(I just realized it's actually day 11 and my last entry was technically posted on day 9 but it was close enough to midnight when I wrote it. Ten works better for today's theme anyway).
The grocery store next to my apartment only has red meat. No poultry. Only prepacked seafood (and nothing but smoked salmon and shrimp). So I decided to full embrace German-stereotype living and buy a bulk pack of brats. I ran out yesterday and today being Sunday means that not much is open after six, which is about a half an hour before I scraped myself together enough to go out for some food. I found a restaurant just around the corner advertising gyros on the window but when I got inside, it seemed that everything on the menu was actually bratwurst derived. It was that, the kebab shop across the street (kebab to me is like holy water is a vampire) or go hunting around the suburbs for something else open. I feel sorry for vegetarians in places where they can't read the menus. I at least don't have any special dietary needs to be worried about when I roll the dice and just point to something on the menu.
Friday I worked on my Swing animation most of the day with some good feedback from Ian as well as the Gobelins crew. It's much better now but there are still some little issues to sort out. That last 10% of polish is always the bear.
Yesterday I bounced back into something totally new as I discussed last time: The suitcase. I think I said something about 5-7 seconds? Yeah, maybe not so much this time. Try 20. But it was a solid idea and better acting practice than the head so I busted out a thorough blocking pass of the whole thing and I'm pretty happy with it so far. I'll post something on the Summer School animation blog http://fiveliterboxofwine.blogspot.com/ soon enough. The latest version of the swing is already there.
I'm also getting more comfortable with some of Maya's peculiarities as well as learning how to best throw some of these rigs around. With this new, longer piece, I'll probably have to postpone the quadruped run I was planning and just focus on this and the swing for the rest of the week, as well as dig through some of my "Alan Wake" and "Monday Night Combat" work before taking all day Sunday to put together a new reel before GDC Europe next week.
Last week of true seclusion before people start pouring into Cologne for GDC Europe and Gamescom; better make it count. And hopefully, no more bratwurst til then. At least.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Animation Isolation Day 8; not so great
Actually, it was fine. I just like rhyming The hard part was I decided to shelf my "head" animation until after my demo reel is done. Hard because I've already burned four days working on this one plus some time at Gobelins but it's over 30 seconds long which puts it closer to short territory.
Realistically, it needs 2-3 weeks of work to finish and I don't really want or need a new 30 second long piece for my demo reel right now, nor do I want to spend the whole month on one animation. I had some ideas to trim out some unnecessary and tricky parts but it only saves about 6-7 seconds so I conceded to cut my losses (for now) and shelf it. Tomorrow I'm going to get back to another Gobelins exercise: the suitcase! I'm limiting myself to 5-7 seconds for this one. I also made myself a calender so things hopefully don't spiral out of control again.
After banging my head on the wall with this decision, I decided I should get out for a bit, since I haven't left the apartment other than to job or buy groceries in over a week. SO I set off into town with a mission: watch "Inception". Tricky thing about Germany is that they still love to dub English movies. Some places show the original versions but it seems to be the smaller, artsier theaters.
When I came to rent this apartment, I was explaining a little bit about me and my ways to the guy I'm renting from. He asked why I didn't have a smartphone and went on to evangelize his jailbroken iPhone, with it's GPS and city maps and all that good stuff. It make me think... maybe maps, mobile internet and a GPS might improve the quality of my life.
I was thinking about that alot as I walked around for 7 hours today. I like walking around new cities; I get a feel for things and a genuine sense of direction that doesn't depend of signal strength or battery life. I stumble upon things that aren't on the map. For example, today's batch including a guy talking to me about how he can't go to government for money because they'll lobotomize him and that Köln is a city of light that calms his soul, a ten police car response to a catfight between some Turkish girls and some punk rocker girls, drank a Kölsch with some live music in a smokey old jazz bar and walking into the middle of a carnival and realizing The Gay Games are apparently the big event for Köln this week. I don't know what the Gay Games are exactly are but there were an awful lot of foreign, gay men in town.
