So some good news finally, the flood damage has been repaired in the apartment, and our insurance has come through with enough to cover all the lost and damaged items. Luckily, our table is able to be restored, but we are considering putting a glass panel to help protect the wood, which absorbed a lot of water and ended up cracking and parts of the finish chipped off. So I am off to repair the wood, the finish, and get glass or Plexiglas to protect it. I have a lot of cleaning and shopping to do now though, so I am going to be busy for the rest of this week cleaning up after all the workmen and such.
My plan is to finish by this weekend and then get back to animating, modeling, learning, rendering, etc. Not to mention job hunting.
I'll keep you all posted.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Life comes in waves...
As I have noted in the past personally, life and all that it brings with it tends to come in waves. Sometimes literally.
I will not say that I have had the worst time, or even a really bad time, but I have had better. And all these not so great things (and the great as well) have just taken time away from what I have been wanting to do: 3D art. So a (really) quick run down of all I've been doing and all that's happened.
I went to SIGGRAPH as a volunteer in Vancouver last August. Great fun, lots of cool people, worth the trip, but I hurt my foot pretty bad. Then, I freelanced for a while and did the whole "looking for work" thing. I wanted to keep working on the current file on this blog, but I was waiting for the new free Renderman to come out so I waited and worked on other things. I will post some of it in a little while.
After a while, the freelancing ended up getting put on hold as my wife and I decided it was time to move to save money. After all, student loans are starting to come in. So the moving process started, and we ended up with a new place just down the road that will save us a pretty bundle every month. I started working on a new demo reel you can find on my website, and went to the SCAD career fair in Savannah, where hurt my foot... again.
There, I got to talk with some really awesome people from Floyd County, Method, Primal Screen, Turner, and more. Despite my foot, I had a great time and got some leads out of it. As a result, I started to learn 3DS Max as was recommended to me. Maya isn't the only 3D software package out there, and several companies use 3DS Max instead.
As I'm doing this, my actual move takes place. Stressful. Things get lost/broken/whatever as always happens during a move. About two weeks later, I finally get my computer running again but didn't have the time to keep learning things. Finally, Renderman comes out, I manage to download it, but got too busy with unpacking and setting things up that I didn't have time to play with it yet.
That brings me to this month. Let's see, I volunteered for the Atlanta Film Festival, and while I had a great time, one of the patrons outright stole my jacket (the only one I have that isn't falling apart), my sunglasses (the only ones I have that weren't stolen or lost), my earphones, my car keys, my copy of my wife's car keys, my apartment key, and my mailbox key. About $700 of replacement in all, right after the move which cost more than we planned for. So as I am recovering from the theft, we decide to plan a house-warming party to help give us incentive to finish unpacking so we can get back to job hunting/freelancing/artwork. We buy some new Ikea furniture for the unpacking just as I come down with a cold. Immediately after that, I hurt my foot again. Immediately after that... the wave literally hits. My upstairs neighbor decides to flood her apartment, my apartment, and the apartment beneath mine. Things are still being worked out, walls and ceiling being torn down, carpets being dried and replaced... but the real torrent of water poured like an ice-bucket challenge from a garbage bin onto my entire entertainment set up. TV and all. So now I've been dealing with that. Another $5,000 bill. Still have to work things out with her insurance.
However, I am getting fed up with all these distractions, intentional or not, major or minor. I need to get back into things, and so I am going to make myself work on both this Renderman file (the Starbucks scene) AND learning 3DS Max (which could lead to a job). I am going to stop letting things get in my way, and just do it!
So like I said, busy, bad luck, but not the worst by far, just distracting and time consuming. I will be back!
I will not say that I have had the worst time, or even a really bad time, but I have had better. And all these not so great things (and the great as well) have just taken time away from what I have been wanting to do: 3D art. So a (really) quick run down of all I've been doing and all that's happened.
I went to SIGGRAPH as a volunteer in Vancouver last August. Great fun, lots of cool people, worth the trip, but I hurt my foot pretty bad. Then, I freelanced for a while and did the whole "looking for work" thing. I wanted to keep working on the current file on this blog, but I was waiting for the new free Renderman to come out so I waited and worked on other things. I will post some of it in a little while.
After a while, the freelancing ended up getting put on hold as my wife and I decided it was time to move to save money. After all, student loans are starting to come in. So the moving process started, and we ended up with a new place just down the road that will save us a pretty bundle every month. I started working on a new demo reel you can find on my website, and went to the SCAD career fair in Savannah, where hurt my foot... again.
There, I got to talk with some really awesome people from Floyd County, Method, Primal Screen, Turner, and more. Despite my foot, I had a great time and got some leads out of it. As a result, I started to learn 3DS Max as was recommended to me. Maya isn't the only 3D software package out there, and several companies use 3DS Max instead.
As I'm doing this, my actual move takes place. Stressful. Things get lost/broken/whatever as always happens during a move. About two weeks later, I finally get my computer running again but didn't have the time to keep learning things. Finally, Renderman comes out, I manage to download it, but got too busy with unpacking and setting things up that I didn't have time to play with it yet.
That brings me to this month. Let's see, I volunteered for the Atlanta Film Festival, and while I had a great time, one of the patrons outright stole my jacket (the only one I have that isn't falling apart), my sunglasses (the only ones I have that weren't stolen or lost), my earphones, my car keys, my copy of my wife's car keys, my apartment key, and my mailbox key. About $700 of replacement in all, right after the move which cost more than we planned for. So as I am recovering from the theft, we decide to plan a house-warming party to help give us incentive to finish unpacking so we can get back to job hunting/freelancing/artwork. We buy some new Ikea furniture for the unpacking just as I come down with a cold. Immediately after that, I hurt my foot again. Immediately after that... the wave literally hits. My upstairs neighbor decides to flood her apartment, my apartment, and the apartment beneath mine. Things are still being worked out, walls and ceiling being torn down, carpets being dried and replaced... but the real torrent of water poured like an ice-bucket challenge from a garbage bin onto my entire entertainment set up. TV and all. So now I've been dealing with that. Another $5,000 bill. Still have to work things out with her insurance.
However, I am getting fed up with all these distractions, intentional or not, major or minor. I need to get back into things, and so I am going to make myself work on both this Renderman file (the Starbucks scene) AND learning 3DS Max (which could lead to a job). I am going to stop letting things get in my way, and just do it!
So like I said, busy, bad luck, but not the worst by far, just distracting and time consuming. I will be back!
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