*~*Writer of My Own Life*~*

Today was fixing the shaders up along with fixing the bubbles.Most of the day went to fixing the shaders as the characters' shaders were acting very weird. It was then that I realized that the model was not subdivided and that's why it caused weird formation of the shaders.Today we had Halloween pot luck in the office which I enjoyed very much. I did something as well which was chocolate brownies.Fixing the bubbles were difficult as the speed and spread takes time to do. Also, the office held a movie night to celebrate Halloween. It wwas at 8pm and the movie was 'The Shining'. I wanted to watch it completely but I was too tired and left at 10pm.

Today was the day that Antoine came to the office to see our work. He was overall very happy with my work,saying that it was getting there. Also, all I have to do is work on my bubbles and shaders on the characters and focal point of the environment and I will be able to finish. I was told that I was good as I made great progress since the first time I met Antoine and that I should give myself a pat and the back. I thanked him along with asking him how I should improve which I was very glad that he replied, even though he had to leave.

Today we had a mantra class. I was very happy I managed to get in more information compared to the last class as Brian slowed down his pace. He taught us motion blur, depth of field, global illuminance along with instances and PBR.


Due to Antoine's comments on the characters' shaders, I asked Brian to show me how to make a ramp shader as the past few times I tried making the shader but it kept coming out as a matte-like shader. I was really grateful I managed to learn how to make it from him and will try using it in my project.

Today was continuing to get the shaders up and done for both environment and the characters. I brighten up the environment to achieve a more happy feel to the overall. Today, Aliza asked me to show the Head of SideFx my work as he was interested in character animation and also, Debra held a class and let the students see my work as well. They asked me how I found Houdini compared to Maya and I have to say that I found Houdini to be much better than Maya in so many ways. I was a bit unsure whether my work was up to standard but it seemed that each of them were impressed with it so I am very relieved.I hope the overall will turn out great.This week's aim is to get the work done for the weekends to get it rendered out.

Today was just contining wih trying to get the shot B and A working together properly. It was difficult but the comments I got from the people at work was that it has improved and it looked great. I really hope I can can get it approved as quickly as possible so I can start bubbles soon as I need to observe and see if the bubbles are acting correctly.

I was told to contine changing my shot B some more along with changing shot C to have the baby shoot out of frame. I will be working hard this week as I am very behind schedule. I really hope I can get it done by tomorrow or something. Today we had shaders class. It was very interesting but due to the short time we had and Brian's rushed schedule, I wasn't able to catch much but I did understand his teachings as he had taught me before when we were creating a material for my character. But I did learn new stuff lke anti aliasing noise node in the material node. Hopefully I will be able to touch that by this week as well.

I spent the day editting the best I can out of my work towards Antoine's comments. The transition of cuts were difficult as the characters in shot B were not the same characters in shot A. I wasn't able to finish the last editting which was making the animation go faster by 10 frames as I had to catch the 10pm bus. opefully I can come in early tomorrow and render and edit of the work along with editing my schedule before Antoinecomes tomorrow.

I did my somewhat final animation and had just sent it to Antoine. I did it after showing it to John to see for dailies. His comments were sitive and I realized that I din't really have to change much for my work because of his comments. He also told me that I don't have to do plankton particles as there are no planktons in the Bahamas. So I will be rendering comps for Antoine tomorrow and doing bubble particles for him tomorrow.

Today is not really much, I am still editing on he animation and aiming to get the animation done by tomorrow. I got more suggestions from Peter and I stil hope to get it done by tomorrow. I will be getting ready the stuff for tomorrow's dailies for show and hopefully yes, the animation and other stuff I want done by tomorrow will be done on theexpected time.

Today was another day for Antoine to come down to the office personally to give his comments on our work. Thankfully, his comments were positive and I am rushing to get my animation done by Friday.Aliza said I am almost done but I believe with the comments I've been getting, the finishing line isn't going to be so close. Today we had ur Advanced POPs class. The system was awesome and easy to understand if you think of the work in a mathematical way. I am going to use that for the bubbles in my scene, hopefully everything turns out according to plan.