The wandering approach does take a long time and isn't foolproof, especially if you are actually trying to be somewhere at a certain time to do a certain thing. I walked an awful long way back to one of the big cinemas when I decided to see a late show of Inception and waited in a queue for 15 minutes to find it was German only. I walked another 45 minutes and finally found the English theater, where I'd missed the start of the film by an hour and a half.
So the days goals were both kind of a wash but I did get to get out, see some more of the city, walk a bazillion miles (don't jog in the morning if you're going to walk all damn day!!! My legs hurt way more than they should) and just wander like I like to do. And now I know when and where to see "Inception" in English.
I think I would still do most of those random things with a Smartphone though. I'll be pricing them tomorrow. My iconoclasm says buy an Android because Apple evangelists annoy the shit out of me but a jailbroken, last gen iPhone is also kind of punk rock. How does an Android compare to a jailbroken iPhone anyway? Apps? Accessories?
Realistically, it needs 2-3 weeks of work to finish and I don't really want or need a new 30 second long piece for my demo reel right now, nor do I want to spend the whole month on one animation. I had some ideas to trim out some unnecessary and tricky parts but it only saves about 6-7 seconds so I conceded to cut my losses (for now) and shelf it. Tomorrow I'm going to get back to another Gobelins exercise: the suitcase! I'm limiting myself to 5-7 seconds for this one. I also made myself a calender so things hopefully don't spiral out of control again.
After banging my head on the wall with this decision, I decided I should get out for a bit, since I haven't left the apartment other than to job or buy groceries in over a week. SO I set off into town with a mission: watch "Inception". Tricky thing about Germany is that they still love to dub English movies. Some places show the original versions but it seems to be the smaller, artsier theaters.
When I came to rent this apartment, I was explaining a little bit about me and my ways to the guy I'm renting from. He asked why I didn't have a smartphone and went on to evangelize his jailbroken iPhone, with it's GPS and city maps and all that good stuff. It make me think... maybe maps, mobile internet and a GPS might improve the quality of my life.
I was thinking about that alot as I walked around for 7 hours today. I like walking around new cities; I get a feel for things and a genuine sense of direction that doesn't depend of signal strength or battery life. I stumble upon things that aren't on the map. For example, today's batch including a guy talking to me about how he can't go to government for money because they'll lobotomize him and that Köln is a city of light that calms his soul, a ten police car response to a catfight between some Turkish girls and some punk rocker girls, drank a Kölsch with some live music in a smokey old jazz bar and walking into the middle of a carnival and realizing The Gay Games are apparently the big event for Köln this week. I don't know what the Gay Games are exactly are but there were an awful lot of foreign, gay men in town.
The wandering approach does take a long time and isn't foolproof, especially if you are actually trying to be somewhere at a certain time to do a certain thing. I walked an awful long way back to one of the big cinemas when I decided to see a late show of Inception and waited in a queue for 15 minutes to find it was German only. I walked another 45 minutes and finally found the English theater, where I'd missed the start of the film by an hour and a half.
So the days goals were both kind of a wash but I did get to get out, see some more of the city, walk a bazillion miles (don't jog in the morning if you're going to walk all damn day!!! My legs hurt way more than they should) and just wander like I like to do. And now I know when and where to see "Inception" in English.
I think I would still do most of those random things with a Smartphone though. I'll be pricing them tomorrow. My iconoclasm says buy an Android because Apple evangelists annoy the shit out of me but a jailbroken, last gen iPhone is also kind of punk rock. How does an Android compare to a jailbroken iPhone anyway? Apps? Accessories?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Every road warrior must have his chariot
The only really good bonus check I earned in my 9 years in video games bought me my dream car; the barely runs, no windows, no seatbelts, run-down version of it anyway. I guess I shouldn't have quit Treyarch before they made of "Call of Duty: World at War" :/
I am a little embarrassed to admit the car was a factor in moving back to the US in 2008 and really, I have Texas to thank for the following video. My car wouldn't be slowly returning to life if I'd moved to England or Finland like I was considering instead of Austin.
It's been in a restoration shop in Texas for the last two years, way behind schedule and now apparently way over budget but despite my fondness for public transportation, bicycles and places within walking distance, there is nothing I, the Earth or the oil companies* can do to make me stop my two, vintage steel babies (yes, there's another one. we'll save that talk for later).
*the car is fully ethanol ready for the day (hopefully soon) when I can run my car off of booze (good!) and not oil (bad!). For now that's the best option for alternative fuel hot rods. My next one will likely be a turbo biodiesel.
Here she is:
I know it's 8 second of a car moving slowly to most of you but in my eyes, I see a phoenix, rising out of a smoldering pile of ashes, snatching a small child and devouring it before breathing fire and incinerating all who dare considering themselves worth to be present to it's spectacle of existence.
I am a little embarrassed to admit the car was a factor in moving back to the US in 2008 and really, I have Texas to thank for the following video. My car wouldn't be slowly returning to life if I'd moved to England or Finland like I was considering instead of Austin.
It's been in a restoration shop in Texas for the last two years, way behind schedule and now apparently way over budget but despite my fondness for public transportation, bicycles and places within walking distance, there is nothing I, the Earth or the oil companies* can do to make me stop my two, vintage steel babies (yes, there's another one. we'll save that talk for later).
*the car is fully ethanol ready for the day (hopefully soon) when I can run my car off of booze (good!) and not oil (bad!). For now that's the best option for alternative fuel hot rods. My next one will likely be a turbo biodiesel.
Here she is:
I know it's 8 second of a car moving slowly to most of you but in my eyes, I see a phoenix, rising out of a smoldering pile of ashes, snatching a small child and devouring it before breathing fire and incinerating all who dare considering themselves worth to be present to it's spectacle of existence.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Animation Isolation Day 4: Is it only day 4?
I thought it was day 5 or day 6. Seriously. I might be losing my shit already. I confirmed it was only day 4 by looking at my last post which was apparently yesterday.
I haven't left the apartment since I went grocery shopping on day 1. I'm actually a little bit scared to meet my neighbors since I live in surburban Cologne and contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Germany speaks English. But far more awkward than that, I am subletting, which I'm not sure of the legality of here. Regardless, I will have to grocery shop again tomorrow since all I have now is stale cereal, some salad and the 3 crates of Kölsch Waldemar left in his kitchen to tempt me (I am keeping track so I replace what I drink but I think I'm just going to buy him a nice bottle of Scotch instead. Unless I drink all three crates; then it might need to be something more).
So... yesterday's work session turned out to be one of those days where victory is marked by actually getting a damn file open (why do you exist again, Maya Binary format? Other then to piss me off when changing versions?) But by the end of the evening, I had all my Gobelins work opened and usable. I also watched the first part of a tutorial on face rigging and got some good groundwork done on the face rig for my TF2 Demo Girl (anyone remember her?). I've all but given up on the TF2 part but I like the model enough that I might as well animate her doing something. But because of the weird way the original TF2 models were set up, I spent an extra few hours digging around trying to set up her eyes with projection maps instead of spheres, like a proper eye setup. Before I went to bed at 2am, her eyes and jaw were working perfectly.
Day 5: It's 5, right? Maybe I should start dating these because I know I'm going to lose track and have to count day # versus the date of my posting.
Today I worked on an acting piece, which was an assignment from Louis Clichy, a former Gobelins student who worked at Pixar and is now off to direct, if I remember right. Anyway, for those of you who weren't in my class, we had to do an acting piece revolving around a severed head, in celebration of Bastille Day in France. Mine... well, I'll show it eventually. Sometimes an artist does a piece of work that changes everything; that no one ever looks at him or her quite the same after they've seen the work (and I mean this in a bad way). That might be my head animation. But I am convinced it will be awesome.
I made good progress, considering it's close to 30 seconds of animation but it's going to need a few more days because... well, it's 30 seconds of animation. After 11 years of this, you'd think I know better than to bite off more than I can chew but unfortunately, the best idea usually isn't the easiest and I'm still an idealist at heart.
