“Success At Interview – For yourself write down a list of what you think will be the main points of Linda Browns Lecture. After the lecture have a look at this list. Anything surprising on there?”

1. Know the company, read in to their history, know what they’re about. Find out who’s inteviewing you and find out about them.
2. Have a portfolio and CV prepared.
3. Know the industry. Know what’s hot and what’s not.
4. Portray confidence without being arrogant. This will involve body language e.g posture, hand movement, eye contact, firm handshake, a smile etc
5. Consider possible questions they might ask and possible answers to these questions.
6. Be prepared on the day of interview. Know where you’re going and how you’re getting there. Dress appropriately.

It boils down to absolute preparation, confidence in yourself and your work, and portraying all of this in the small amount of time you have.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to open the cat model we made with Andy in 3DS 2008, so I exported a 3DS file hoping to be able to open it fine. So it opened, and the polys were messed up. I was following Andys instructions of making sure all polys have 4 sides. Obviously somethings gone wrong in the translation. It means that turbosmooth doesn’t work. Here’s what’s gone on…

I’m calling shenanigans! I did some more to the model anyway so I can get it all done quickly in the next seminar. The eyes are set up with a dummy, and I added more edges to the elbow and knee areas.

“For next week, on your journal write about your practitioner development activity (non-classroom or university work based activity only). So independent study activity is the focus. Reading, watching, talking, listening, making might all fit as independent practitioner development.”

My best example of practitioner development outside of University is my ‘Blog Flipping‘ Project. While I’ve done other things to further my skillset, this was by far the most successful.

Why did I do this project?
I wont lie, the reason I did this was the promise of money. I read an article in the Guardian discussing Blog Flipping, which at it’s most basic level is property development on the web. I already had the majority of the skills and resources in place to try out blog flipping so I went for it. I purchased the domain www.moneysaverpro.com and went about filling the space with desirable content. I won’t go in to the intricacies of blog flipping here, but you can take a look at what I did here if you’re interested.

How did this help to develop me as a practitioner?
There are numerous reasons why this was a worthwhile experience. There were simple things such as time management and organisation involved. I had to balance my work load between this and University effectively. I was also designing a site with a client in mind, rather than myself. I wasn’t working for a client, but at some point I was going to have the sell site, so considering another users needs was top priority. More importantly however I gained contacts. When looking for help online I was offered help from Neal at NotaBeneConsulting. Neals help was invaluable, and luckily for me he came across my portfolio and blog online. He needed some design work doing and this is when I created the logo for yogafitness, and subsequently groovychicago. Communicating with Neal, discussing the needs of the client and the status of the projects was an eye opener. I’d never considered how you talk to a client before. Are you formal or informal? Do you make choices, or do you talk to the client at every decision point? Do you support your own ideas, or do you let the client dictate the project? These are questions I don’t have the answers too yet, but with this experience I’m closer to finding the answers.

With the successful sale of the site ($299) I also got a big confidence boost. The hard work I’d put in came to something worthwhile. I feel more prepared to work for a client, to be pro-active about finding work, and appreciating the importance of trying new things.

I spent a little while yesterday putting this together. There’s a fair bit going on inside this short clip. Watch it a couple of times and you’ll see the propellers rotating, the morphers on the eyes and mouth, the subtle hovering effect on the character and the unfolding of the section of level behind him. I need to the build the environment up and get some crazy contraptions in there now.

I’ve been doing some fiddling around with the Robotic Arm we made with Andy. I now understand how difficult it is to animate a hand. I always wondered why in games the hands never looked realistic, and would resemble a wooden paddle stuck to the end of a characters arm. Doing this exercise has opened up the animating possibilities for my board game project. Learning about hierarchy and using the schematic view was particularly important.

Slammed a couple of morph targets on my board game piece and some rotating helicopter blades. Ohhhh they’re alive! Let me know what you think.

Compared to my initial sketches this is a slightly different looking character. The overall look is the same, only this guy’s a little more evil. It’s not finished yet by any means so I’ll be back with more.

Got some more scans of what I’ve been up to. My concept for Andy’s brief is on like donkey kong. It rocks, and it’s going to look awesome, I just need to bury my head in 3DS Max for about 2 months solid to achieve it. As for Roma’s brief, that’s all still up in the air. Check out my video as well to get a glimpse of what this is going to look like.

For those of you who are interested in how I got my compositing to work, here’s the steps. If it doesn’t make sense just ask in the comments section.

Firstly you need to change the environment of your scene. Go to ‘render’ up the top and choose ‘environment’ from the drop down. In here click the button saying ‘none’ and choose bitmap from the menu which appears. Now navigate to the image you wish to use.

Secondly set up a plane below your train, and assign a material to it. The material should use exactly the same image as used in your environment. The important step here is to select the box saying “eviron”. This is outlined in image 1 and 2.

I’ll put up a sketchbook update soon so you can see how I go to this idea and where it’s headed. I’ve been messing around all day trying to get my other website sold and its taken a sizable chunk of time out of my day. Too much stuff to do ARGH!

This should give you an idea of what the box looks like when it’s opening.