The Summer Time Animation Domination

It's summer time in Seattle and I have a great new idea: I'm going to spend it in doors creating animations. Just kidding... well, partially kidding. The past two weekends I created new animations and I already have another idea for a third which I will work on THIS weekend. So unless something irresistible comes up, I'll just keep making them on a weekly basis. Today I'll show you two that I have done so far, and go into the details of the second one. (I make another blog to talk about the first animation, but since I just completed the second animation I'm more excited to talk about that.)
 

Ok!! So I was sitting there one day thinking about my portfolio and that I really needed several animations made purely in After Effects. So I was brainstorming about a good animation that uses a lot of layers and has a bunch of moving parts when I had the idea to create an animation to simulate the inside of a clock. Now when you watch it obviously isn't designed from the blueprints of an actual clock, but it does have several key elements: A) an enclosed environment, B) moving gears, and C) the shadow of a clock face. 

A) This effect was created by importing a wood texture that I found online. I tried to find the most evenly lighted picture so that all the edges were the same brightness and there wasn't a repeating hot spot on each wall. After I imported the picture I turned it into a 3D layer, changed the rotation to create the floor, duplicated it, changed the rotation again to turn it into a wall, and repeated the process till I had my little wooden room. Doing this created a feeling of being in a space (or hopefully being in a clock).

B) The moving gears were also found online in one illustrator file that someone put up for others to use. I went through and picked the gears I liked, then precomposed them. I brought them all in individually and placed them within the clock compositon. For the rotation animation I Alt+Clicked on the Z rotation and added the expression "time*X." Then I would duplicate the gears line up the teeth and change duplicate's expression to "time*-X" so that they would rotate in the opposite direction.

C) The Shadow of the clock face was pretty straight forward. I imported a png file of the clock face (thus preserving it's transparency) and put it into my comp. Then I turned it into a 3D layer and placed it behind the camera. Then I created a spotlight and placed it behind the clock face and pointed it at the rear wall. Then I opened the clock face's Transform Properties and enabled "Cast Shadows." Viola! Instant shadow!

After I created the animation, I found some simple sound effects on Youtube and laid them on the track in Final Cut Pro. Finally I put the animation on repeat.  And that's that! I will admit that I am not 100% happy with the lighting in the scene, but it lighting is not an area that I have worked a lot in yet, so maybe that will be my next project!.

Suggested Viewings: British Cinema

All of you aspiring film aficionados have probably thought to yourself, "I want to expand my understanding of the cinematic medium by watching foreign films." Shortly after you doubtlessly remembered that the reason you don't is because you don't like reading subtitles. Many people have told me that the reason that they don't like to watch foreign movies is because they don't want to read subtitles. Personally, they don't bother me in the slightest, but I can see where people are coming from. So, in light of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee I have pulled two British action movies for your viewing pleasure. This way you can explore foreign cinema without the alienating foreign language! It's a nice way to ease yourself into exploring films from beyond our borders.
The following movies are also tied together with two common themes: They are all directed by Guy Ritchie and star Jason Statham. So you know they're going to be awesome.

 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
When a group of no-bodies get cheated in a high-stakes card game they end up half a million pounds (that's British money) in debt with only a week to pay it back. Guy Ritchie movies always have a lot of great action and comedy. They characters, situations, and dialogue will get at least a few chuckles out of you. Lots of gangsters, guns, and f-bombs in this little gem.

Snatch (2000)

Jason Statham, yet again, finds himself being chased by gangsters in one of my favorite action movies. Brad Pitt plays a bare-knuckle boxing gypsy that gets two boxing promoters in trouble with the bookmakers. This one has a great cast and a truly chaotic (yet manageable) story line. If you're looking for witty comedy, bad-ass dialogue, and pig farmers, this is the one for you.

Guy Ritchie has also made another movie that is similar to the above called Revolver which was released in 2005 in the UK and 2007 in the US. I personally do not believe it is quite good enough to suggest everyone to go watch it, but if you really liked the first two you'll probably like this one as well.

Discussions with Devs: Magic Pixel Games

The second of episode of Discussions with Devs has arrived!  It can now officially be called a series.  Today, I sit down with Holden Link from Magic Pixel Games.  It was founded back in 2010 by several game industry veterans with a mission for fun.  Holden and I talk about how the studio was founded, their latest game Carnival Island, and developing games for motion control platforms.  Enjoy!

As always, if you have any suggestions for future episodes then comment below or email me at ryanjsuter@gmail.com  And thanks!

Discussions with Devs: Tarver Games

It's done!  Below is the first installment of Discussions with Devs, your guide on the awesome journey through the Indie dev community.  In the show, I talk to Chris Cross from Tarver Games in Long Beach, CA about his current project Cold War 2.0, working in Unity 3D, and his blog (jimtarver.blogspot.com).

Enjoy!

A big thanks to Chris for working with me and being my guinea pig on this project.

This is a shortened version of the interview.  I will post the full version at a later time.

Discussions with Devs: The Plan So Far

For a while now, I've been tossing around the idea of doing Skype interviews with Indie game developers.  I've mentioned it to a few people and they all seemed to like the concept.  If you're interested, here are some details about the project:

• The title of the project is called "Discussions with Devs"
• They segments would be 5-10 min video Skype interviews
• We would talk about the studios, what inspires them, how they got into it, and their latest game of course
• The objective is to have fans get to know the developers behind their favorite games, get the developers some free publicity, and offer insight into the Indie community and the future of gaming
• My girlfriend, Lauren McLaren, wrote the theme music

Here is the title intro for the upcoming segment:

  A few weeks ago, I discussed it with Richard Williams, a former coworker of mine from THQ, and he was nice enough to put me in contact with a guy named Chris Wright.  Chris, is starting up a business in Melbourne, Australia called Surprise Attack that does PR and marketing for Indie devs, so he seemed like the perfect person to talk to about my idea.  Yesterday, I chatted with him via Skype and got some very good pointers on working with Indie developers and where to start searching for good studios.  After my talk with Chris, I finally feel prepared to start sending out feelers to potential interviewees.  However, the whole gaming industry is on hold right now due to GDC, so even though I've already heard back from some people they won't have an answer till next week.  But that's OK, cause I still have some issues to iron out.

There are some websites that are doing similar work, including toucharcade.com.  That website follows all the different games and trends in the world of mobile developers.  They even do a weekly podcast that I've been listening to.

All-in-all I'm really excited for this project.  If you have any suggestions for my show, or ideas for potential interviews, post a comment below or email me at ryanjsuter@gmail.com. And thanks!

My first blog for my new plan.

Hello world. My name is Ryan Suter and this is my first blog. Recently, I felt that I don't have a lot to show for the type of person I perceive myself to be. So I created a video and posted it online. It made it all the way to the 14th position on the r/video subreddit. I was very happy with the response that I got for the video. However, the most amazing response was the unexpected attention I received from my coworkers. It did not occur to some of them that their Mailroom clerk could be so creative. That's when I had an epiphany. I need to properly document the things I do so that I may share them with others. Read a comic book, play a video game, make a movie, write some code, or go to a museum. Then sit down and write about. That way I can show people who I am and what I do. In other words I'm writing this to better myself and so you can know me better.

To really kick off this tremendous undertaking, please enjoy this video. It may not be the most amazing thing I've done or that you've seen, but the ramifications of making this video have been incredibly inspirational. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZccNAPf0OQ&feature=share