Speaking of brains, I’ve been going to a neurofeedback clinic for the past month or so, learning how to control my brainwaves. It’s been a really positive experience so far. This technology is pretty powerful and I suspect it will become much more common in the years to come. Since I’ve started, I’ve noticed that my thinking has become clearer and more coherent. Organizing my thoughts has become less strenuous. I recommend it highly to anyone who has any interest in such things.

Class: Animation 1.
Made a bouncing ball in XSI using the curve editor.

Tuesday:
Class: Story Process 1. New teacher this week, same teacher from my storytelling strategies class. I like having two story classes, one with all animation students and one with film, game, and audio also. The two classes cover different stuff, so it hasn’t been redundant yet. We explored the free screenwriting software Celtx. Assignment for next week: Start writing a screenplay using Celtx.

Class: Lighting & Texturing.
Practiced lighting a scene. Introduced to 3 point lighting. Assignment for next week: Light another scene.

Class: Storytelling Strategies.
Turned in our first draft of our childhood story assignment.

Wednesday:
Class: Modeling 1.
Worked with subdivision surfaces in Maya, which was really confusing. Then covered textures a bit. Assignment for next week: Keep working on hand model, but in polygons, not subdivs. Also look for tutorials on the web.

Class: Oral Communication for Media Arts.
Discussion about what makes a good speech. Watched speeches from Hitler and Obama. Assignment for next week: Come up with ideas for our informative speech.

Class: VFX & Compositing.
Worked with instancing vs. duplicating, and other techniques to reduce the number of polygons in a scene to speed up rendering. Assignment for next week: Take more pictures of environments to place CG objects in.

Thursday:
Class: History of Computer Graphics.
Watched some videos from the Computer History Museum.

Assignment: Watch this video

…and continue reading Droid Maker.

Class: Storytelling Strategies.
Got into groups, read our stories, and gave each other feedback. Looked at this article and talked about structure. Assignment: Final draft of childhood story. Eavesdrop on conversations and record a few pages of dialogue. Turn in brainstorm binder and observation notebook.

Friday:
No class.

Class: Animation 1. Came up with a concept and storyboard for a flying logo animation for fictional company “Firestorm Entertainment.”

Tuesday:
Class: Story Process 1. Lecture on the importance of story in animation and visual effects, watched Joseph Campbel interview.

Class: Lighting & Texturing. Introduced to XSI’s Render Tree. Lecture on difference between real life lighting and CG lighting.

Class: Storytelling Strategies. CLOSATS (Character, Location, Object, Situation, Action, Theme, Sound).

Wednesday:
Class: Modeling 1. Turned in directors chair. Began working on modeling curtains and a stage.

Class: Oral Communication for Media Arts. Talked about public speaking. Students gave introductions and spoke in front of the class.

Class: VFX & Compositing. Worked on UFO thing with spherical projection. Learned what “Final Gathering” means.

Thursday:
Class: History of Computer Graphics. CG Historical Timeline. Watched “The Drifter” and learned about the special effects in that film. Watched a report on Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad from 1961.

Watched Ralph Baer and Bill Harrison play Pong in 1969.

Watched new fluid simulations.

SPH – I see waves from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.

Class: Storytelling Strategies. Turned in one page biography of fictional character based on a real person. Talked about characters. Watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Friday:
Class: Jumpstart Speaker Series. Flashpoint CEO Howard Tullman spoke on entrepreneurship, what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur.