Meet Sam and Amy - Two New Maya Rigs

Amy and Sam

We\re liking two new Maya rigs - Amy and Sam, made by Freelance 3D Generalist Gabriel Salas, and released to the animation community. The rigs are not free but are priced competitively for student use at $15.

Sam and Amy are Asian-American characters through which Gabriel hopes to "balance the limited choice in terms of race that animators have when picking a character rig, so that they have the tools to generate more racially diverse content in their animation exercises".

The rigs include diffuse textures for the body and shoes, and you can find them on Gumroad.  Sam is available here and Amy can be purchased here. Both rigs are priced at $15, and are for educational use only. 

So, how do our students get the most out of Amy and Sam?

Rookies Deadline June 1st 2020

At Bucks New Uniiversity we encourage all of our students to enter The Rookies Awards, the international competition for young creatives, which opened on 7th March, and closes on 1st June.

The Rookies was founded in 2009 to "showcase the most talented student designers, illustrators, film makers, animators, developers, digital artists, and launch them into the career of their dreams."

This year the deadline is 1st June 2020, so there is plenty of time to start crafting a great project.

Free Motion Graphics Webinar on April 1st

Learn to animate client storyboards

Now that our students are studying and learning from home, it's important to take advantage of all the opportunities available for online study.

Next week, Escape Studios is hosting a free Motion Graphics Webinar on April 1st.  In this free webinar, students will learn how to animate client-approved storyboards; Adam will explain how to import storyboards into Adobe After Effects and create a rough animatic, before moving onto final animation.

Anchor Transform Tool Stops Feet Sliding

Anchor Transform by Robert Joosten stops feet sliding

As we move all our animation teaching online, including at undergraduate level, it's important to remember how many tools can be accessed online by our students working from home. 

Sliding feet can be a problem when animating a character walk or a walk cycle. Fortunately for Maya animators, Robert Joosten’s Anchor Transform Maya plugin offers animators a simple solution.

Rather than manually tweaking your animation to stop the feet sliding, rigger Robert Joosten has develped a free script that lets you anchor a transform for any given time range in your animation.

OBS - A Free Tool for Online Delivery of Classes

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) offers a useful option for our lecturers and tutors at Bucks, who are switching to online delivery of our courses. OBS is easy to install and completely free to use, for Windows and Mac devices.

Maya Student License - Free Download

Now that our students are transitioning to online study, it's important to remember that Autodesk, the makers of Maya, offer free education licenses for teachers and students.

You can download the latest version of Maya from the official site here, in the education section.

Online Resources at BNU

Working from home

In these uncertain times it's important to remember that we have many online resources at Bucks New Uni, lots of ways of supporting our students who are currently working from home.

As long as you have a laptop and a decent broadband connection, our students can continue to work remotely, following tutorials, working on projects and also working in teams on platforms such as Facebook and Slack.

Our Online MA in 3D Animation already offers feedback and support to all our students via email, online classrooms, bespoke video feedback, and through our online learning resources with our partner school Animation Apprentice.

Online MA in 3D Animation - Business as Usual

Covid-19 may be causing a good deal of bother around the globe, but fortunately for our students studying the online MA in 3D Animation at Bucks, it's business as usual,

The Online MA is delivered entirely remotely, through our partner Animation Apprentice, with no bricks and mortar facilities to worry about.

For now at least, it's business as usual. Our students continue to work from home, and we will continue to send feedback and support our students in our online classrooms.

"Flame" in Golden Nugget Film Fest 19 March

"Flame", the short film produced by Bucks New Uni MA student Amedeo Beretta, is in The Golden Nugget Film Festival "London Edition" next week.

The festival takes place on Thursday, March 19, 2020 at 8 PM – 11:30 PM in the Dreadnought Building, 30 Park Row Greenwich, SE10 9LS.

You can find more about GNIFF screening at the official Facebook Page, and you can buy tickets for under £5 (just £1 for students) at the Event Brite page here.

What Kind of Laptop Should Our Students Buy?

"What kind of laptop should I buy?" is a question that we are often asked at Bucks New University, both by our undergraduate students who want the flexibility to be able to work from home and - of course - by our online students, who will need a laptop of their own to complete the course.

It's a tricky question to answer, because computer specifications change all the time and - of course - it all depends on exactly what you want to use your laptop for.

But, let's say you want to buy a decent laptop capable of running Autodesk Maya, for computer animation and to render out your shots.  What sort of laptop should you buy, and how much do you need to spend? MA Animation student Amedeo Beretta offers some advice to other students at Bucks.

Meet "Flame"

Many congratulations to Bucks MA animation student Amedeo Beretta whose short film "Flame" is now being entered into international film festival competitions, with multiple acceptances and considerable success. Amedeo is an animation tutor at Escape Studios in London, and Flame is a project completed by his students, overseen by him, and an excellent example of the superb work being done by our online students at Bucks.

Fifteen Minute Rule at Bucks New Uni

What is the The Fifteen Minute Rule? It's something I encountered for the first time while working at Sony Pictures Animation, on Open Season. It's a simple rule, and a good way to keep production moving ahead.

The rule is this: if you get stuck on a problem, spend 15 minutes trying to figure out the solution. Google it, Read The Manual, check out online forums - whatever works.

But, if you still can't figure it out after 15 minutes, ask for help. Someone next to you might be able to solve the problem quickly and simply, and you don't want to spend a lot of time trying to fix a problem that has already been solved.

Getting Started in Animation

free 3D software - yours to try for free

How do you get started in animation? Fortunately for would-be animators, there are today plenty of inexpensive and even free resources to get started.

Today, animation is a mix of art and technology.  Animators work at the crossover point between creative skills and techie skills - a good animator has both.  Below are some tips on how to get started in animation, and how to prepare yourself for a potential career in the animation industry.

Young Cartoonists of The Year Competition

For all our students at Bucks under 30 - it's time to enter the Young Cartoonists of the Year award.

The Young Cartoonists of the Year competition is in its 23rd year and attracts thousands of entries, giving budding cartoonists the chance to have their work judged by the best in the business.

Run by the British Cartoonists' Association, in association with London's Cartoon Museum, entries are now open for this year's competition.

Original entries should be submitted on paper by traditional mail to The Cartoon Museum, 63 Wells St, London W1A 3AE.

Animation and cartooning aren't quite the same thing, of course. But they are definitely cousins and, as an animator who has been dabbling in cartoons for many years, I can heartily recommend both.

Pitch Your Project at APD - Enter by Tomorrow

Animation Production Days in Stuttgart is an event that should be on every animator's radar.

Like Cartoon Movie and Cartoon Forum, APD offers a unique opportunity for animation graduates to pitch their ideas to producers, financiers and sales agents - the people who can bring original animation content to the market. But hurry - submissions close tomorrow.

BYOA is Back - Tonight

BYOA

BYOA (Bring Your Own Animation) is back - taking place in London tonight on Monday 17th February.

Organised by the London chapter of SIGGRAPH, BYOA is an animation event that takes place every month at a pub in central London, always on the third Monday of the month.

This month BYOA is taking place in a new location, The Newman Arms, Fitzrovia, near Goodge St and Tottenham Court Road Tube stations.

For any BNU students or recent graduates in the neighbourhood, BYOA is a great way to get feedback on your reel.

Pitching Animation

The Art of the Pitch

Here at Bucks New University we don't just teach the mechanics of animation, we also teach the art and craft of creativity and film-making.

Every great animation series began its life as a humble concept - even mighty Peppa Pig started out as a pitch. 

There is nothing to stop our students creating the next Bob The Builder or Mr Bean.

What's in Our Online MA in 3D Animation?

The world's first online MA in animation

In September 2019 we welcomed our fifth cohort of masters' students on our online MA in animation, launched in 2015 at Bucks in partnership with the online school Animation Apprentice.

The BNU Master's degree is a unique degree - the first online MA in animation which can be undertaken by students anywhere in the world, leading to a formal qualification in the field.

Students not only learn how to animate, but also engage at Masters' level with the underpinning theory and structure behind the art form. So, what is this degree all about, and what can our students expect?

Learning Dynamics in Maya

Our online MA in 3D Animation partners with the online School Animation Apprentice for the tutorial content, content which is constantly being augmented and improved.

Pretty much all animation courses begin with a bouncing ball - and the MA at Bucks is no exception.

The bouncing ball is where students first encounter the 12 Principles of Animation, including timing and spacing, arcs, weight and ease-in and ease-outs. Nowadays, the physics engine within Maya will give you quite a bit of this for free.

Take a look at the free tutorial below to see how to animate falling dice using the FX tools within Maya. Specifically, the tutorial covers how to use Active and Passive Rigid Bodies in Maya to simulate the effects of gravity and the collision of solid objects.

VFX Festival 2020 Lineup

One of the many benefits for our undergraduate animation students at Bucks is our proximity to London, and the many animation events which take place in the capital.

The annual VFX festival, hosted by Escape Studios, is returning from 16-18 March.  As in previous years, they have excellent speakers coming to talk about the latest developments in Animation, Games and VFX.

Lessons From the Animation Workshop

Gateway to The Animation Workshop

At the beginning of January I was back at The Animation Workshop in Denmark, working as a "Censor" or - as we would say in the UK - an External Examiner.

External Examiners exist to maintain standards across higher education and ensure that degree results are fair.