Join us for an engaging episode of CGCast featuring Tyson Ibele, an 18-year veteran animator specializing in 3D Studio Max, discussing his journey from early fascination sparked by films like Toy Story to his current role at Make in Minneapolis.
Tyson shares insights into his creative process, challenges faced as an artist, and the importance of community forums like CG Talk in his career. Franklin D'Souza also joins to explore topics ranging from the blend of 2D and 3D animation techniques
to the impact of observation skills on realistic character animation. The conversation delves into work-life balance, career aspirations, and practical advice for aspiring animators, including the value of foundational skills and the significance
of perseverance. Listeners will find inspiration and actionable insights into navigating the dynamic world of computer graphics animation.
This episode offers valuable insights and encouragement for aspiring animators and professionals alike, blending personal stories with practical advice.
Welcome everybody to the fourth episode of CGCats.
Today's the 24th of September and today we have a very
exciting show.
I have two guests with me today. I have Tyson Ibele and
Franklin D'Souza.
Today we're going to be interviewing Tyson.
So, Tyson, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure, well, what would you like to know?
Anythism.
There's a lot. Well, you know, I've got blue eyes.
No, well, I'm an 18-year-old animator who's been using 3D
Studio Max for approximately five years.
I started near the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001.
Now, it's kind of ambiguous because there was a period of
time where I was, you know, searching for, first of all,
like freeware and shareware, software that I could use.
because I saw some people at school doing 3D.
So I was really interested, obviously, in getting into it,
had seen Toy Story and whatnot.
It was kind of like, it was a period of time
when everyone was starting to get into 3D.
So I was really searching around during that period of time
in 2001.
But then I started going to high school,
got introduced to 3D Studio Max.
And from that point on, that's what I've been using.
And so, yeah, I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota now.
I worked for a company called Make.
I moved here about two months ago from Canada, where I was
previously a student.
So other than that, that's where I'm at right now.
Hey, when you were starting to learn, did your parents or
your friends say anything about it?
Like, did they say, nah, you're too naive, you're not going
to go anywhere with this, or were they supportive?
Well, it's interesting because at first my parents were, my
parents have always been supportive, I'll just say that.
But I think at first they were possibly thinking that it
would just stay as a hobby.
But once I started actually like making some cool stuff and
they were like, I entered some film festivals and stuff,
which I won some awards for.
And once I started seeing stuff like that, then I think
they realized that this could be a potential career for me.
So they've always been supportive.
Friends, I mean, most of the time, you know, you're in high
school, your friends don't really care what you're going to
be doing for the rest of your life.
But the one thing cool about doing 3D is that there's
always like, with any kind of art, there's always like a
visual kind of finished product.
So that being said, it was always, they've always, you know
, quote unquote supported me because I've always been able
to show them these animations that they can, you know, sit
down and watch. Whereas, you know, if I was into biology or
something, there's not really too many finished products
that you can show people. So because, you know, we work in
the entertainment industry, they've always, you know,
enjoyed seeing the animations or whatnot. So short answer.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool. Hey, Frank.
Archer.
Yeah, I just want to know, did you ever feel discouraged?
Did you ever feel like it's not going anywhere or anything
like that?
Yeah, I mean, I think every artist has a...
I'm just going to say, like, every time I get artist block
at all, I feel...
Yeah, exactly.
Some days I wake up, I'm like, oh, man, like, I have no
inspiration at all.
How am I going to do this for the rest of my life?
But then other times, you know, kind of snap out of it.
So there's always periods of discouragement.
And I think there was actually, I think around the 2002,
2003 time,
was actually a period of around six months where I didn't
really do any 3D at all. So, and I kind
of almost dropped it in the sense that it was like before
then it was kind of like a hobby that I
picked up and then I kind of, you know, wanted to go out
into other areas for a while. I was going
to do some programming. So, so yeah, there's definitely
been times where I kind of, you know,
lean in other directions, but in the end, always come back
to 3D.
But do you have any, like anything that you do to help you
regain your inspiration?
not like a specific task.
Well, I guess you could say a big inspiration
is just going to somewhere like CG Talk.
And every day there's so much new stuff posted.
You can go there pretty much any day.
I tend to visit the animation section myself,
but, you know, I browse the 3D forums as well.
And I just love watching other people's animations and
stuff.
So, yeah, when I'm down, I usually either go to, like,
you know, favorite artist's website or something
or just through a forum and, yeah, just browse the
animation.
Get some inspiration, ideas for new things to do.
and we all pull out of my little slump,
but so far as work.
I heard that you have a forum.
I forgot to plug you at the beginning,
but here's a good time to plug you.
Okay, yes.
I recently started a forum with a fellow artist
named Cameron James.
He's my best friend.
You might have seen some of his work in,
I think he was in Exposé.
Yeah, he's a...
Exposé.
And what, Elemental?
Didn't he get accepted in some other thing?
He had an image called Where They Gather,
and you might recognize that name.