I also did a 22 minute, weight free workout that I'd been doing regularly back in Seattle, to make sure my muscles and joints continue to work when I do leave this place. I need to start jogging while I'm here though.
Also, I found on CgTalk.com this cool idea for animation exercises:
http://www.gianpaolofragale.com/surfomatic/
It's like a virtual mechanic bull but a surfboard, which makes for a great exercise in balancing. It struck a chord with me since the game that I first got hired as an animator for, was a surfing game (Kelly Slater Pro Surfer). As an aside, I got a "special thanks" credit instead of "animator" or "additional animation" because I had transferred up to the Spider-Man team and been off the Slater team for a year when KSPS shipped. But the game still shipped with some of my tube-trick animations. I also got to meet Kelly Slater while working on that game; he was super cool and I gave him a Krispy Creme donut one morning.
Where was I? Yeah, animation exercises. SO I might do something with the surf-o-matic but that goes on the long, impossibly long list of animations to do this month. See, I was brainstorming the whole time I was in Gobelins, keeping the last page of my sketchbook free for animation ideas.
Wanna see the list?
Well, I don't have a scanner so you can't but I'll type it here, mainly so I can see at the end of the month what I wound up actually doing. I knew when I wrote it that this was more than a month's worth of work so don't jump on my back when the list is incomplete in 30 days:
-Finish swing animation-DONE
-Head animation-IN PROGRESS
-Beard-a-mation (not CG; my "artsy" project. This might be appropriate for a hangover day)
-10 different character walks (Hahahahahahaha! Ten!?!!)
-The four speeds of a horse (I thought of this in Iceland with their unique breed of horses; my animator friend Ian seems to be doing the same thing)
-One quadruped walk (more realistic, given my workload)
-2 character acting piece; staging/composition exercise in leading the viewer's eye (inspired by Kyle Balda's analysis of a scene Milt Kahl did from "The Jungle Book" with Sher Khan and Kaa)
-Soccer ball keep up (since scrapped this idea since it seems that it's one of the standard Animation Mentor assignments)
-Something 2d animation (I do have my old 4x5" Wacom graphire with me)
-Bouncing balls (quick spacing exercise; low priority since I wouldn't put this on a reel)
-Some acting piece for the TF2 Demo Girl (but I would need to find a good female monologue, preferably with a French accent. Hell, maybe IN French?)
-Re-cut my three year old demo reel with new material from Alan Wake and Monday Night Combat (too bad the other two games I worked on in the last three years still haven't shipped :/) plus new material from the animation Isolation.
-Setup the blog for Gobelins peer review: (not to be mistaken for beer review). We had a lot of talent in that class of 45, even before the bulldozers of talent that were our teachers. I promised to set up a blog for us to share and critique each others animations, since there really aren't so many places you can do that online, especially to get reviews from people you know. So that's coming for sure; maybe once I finish the "head" piece.
While on the train from Cologne to Amsterdam last week I also got a really good idea for a short film, but I'm going to sit on that for a bit. Too much on my plate already. I also need to go outside at some point.
"So Ryan: why are you blogging instead of animating right now?" The simple answer lies in that aforementioned three crates of beer in my kitchen. About midnight, I realized I was too drunk to animate anymore. I've been working all day and got a lot down so I think it's fair enough. Not to mention that it's Sunday.
I wonder if I'm too drunk to process the rest of that rigging video?
I haven't left the apartment since I went grocery shopping on day 1. I'm actually a little bit scared to meet my neighbors since I live in surburban Cologne and contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Germany speaks English. But far more awkward than that, I am subletting, which I'm not sure of the legality of here. Regardless, I will have to grocery shop again tomorrow since all I have now is stale cereal, some salad and the 3 crates of Kölsch Waldemar left in his kitchen to tempt me (I am keeping track so I replace what I drink but I think I'm just going to buy him a nice bottle of Scotch instead. Unless I drink all three crates; then it might need to be something more).
