New Blog: Script Swell

I put together a new blog to keep track of all my snippets of code, scripts, tools, etc. that I've made that might benefit other people. Some stuff is proprietary of course so I can't post everything I make at work, but most of it is just little snippets of MEL and Maxscript that might help some people along. I've been doing a lot of work lately creating shelves and workflow enhancements for the artists at our studio and some of the things I make will be found at Script Swell.

http://www.scriptswell.net/

MEL, Maxscript, Python, JScript, etc.

Introducing: Awesome Ball™ - Maya Rig

I was experimenting with some expressions and things today in Maya and built this rig I call, "Awesome Ball™". It has full squash and stretch capabilities along with elite world scaling abilities. You'll not find a ball this awesome anywhere else. It was built in Maya 2008, but it's an ascii so you can edit the file and use it in any Maya you like.

You can find it here: http://www.jaygrenier.com/assets/rigs/awesomeBall.rar

Try it out and let me know if it works well for ya.

Congrats to Christian Brierly

My buddy at work got bumped up to a Lead Animator today. Congrats to him and all that jazz. You rock man. Since I sit next to you I expect special treatment constantly and instant critiques whenever I ask for them. =)

Check him out..

Seirei No Moribito - Anime/Manga

This series was recommended to me today, so I started watching. So far so good! I'll give you another update when I finish it and let you know what I think. For now though if you're looking for something new, check it out. I'm enjoying it, about five episodes in so far. Thanks to Champion without the "o" for the suggestion.

Shortfilm: "Hemlock" by Tyson Ibele

http://vimeo.com/3117336

This is a short film done by a friend of mine for the latest CGSociety competition. Check it out, it's freakin' awesome! He also runs SimplyCG.net so stop on by and check that out as well.

Ken Robkin, Sony's Newest Animator

My good friend Ken Robkin just got a great animation job working at Sony in San Diego. Him and I met at Animation Mentor and competed in the FJORG! challenge at Siggraph together. He's a hell of an animator and we're all super excited for him. San Diego is also a lot nicer than Florida. Congratulations man!

Check out his work here: http://www.ukyo3d.com

Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons

If you haven't had a minute to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons yet I'd highly recommend it. It's a retelling of the class F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of a man who is born old and ages into his youth. It's really neat, came out wonderfully.

I worked on it a little. I animated. (That's about all I'm allowed to say.) =)

Soul Eater Anime and Manga

If you're into comics and anime/animation, check out his show, Soul Eater.

It's got a great story, GREAT artwork, very stylized and decent animation. This is one of the few cases where I will say the anime is better than the manga just because of how nice the artwork is drawn in full color and the relative quality of the animation within.

It's very much worth checking out at least an episode or two. Funimation already bought the rights to it and has been trying to get fan subbers to quit releasing japanese episodes (how lame can they be really?) but people are still subbing it thankfully. You couldn't pay me to watch Funimation's bastardized shit-hole version.

http://www.souleaterfan.com or http://www.souleaterepisodes.com

New Jumping Animation (WIP)

http://www.jaygrenier.com/animation/gallery/spearJump.mov

Hey guys, I did this animation test yesterday and thought I'd put it up for all to see. I'm not 100% done, but it's almost there. Waiting for some critiques then I'll give it a final pass.

Done with the animation mentor rig, "Bishop".

Cheese, Bread, Cheese, Wine, & Cheese. And Wine.

All of the above are awesome.

Today was spent eating cheese and bread, drinking a little bit of nouveau wine, animating on a new shot and hanging' with the Em. No complaints on today, in fact it was awesome! Tomorrow is shaping up for awesomeness as well, stay tuned!

P.S. Emily made a blogger finally, not sure what it is though. ^^

The Dark Brotherhood Chronicles

If any of you played the game, 'The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion' than you would remember without a doubt the most intriguing (and fun) side quest of the game, the Dark Brotherhood. You are approached by an Assassin named Lucien Lachance who brings you privy to a secret underground group of assassins known as the Dark Brotherhood. You are then tested, and if you have the skills are brought in as a brother. Following this you are given about a dozen quests involving assassinations in the game and it is without a doubt the most fun to be had, the trouble was that it was so short and left so many strings dangling at the end.

My guess is that the developers didn't anticipate it being as popular as it was and opted to focus more on a variety of guilds and content instead of really pushing this one. It wasn't completely unfinished, it had closure of sorts, but it wasn't 100% satisfying to say the least.

The Oblivion game is fun because it allows it's users to 'mod' the game, add scripts and models and animations of their own to customize the game to their liking, add more content, etc. This is great because if there is part of the game you don't particularly enjoy, or find too hard, you can alter it to your whim assuming you have the skills to do so. There are websites abound with game modifications, downloads, libraries even of mods you can try out and use to make your experience more enjoyable. It is here I came across a project known as the Dark Brotherhood Chronicles. (DBC)

Through Google searches and a forum or two, I stumbled upon the DBC and started reading up. A team of tens of people from around the world have come together to build what is certainly the largest expansion to the Dark Brotherhood storyline anyone has made. It is supposedly going to add 15 hours of gameplay, along with tying up some of the loose ends and continuing the story where it leaves off in the current build of the game. New characters, new quests, new items, new buildings and more. This is a modification to the game that players have built completely on their own that is going to add FIFTEEN hours of gameplay. Anyone who has ever tried to design something for another's entertainment knows what a feat that is, and how much hard work went into it.

