verbal

A few days ago I was speaking with a character animator who has used Maya, XSI and Houdini, professionally. To my surprise, he said that Houdini was his favorite. He listed some of the reasons why, which included the innovative & intuitive flipbook, as well as the unmatched graph editor.

Despite this...

...a few weeks have passed since my first post here and I'm thinking that I cannot afford to take the leap. Time is limited and considering the lack of experience...

Nice to take some time off and be able to focus on some of the important personal stuff going on in my life. That included bookcases, setting up Ubuntu/Windows7 dual boot (w/ Houdini & Intuos4 tablet working great). Next I'm going to get some voice recognition software setup and then cleanup my personal website a bit. Finally/hopefully I plan to get into some Houdini, Andrew Lowell style.

Oh yeah... BUT FIRST!! To browse the forums a bit more.

Trying to think of some good project ideas.

So far?

Room Planning Tool: Take the room that I've modeled out and replace the geometry w/ procedurally created furniture. Intuitive UI will allow snapping of objects withing the confines of the room for easy placement of objects. Colors and textures could be controlled this way as well. Amanda is an interior designer, so I'd have a good artist to get feedback from.

Animation Layering on a character rig...

I spent quite a bit of my life giving people advice on how to achieve something, yet I didn't practice what I preached.

The advice? "If you give even 80% of yourself to something, you will accomplish it. You want to be an actor? Then spend 80% of your time doing that. `I don't have enough time` is not a valid excuse. Having more time just speeds things up. You will accomplish what you set out to do... eventually."

Luckily, I was able to change my thinking...

WORK
Today I'm meeting with our production manager at work. We're not going to be talking about the game, but about me. 1 on 1. He mentioned he has a "thick skin", so I shouldn't hold back. He wants to know what I want... what I want to do with myself in the future.

Another important thing for me is education. I'll certainly bring this up in our meeting. 3D animation is the most important communication tool we have. PERIOD. I want to utilize it to... hmm......