Weekly Blender roundup #5

Jugaad Animation has started a weekly overview of his highlights in the Blender community.

Hi,

I always liked the idea of Tim ferriss' 5 Bullet friday and wanted to see it implemented in the blender world. So I started making one since january.

Every week on saturday, I roundup all the interesting things that happened in the blender world and I also add some tips on freelancing and work ethic.

Here is the link to the previous roundups.

Here is the latest post on blendernation for your pleasure.

Tutorial video of the week

Not only the end result looks nice. The way this tutorial is presented is pretty cool too.

Theory video I like

If you are ever going to animate stuff, you must have a basic idea of how acting works.

Learn from them the basic principles of acting and apply it in your animation, you will leagues ahead of other animators.

A person always looks at the face first before the body. Your facial expressions, your body language should evoke emotions in others. Everything you do (speech, body language,facial expressions and other actions) are a way to communicate ideas, convey a story to the audience.

Usually, you only do (or animate) what is absolutely essential. Being concise in your thoughts, actions and speech is an art. Conveying what you want in the least amount of steps will help you prioritize on what’s essential in the scene and what’s not.

They should realize what’s going on just by looking at the scene before any words are spoken. Watch your favorite cartoon and cinema on mute. See if you can understand what’s going on.

Make an attempt that your animation should convey the current situation in the story without any words.

Cool addon to watch out for

This looks so cool. They require beta testers for their addon.

You can check the blenderartists thread they created here.

Weekly Book recommendation:

Universal principles of design by William Lidwell.

This book is originally in Andrew Price’s book recommendation and I can see why.

The author references scientific studies and focuses on principles that were found to be true. Applying these principles in our work (be it a render or a 3D model) does make it look good and improve response from people.

I can say for sure this book single-handedly helped me on the design side more than any other design book that I have read. I have created notes of this book for quick reference. I will write a few points from the book.

1. People rely on their past experiences when trying new things. Design with keeping in mind people’s interaction and level of experience. For example, Blender Video Sequence editor (VSE) uses the same shortcuts as the 3D Viewport. This helps the user to understand quickly.
2. The time it takes to make decision increases as the number of alternative increases.
3. It is better to understand and perfectly meet the needs of the critical few than to poorly meet the needs of many.
4. Arrange asymmetrical elements in an image according to the weight of the elements rather than its hard edges.

Weekly Freelancing tip

Unique way of creating a demoreel.

This is actually a popular copywriting technique which does work most of the time.

Instead of creating random animation for a reel, look for freelance animation job descriptions online or offline.

If there is some clear job description you know you can do it. Then create a proposal and create a 5 second animation on that job description. The animation shouldn’t take you 3-4 hours of work. Attach it to the proposal. This is great for motion graphics projects.

Learn everything about the client, learn what he actually intend to do with the finished product and personalize your proposal keeping those facts in mind. Focus on the customer’s problem and the value you can provide.

If it consists of complicated modeling, then pick the least complicated model, model it and attach image samples of the model on that proposal.

If you get the job, well congrats. If you don’t get the job, then remove all the clients copyrighted logo and branding and use it in your demo reel.

There are two-fold advantages, you will learn what client expects pretty early in your career and you will have a great demo reel based on actual client expectations.

Quote from a book I am reading

“Mastery doesn’t come from an infographic. what you know doesn’t mean shit. What do you DO consistently.” -Tools of titans

Funny Blender post of the week

Fixing topology after boolean modifier, from /r/cgimemes