But yeah, he's a good guy,
we started a forum once the 3D Studio, the forum there
started going down. We started a forum
called simplycg.net. It's a pretty cool place. We've got, I
think, close to 70 members now. We've
only been up for a couple months. But yeah, there, if you
want to check it out, we actually hold
regular animation challenges because I find a lot of other
sites, even somewhere like 2D Talk,
we used to have regular animation challenges, but now they
're kind of phased out and I really
enjoyed them. So if you go to simplycg, you can find the
animation challenges. Right now,
we're actually doing a month-long challenge where
each week is a new step
in the phase of creating animation.
So, for example, this week, focusing
on modeling of a character.
Next week is going to be texturing. Third week is going to
be
rigging. And then the fourth and fifth
week is actually going to be animation. So hopefully by the
end
of the whole process, everyone who's
entered this little challenge will have a pretty cool
animation to show for it. So anyways,
it's just a forum where you can hang out, a bunch of cool
artists
there, and some contests and stuff.
So, simplycg.net.
Yeah, that little challenge sounds fun.
you should check it out sir i will are you do you enter
these challenges yourself i do i uh i make
sure to participate in them all i just find that you know
as like an administrator form it's good
to uh try to participate in exams books exactly and i mean
like there's no prizes or anything so
i think i think it's fair like i i know at CG talk there's
sometimes uh issues over you know
and moderators
our participant
and contest
but over at our forum
I mean we're all friends
so I'm no more
a regular member
than anyone else
it's just
I have the password
so I can yell
until we post
and moderate
but other than that
I'm just another
artist just to laugh
are you a tech?
no I'm not a rep
I don't do much work
on that
alright
that's the thing
a lot of artists
trying to keep jobs
whatever
it is hard to enter
these challenges
are fun
that's why you should
make it not too hard
that's the thing
we try to keep it
very simple
exactly
that's actually
something to admire
you know
you juggle your work
and your forums
and all your duties
well it's not
it's not too hard
I mean
you just make the time
so
you
you live life
extremely tired
and sleep is
but you know
sleepless for the week
that's
that's
that's false
I was gonna say
it's true
but I have to disagree
it's a unique
thing
yeah
there's a weird thing
if you sleep too much
you feel tired
so you have to have
perfect balance anyways what's your favorite part of cg my
favorite part you know what after you
know like spending hours and hours working on something
whatever my favorite part of the whole
process is showing it to other people and seeing how they
react whether good whether bad you know
do they love it do they hate it so yeah so when i make
something like during the entire process
the only thing i'm thinking about is looking forward to
seeing other people's reactions so
i think just the response you get after you make something
is like the most uh what's the word for
most desirable aspect of working in this field you know the
entertainment industry you want to
entertain so i think entertaining like if you are able to
do that that's the most rewarding aspect
of it so i like the earth monk hopefully it works and you
know sometimes it doesn't you know not
every not every animation or shot views a winner but have
you ever have you ever had failed failed
shots or animations oh i i wish i had a list long enough to
name them all yeah oh yeah tons of
every third animation i do i just want to you know crawl
into a hole practically because
you know I'm always trying to do new stuff so that's where
you know sometimes it works sometimes
it doesn't I can remember even uh you know posting some of
my early animation stuff on
places like CG Talk and just getting totally shot down and
feeling like oh man I suck and
I think it's a stage that all artists go through but yeah
there's tons of stuff that I've done
that looks terrible so to see it because I'm not going to
show you we definitely want to see it now
Anyways, what's your least favorite part of CG?
Rendering times.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Rendering times.
Really?
I don't know.
It's funny.
The whole process, each part of the process has its own
little quirks.
When it comes to animation, you know, like doing stuff like
animating fingers,
that really always drives me nuts.
Or trying to really get eye movements down on your
characters,
like animate all the little nuances,
as well as maintaining focus in your character's eyes.
I don't know, it just seems like a little job that,
even though it's so important for your character,
it's just like an annoyance to the whole part of animation.
So I enjoy walking out motion and getting the big parts in
there,
but it's all little details that always bug me
when I have to go back and rework and whatnot.
So yeah, usually all little details and whatnot.
So honestly, it's more like a general,
it's like a love-hate situation for animation.
Yeah, I know the feeling.
We know you do 3D, but do you do any 2D?
Not lately.
In high school, like all my binders, all my books were
covered in like doodles and drawings.
Every, you know, classes were in high school, they were an
hour in college, they were three
hours, every single class, the entire class, unless it was
a test or something, I would
just doodle and draw through everything.
So I spent, you know, like five years of secondary and post
-secondary school drawing nonstop.
And now I haven't done too much, so I'd have to say no.
But, you know, I like cartooning and stuff like that.
I was never too good at, like, figure drawings or anything
like that, though.
But do you plan on working on your 2D in the future or just
giving up on it?
Well, I don't think it's like a, I don't think it's
something that you can give up on or plan on working on it.
Like, either, like, you find time to draw or you don't, you
know.
But I don't think you ever get, well, for me at least, I
don't ever get worse at it.
But I don't really get too much better.
So, you know, I draw when I can.
And that's not a lot.
So I guess the answer is no, because I'm not really putting
work into it.
I don't know.
What about you guys?
Franklyn, ask.
Yeah, I was just wondering, do you think having 2D,
a traditional 2D background is important in animation in
any way?
Well, I just watched Final Fantasy, Admin Children,
and I noticed they are a great example of 2D math,
because there's a lot of shots you can just see, oh, that's
a painting.
I mean, obviously look really nice,
but the thing about mattes is that
they're perfect for a lot of 3D stuff
because you can pick up all the detail you need in the shot
,
but it's, you know, a 2D frame,
so you can save all the time
having to model billions of things.
So they're great because it saves tons of time.
But on the other hand, I suck at matte painting,
so we just...
Also, another cool thing about 2D is
you can make your own reference pictures.
You don't have to look all over the net.
You can just make them yourself.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, like you look at a place like CG
Talk, I know these amazing painters that, you know, blow
my mind every time I go through
the forums and you can just see like how realistic you can
get some of these 2D images.
They're almost like a lot of these paintings people do,
like they could completely pass
off for real life.
And, you know, in a lot of movies, a lot of the backgrounds
are matte paintings.
Even something like Star Wars Return of the Jedi, when you
see a lot of the, on Endor
with all those big tree houses and whatnot, a lot of that
is just matte paintings.
and it can actually get pretty incredible the detail like i
'm looking at a i'm actually on
the CG talk galleries right now looking at a 2d work called
road to eternity by uh boy tech and
it's it's in the it's in the forums right now i think it's
on the front first page of the 2d
section and it just looks i mean like it's about as close
to a photo as you can get i mean it's
got this painfully effect to it but it looks absolutely
stunning so i think stuff like that
is uh it can totally help you when it comes to set what was
the original question
um it's there's no question it was a statement i said um 2d
can really help you but yeah there
you go there you go so yeah putting it like let's say this
frame here is image by voitek if you were
to throw that in like a movie or something and do like blue
screen characters in the foreground or
something i mean it wouldn't look the greatest but you'd
save all that time from having to actually
find you know the set and build it and like i said in a lot
of movies they that's what they do you
Actually, Sin City, the entire movie was like that.
It was exactly.
I mean, even something as obvious,
I mean, this is more obvious
because it was made as a quote-unquote 3D
with blue screen movie,
but even something like, what was that,
Skycap and the World of Tomorrow
where the entire movie was originally intended
just to be blue screen actors.
Even something like that,
it can still look fantastic
even though none of it's real.
Yeah, Sin City was pretty cool.
It was very stylized,
but if most of the movie was done with blue screen,
you can barely notice.
Exactly, exactly.
And I mean, technology is just getting so far that,
I mean, you're just waiting for the point in time
where someone will come up with any kind of movie idea,
whether it be, you know, sci-fi or even something like a
drama
and just, you know, make a virtual set
and then just pay actors to work on a blue screen for a
couple weeks.
And then, you know, any layman wouldn't know.
Hopefully it'll get cheaper since building sets is
expensive,
but probably rather than the virtual set,
it won't be expensive too, since you need more detail.
Yeah. I mean, it's all relative, right?
Yeah. Well, at least nobody can die in this.
Yeah. Like, I mean, if you look at a movie like Ben-Hur,
where they built these massive sets and had thousands of
actors,
and then you compare like, you know, Lord of the Rings,
where you have thousands of CG actors, you know, running
across fields whenever.
Obviously, I haven't researched this or anything,
but I'm imagining that Lord of the Rings would be cheaper
to do all the CG
than to actually hire, you know, try to find 200,000 extras
.
There's also a big convenience thing because having CG
actors, they're there all the time.
Yeah, not even just that, but none of them are tripping,
none of them are sneezing.
Yeah, I remember when I was making my first movie, my first
action movie,
it was really hard for me to get all the actors together.
And I was thinking in my head, this is why I like 3D
because my actors are there when I need them.
Exactly.
Especially with independent films where you can't pay your
actors or you can pay them very little,
it's so hard to organize them yeah yeah good morning i know
but acting um animating real
people is easier in 3d for me just want to ask you like
have you ever found that your inability
to work in 2d has restricted you in 3d in any way uh i
would say no and see the well the problem of
my 2d is that i just can't form like i can't create good
perspective or shading or anything
so i find that i mean any image you make whether it's you
know a painting a drawing or even like
you know a render it's a 2d image in the end you know like
it's a flat you know it's an image
projected on a flat surface so in the end i think being
able to make stuff in 3d aids my my 2d you
know skills quote-unquote per se even though i'm not
actually painting the shapes or whatever you
know the computer's doing all those calculations either way
it's you know making something in 3d
studio max is allowing me to uh you know create images and
still maintain your proper perspective
and coloring whatever whereas i just can't do that you know
pen and paper or you know paint and
canvas so so yes what if you had to approach a project
where the characters or the environment
you were building was purely concept well i'd hire somebody
else to do that what do you mean like
if i had to do concept art myself yeah well that's another
interesting thing because i mean i
I'm currently in the process of finishing up a promo for a
TV show back in Canada.
