Q: Do you have any "dream project" that you'd like to work on?
A: I'd love to have the time to work on my own animation projects. I have
several good ideas for animated shorts, and some have even progressed to
the 3D animatic stage. I don't know when I'll get the time to finish them,
though. When I get home after doing 3D work 812 hours a day for a liv-
ing, it's hard to motivate myself into working on my own projects. I've
actually worked hard the last few years at teaching myself ways not to work
too hard. It's necessary to keep me from burning out. It really is possible to
do something too much--even things you love to do.
Q: Where would you like to be in five years?
A: I have a real affection for animated shorts, and even though I don't
fancy myself the next John Lasseter, I'd love to be working on my own
ideas full time. After completing one, I'd sell it to television as a series, have
it become a huge hit, and then write and executive-produce from semi-
retirement in Hawaii. Hey, it could happen! After all, when I was fifteen
years old, I never thought I'd end up working on six Star Wars games.
My thanks go to Richard for sharing his thought and experiences with us.
Richard's web site is at
www.artbot.com
.
Modeling Alternatives
There may be times when it's just too difficult or impractical to model an
object from scratch using only the tools provided by your software pro-
gram. In this kind of situation, there are some alternatives.
On the CD-ROM, in Appendix E, "Hardware and Software," some peripher-
als mentioned are 3D scanners and digitizers. These are devices capable of
creating 3D mesh from physical objects, including people. Although some
of these systems (particularly the scanners) are often prohibitively expen-
sive to own, there are service bureaus that will scan people or objects for you
at whatever resolution you desire, clean them up, and export them in the
proper file format (see Appendix D on the CD-ROM).
One of these service bureaus is Digital Delusion in Emeryville, CA., and
they were kind enough to give me a demonstration of their CyberWare
head scanner. The subject (yours truly) was seated on a platform, then
remained relatively motionless while being scanned by a rotating laser and
video camera. The scanner sent the data to a nearby computer, where the
mesh version of the subject could be seen (see Figure 4.25). Shiny objects
3 D G
R A P H I C S
& A
N I M A T I O N
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