Finding the Positive

[tealin]

I'm being a good citizen and learning CG at work ... I could make any number of pithy comments on it but the emphasis here is on good citizen, so I shall present you with the positive:

As CG lacks a gestural rough pass, as one does in 2D, there is no point in the process at which I must fully employ both left and right sides of my brain simultaneously, which means I can now listen to Radio 4 all the time. The immediately apparent benefits are that every morning will start with Eddie Mair and I will never miss another show again. The bigger picture, though, is this: Radio 4 is the happy drug that got me through several mind-numbing and existentially challenging productions in the past, international and domestic turmoil, emotional upheaval, deracination and homesickness, unemployment, chores, you name it ... as long as I have my aural narcotics I need never actually cope with anything ever again! Being stuck in a computer lab with twenty-eight copies of Maya is nothing!

I love you, Radio 4.

Comments

[ubiquitouspitt.livejournal.com]

I will get you a radio for when you come visit.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Don't you dare. I will bring one myself.

[ubiquitouspitt.livejournal.com]

*downcast*

[(Anonymous)]

You often mention the BBC iPlayer (which does indeed go up to eleven).
Can you, as someone living outside the UK, access all its programming or are there some kind of limitations?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I, as someone outside the UK, can only access radio programming. Apparently you don't have to pay the license fee for the radio anymore? Growing up with NPR I can't help but feel guilty for not contributing ... I would gladly pay the license fee for access to the TV side of the iPlayer as well, and access-by-fee would also eliminate people in the UK not paying their license fee because they can get it for free online, but someone somewhere decided it would be easier to restrict access by geographic location rather than password or cookie or something. Limited iPlayer access ought to be an enormous tragedy for me, but if I had access to BBC TV, too, I might possibly never get anything done ever again, so it has its upside.

That said, if you are a spy for the Beeb, and are collecting intelligence in regards to opening up the license fee and iPlayer to the international market as a way to bring in some extra cash, I urge you to STOP! And think. While this plan would benefit me, and people like me, I can easily see it becoming a slippery slope where the BBC chases a larger and larger audience, compromising its integrity in the process ... Some of the new programming on PBS, for example, seems designed for sale to The Discovery Channel, and American public radio seems to have abandoned objective documentaries for human interest stories because that's what 'members' seem to respond to ... I fell in love with Radio 4 because it appealed to my inner elderly college professor and was everything unprofitable that American (and, to a lesser extent, Canadian) media was abandoning.

[(Anonymous)]

While the licence fee is collected by the BBC in its guise as the very aggressive* TV Licensing Authority, it is set and issued by the secretary of state for culture so you don't have to worry about any extension of charges outside the UK.


*"Dear illegal TV viewer. Our records indicate YOU DO NOT HAVE A TV LICENCE. Crack BBC stormtroopers have been dispatched to issue a written notice of non-compliance and liquidate you, your family/cohabitors."
Something like this is sent to every household irrespective of weather or not you actually have a TV.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

But I want to worry about it! My Membership Dollars Ensure That Such Quality Programming Continues! (see what NPR does to an impressionable young mind?) Seriously, though, I would pay for magical internet television if they'd let me (or if they threatened to take my radio away).

I have heard tales of the BBC stormtroopers... my sisters knows a man who only had a radio but went out and bought an old black-and-white television so he could just pay the discounted black-and-white license fee and get them to stop bothering him.

[tony-cliff.livejournal.com]

And the SUBTLETY. You forgot to mention the SUBTLETY.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I LOVE SUBTLETY

LOVE IT!!!

(see what I did there?)

[tony-cliff.livejournal.com]

Well played! :D

[putri-nih.livejournal.com]

Specifically--if this i not on your confidentiality agreement, just animating or the whole package? (modeling, rigging, rendering etc)

I have yet to find anything other than Discworld and Blackadder for my "happy drug"

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Just animating. Thank goodness.

[putri-nih.livejournal.com]

TBH, modeling is the only thing in Maya I find relaxing. I find it harder to animate characters there.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I find it harder and more time-consuming to animate in Maya than on paper, with a poorer result, but that's what all the cool kids (i.e. 'employed people') are doing these days so what can I do?

[putri-nih.livejournal.com]

This wasn't like a "veiled" comment--um, I was just making a comment.

Not sure why I like modeling better. Maybe because i constantly fail at sculpture class (I took that optionally) because I'm not patient enough to tend to the clay and Maya's got an undo button?

I find animating in Maya frustrating mostly because there would be one point where it would be like, "You're breaking the rig." even though if I do the same thing in 2d it'd be fine. Usually at that point I gotta start again.

Mmm. CG.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been absent from your Livejournal for quite a while now. Shame on me.

I have a question about CG for you, if you care to answer it. As a young and aspiring future animator, would it be safe for me to start my animation education with 3D animation? I prefer 2D, but... well... I haven't really done much. Any, to tell you the truth. The college that I am attending does not offer 2D classes, but I'm afraid that taking 3D first will somehow ruin me. Tell me, IS IT SAFE?

I thought I should ask an actual animator this question since, chances are, an actual animator would know something about this. I won't be offended if you don't have time to answer this, promise :)

Re: Mmm. CG.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

It won't ruin you. That is, CG won't. Bad teaching may give you a lot of things you may need to unlearn in the future, but it still won't ruin you (unless you're too lazy to relearn stuff, but that'd be your fault). The preferable method would be to learn 2D before CG, because there are basic things about posing and gesture that are much better learned through drawing than twiddling a little digital mannequin, but if you take a life drawing class that really emphasizes gesture, you might not fall too far behind in that area. CG will give you a place to experiment with and get a good feeling for timing, arcs, and stuff like that, so when you get into 2D you'll have that already, which may save you some time and frustration...

Re: Mmm. CG.

[(Anonymous)]

That's good to know, thanks!