And part of the project was me coming up with 12 character
designs that I was literally given a sentence description
on each of them or a paragraph and having to come up with
all the characters.
And I didn't do one single 2D drawing for that entire thing
.
It was all just in my head.
And I mean, the promo has gone really well so far.
So I think for me particularly, when I do 3D, like I have a
2D image in my head, like literally like an illustration in
my head.
But the problem is I just can't convert it on paper.
So that's where I use 3D as a medium to kind of do the, it
's kind of like the middleman for me.
So as opposed to thinking of, you know, two different art
forums as in like there's 3D art and there's 2D art, I
almost think of 3D art as being like my 2D, you know what I
mean?
but of all your artwork which is your favorite and why okay
well personally i don't like in my
2d stuff simply because i'm just not like a texture shading
artist i like making things
so even though some of my animations might have you know
relatively okay shading or some cool
lighting i don't really consider like when being asked a
question like this i'm considering my 2d
stuff good so when it comes to my animations i don't know
like i don't really have a favorite
because every time i make something but a week later i'll
look back on it be like oh it looks
stupid you know and then but not just like bashing my work
but also realizing areas that i can
improve and whatever so normally like when i look at my
past stuff just browsing through my gallery
here or whatever there's not really any favorites because i
don't really like anything it's like
that but but when it comes to i guess areas of improvement
i made the bird one stands out in
my mind just because it was kind of i hadn't really done
anything about yeah i was like
i hadn't really done anything that received that thanks i
didn't really do anything that received
that much attention up to that point i was just kind of
like you know like just some guy who did
animations whereas once i made the bird one i got that
lovely uh cd talk front front page which
i don't know who gave it to me but you know i'm truly
grateful for it i got a little bit of
publicity in that area people started to you know contact
me whatnot it's really cool so it kind of
got my name around a little once again for any like lurkers
out there who are listening this
post your work because if you do happen to you know make
something kind of cool that someone
likes and either whether it be cg talk or three total or
anywhere any kind of form that you know
plugs uh particularly good work honestly yeah simply cg
does it it's honestly it's invaluable
to your process because people suddenly your name gets out
there people see it tons of people see it
especially on a page like CD Talk.
And that bird thing alone basically kickstarted my career.
And I made that in one day.
So I have to say, out of all my stuff, that's probably my
favorite
just because it's like the landmark animation that I've
done.
The catalyst.
a rite of passage.
Yeah, the catalyst animation.
So yeah, the bird one.
Okay.
What's a typical day for you?
Typical day.
Well, the one thing good about working at Make here
is that the hours are very flexible.
It's pretty much I can come in whenever I want
as long as I get my work done.
So depending on when I decide to wake up, I'm usually at
work around anywhere between 8 o'clock and around 11 o'
clock in the morning.
And basically I get to work, do the old email check, forum
check, whatnot.
Then jump on 3D Studio Max and chug away till, you know, I
obviously take breaks from lunch or whatever.
But chug away till anywhere between like midnight and
sometime in the morning.
possibly you know i think like last night for example i
finished up at around three
so that's a typical day uh weekends i usually come into
work but yeah so pretty much each week
uh the project you try to vary it up here each week i try
to start something new here
so depending on what i'm working on i basically get to work
uh animate for you know 10 hours or
whatever 15 hours and then go home that's a lot how do you
that's a lot of hours how do you stay
focused that is well like i said you know i do break things
up a little do the email check
when i'm rendering i try to you know lighten things up
playing some online games nothing too
fancy if uh you've heard of liro it's like a online worms
game i'm a big fan of that one right now i
don't know i just try i try to mix up a little like i'm i'm
not literally setting keyframes for
15 hours straight but generally i'm working for that long
and because see the good thing about
working here is that the projects do vary like i said week
to week so by the time by the end of the
week when you're just about when you just about had it you
get to move on anyways so it's not
too hard to maintain focus and whatnot that's cool frank
then you want to ask something yeah i just
want to know um was there any specific reason that you
moved to the to america because i'm sure you
got a lot of offers from within canada was there a specific
reason to say this much yeah i mean
there are different reasons like some of the some of the
offers i got in canada were like short-term
work and i was looking for you know more long-term there
was uh some projects that i got offers on
that simply weren't starting for another couple months so i
kind of sidestepped them the main
reason though was simply just the the nature of the work
basically they pulled me down here just
knew basically special effects work and i thought that was
really cool and the fact that the projects
would vary uh quite often also really attracted me to
because the other offers were uh there was a
couple game companies and uh i think a tv studio was
possibly looking at you know uh having me as
an animator for one of their animated tv shows but the
thing with that is that you know when
you're on a project you're on the same one for months and
that can be good i mean i've done my
own projects where you know made a short film or whatever
and it's taken months to do but
just when i since i did have the choice i chose to do the
the shorter varied projects you know
week to week so so that's why i chose this place and i mean
honestly i am i'm loving it here so
I'm glad I made the choice.
