要足够好到别给整体抹黑就成了。

Lesson Three: Look for Intensity

第三课：寻找强烈的动力

The Quarterly: 是不是生气的人——不满，用你的话说——有更好的创新力？

Brad Bird: 棘手的人更具创新力。。。棘手的人可能很安静，喧闹，或者两者之间——他们共有的一点就是无休止的，探求的天性：“我要解决那个问题，有我要做的事。”如果你有耐热玻璃，你能看到他们身上蒸腾出的热力。

Lesson Four: Innovation Doesn’t happen in a Vacuum

第四课：创新不是在真空中发生的

The Quarterly: 你怎样建立并领导一个团队呢？How do you build and lead a team?

Brad Bird: 我把大家都叫到一个屋子里。这和先前的人做法不太一样。他私下里看大家的作品，产生反馈备注，然后发给各个人。。。我说，“看啊，这是个年轻的团队。因为 每个动画师，我们都有不同的强项和弱项，但是如果我们把强项互联，我们一起就是地球上最棒的动画师。所以我要你们起来发言并撤掉遮羞布。我们会在所有人面 前看你的镜头。大家在一起，每个人都会感到羞耻，并受到鼓励。。。”

Lesson Five: High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap

第五课：高昂的士气让创造力不费吹灰

The Quarterly: 听起来你花了大量的时间去考虑给你的团队鼓劲儿。

Brad Bird: 根据我的经验，对影片预算影响最大的——但是从未显示在预算中的因素——就是团队士气。【对电影如是，对项目启动亦如是！】如果你士气低落，在你身上花的 每1美元，只能得到25美分的价值。而如果你士气高涨，你花的每1美元，会获得3美元的回报。作为公司，应该把更多注意力放在士气上。

Lesson Six: Dont Try To “Protect your success”

第六课：不要试图“保护你的成功”

The Quarterly: 大家开会互相接触，保持士气——还有什么是对于促进创新思维至关重要的？

Brad Bird: 达到不可能的第一步就是相信不可能可以达到。。。“你不要万事求稳妥——你要做一些能吓到你的事情，那是到了你能力的边沿了，在那里你有可能失败。那是每天促你起床的动力所在。”

Lesson Seven: Steve Jobs Says ‘Interaction = Innovation’

第七课：Steve Jobs说 ‘交互作用 = 创新’

The Quarterly:Pixar怎样做来促进一种创造性的文化氛围？

Brad Bird: 如果你走下楼来到动画区域，你会看到这里是精神错乱的。人们被准许在自己办公室前以自己意愿装饰任何东西。一个人可能建造一个看起来像是西部小镇的正门。 另一个可能打扮的像夏威夷。。。John（Lasseter）相信如果你有一个宽松，自由的气氛，是有助于发挥创造力的。

接着，就是我们的总部大楼。Steve Jobs 总体上设计了这个建筑。在中央，他创建了这个巨大的中庭区域，乍一看好像是浪费空间。他这样做的原因是每个人都走开，在自己狭小的区域里工作。软件编程的人在这里，动画的人在那里，设计的人则在那边。Steve把邮政信箱，会议室，自助餐厅都放在这里，而且，最阴险和最高明的是，洗手间也在中间——这一开始把我们都逼疯了——这样你要在工作时间撞见每个人。【Jobs】意识到当人们会撞见彼此时，当他们有眼神交流时，就会有事情发生。所以他使你不去见公司的其他人都不可能。

Lesson Eight: Encourage Inter-disciplinary Learning

第八课：鼓励各个学科之间跨越领域的学习

The Quarterly: 还有没有别的你显著强调的对这里的创造力有贡献的地方？

Brad Bird: Pixar 做的一件事就是“PU”或称Pixar大学。如果你从事灯光，但是你想学习如何动画，有个课程教你动画。开办的班还有故事结构课，Photoshop课， 甚至Krav Maga，以色列的自我防御系统。Pixar基本上鼓励大家去学习自己专长意外的东西，这样使得他们的知识结构更加完整【也更具有创造力】。

Lesson Nine: Get Rid of Weak Links

第九课：除掉薄弱环节

The Quarterly: 是什么破坏创新？What undermines Innovation?

Brad Bird: 被动且好斗的人——有的人在大家面前不说什么，但是随后在背地里吹毛求疵——他们是有毒的。我侦察出这种人相当快，然后把他们扫地出门。

Lesson Ten: Making $$ Can’t Be Your Focus

第十课：赚钱不能成为你的焦点

The Quarterly: 你早期在Disney的和如今在Pixar的职业生涯，两相比较你觉得如何？

Brad Bird: 当我进入Disney时，它就像是一辆古典的卡迪拉克辉腾，被搁在风雨中。。。公司的思维过程不是，“我们有所有这些令人惊叹的体系结构——我们怎样使用 它才能做出激动人心的作品呢？我们乘这艘火箭飞船可以到达火星！” 而是这样，“我们根本不懂Walt Disney。我们也不知道他做了什么。让我们别搞砸了。让我们保存好这艘火箭飞船；去新地方会毁坏了它的。”

Walt Disney的谚语是，“我不是做电影去赚钱——我是赚钱是为了做电影。”那是一个好的总结方式，道出了处于鼎盛时期的Disney和后来衰落滑坡的Disney的区别。这句话对于Pixar和许多其他的公司也是正确的。看起来有点违反直觉，但是对于一个立足于想象力的公司而言，要想成功能够长久，笑到最后，赚钱不能成为焦点。

It seems counterintuitive, but for imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.

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extra links:

http://hi.baidu.com/victoranimator

u can find out quite a lot of famous pixar animators' links in his blog. :P

http://blog.sina.com.cn/AMentor

chinese animator.

http://hi.baidu.com/pixar100

pixar, in chinese

hope this will make your day :D

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR CLASS~

HAVE FUN AND GET AS MUCH ANG POW AS YOU CAN.

*spoiler*

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reminder:
DON'T FORGET TO DO YOUR CONCEPT ART 2, CHARACTER MODELLING AND ANIMATION BEFORE/AFTER CNY HOLIDAY~

*holiday assignments is so not cool =3= toodles~*

http://www.itrang.net/e-learning/swordmaster-3ds-max-tutorial/
the pass: gfxgfx.org

http://3dtotal.com/

http://forums.cgsociety.org/

http://fireantz83.deviantart.com/(hoe yi's website :P it has links to his other websites)

http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/female_body/index2.php

so, any more recommendations?

College is starting again tomorrow :D

HAPPY GOING BACK TO COLLEGE lol.

I wish you all good luck and may you all do your best in this term!! XD

ENJOY COLLEGE.



I'll be in DG078-1 already :( I'll miss you all... Take care and Good luck yeah!!!

Tata!! :)