Highs and Lows

It's funny how a day can go through so many highs and lows.

Technically, it started with a low dealing with drama with a friend in the wee hours of the morning, which meant I got very little sleep. Work came next, which in itself is generally rather neutral. Luckily, today my school had a demonstration about motion capture technology, which was definitely a high and got me very excited.

Unfortunately, the day ended on a rather deep low once I got to my 3D Camera Techniques class. The instructor has been nothing but critical and judgmental about my group's project, and tonight it really got on my nerves. I was genuinely very excited walking into class, and within 15 minutes, I just wanted to get out of there.

Tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully with it comes new highs.

Rendering: The Next Chapter

New class. New assignment. Same epic struggle with my old foe, Rendering.

This time around it's for 3D Visual Effects, and although it isn't nearly as bad as my final for Materials & Lighting, it's a battle nonetheless. I've been rendering since about 6 PM and have 210 frames to show for it. I still have 715 to go.

If this is only the midterm, how bad will the final be?

Symbols

Who would've thought it would be so difficult coming up with symbols to represent the different majors at my school?

At work, my boss asked me to come up with designs for buttons that represent each of the departments at my school. It sounded like a fun assignment, so I immediately got to work. Some were actually very easy - like Culinary, Game Art & Design, Web Design, and Film - but others elusive no matter how much I thought about it. I ended up having to ask a few people around school for their ideas, and eventually we thought of symbols to represent Media Arts & Animation (my own major) and Interior Design. That left just Graphic Design; the most challenging of all. I asked multiple GD students what they felt would best represent them, and none could give me a good answer.

This has led me to believe that Graphic Design isn't a real course of study; it's more like a wannabe major, made up of bits and pieces of other majors. Think of Graphic Design like the English language: sure, I guess it's a language now, but at it's core it's just an amalgamation of a dozen other languages. Say any sentence, and you'll see influences/assimilation of German, Greek, Latin, Spanish, etc.

Good thing no Graphic Designers read this blog, otherwise they would be upset. Of course, I'm just kidding. Mostly. I'm currently trying to decide between three symbol ideas for Graphic Design, although none are screaming that they are they right choice. I guess I'll just have to keep tweaking the ideas until I get one right. Once I'm all done, I'll be sure to share what I came up with for all the majors.

Jason Rico, Film Editor

I edited my first film tonight. OK, so maybe the term "film" is used loosely. It's only 45 seconds long, and it's by no means a masterpiece, but it still counts. Right?

Post Cinco de Mayo Aftermath

I noticed a lot more people were missing from class today than usual.

Perhaps they are hungover somewhere after celebrating too much last night? I wonder...

Not the Usual Lunch

For the past seven quarters, I have had the good fortune on being on the Honor Roll at school. The only real perk of this is admittance to the Honors Luncheon, where the school provides a large lunch for the recipients. Every quarter, the restaurant that has catered the luncheon has been a great place called Todo Un Poco. This restaurant happened to be one of my favorite restaurants before I attended my first luncheon, so having them cater has been the cherry on top.

Every quarter, I look forward to attending this luncheon just so I can have a little bit of Todo Un Poco. Well, today was the luncheon for last quarter's grades, and there was no Todo Un Poco!

Now, I'm not complaining, because a free lunch is a free lunch, and we had delicious Chinese food instead, but I will admit that I was a little bummed. I guess that means I'll have to pay them a visit very soon.

The Long Road Ahead

It's only Week 3 of the quarter, but I can already tell this quarter is going to be stressful beyond any before. Not only am I taking a full load of courses, but these classes are going to require tremendous amounts of work; both alone and with others, which is always stressful. Add to that my new job, and this is going to be a very stressful quarter.

I hope I can get through it.

I Got the Job!

Yup, it's official - I got the student worker position at my school. The Director of Student Affairs called me this morning and informed me of the good news. I was half asleep when he called, so I hope I didn't say anything foolish, but I'm almost positive I didn't.

I'm so glad I got this job. Not only did I badly need one, but I really did feel this position would be perfect for me. I'm looking forward to getting started and making some changes.

Still no news on the internship, but I'll keep you posted as soon as I know. I'm not worried about it though, as this job was really the one I wanted.

Let's Make a Movie!

Looks like I'm going to end up making a short film in my 3D Camera Techniques that will be submitted to the Sacramento Film Festival. My program's academic director came into class today and talked to us for a bit about the class's new objective of creating a short film that incorporates live-action footage with 3D animation/camera work.

The aim is create something that's about a minute long, which isn't a long time at all, but if we make it short and sweet, it'll make a bigger impact than something longer and boring. I'm excited about this. This will be my program's first attempt at making something truly "professional" beyond just another school assignment.