Well, the flexible hour thing
sounds pretty cool.
I hope if I get a job,
I have a flexible hour.
I mean, like, you know,
I say flexible hours,
but I'm still working, you know,
over 10 hours a day.
But it's nice that, like,
it's 10 hours when I want to work 10 hours.
That's a good thing.
Yeah, like some people
are not exactly morning people.
And if they do work at 8 a.m.,
they would probably do it better
at later hours.
Exactly.
So, you know, it's really cool.
So, what projects
are you currently working on?
Well, right now,
I am, as we speak, I'm finishing up the second half of
animated hand animation I've been doing.
I started that, I think, two days, three, three days ago.
And I actually had posted on CG Talk yesterday.
And after some, you know, critiques from some people and
some advice from, you know, my boss when he saw this
morning,
I've added in like a second hand kind of chasing it.
If you've seen it, basically, it's a hand cut off at the
wrist.
It's just like almost similar to the Addams Family with
just that,
I think they called it what the thing or whatever it's
called.
And it's just jumping and running around.
That's a project I'm currently working on.
A client had asked if basically if one of the animators
here at MAKE
could handle animating hand, which we can, so that's where
we show them.
But I'm hoping to move on tomorrow onto the next thing.
So, of course, part of the job here is coming up with
concepts for these projects,
which can be almost harder than the actual product himself.
Sitting for days trying to think of an idea,
doing an original animation that is going to look cool
and is not just going to be totally random.
So that's the battle there.
Would your company ever make a short?
Would we make a short?
That is a good question.
We talked about it, but right now,
just our schedule and the way things are looking for make,
we just don't have time to fit one of those in.
So no, not at the moment.
But we had talked about it, so possibly in the future.
Cool. That'd be pretty close to a short from you guys.
I would think so myself.
Do you like working on one?
Do you like the next blur?
Well, I'm definitely not as good as wherever.
You never know if you guys are working.
Did you do university or were you planning to do it?
No, I haven't gone to post-secondary for 3D stuff.
Actually, I had applied for film school this fall.
I hadn't gotten any response.
So I took the job here in Minneapolis thinking that I had
been denied.
I applied to two universities. One of them turned me down
and the other one I hadn't heard anything from, like I said
. So I took the job here in Minneapolis only to find out
after I took the job, went through the visa process and
everything that then I got my acceptance letter. So I was
supposed to go to university this year. That didn't happen.
So I'm hoping to in the future, but it all depends.
You know, like, I mean, depending on where I'm at, I might
not, you know, want to step back from a good job and do
university because in this field, I mean, it's, you know,
the general consensus is usually that it's better to, you
know, have an education and not have one.
But in this field, it seems that a lot of people are
getting by just fine without doing any incredible post-
secondary.
So, you know, if I can get by without it, then, you know, I
don't want to waste $40,000 tuition for results that I
would be seeing anyway.
So at this point, we'll see.
Yeah. Stay in school, kids.
Drink your milk.
What are your goals in life?
What are my goals in life? Wow, this is quite the interview
.
what about goals i i don't know you know i'd love to like
honestly for all you cg talkers you saw
that short animation that richard rosenman uploaded with
his uh for the robin hood flower
and just honestly working at a studio like um i'm thinking
passion pictures even uh even uh red rover
studios which is where this robin hood flower commercial is
made working at a studio like that
it does short commercial work that would be ideal for me
just doing like simple projects maybe you
know well like i said commercials so maybe 30 seconds to a
minute preferably character animation
if not visual effects or anything just doing something like
that i think i would like you
know every i mean obviously you know if pixar offers me a
job just like any animator out there
you're not going to turn it down right but i don't know
like a lot of animators they dream to work on
you know cg films one day but i don't know like i think i
prefer to do the the shorter varied
projects like i've been doing right now and i i like them a
lot and you know if you look at my
website i've got tons of short little animations but not so
many long ones and it's just it's just
you know what i prefer to do really short short-term
projects oh that's a pretty interesting
outflow so yeah so where do i want to be i don't know i'll
just have a small studio uh
do a quality character animation you think you would start
up your own studio uh definitely not
i mean at this point i would say absolutely not just from
hearing the the nightmares of all the
like the administrative side of things and just hearing the
stories from people that start their
own studios that you know they started it thinking oh gee
you know i'm gonna be my own boss i'm gonna
start this famous studio and by the time they're into it
they're either they've had to shut down
the studio because you know they're way over their heads or
they're just they're having to
deal with so much you know administrative stuff that they
don't get to do as much animation as
they they don't get to do nearly as much animation as they
had anticipated so i'd say no because uh
just i don't know it just doesn't interest me to do that i
'm i'm happy to work for someone else
All right. Where do you see yourself in CG in 10 years'
time?
10 years? I don't know.
Probably just another animator that a few people have heard
of
that has a cool website.
It's not going to be famous or anything,
but I like to make little animations here and there.
So in 10 years, I don't know.
