Practice is important...school is important...

Everything is important. I enjoy the things that aren't important. Take, for example, playing video games or board games. Of course, that is all relative. A game design major would say that those things are extremely important.

Regardless...

I am back at school and have been for two weeks. Subsequently, the keyboard I am typing on is poor quality and the keys stick causing me to typo and abuse the backspace key.

My classes this quarter are

Principles of Screen Design
History of Animation
Introduction to Mass Communication

I like two out of those three. Intro to Mass Comm I find to be a class that has potential to be extremely interesting, but falls short due to the teacher and her methods. Carolyn Babcock assigns readings for class and if she gets the 'deer in headlights' look from her students, when asking a question about the reading, she immediately busts out the pop quizzes as a cruel punishment for our insignificant long term memories.

I tend to have an issue with the way she wants her responses done. She assigns us to answer questions from the 'critical thinking' section of the textbook and then claims she wants to know 'what we think'. Unfortunately, what she really means is she wants to know what we think within the context of the questions being asked in the book.

For example, if I was a librarian, what books would I pull from the library in an act of censorship? If she asked me straight what I thought about censorship I would never even mention if I was a librarian. So it is not really how I feel about censorship, but how I feel about the questions the book asks.

History of Animation is an interesting class. Learning about dead animators. (More fun than you might think!)

Principles of Screen Design is tough. The teacher is strict and seems to have an idea in his head of what the concept you come up with should look like. It results in a constant struggle between who's ideas should be carried out. It is hard to tell whether he dislikes my concept, or whether he is just a perfectionist and wants it done right. I like the guy, but it is somewhat frustrating.

Anyway, here is a test for my project in Screen Design.




I think the movement looks alright. Clearly I need to animate the carrot more, and add the leafy part in the beginning. I tend to find those little details, like the leafy part missing at the beginning, are the ones I always put off until the end because I am focusing more on the movement and timing.

I had to give a lot of time for when he is lying on the ground, and when he is about to jump out the window. I still feel like there needs more anticipation before the jump. It still seems too rabbit like, but it is a work in progress and nowhere close to being done.

Speaking of which, the assignment is to create a loop with camera movement and object movement and sound effects! (I forgot about the sound effects until now. That's not good!) Luckily it is not due tomorrow or anything.

Anyway, that's school, I keep working and pulling through and it keeps getting done. I will be more consistent with my posting now that I am back at school and have things to post.

See ya later!