Today we went to Blizzard. At first I wasn't that excited as I am not a game person but when Ireached the area, I fell in love with the concept art and painting they had.The work environment was so inspiring and awesome and fun to work in. Theygave swords and shields to eople who had worked at the company for 5 years or more and we even got to meet the boss himself, though only to smile and wave at him. The tour rounded up when we met up with a Blizzard recruiter an were told that entering Blizzard was a difficult process,phone interviews to tests on how fast you can do a concept in a short time limit as short as a minute. And one requirement to get hired was to be a fan of the games as they want stuff that can be placed in their games, hahaha sad for a person who don't play games like me. Oh well, there's Pixar.

Back in the office, we did rendering for our Dailies for Antoine tomorrow. I also did changes to my animation and will continue it tomorrow Hoping to finally get the animation done and starting on POPs.

Oh, today it rained in the rarely rain LA. Apparently, it rains so rarely that when it does, people don't kow how to drive in the rain. Also, it resulted in floods and land slide. I hope our area won't e affected much. Hahaha finally a long post after a while.

Today I still am continuing the animation and I am worried because it is still not done yet znd I am planning to get it all done by tomorrow. I guess everything can't go accordingto plan like we hope. Today we had an introduction to POPs, Houdini's particle system. At first, the stuff Eric taught us were basic and nd of boring but when we learnt how to 'blast' the teapot and unblast it back, the class opened my eyes. I hope to use the effect in my project and Fusion.

The Saturday and Sunday were continuation of editing of the animation. I rethink and imagine myself and the characters' position and tried my best to edit their poses to get a better effect on the animation.The animation is still no done yet buthopefuly it will be when I show it to Antoine of Wednesday.

Today was not a really much achieved day as all I did was change and adjust the lighting in the scene and change the mountain area of my scene to clay and also changing the front part of the animation. I will be contnuing the changing of animation and aiming to get the changes done by Sunday.

Today we had Antoine coming over to the office to take a look at what we have done so far. He told me to change some parts of the animation and make 3 duplicates of te character to have th feeling of cuts in editing and compile the video in a video editing software. It would be a bit work heavy but I'll try my best to get it doe by this week. Also, I edited my lighting for the scene and ill also be editting the rendering a little bit and editting displacements to the mountain and coral.

Today I did shaders tesing for the scene. I also did lighting and hdri images to get the environment lighting and shadows on the characters and te environment. I am curently having the elements rendering overnight and I will be going back tomorrow early to composit the stuff together.

Today i have final comleted my aniamtion. I will be sending Antoine a flipook of it in the mornig while oing onto exploring shaders. I will also be bringng in my laptop tomorrow as I need photoshop for the texturing. I also went to take out elements from my scene node as texturing needs the item in different nodes.

Today was rendering out what we did so far for our new mentor Antoine so we learnt how to use the render farm more. Today I am happy to say that if everything goes well, the animation will be done by tomorrow. I will be editiing the scene a bit and rendering the clip out again for Antoine tomorrow.

I went back to the office again to refine the animation even more.Its now nearly done so tomorrow will have another rushing period to get it done. Today I learnt how to use the render farm by Dan. It was pretty fun but slightly complicated and troublesome because most of the computers weren't functioning right.

Today I went back to the office again.The animation is now a bit better but still needsa much more refinement.At least the camera positions have been confirmed so I feel a lot safer since I have to do a flipbook for Antoine,my new mentor, on Monday.So I will be returning back because I want to get the animation done best by Monday as well.

Today was an optinal day but I went back to the ffice anyways. I did some new camera moves, refined them and als started redoing refinements on the characters as well. I will continue with the work during the weekends. Also, I planned to finish the animation by this week as well so will be working to night.