Over the months, and eventually a year or so I saw they posted a test level for potential beta testers. Beta testing anything usually ruins the experience of immersion and burns you out on a project, but I was still interested and gave it a go. I talked to a couple of the developers during the first test and during this process I found out they were looking for an animator, so I asked and was brought on to the team for a few small jobs.

It's exciting, the mod is almost finished and I'm happy to be helping with it. There are thousands of people waiting eagerly to play this and I'm excited to have a small part in it's production.

More Info: DBC Website

FJORG! Videos

In case you didn't get a chance to see them, here is a link to all the FJORG! videos.

Our film was titled, "For Grandma", Team Ragnarok.

http://www.siggraph.org/s2008/attendees/fjorg/

Patricia Beckman Recommendation

The Chief Viking Priestess gave me a nice recommendation on LINKEDIN today. Thanks so much to her for the kind words and all her hard work at FJORG!.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaygrenier

New Animation Test: Vanilla Jump

I wanted to do a short little test with a very light character just doing a normal every day hop. Nothing fancy or exaggerated, just an exercise in weight.

Check out the gallery on my site or click HERE to see it.

Animation Mentor Graduation!

Note: Because of the length, remember to click "Read More" at the bottom to see the entire article!

When I got home from my vacation in Massachusetts I had about 2 days to recover and get myself ready for the next leg of summer. Come Friday, Emily, Dan Edwards, Mike Bahurinsky, and myself all piled into Dan's Civic and began the trek to San Francisco for our Animation Mentor Graduation.

The drive was easy and uneventful, discussions of gaming, cars, music, etc. all took place in the usual fashion and we arrived in Oakland around 1am. A decent hotel room and about 6 later we got up, had some breakfast, dressed up nice and headed on our way to the Berkeley Art Museum where our Graduation was being held.

Last time we were here was for the Animation Mentor Annual Barbecue and the weather was less than awesome. Overcast, a bit chilly with what seemed like impending rain was what we had then, but this time we got lucky! 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! The scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect, it was shaping up to be a really awesome day. As soon as we arrived we started seeing people we had spent 2 years in school with yet (in some cases) never met in person. Bill, Cedric, Jerzy, all these guys I talk to ALL the time yet had never met. Instantly cool for sure, but it kept getting better! We had a trial practice run for the ceremony, hung out a while, and were then seated for the ceremony to begin.

Shawn, Carlos, and Bobby are definitely a bunch of amazing dudes. The school that was once an idea being tossed around during lunch and gaming sessions was now alive and changing people's lives, mine most included. As well as great animators, the three of them have an air of charisma and inspiration about them that has definitely played more than a small part in the success of the school. Many thanks to them for everything and for Shawn's great speech.

Glen Mackintosh from ILM was the guest speaker and had some really cool things to say. We also heard from Rick O'Connor, Don Crum, and many others with a boatload of great info.

After the speakers spoke and awards were awarded, we all got in line for our diplomas, handshakes, and pictures. Awesome to the max! The reception following was a great time with many pictures to be taken, wine to be drank, and memories to be made. After it all ended we got a burger, took a deep breath, and headed on home.

Stay tuned for the next update...Siggraph and FJORG!

Back To Reality, Job Search!

I've returned from the East and have dug my heels back into reality. Sort of...

I've got one normal day to catch up on a few things, then tomorrow we leave for San Francisco for our Animation Mentor graduation, then it's right back here to LA for Siggraph and FJORG!.

The vacation was amazing. I got to spend a lot of time with Emily, my family and friends, do a lot of surfing, eat some great food, and overall just relax and have a really cool time. I'm totally refreshed and I'm looking forward to getting back into the game with some new animation work.

I'll update next week once FJORG! is finished with some hopefully really cool news. =)

Summer Trip, FJORG!, Siggraph!

Reporting in here from Cape Cod, Massachusetts right now! I've been here about a week visiting family and friends, soaking up the sun, and preparing mentally for FJORG and a hopefully busy month of August.

August 8-9th -|- AnimationMentor.com Graduation -|- San Francisco, CA
August 10-13th -|- FJORG! Animation Challenge @ Siggraph '08 -|- Los Angeles, CA
August 13-17th -|- Siggraph '08 -|- Los Angeles, CA

FJORG! is going to be freakin' amazing! My team is Bill Buckley, Ken Robkin, and myself. We'll be held up in a room full of animators where we'll have 32 hours to make the best short film we can. I've been working with Ken for almost two years and haven't had a chance to meet him yet (he lives in Florida) so it's going to be a good time for all no matter what happens I'm sure. More updates when I can.