I think at a small studio doing some kind of commercial
work
and with a nice little portfolio of my own stuff off to the
side.
and hopefully a portfolio that I'm happy with.
Because like I said before, the animation that I make,
usually a week down the road,
after I've, even in that short amount of time,
improved and found problems with it,
I usually am not too happy with the stuff that I make.
I just see room for improvement.
So hopefully by then, I'll have gotten far enough
that I'll be able to look at some of my animation
and go, yeah, that's a good piece there.
So hopefully in 10 years,
I'll have something that I can be proud of.
I thought we were going to have a contest to see who could
win the Oscar.
I thought we were going to have a little contest to see who
could win an Oscar.
Yeah, in 10 years, I'll be in line for Oscars with you, yes
.
I would like to make some short films, though.
Now, none of the ones I've done so far are any good at all.
I think the last one I did, I made like a year ago.
I haven't improved since then, but I used to really enjoy
making short films,
and I made quite a few of them.
But would you rather do them alone or you'd have a team to
help you?
I don't know because there's plus sides to both things.
Doing it alone, you can take all the credit.
You can gloat in your own glory.
I don't know if that makes sense.
You can bask in your own glory if it turns out to be good.
And it's just the feeling of accomplishment.
Even my short films, which I'd say none of them have turned
out to be good
or too good.
It's just nice being able to look back and, you know, look
down, see how you worked on something for like three months
or nine months or whatever.
And just being able to appreciate, you know, your
accomplishment and seeing what you've made.
So that's the plus side of doing something on your own.
Doing something on the team, though, is also good because
once again, you know, the feeling of teamwork is usually
good.
And a lot of the times when you're doing that, you can
really focus on one area.
So as opposed to, you know, being bogged down with, you
know, lighting, rendering, texturing, modeling, animation,
story development, concept design, you know, whatever.
If you're doing, you know, a live action shoot, you know,
having to film that yourself.
If you're working on a team, you can, you know, set
yourself and be like, okay, I'm going to do lighting and,
you know, I'm going to concentrate on that for the length
of the project.
And usually when that happens, well, always when that
happens, the quality is going to be higher for one thing.
And for another, you know, when you see the finished
product, it's probably going to make you a lot happier than
what it would have looked like if you did it alone.
If you had the choice, if you're going to go for the Oscar
for the best short animation, you could choose alone or
team, what would you pick?
I don't know.
Depends.
I mean, personally, I think at this point in my, you know,
quote unquote animation career or whatever, I prefer to do
something alone.
Okay.
Just because I find that when I get an idea for something,
usually it's just like an abstract concept.
And the way it turns out doesn't really have anything to do
with like it isn't close to like the original concept.
So if I worked as a team to make a short film at this point
, I think I'd have.
And if I was like, you know, go here or whatever, I wouldn
't like an animator helping out.
I think I'd have some trouble, you know, conveying ideas
and stuff.
So at this point, I almost work better alone, if that makes
any sense.
And I mean, just even working here at Make, I'm entering
the FX war, the current FX wars challenge.
What's it called? The big freeze.
And I haven't posted any WIPs yet because we've been
really busy, but we've actually, we're about 90% done our
entry.
And I've been working at a team with one of my coworkers
here.
And it's been really good because just, you know, I was
able to concentrate on certain areas of shots.
And basically you just not even have to worry at all about
the other ones and the same for him.
so each side has its pluses and minuses
and a lot of the times
working on a team
allows like better management
for everything.
For an Oscar,
a short film,
once again,
I'm torn.
I don't know.
A team would be good
but I almost would want to
prefer to do it on my own so.
We'll see in 10 years.
We'll come back to this episode
in 10 years
and we'll see.
Episode 900,
I predicted.
I'll be back on the show
with a shared film
and it's for the Oscars.
Yeah,
hopefully we can have you
more on the show.
You're pretty fun.
I'm not kidding.
what kind of flames i got on CG talk after you of course
some don't know whether or not i'll be
i'll be coming back the same franklin but not you because
yes who inspires you artistic yes
franklin move back into the shadows because you're too shy
people don't like shy people
you're saying this to help you grow okay people in the cg
industry don't be shy you have to be
confidence if you're not confident especially if you want a
girlfriend step number confidence
oh there you go if you want a job also if you're not
confident in yourself why should your employer
be confident in you so i remember confidence very important
anyways who inspires you artistically
well um not really like artistically in a sense like when
you think traditional art like paintings
or whatever but uh there's a lot of animators that totally
like you know blow my mind every
have i checked their stuff out one of them is Mark Behm i
know i'm botching his last name but it's
b-e-h-m go to markbehm.com he's got not only is he an
amazing 3d artist but what little animation
he has posted on his site is i love it and um i know he's
worked on movies like robots he actually
works for blue sky so i'd say at this point he's probably
one of my favorite animators even though
like like i said he doesn't have a lot of stuff posted on
the site and i and i haven't really
seen too much of the stuff what i have just blows my mind
just the the quality of the movements and
the emotions conveyed so he's one of them pete blanco i'm a
big fan of i think he's just like
a role model for a lot of animators out there just what he
's been through especially after things
like you know losing his short film that he worked so hard
on you all the backups were gone and
everything and uh the the effort he's put into producing
animation helping out the community
especially with his new uh subscription video tutorials
which i suggest everyone signs up for
because they're great so keith lango's another good one off
the top of my mind i apologize
because i can't remember your names but there are a couple
really cool uh demo reels posted
in the animation section lately that were got front page
plugs uh if you remember it um the one
had a napoleon dynamite quote um with kip talking about um
chatting with girls online all day as
part of the opening of the animation reel i thought that
guy's animation was awesome
oh shoot i almost want to go on forums and find out these
guys names because
yeah a lot of them frequent CG Talk which is good but yeah
there are a whole bunch of animators that
inspire me and i wish i could plug them all here but i just
i just can't remember them all
i do have your site's bookmark though so i know where you
live tell us something about yourself
most people don't know i don't know i'm six foot three i
from waterloo i don't know what would
What would people want to know?
