New website almost ready!

OK, so with great emotion I have to announce the creation of my official website: www.ricardoayasta.com

The site is almost functional, the only thing missing is my demo reel, which I should be finishing soon. The rest is pretty much done. There are some changes I want to add, like for example, the biped laying in the first page does not change. I'd like it to change to a different pose depending on the page you're watching. Also, the name pages are not good, since they do not have a real name (go to the "Resume" section and check your URL bar to see what I'm talking about). That's because I used the website builder from my hosting provider, which is not that good.

Anyways, the site is running, so if you have any question or comment or idea on how to change it (for the better ;)) then drop a comment!

Cheers!

Ricardo.

New website coming!

I'm very excited to tell you that a new website is coming!

I decided that I must have my own space on the internet, with my name and all. My current site (http://kronkhal.jimdo.com) has serve me well over the course of one year, but now it's time to move on. It's time to start spreading my name as artist over the internet, and leave the a.k.a. "Kron Khal" behind.

I've started with this blog... The name of the blog has change to "Ricardo Ayasta Animation Blog", which makes more sense and over all, it will appear in the first page when you google my name (this blog is in the second page of the search).

Considering that my final version of my demo reel will be ready in the next week or so, I need a place to put it, and a place with my name makes more sense than a place with my alias.

Anyways, I'll keep posted when I have everything set up and running with my new website. I hope I can only add (in some way) this blog to my site so you don't have to change windows between my blog and my site.

Cheers!

Ricardo.

My First Demo Reel!

The time has come, and I've delivered my first Animation Demo Reel!

The video below shows my best work so far, though I'm currently working on something else. Maybe later this month I'll update it to a newer version, with more animations and some minor fixes.

I had this video ready for CGCON in Montreal, where I had the oportunity to let the guest speaker, Kenny Roy, give some critiques on it.

Enjoy it and let me know what you think!





P.S.- I uploaded the video on Youtube, but it cut the audio off. Anyways, you can find it here.

3D Studio Max not "undo-ing"

In the past, I had a problem with 3DSMax (version 2008 in particular) where I was working normally and suddenly, when I pressed the undo hotkey (Ctrl-Z by default) it went back 20 actions (or more), not the last one. Sometimes, it didn't undo any action at all! This was specially critical when animating a biped, when in some cases I had to restart Max several times a day to make the undo work.

I made a research on the internet but couldn't find a solution, neither enough documentation about the problem itself. So, I decided to try some things on my own. First I thought there was a script doing some nasty things, but since some of my friends had the same problem without any custom script running on their PCs, that cause was automatically discarted. I also heard that increasing the number undo levels will correct the situation. Nope, it didn't. I set the number of undos to 150 but the undo still stopped working.

Then, I looked at the processes related to 3DSMax that were running in the background. And I found this little process called raysat_3dsMax2008_32server.exe. Again, I couldn't find much information about it (I believe it's used for render farm capabilities) so I decided to stop the process and see what happens.



The picture above shows the 3DSMax process in the Windows Task Manager.

Bingo! Since then, the undo is almost always working. It's been almost 3 weeks since I discovered this solution, and the undo stopped working only 2 times since then. This is a considerable improvement taking into account the previous 3 to 5 software restarts per day I had to do.

A couple of tips related to this issue:
- To kill this process, first right-click on the clock in the Windows task bar (the bar at the bottom where the "Start" button is) and select "Task Manager". From there, look for the process and press the "End process" button.
- In 3DSMax, a good way to find out if your undo stack is still working, just right-click on the undo button in the main toolbar. This button is located to the most-left of the toolbar, so you might need to scroll it to find it.

So, if you're having trouble with the undo, follow this procedure. I think this problem is not an issue anymore in 3DSMax 2009 and above, but I'm not really sure.

Have fun!

Kron.

My entry for the 11 Second Club competiton - August 2009

I was waiting for the results of last month's competition to post this entry here. As some know, I entered last month's 11SC animation competition, and I have to say I felt different kind of feelings when I saw the results. To be honest, I was expecting a much better score, since I felt I improved a lot since my last entry.

Here is the animation I submitted:

As I said, I feel I'm improving as an animator, and the whole idea that my score was lower than my previous entry was really discouraging and disappointing. Discouraging basically.

However, checking all the entries on the competition, there is really a ton of good work! I can say that my entry (in my opinion) is better than some that got a better score, but again, I remembered that this is an art form, and as such, it's subjective to the poeple viewing your art. Some will like it, others will love it and a bunch others will hate it. So that helped me go through the mix of sensations I felt when I saw my 130th place (over 188).

What did I learn from all of this? First, that I improved! And I am improving, no matter what a score tells me. And I feel happy about it. Most of all, I feel proud of it. Second, I have some problems choosing my acting choices. I read somewhere than a huge part of an animation is not how you animate a shot, is what you decide to animate. Acting choices, especially in a competition like 11SC is very important. And I feel that I'm falling in very cliche poses. That's something I have to learn. But most importantly, I learned that my animations still feel floaty, weightless and somehow unnatural. And THAT is what I have to attack first.

Learning how to give weight into something that has no weight at all is not an easy task. But I also learned (some years ago in fact) that no task is impossible. So I'm currently working on it now.

I'd love to enter September competition, but I'm still not sure. I'm doing small tests for my demo reel (which I'll have to do in the next month and a half), walk cycles and stuff like that. Basic stuff actually. I have to learn those before getting into more complex things like acting. Anyways, if I decide to enter, score won't be a way of measure my progress as an animator.

EXITOS!

Kron.