The class has ten students and instead of all working on one film, we decided to break into two groups, and I'm excited about my group's idea. Unfortunately, we have a group member that I REALLY wish we didn't have, but him aside, I think I have a solid group. Hopefully that'll translate into a solid short film, as all of us are animators, not filmmakers.

Wish Me Luck

I'm not quite over my illness, not by a long shot, but I am definitely better. Let's just hope I'm even better tomorrow, since I have not one, but TWO job interviews.

The first is with KlickNation, a local game studio that specializes in games for social networks, such as Superhero City; which if you read my blog as religiously as I pretend you do, you've already heard about. The interview is for an unpaid internship, which I'm not too thrilled with, and I was notified about this interview VERY last minute, as in only a few hours ago, so I don't have an actual portfolio of the kind of work they're looking for to show them. Throw in the fact that this isn't even really the type of career I want to go into, and you're left with many reasons why I'm not too worried about not getting the position. Don't get me wrong, it'd definitely be great experience and could even turn into something paid down the line, but unless I have that certainty, I'm not gonna let it affect me.

The second interview was with my school for a Student Worker position in Student Affairs. This position IS paid, and I really feel is right up my alley. I've already tried hard on my own to set up events and make changes at the school on behalf of my fellow students, so imagine how much I could do if it's actually my job. This is the one I'm hoping for.

All in all, I have two big opportunities tomorrow, and I'd be lucky to snag either. Honestly, I'm hoping for both, would be more than happy with just the school position, would be shocked if I only got the KlickNation position, but would OK as long as I got one. Wish me luck tomorrow, and Tylenol, don't let me down.

School on Fridays

Yesterday I wrote about how my class schedule on Thursdays is going to have me at school from 8 AM until 9:30 PM, and how although that at first seemed insane, it was actually rather fun. Well, life has a sick way of being cruel because today's schedule, while only consisting of one class, felt longer than all three of my Thursday classes put together.

I'm not sure what it was, but I could not wait to get out of there. Hopefully today's class was an isolated event and the rest of the Fridays this quarter will be more bearable, otherwise it's going to be a long 10 weeks.

150 Posts / School on Thursdays

It was brought to my attention a while ago that I never did anything special or even acknowledge when I hit 100 posts. Well, in an attempt to make up for that, this is my special double-sized 150th post.

OK, it's not really double-sized. It's just another regular post, but I am at least acknowledging it this time. Now onto the actual post.

...............

I love my Thursday classes this quarter. This is the first week of the new quarter, and when I found out I would be taking three classes in one day, which meant I would have to be at school from 8 AM to 9:20 PM, I was NOT looking forward to it. Granted, I was looking forward to the individual classes, but all at once?! Not so much. However, after going to each, I can genuinely say I've very excited about Thursdays this quarter.

First up is Compositing, which is where we are going to take separate elements - such as film, green screen footage, 3D models, special effects - and combine them into a single composition. This is going to be a fun class. Next up is Intermediate Motion Graphics, which focuses on the artistic and design side of creating things such as title sequences as well as all the fancy flourishes and visual elements used in things like commercials. Finally, there's 3D Visual Effects, which deals with recreating the science - such as collisions, fluids, particles, etc. - of real life in a 3D scene. All in all, I expect to do a lot of fun stuff.

Of course, I can already tell that each is going to have a lot of work. That means an exponential amount of homework due on the same day. So, I may be excited right now, but ask me again in a few weeks when the homework catches up with me; I may not be so excited then.

...............

So, there you have it; my special double-sized 150th post. Or not. Oh, well. Here's to another 150. Thanks for reading.

Perfect Timing

Tomorrow is my first day of the new quarter, and I woke up today with a cold. Just great. I already felt like this was going to be the quarter from Hell, and this just proved it. Hopefully, I'll wake up magically cured. I doubt it, but here's to hoping...

Rendering Sucks: The Final Result

So, I figured after all the whining I did about how horrible rendering is, the least I could do is share with you what all the fuss was about. Here is my final project for my Materials & Lighting class:



The assignment was to simply texture a scene using multiple methods and light it. I decided to take a short animation I had previously made, with no textures or lighting whatsoever, and take it to the next level. Hands down the worse experience I've had with any final. However, I finally got it finished and to a point where I can be happy with it. Still not quite what I wanted, but good enough.

Rendering STILL Sucks

I really have nothing else to say right now, so I guess that's it. Come back tomorrow.

Rendering Sucks

This is a note to anyone that at some point in their lives will have to deal with the process of rendering footage: it sucks.

I've been rendering a 14 second scene over the last three days, and just now did I realize I rendered the last half incorrectly. So now I have to re-render that, THEN render out another scene. All before 1 PM tomorrow. HA! Yeah, right.