Once I get back from Siggraph I'll be back to work full time on my short film until I find some work in the L.A. area. It's been a really neat summer so far with so much free time but it's about time to get back into some real work. =)

So far on the trip Emily and I have taken a couple hundred photos so it will be a good time going through them all. I'll definitely put them up once the time comes. Stay tuned!

Home Again

After a pretty neat weekend, we got back from San Francisco last night around 2am. We left Thursday night and stayed at Sean's place in Antioch. His son Aiden is 17 months so it was cool to see him again. I don't have a beard anymore either so he wasn't afraid of me. =)

Friday morning we got up and headed to Emeryville to the Animation Mentor headquarters. Inside we were greeted by some cool staff people who showed us into the main offices where we got to meet job recruiters from about 8 different studios. It was cool to talk with them and meet people that I've been training with for the past 18 months. After the job fair the doors opened to the rest of the world for the Open House. We met Richard there and mingled with lots of folks and talked and drank and sang, etc. No we didn't sing. After the Open House we drove down to visit Pixar and take some photos.

Friday night brought us back to Antioch to visit Sean again where we went to see Wall-E. I won't give it away but as usual with any Pixar flick the movie is fantastic. I'm looking forward to the reviews, it's got some interesting points to it.

Saturday morning we headed off towards the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco where the Animation Mentor Annual Barbecue was being held. Great food, great people, overall a great time for sure. Just meeting so many awesome people and animators was such a rad time.

Life is back to normal at least for a few days until Richard gets back on the 3rd. Time for sleep. Yes...

San Francisco and Friends From Paris Part II

Man it's been a hell of a week! Richard arrived last Wednesday and we spent the week touring around Los Angeles visiting the sites and hitting the beaches. Venice Beach, Santa Monica Beach/Pier, Hermosa, Redondo, 3rd Street Promenade, Hollywood, Studio City, Death Valley, we did a lot of driving around and had a radical time.

Probably the most interesting thing we did was to leave the city around 11pm for a two day trip up north to Death Valley National Park. We were going to head out East to Joshua Tree but there was a massive heat wave coming through and thought it might be wise to head North into the mountains instead. So, we got some instructions to an old primitive campsite from a friend and headed out. It took about 3 hours to get there which put us in around 2am, and....man it was a crazy place. This "campsite" looked like it was straight out of a Friday the 13th movie. We were miles off the road, not another person or sign of life in sight. The place was barely a campsite, really just a small patch of space off of the dirt road. There was a river that came off the mountain that ran right through the site, which was neat, except for that it was deafeningly loud. We decided we didn't want to get murdered out in the middle of nowhere and decided to head home. On the way back the sun started to rise so we pulled over on the side of the deserted highway to watch the sun come up over the ridge. Some great photos were taken and we ended up having a really fun time despite the original plan going bust. On the way home we stopped off at a few more campgrounds to do some hiking and got back to the city around 10am. Traffic was fun.

Besides that we did a lot of walking through various parts of the city and Richard took some really cool photos. He is a great photographer and is going to be editing the photos before we see any of them with color correction, cropping, etc. so they are awesome +1.

To Read More, Click Below.

Now that Richard has flown up to San Francisco, I've got a couple days to get my stuff together than we're headed up there too for the Annual Animation Mentor Barbecue and Job Fair. Recruiters from 11 different studios are confirmed to be there for us to chat with on Friday. Afterwards we're all headed to see the opening of Wall-E (New pixar movie.) On Saturday is the Barbecue where I'll hopefully get to meet a lot of the people I went to school with online who I've not yet met in person, along with some of the mentors I have worked with in the past.

It's been a busy week and the weekend seems like it won't be any different. I'm looking forward to getting back to my routine on Sunday. And some sleep, yes.

Kung Fu Panda, Friends From Paris, Graduation, Birthday, Emily <3

Just a few things to update about that are pretty neat.

Last week I got invited to go watch a screening of Kung Fu Panda on the Paramount Pictures studio lot. It was an incredible movie, probably Dreamworks' best. Highly recommended to anyone and everyone! I laughed as there is a small shot in the film that is almost exactly like a shot in my short film. Not 100% the same, but close enough that I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there asks me if I was inspired by it or something.

My buddy Richard from Paris is coming to visit next week. He'll be staying here in LA for about a week then he's going to trek it up San Fran to explore a bit. We met on www.simplycg.net awhile back. Should be cool, he's a photographer so I'm sure we'll end up with pictures.

This is my final week of school! My short film is nowhere near done, but it's on it's way. It's been an incredible ride and I've come such a long way since I started thanks to Animation Mentor. I'm hoping to have my short film finished by the end of summer, we'll see how that goes. It's certainly nothing amazing, it's been a hell of a learning experience. I won't be posting it online for awhile in case of the small chance it turns out really cool and I can submit it to a festival or two. (If it's online, a lot of festivals won't allow it).

It's going to be a busy summer. Headed to San Fransisco at the end of June for the Animation Mentor job fair and annual barbecue. After that Emily and I are going to be traveling to the East Coast to visit my family and friends. August brings us Siggraph and the FJORG! animation competition.

And finally, Monday is my birthday. I'll be twenty-six. Emily is awesome, in case someone out there didn't know already.