You tell me a cool story about it.
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
No, you go.
Oh, I was just going to say, when I animate,
I guess I'm a little non-traditional
because I don't block anything out.
And I don't set poses and stuff like that.
I'm a straightaway animator.
So when I start animating something,
I literally just go at it.
And sometimes that works pretty good,
and sometimes it doesn't.
But I usually end up brute forcing my way through.
So I guess maybe that's something,
Because I know most animators these days do like the pose
blocking or whatever.
And I kind of, I don't know, I learned, like when I first
started learning animation,
I kind of was teaching myself and I never really thought of
doing that.
So I guess that's kind of interesting.
I don't block my poses.
Least interesting thing you've ever heard about?
Wait, well, I was going to, I was suggesting something more
personal.
Like one time you were telling me how you used to be
overweight
and that you decided to do something about it
and you started working out
and you become really buff.
And I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.
You take the dedication to do something like that.
Yeah, it's been kind of cool.
3D industry is pretty notorious
for just sitting on your computer.
Like I said, I work on my computer 15 hours a day,
which means I'm sitting for a good,
unless I stand up to go and get lunch,
I'm sitting for a good 14 hours.
So, yeah, so I lost some weight.
I started working out and, you know, I still work out on a
regular basis.
So that's been good.
Yeah, because, wow, there's a lot of people in, like, in
North America
complaining about overweight and they don't want to do
anything about it
and you just took the initiative.
It's like everything in life.
If you take the initiative and work for it, you can do it.
Tyson is perfect example is Tyson.
He was fat.
He got buff.
He wants to learn 3D.
He became good.
Okay, Franklin wanted to ask something.
Oh, yeah.
I was just wondering about, you know, how do you, like,
what kind of observation skills do you have?
Because if you're an animator,
you obviously have to observe things in everyday light
and build a kind of knowledge base
and then apply that to your 3D animation, right?
Right.
So how does that work exactly?
That's a good question.
Actually, that's, like, one of the, like,
when I made a bird animation, a lot of people were like,
whoa, how did you know how to do that?
And even though when I look at it,
I see, like, having studied birds since then,
you know, just for the sake of it,
plus there's, you know, spares all around my apartment,
but I've realized all the mistakes.
But one of the things that helps
and that helped that animation is
when you watch something,
like, let's say you're watching a person or an animal
or a bird or a truck or a car,
any kind of movement,
one thing that I find that really helped
is if you watch, like, each element
of that object separately.
So, for example, so from a bird animation,
There were, like I said, before I started making it in the
morning of that day, I went outside and there were birds
outside in the trees.
And, you know, normally when you go watch birds, you'd be
like, you know, you're looking at this bird, you're looking
at the next bird.
But what I tried to do was concentrate on one bird and then
like spend like a good minute to two minutes watching each
part of it.
So, for example, I'd find a bird and I just watch its tail
feathers and I watch them for a minute.
I watch them like, like, you know, in every different
position that it can move in.
And like, you know, when it's flying and when it's flapping
or whatever, and then I'd go
to the wings and I'd go to the feet or the head or whatever
.
And I find that actually works a lot of things, you know,
when you're studying like human
motion, a lot of the times there's so many different parts
of the body, like in a walk
cycle or something, there's so many different parts of the
body that are moving.
It's hard to just use your peripheral vision to, to take
note of all those things.
So I think it's good.
And maybe people already do this, but it was kind of, you
know, a new experience for me
to start doing it.
is to literally just rotate your vision between all
different parts.
So if someone's walking and they're trying to figure out
how to do a walk cycle,
watch how their feet, you know, bend and move when they're,
you know,
taking steps and lifting their legs and watch their hips
and watch their, you know,
shoulders and how their, you know, torso and center of
gravity moves up and down.
So when it comes to observation, I'd say, yeah, just
observe every part separately.
And if you have to take notes, then take notes.
But I'd say that's what helps you the most.