So... yesterday's work session turned out to be one of those days where victory is marked by actually getting a damn file open (why do you exist again, Maya Binary format? Other then to piss me off when changing versions?) But by the end of the evening, I had all my Gobelins work opened and usable. I also watched the first part of a tutorial on face rigging and got some good groundwork done on the face rig for my TF2 Demo Girl (anyone remember her?). I've all but given up on the TF2 part but I like the model enough that I might as well animate her doing something. But because of the weird way the original TF2 models were set up, I spent an extra few hours digging around trying to set up her eyes with projection maps instead of spheres, like a proper eye setup. Before I went to bed at 2am, her eyes and jaw were working perfectly.
Day 5: It's 5, right? Maybe I should start dating these because I know I'm going to lose track and have to count day # versus the date of my posting.
Today I worked on an acting piece, which was an assignment from Louis Clichy, a former Gobelins student who worked at Pixar and is now off to direct, if I remember right. Anyway, for those of you who weren't in my class, we had to do an acting piece revolving around a severed head, in celebration of Bastille Day in France. Mine... well, I'll show it eventually. Sometimes an artist does a piece of work that changes everything; that no one ever looks at him or her quite the same after they've seen the work (and I mean this in a bad way). That might be my head animation. But I am convinced it will be awesome.
I made good progress, considering it's close to 30 seconds of animation but it's going to need a few more days because... well, it's 30 seconds of animation. After 11 years of this, you'd think I know better than to bite off more than I can chew but unfortunately, the best idea usually isn't the easiest and I'm still an idealist at heart.
I also did a 22 minute, weight free workout that I'd been doing regularly back in Seattle, to make sure my muscles and joints continue to work when I do leave this place. I need to start jogging while I'm here though.
Also, I found on CgTalk.com this cool idea for animation exercises:
http://www.gianpaolofragale.com/surfomatic/
It's like a virtual mechanic bull but a surfboard, which makes for a great exercise in balancing. It struck a chord with me since the game that I first got hired as an animator for, was a surfing game (Kelly Slater Pro Surfer). As an aside, I got a "special thanks" credit instead of "animator" or "additional animation" because I had transferred up to the Spider-Man team and been off the Slater team for a year when KSPS shipped. But the game still shipped with some of my tube-trick animations. I also got to meet Kelly Slater while working on that game; he was super cool and I gave him a Krispy Creme donut one morning.
Where was I? Yeah, animation exercises. SO I might do something with the surf-o-matic but that goes on the long, impossibly long list of animations to do this month. See, I was brainstorming the whole time I was in Gobelins, keeping the last page of my sketchbook free for animation ideas.
Wanna see the list?
Well, I don't have a scanner so you can't but I'll type it here, mainly so I can see at the end of the month what I wound up actually doing. I knew when I wrote it that this was more than a month's worth of work so don't jump on my back when the list is incomplete in 30 days:
-Finish swing animation-DONE
-Head animation-IN PROGRESS
-Beard-a-mation (not CG; my "artsy" project. This might be appropriate for a hangover day)
-10 different character walks (Hahahahahahaha! Ten!?!!)
-The four speeds of a horse (I thought of this in Iceland with their unique breed of horses; my animator friend Ian seems to be doing the same thing)
-One quadruped walk (more realistic, given my workload)
-2 character acting piece; staging/composition exercise in leading the viewer's eye (inspired by Kyle Balda's analysis of a scene Milt Kahl did from "The Jungle Book" with Sher Khan and Kaa)
-Soccer ball keep up (since scrapped this idea since it seems that it's one of the standard Animation Mentor assignments)
-Something 2d animation (I do have my old 4x5" Wacom graphire with me)
-Bouncing balls (quick spacing exercise; low priority since I wouldn't put this on a reel)
-Some acting piece for the TF2 Demo Girl (but I would need to find a good female monologue, preferably with a French accent. Hell, maybe IN French?)
-Re-cut my three year old demo reel with new material from Alan Wake and Monday Night Combat (too bad the other two games I worked on in the last three years still haven't shipped :/) plus new material from the animation Isolation.
