Atlas' Revenge, Now Available For All to See Online!

YES! Finally, Atlas' Revenge can be found online. I've been waiting for this moment since we wrapped production on it in May of last year. You see, it's a big deal to me because now I can simply link anyone to it rather than having to send out DVDs or having them come over; and because of where I'm currently living, it was rather difficult getting Atlas in the hands of those I really wanted to. 

So, why did it take this long to get Atlas' Revenge publicly available? Simple. The powers that be at UCF insisted we keep Atlas offline and out of the public's eye, as the plan was to submit the short to several festivals. Apparently it's a general rule that festivals aren't very fond of having publicly available entries in their festivals, and generally reject those that try to enter. I'm not entirely sure how much truth there is to this, as I've seen plenty of festival entries online before actually seeing them at the festival ( most of them being Ringling students' thesis films :) ). Whatever the case may be, it turns out that in the past year, for whatever reason, there were very few and rather weak attempts to get Atlas into the festival circuit. Weeks, months, and now a year has passed, and it seems the only submission attempt since completion was to SIGGRAPH 2009 (which didn't happen, by the way).

As a result of this, someone in my class boldly took it upon themself to upload Atlas' Revenge to Youtube (Vimeo to come soon) for all to see. Thanks, Nick! I'm glad someone finally did it! Without further rambling, here it is. Atlas' Revenge, in all its embedded glory:

And In Other News...

1. The links section has been updated with new links to more comrades' online portfolios and to Atlas' Revenge on Youtube.
   
   
2. A new section will be going up featuring Atlas' Revenge as the centerpiece, surrounded by sections showing off my character rigs, animations, compositing work, and more. There's only so much a demo reel can show you. Why not give you the option to see everything with as much detail as possible? Coming soon!
   
   
3. I'm tossing around the idea for a mobile-friendly version of this site. While mobile browsers only make up about 2% of my visitors, I figure it'd be a good learning experience and not too difficult, hopefully.
   
   
4. A redesign is coming fairly soon. While I may not change the layout of the site, I do plan on straying away from a semi-monochromatic look to something more colorful and appealing. This site is just shy of a year old now, and a new look is in order.

That's it for now. Mike Navarro, signing off.

April's Awesome!

Not that I prefer April specifically. Every month of the year is awesome in its own way! There, that should prevent the rage from those that have birth dates on every other month.

Okay, it's time for an update! Unfortunately I've been a bit of a slacker the past month so I don't really have anything new to show you since last month's most recent post. Life, job-hunting, depression, and general laziness have gotten in the way. However, I've not given up! There is no room for failure or dwelling on negative thoughts that go nowhere except further down a path of even more pain. With that said, I do have some fun, new projects in mind for the not-too-distant future. How much of them I will actually do is another story, but isn't it better to be overly ambitious rather than have no ambition at all? Allow me to give you a preview of what's on my plate for the next several weeks, aside from busting my behind in my search for employment (HIRE ME, PLEASE).

MORE REEL WORK.

I'm going to focus more on animation - not only to create a new demo reel, but to also take advantage of Xaelander's capabilities and improve my skills as an animator. Animation and rigging go hand-in-hand, anyways! So, I figured why not kill multiple birds with one throw of a stone? Taking the advice of my good buddy and animator Zach Hansen, I'm going to start with a weight test animation and go down the traditional route an animator takes in putting together a demo reel. Of course, I'll be including bits of technical animation (cloth, fur, dynamics) to really apply what I've been able to learn on my own, as well as experimenting with both realistic and cartoon styles of animation to give the reel some variety. I already have some work I'd like to include in this reel: my camel walk cycle (which you can see in the previous blog post) and the wizard animation - both of which also include technical animation which I feel will really give them an edge.

MooM Wizard Animation and Cloth Test from Michael Navarro on Vimeo.

Moom character by Ramtin Ahmadi.

Animation by me.

MORE RIGGING.

So, the Camel Warlord is just about done. His face rig is in place, and everything else is working; all he needs are a facial expression library and an animation GUI before I consider him complete. I *was* going to give him a muscle system, but it turns out his model and rig aren't exactly ideal for a muscle system to work well. So, I am just going to create some corrective blendshapes to get the desired type of deformations out of him, while applying a muscle system to another or future rig. If the latter, then I will make sure to build that rig with a muscle system in mind from the start.

Let me get it out there now: my next character rig will be Tort (name pending? I'm not sure) for a short film titled Parched which several friends and I are working on. Basically, he's a desert tortoise/turtle. Here he is in his current state (hint: he hasn't got any sort of rig attached yet).

Tort. 

Model and textures by Ricky Carlton.

I've already begun the rigging process on this fella', and plan to give this guy stretchy limbs and neck along with a decent muscle system to really give those limbs some nice deformations in extreme poses. I also see some potential with that adam's apple - we'll see! It'll be a fun project, for sure. He's more of a side project, so expect progress on this one to be slow in comparison with my other work.

WEBSITE REDESIGN.

This isn't my highest priority, yet I'd still like to redesign my website. When I plan to do that is still up in the air, but I do have a vision for the redesign of my site. Thanks to Jonathan Woodburn, I am now aware of the css Zen Garden and would love to apply the "web 2.0 concept" to the layout of my site. As this site is centered around my work and hopefully leading to the official start of my career, I want to center the design around my business card. I know this is difficult to explain through text, so expect a mockup image to be added into this post or the next blog update. Also, I'd like to ideally create a mobile-friendly site; something simple, but still viewable.

GETTING HIRED.

This is the most important thing to me, obviously. Without a job and a source of income to live off of, it's hard for me to stay focused on these other projects. When this does happen, I can guarantee you that more updates will come along and productivity will be at an all-time high. In the mean-time, I'll do what I can. :)

Until next time!

-Mike