I’ve wanted to animate cartoons since I was old enough draw. I had originally gone to the Art Institute to learn 3d but didn’t last long enough to get to the animation classes.  Honestly I had spent so long knowing I was going to be an animator that when I went to regular college to finish my art degree I couldn’t ever actually focus on an area of study like most of the other students in my classes who knew they were photographers or knew they were painters or whatever. It was my own fault I kind of just coasted through school not finding my niche knowing good and well the entire time what it was. Sure enough I latched onto digital design well enough to get a few jobs doing everything from cookie-cutter web design, client-mandated design, to what I’m doing know which is totally fun but I’d never think I’d be doing apparel design in my life. So, what do I do about it?

I’m learning 3ds MAX. Yep, 8 years later I’m going back to animation. Not because I want to but because I can’t watch a movie or play a videogame without it slapping me in the face. Back in high school my ex let me borrow his PS2 during spring break while he went out of town with is family. Of course, by borrow he meant babysit which I very much did. Beat Final Fantasy X three times in a row ( had to get Tidus’ final overdrive with each girl lol) I remember watching the cinematics and just being in awe of how awesome they looked on my 9 inch CRT tv. I freaking cried during the ending the first time I watched it. (Final Fantasy X was my Twilight ok.)

So when did I decide to up and learn 3d animation all of a sudden? Well, it would have to be a mix of things from the past week. When Corey came to visit he brought his 360, which was good because I got Forza3 for Christmas and couldn’t play it yet due to our xbox being sent off for repairs. I played just enough races with a Ford Fiesta to get enough credits to buy the e30 M3. The graphics on Forza3 are so far beyond Forza2 its almost scary to watch. I figured if i could do THIS with Illustrator how hard could it be to model a car.

Then we went and saw Fern Gully…I mean Avatar…in 3d. The entire time I was watching the movie I couldn’t help but think I could so totally do that if I could just learn the program. Cut to a few days later having a conversation with Cody about what my next step should be as far as my art career goes. Basically I’m capped out where I am currently, which isn’t bad ( I make plenty and my job is awesome) but if I ever want to have e30 money and pay off all these student loans I need to have some larger guns in my arsenal of art skills. Illustrator is a pretty big gun but 3ds Max and Maya are like the Congo Laser and Death Star in comparison.

I spent all day today going over layouts and tutorials in the free 30 day trial of 3d Studio Max. It took me three hours to get through the first tutorial and another three to get the thing actually outputted to video hahah.  So far it seems like just a massive amount of information and billions of tools and options to click and select but once I get the hang of it this shouldn’t be too bad at all. You can see up above the 30 second clip of the revolving door I made today. Since I didn’t have the source files they talk about I couldn’t get the glass in the door to show up clear so they are solid, eventually I’ll laugh at myself for not knowing how to do that but I gotta start somewhere. I want to start doing a tutorial every night. Perhaps I’ll update everyday with the results! I’ve got a book on its way and I’m gonna see about getting a full version of the software. Though I’m kind of scared because it took every ounce of my computers juice to render that revolving door hahaha.