So was this something that came naturally to you or did you
like actually sit down
a hard bench and watch people walk around or something uh
what do you mean like did it come
naturally like like a walk cycle for instance is this
something that you just started on well it
depends what i'm doing for example um this hand animation i
'm doing like there's like besides
looking at my own hand which obviously is not detached from
my arm so i can't really you know
simulate it standing on its own and whatnot very well you
some things you just kind of have to make
up using you know that library in the back of your head of
how things work right but if you're
looking at like people or whatever yeah i think i don't
think i'd be able to do a walk cycle if i
didn't have a mirror i was able you know look at the way i
walked or something and i think that's
key is a lot of animators you know they sit down to animate
something but they haven't looked to see
how it actually moves in real life and that's where you
separate convincing animation from
non-convincing animation and you know there's some there's
some animators out there that no i mean
once you get good enough in animation you obviously don't
have to go and look at absolutely everything
before you get a gist of how things move but like i was
going to say some animators out there they're
they just have natural eye for things and they might not
have studied the movement of something
but they can get it down let's say 90 percent of animators
should sit down and like observe things
and that's where a lot of animators use video references
and like i said mirrors are great
so yeah are there any rules or factors that you'd like to
keep constant during your animation well
i mean there's always like you know maintain wave keep your
anticipation you know curves nice and
flowing, you know, trying not to have too many, too much
stiffness, stuff like that.
Other than that, I try to, you know, I try to vary it up a
little.
Sometimes I like to do snappier animation.
Sometimes I like to do animation that's a little more
realistic, kind of like, you know,
like the bird one that keeps coming up.
But yeah, you know, one day I was like, I want to sit down
and I want to make something
that looks pretty real.
And as opposed to doing like cartoony animation.
So I wouldn't say there's any like specific rules that I go
by, just as long as it looks
good, it's done.
So that's all that matters, right?
Exactly.
why does one piece of advice
you would give to any artist
looking to get into 3D
one piece of advice
I would say start small
and the reason I say that
is because
just browsing forums
like CG Talk
or whatever
which is when I go to all the time
which means that
it'll keep coming up
I'm sure in my conversation
but
and simplycg.net
and simplycg.net
of course
I see a lot of people
whether they're animators
or
well especially animators
but a lot of
just 3D artists that
you know they come up
with this concept
like
I'll make you know
these five characters in the scene and all this all the
stuff going on yet you know they still
haven't worked out things like composition you know proper
lighting you know playing with light
and shadow to get the right you know tones and hues and
creating atmosphere and so they you know
they jump to making the finished product when they haven't
you know learned each area properly so i'd
say like pick up some books and and franklin stop typing
you're making too much noise over there
Yeah, that's right. Stop typing.
and moving, jumping squares and stuff like that.
And I think that helped me a lot.
I was able to practice squash and stretch
without having to worry about complicated rigs
or anything like that.
So animation specifically,
do the bouncing balls and everything like that.
And it's fundamental to learning your skills,
especially if you're starting out.
So in general, that's 19 pieces of advice there.
Learn to walk before you run.
There you go.
Could you explain some of your work methods?
Okay, you've explained a few of your animation methods.
What about your modeling?
Modeling?
Well, I'm not very good at modeling.
Your nightmare creature was pretty cool.
It's okay.
It's funny because the piece of concept art that I roughly
based it off of,
someone on, I'm sure everyone knows Colby Jukes as a model
er.
He's probably one of the best modelers out there.
But someone on his forums used the same piece of concept
art
and made it model about a billion times better.
So, you know, myself, Steve went through the flow of life.
Either way, modeling techniques, usually what I do, unless
it's like literally a model that I can make out of a box
really simply, like, you know, standard box modeling.
Usually what I do is I'll make like a plane with, you know,
the segmented plane and then just kind of, I'll have some
kind of reference image.
Like, let's say I'm making a face, you know, I'll adjust
all the segments or whatever, or the vertices of the plane
to kind of like in the front viewport or whatever to kind
of match the contours of the face.
and then I'll move on to the side viewport
and give it some depth and whatever.
So usually that's what I do.
And then I'll do that for each separate part of the object
and then I'll weld all the vertices together.
So I don't know how many people use that method,
but it's almost like modeling in patches with polygons,
not Puppet.
But yeah, it's almost like sewing a big sheet together, I
guess.
It's kind of like our head soil or something like that.
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean, it was kind of like on your last show
where you were talking about the helicopter model.
in just the same way where each piece is separate.
Interesting.
Should try that out more often.
Well, I was trying it out, but I wasn't getting,
I wasn't so successful, so I'm going to try again.
Remember, kids, if you fail, try again.
Okay, so I guess that wraps it up.
Anything you'd like to add, Franklin?
Anything you'd like to add, Tyson?
No, not too much.
Just go to the SimplyCG forums, check it out.
So I'll just plug them again, SimplyCG.net.
Other than that, no, it's cool.
Thank you for the interview.
No problem.
Thank you for coming on.
And Frank was here for the last minute, came at the last
minute,
and hope to see you in future episodes.
I would love to be.
All right, great.
So good night, everybody.
Good night.