Gods of Maya and Rendering, I need a miracle...

Slumber Party

Last night was very interesting.

I guess, technically, it would have been this morning, but the time of day isn't really important; it's what happened.

I've recently become friends with a girl at school, and over the last few days, this girl - whom we shall call Leigh - and I have found ourselves chatting and texting each other a lot. Two nights ago, during one of our late night text conversations, Leigh mentioned that she was hungry and that I should take her some food. I immediately responded that she should bring me some food. Just a little playful banter that I expected to lead into another conversation. To my surprise, she responded that we should both go out and eat. It was around 1 AM, and the two of us had never done anything aside from a couple of larger group functions. As busy as I was with finals, food sounded good, and soon so we found ourselves at Denny's. That night was great; we talked so much that neither of us had even looked at the menu by the time our server got to out table, we playfully threw trash at each other, and we made each other laugh. I think that's a great night in anyone's book.

However, this post is about last night. Again, it started with a late night conversation, this time online. The time was about 2:00 AM, and we're both still up working on finals. Earlier that day, Leigh's car had broken down, and during out conversation, she mentioned that she wasn't sure how she would get to school. Being the helpful gentleman that I am, I offered that I could pick her up early and we could ride over to school together. Again to my surprise, she responded that I should just go pick her up right now so she could use my bed to sleep since I wouldn't be using it. (Earlier on, I had mentioned that I would be up all night working on finals and wouldn't be getting any sleep.) As shocked as I was, and as tempted as I was with all the possibilities to which this could lead, I tried my best to squash the idea. I did, after all, have a lot of finals to work on, plus the fact that my room was an absolute mess and there would be no way anyone would be seeing it for a long time. After a few more back-and-forths, nothing more was said about her coming over.

At least not for a while.

About 30 minutes later, Leigh said that she was done with her homework, would be taking a quick shower, then I should go pick her up.

I'm sure my mind totally shut down for a moment as it overloaded trying to process the information. Clearly, she was determined on coming over, and I couldn't really say no. After all, it was I who first mentioned riding with me to school the next morning. I immediately jumped up, and spent the next 15 minutes trying my best to clean the living room and bathroom, as well as the computer room where the futon (that I was going to set up for her; I wasn't kidding about no one seeing my room) was located. I brushed my teeth, gave myself a quick check in the mirror, made a few adjustments, sprayed a little body spray, and I left to pick up my soon-to-be guest.

During our night out at Denny's, Leigh had mentioned that her hair is naturally wavy. When I suggested she come to school with wavy hair one day, she told me that the only way someone would see her hair like that is if they stood right next to her bed as she woke up; before she rushed to straighten it. So, you can imagine my surprise when I pulled up and out she comes with wavy hair. I don't know what she was talking about, but she's still gorgeous with wavy hair. I'll admit that some people look better with either wavy or straight hair, but she pulls off both so nicely. She also didn't have on any make-up; another first for my eyes. Again, still beautiful.

When we arrived at my place, my plan was for Leigh to get a few hours of sleep while I worked on my final. She, on the other hand, decided she would simply stay awake with me throughout the night. I didn't mind, of course, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to focus on homework when you have a beautiful girl sitting next to you, just staring at you? Nearly impossible; that difficult. Once I realized that I could just give up getting anything done the rest of the night, we moved over to the futon and just hung out. We sat down, chatted, and joked around. This lead to us laying down next to each other where we continued to goof around, this time including playful poking and tickling.

This went on for a while until, unfortunately, the time came when we had to get ready for school. (Damn school...) Maybe it was just a playful night amongst friends, but damn if it didn't leave me feeling confused. Oh well; I'm too busy with finals to even really think about any of it right now. For now, I'm just going to say it was very unexpected, but also very fun. Not at all a bad way to start the day.

Push It to the Limit

Finals are always a stressful time, but this quarter has a new layer of stress. Now instead of just worrying about finishing, I also have to worry I don't ask too much of my computer. I've been working it extra hard lately, and I really hope it can take the heat. So far it's been a trooper, but I know everything has it's breaking point. I've been pushing it to the limit; let's hope I don't push it past the point of no return.

Finals

Finals = No time for anything else. Hopefully I'll be back (and back to sanity) later this week.

The Final Countdown, Winter 2010

With the end of today came the end of Week 10 for the Winter Quarter and the realization that there is only one week left until Spring Break. I know this sounds like it should be cause for celebration, but this unfortunately means one last week of absolutely hell as I try to finish up my final projects in time, and to standards with which I am happy. Week 11 means little to no sleep, no free time, high stress, and constant doubting of my talents/creativity.

This is it; only one week to go until freedom. Cue music by Europe.