-Setup the blog for Gobelins peer review: (not to be mistaken for beer review). We had a lot of talent in that class of 45, even before the bulldozers of talent that were our teachers. I promised to set up a blog for us to share and critique each others animations, since there really aren't so many places you can do that online, especially to get reviews from people you know. So that's coming for sure; maybe once I finish the "head" piece.
While on the train from Cologne to Amsterdam last week I also got a really good idea for a short film, but I'm going to sit on that for a bit. Too much on my plate already. I also need to go outside at some point.
"So Ryan: why are you blogging instead of animating right now?" The simple answer lies in that aforementioned three crates of beer in my kitchen. About midnight, I realized I was too drunk to animate anymore. I've been working all day and got a lot down so I think it's fair enough. Not to mention that it's Sunday.
I wonder if I'm too drunk to process the rest of that rigging video?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Animation Isolation: Day 3
Ok, I said I was going to get to work but part of (re)starting a blog was to use this as a motivational tool. Each day I'm going to log what I did to make sure I don't mess around too much.
Brief recap: I am living in Cologne, Germany for one month. I don't know anyone here which is the point; I have shit to do and I've been wanting to take some time off and do some new animation work for a long time.
Especially after the two week summer I was at in July at Gobelins in Paris, I am reeeeeally itching to make some new stuff.
It's day 4 in the apartment (thanks again Waldemar; your place is great). Here's where I am at:
Day 0: Got to the apartment at 9:30pm. Settled in and sent some things to Gobelins ftp site (my demo reel and a mostly abandoned short I spent a bunch of time on) where it will hopefully get feedback from their team of animation ninjas
Day 1: Booted up Maya and worked on the infamous "swing exercise", which was supposed to be a simple cycle and I turned into a "Ben Hur" length production (okay, 10 seconds). Finished for now; will probably polish a bit more later. Sent to Gobelins
Day 2: Got caught up working on a 3d model when I should be animating. Bad Ryan. Made stuff but not the right stuff.
Day 3: Had a mango, instant coffee and a bowl of cereal. Decided to finally start a blog again. Wrote an excessively long intro post while transfering some files I need to work. If all goes well, I will be working on the "severed head" assignment we got to celebrate Bastille Day. Backup plan is to watch a video on face rigging and get my old TF2 Demo girl model with a good face setup so I can start animating with her.
I considered running out to buy a bike at the used bike market but decided against it. There's one every weekend and in a week I'll have a better idea if I need a bike here. There's a grocery store next door and a bar across the street so I should be good.
Brief recap: I am living in Cologne, Germany for one month. I don't know anyone here which is the point; I have shit to do and I've been wanting to take some time off and do some new animation work for a long time.
Especially after the two week summer I was at in July at Gobelins in Paris, I am reeeeeally itching to make some new stuff.
It's day 4 in the apartment (thanks again Waldemar; your place is great). Here's where I am at:
Day 0: Got to the apartment at 9:30pm. Settled in and sent some things to Gobelins ftp site (my demo reel and a mostly abandoned short I spent a bunch of time on) where it will hopefully get feedback from their team of animation ninjas
Day 1: Booted up Maya and worked on the infamous "swing exercise", which was supposed to be a simple cycle and I turned into a "Ben Hur" length production (okay, 10 seconds). Finished for now; will probably polish a bit more later. Sent to Gobelins
Day 2: Got caught up working on a 3d model when I should be animating. Bad Ryan. Made stuff but not the right stuff.
Day 3: Had a mango, instant coffee and a bowl of cereal. Decided to finally start a blog again. Wrote an excessively long intro post while transfering some files I need to work. If all goes well, I will be working on the "severed head" assignment we got to celebrate Bastille Day. Backup plan is to watch a video on face rigging and get my old TF2 Demo girl model with a good face setup so I can start animating with her.
I considered running out to buy a bike at the used bike market but decided against it. There's one every weekend and in a week I'll have a better idea if I need a bike here. There's a grocery store next door and a bar across the street so I should be good.
FIRST!
Hi, my name is Ryan and I am an animation road warrior. I am a 32 year old American from Redmond, Washington (not DC). I play guitar, drink beer and abuse parenthesis when typing extended thoughts (you'll see!).
Do people even READ blogs any more? I don't know. But maybe I'll read this again some day. Or maybe some future employer will see my demo reel and be like "wow, that guy is cool!" and then they'll find this blog and be like "what a total jackoff!"
A brief Chronology of Ryan:
-1978: I was born, under a blood red full moon, swaddled in the pelt of a freshly skinned wolf
-1991(?) Our family got it's first computer, a Packard Bell 386sx20. I got my first animation software "Cartooners", which I used to make cute little animals swear and murder each other.
-1992: Drank my first beer.
-1997: Drank my first beer legally (Thanks Canada!)
-1999: Torn between becoming a mechanic and animator, with the help of a friend and his shitty 1978 Chevy van, I decided I hate other peoples cars and would rather make animation. I enrolled in the DigiPen Institute of Technology that year.
-2001: Graduated with a degree in 3d animation. Three weeks later, I was flown down to LA for an interview with a video game studio and shortly after, I moved to Los Angeles, California to work there as an animator.
-2004: I got my first passport and took a 5 week trip to Europe.
-2006: I moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands (trust me Dutch folks who think I'm stating the obvious; I've talked to people who thought Amsterdam was in Germany).
-Late 2007: I moved to Austin, Texas
-Summer 2008: I moved to Finland.
-2009: my five year old passport was full and I had to go to the US Embassy in Helsinki to get more pages. This was a proud moment for me.
-March 2010: I completed my work contract and left Finland.
Since then I've been back in Redmond, San Francisco, Iceland, Paris, Amsterdam and at this moment I am sitting in Cologne, Germany where I'm spending the next month to crank out some new animations and put together a new demo reel, before seeking out my next animation gig.
The major moves were work related but in the interest of brevity, I'll talk about those another time, if at all.
ANYWAY apparently some people (including myself) think I should be documenting my life better than the occasional Facebook post about cute East German crosswalks or how cars should be taxed on how often they honk their horn, and they're probably right because my memory isn't exactly a steel trap. That's why I take a lot of pictures too... and never remember to upload them.
This is not my first blog ever. It's actually my third. My first was on Livejournal in 2004 and was started to document my first trip to Europe, where I've now been living for most of the last 4 years. It's fun but a little embarrassing to go back and read about myself exploring Europe for the first time, trying to make sense of things, comparing things that shouldn't be compared, etc. When I went back to California, where I lived at the time, it got lame and boring. I'm not going to post a link. If you're a real e-stalker, you can find it.
The second was on Myspace (remember Myspace?). The non-travel parts were less crappy as I made an effort to not be one of people who just uses the internet to be a whiny bitch, though when blogging I found the temptation is strong, even for a generally positive person. My last blog post on Myspace was when I lived in Texas in 2008. Texas was not a fantastic experience for me and it became case of not having anything nice to say. Then some stuff happened the week I moved to Finland and... well, 2008 was in general, was not a very good year for me. I stopped blogging.
In 2009 I was on a train in Japan, thinking about hipster white guys in Tokyo and I whipped out my trust Netbook and wrote a blog post about it. I don't know if I'll ever post it but it made me remember that blogging still exists. Well, that and the show blog for the occasional animation/games podcast I do with a couple of my friends from Austin here: http://www.reanimators.net/
Now it's 2010. I've been freelancing for about a year now and worked with two great companies in two very different countries. I think my life is pretty cool at the moment and I'd like to keep better track of what I'm doing and what I've done so if you want, feel free to join on this magical journey.
I haven't figured out yet if this blog is going to be about animation, the games industry or travel but it's likely to be all three. I will try to be vigilant with labels so you worldly people can skip the animation talk and you people who like video games but don't know or care what country makes Swiss Army Knives can continue to not know or care.
Ok, that's enough time wasted. So much for brevity but hey, there's probably a fun drinking game to be had counting the number of parenthesis I used! I don't know if this thing will catch on with me or anyone else but I've got stuff to animate.
Do people even READ blogs any more? I don't know. But maybe I'll read this again some day. Or maybe some future employer will see my demo reel and be like "wow, that guy is cool!" and then they'll find this blog and be like "what a total jackoff!"
A brief Chronology of Ryan:
-1978: I was born, under a blood red full moon, swaddled in the pelt of a freshly skinned wolf
-1991(?) Our family got it's first computer, a Packard Bell 386sx20. I got my first animation software "Cartooners", which I used to make cute little animals swear and murder each other.
-1992: Drank my first beer.
-1997: Drank my first beer legally (Thanks Canada!)
-1999: Torn between becoming a mechanic and animator, with the help of a friend and his shitty 1978 Chevy van, I decided I hate other peoples cars and would rather make animation. I enrolled in the DigiPen Institute of Technology that year.
-2001: Graduated with a degree in 3d animation. Three weeks later, I was flown down to LA for an interview with a video game studio and shortly after, I moved to Los Angeles, California to work there as an animator.
-2004: I got my first passport and took a 5 week trip to Europe.
-2006: I moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands (trust me Dutch folks who think I'm stating the obvious; I've talked to people who thought Amsterdam was in Germany).
-Late 2007: I moved to Austin, Texas
-Summer 2008: I moved to Finland.
-2009: my five year old passport was full and I had to go to the US Embassy in Helsinki to get more pages. This was a proud moment for me.
-March 2010: I completed my work contract and left Finland.
Since then I've been back in Redmond, San Francisco, Iceland, Paris, Amsterdam and at this moment I am sitting in Cologne, Germany where I'm spending the next month to crank out some new animations and put together a new demo reel, before seeking out my next animation gig.
The major moves were work related but in the interest of brevity, I'll talk about those another time, if at all.
ANYWAY apparently some people (including myself) think I should be documenting my life better than the occasional Facebook post about cute East German crosswalks or how cars should be taxed on how often they honk their horn, and they're probably right because my memory isn't exactly a steel trap. That's why I take a lot of pictures too... and never remember to upload them.
This is not my first blog ever. It's actually my third. My first was on Livejournal in 2004 and was started to document my first trip to Europe, where I've now been living for most of the last 4 years. It's fun but a little embarrassing to go back and read about myself exploring Europe for the first time, trying to make sense of things, comparing things that shouldn't be compared, etc. When I went back to California, where I lived at the time, it got lame and boring. I'm not going to post a link. If you're a real e-stalker, you can find it.
The second was on Myspace (remember Myspace?). The non-travel parts were less crappy as I made an effort to not be one of people who just uses the internet to be a whiny bitch, though when blogging I found the temptation is strong, even for a generally positive person. My last blog post on Myspace was when I lived in Texas in 2008. Texas was not a fantastic experience for me and it became case of not having anything nice to say. Then some stuff happened the week I moved to Finland and... well, 2008 was in general, was not a very good year for me. I stopped blogging.
In 2009 I was on a train in Japan, thinking about hipster white guys in Tokyo and I whipped out my trust Netbook and wrote a blog post about it. I don't know if I'll ever post it but it made me remember that blogging still exists. Well, that and the show blog for the occasional animation/games podcast I do with a couple of my friends from Austin here: http://www.reanimators.net/
Now it's 2010. I've been freelancing for about a year now and worked with two great companies in two very different countries. I think my life is pretty cool at the moment and I'd like to keep better track of what I'm doing and what I've done so if you want, feel free to join on this magical journey.
I haven't figured out yet if this blog is going to be about animation, the games industry or travel but it's likely to be all three. I will try to be vigilant with labels so you worldly people can skip the animation talk and you people who like video games but don't know or care what country makes Swiss Army Knives can continue to not know or care.
Ok, that's enough time wasted. So much for brevity but hey, there's probably a fun drinking game to be had counting the number of parenthesis I used! I don't know if this thing will catch on with me or anyone else but I've got stuff to animate.
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