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 Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 - 12:07am - [Direct Link] Next weekend I'll be visiting a new friend up in Canada for her birthday on the 22nd. I'd forgotten, but my birthday is on the 20th! Yay, birthdays! Send presents! When crossing the border, you need a government issued photo ID and a passport or birth certificate. At least, that's what I'm hearing. I don't wanna get stuck in Canada so I'm bringing them to be safe. But really! Send me presents! There's someone out there that reads this, isn't there?  Saturday, July 7th, 2007 - 1:58pm - [Direct Link] So I went and saw Transformers, the movie. I saw a few things done right, and I saw a few things done wrong. At least, in my opinion. The biggest thing they did right was capitalize on the 80s. True to Transformers, the movie was about big robots shooting at each other. The next thing they did right was play on the whole secrecy thing. Sure, you can have giant robots storming about. But if you've got giant robots storming about that no one's supposed to know about so they try to "hide," that makes the tension rise, and can play good for comedy. One of the things done wrong is a "trend" that Hollywood has decided is awesome. That is: shaky cam. The writer of Faulty Logic said "apparently every action scene was filmed by a geriatric Parkinson's sufferer who was afraid for his life." That's a bit extreme, but that's comedy. At least it wasn't as bad as that last Borne movie. In their defense, they did have a few "slow motion" scenes where you could really see what was going on. Those were awesome, and I wish they'd done it more. A friend on the Booster Logic team said that a lesson can be learned from the video game industry: just let the main character and enemy be in sight at all times, and then you can actually tell what's going on. On a side note, a friend of mine was complaining the other day about the mech fighting games people have made. Supposably, in the future, wars will be fought with giant mechs against giant mechs. If you think about it logically, it would start with one side using them, maybe just a couple thrown in, with standard military fair on its side as well as the enemy side. You wouldn't get clean mech-on-mech battles for a while, if ever. Transformers did a good example of illustrating just how possible that concept is, and how well it can work, too. Even though "movie magic" was in effect and people didn't even get injured when they probably should have died. Using my standard movie rating, I would give this a four point five. Dependant, of course, on if you like action movies and Transformers. See it in the theater if you can (just... don't sit close to the screen) and buy the DVD if you'd like.  Monday, July 2nd, 2007 - 2:55pm - [Direct Link] I think I'll create a movie rating scale: 1: Don't bother seeing it 2: See a friend's copy 3: Rent it 4: See it in theaters 5: Buy the DVD So last Friday I got an email from one of my professors at DigiPen. The faculty was skipping school to see a movie, and the students were encouraged to follow. The movie was Ratatouille (pronounced "rat-a-tooie"). It's Pixar's latest, and is the story of a rat who wants to be a cook. The animation was wonderful, and I loved the story. There were a few odd parts. For example, the rat can't magically talk to the humans, so when he's interacting only with humans he doesn't speak. Then we get some narrative overlay of the rat talking, and it's a bit startling, as you haven't heard his voice in a while. They also played loose with some time transitions using a narrative overlay to pass time, which felt a little out of place. The movie was hilarious, heartwarming, and had great lessons in it. I couldn't help but parallel the rat's learning to cook with my learning to draw. Raratouille is a definite must-see. I'll be buying it when it comes out on DVD. I'll give it a five. Then, on Saturday, Mort and Bin from Booster Logic fame invited me over to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I'd heard a couple negative reviews about it, but went and saw it anyway. It wasn't a waste of my money, as I enjoyed seeing it. It wasn't a meaningful movie like Ratatouille, but it managed to keep itself interesting enough most of the time. My friend Ryan wrote a review that said there wasn't enough action. I complain that what fighting there was is difficult to follow. The movie did the typical "stretch time out way too far" when the horrible things were happening at the end, but I've gotten so used to it that it didn't bother me that much and I was able to enjoy the movie without it doing more than slightly irritating me. If you like comics, the Fantastic Four series, or "save the world" movies, then you should see this in theaters. Otherwise, it's probably worth a rent later. Three point five.  Thursday, June 7th, 2007 - 1:24pm - [Direct Link] I was studying copyright law for the past few weeks, and decided I should share what I've learned. What Does Copyright Protect Copyright law protects anything physical. It does not protect ideas, processes, techniques, or any of that. The actual text of an idea can be copyrighted once it's written down, but the other stuff requires a patent, or an actual work based on the idea. (In other words, keep your ideas to yourself and maybe some close friends until you can make a copyrighted finished product out of the idea.) There are six (well, five we probably care about) things that copyright considers separate rights. When talking about "giving permission," it could be one, all, or even limited or partial access to any rule. 1) Right to create copies 2) Right to distribute copies (give, rent, sell, lend, etc) 3) Right to publicly display copies 4) Right to preform the work (like a play or projection) 5) Right to create derivatives of the work. 6) Right to broadcast the work (radio) If you give someone access to the first right, they can make a million copies -- but they couldn't give them to anyone. They could hang them up in their house, but not a public place like a workplace. Rule number four (I made up the numbering, mind you) would be permission to use one of your pictures in a speech and projecting it on a screen for part of the presentation. It may also apply for a large physical print of it in that case, or that could be number 3. The easiest way to deal with it is to simply give them the right to use it in the case that they need it, not try and word it by the law. Number five is what I was missing when originally trying to understand character copyright. Let's put it like this. Say you build a character out of marshmallows and take a picture of him. Since the original is quickly eaten afterwards, all you have is a series of photos of him. What if someone takes those photos, recreates the guy, and takes more pictures? They're not the original pictures you copyrighted, so it's ok, right? Rule number five says no. It's based on the original, so it's covered under the original copyright. You technically own the copyright on these new works someone else created. There is no law as to "how different" something has to be not to be a derivative work, but I've heard everything from 10% to 60%. When you're selling your artwork, make sure you also give them a notice of what you're selling. Rob Kmiec of DigiPen said that he's seen people turn things in to an Art Director, get paid $200 for it, and a few years later see that same piece sitting in an art gallery with a $2000 tag on it. And since they "sold" it, it's not theirs anymore so they have no rights. Make sure people know, through a written and signed-by-them contact, what rights you're giving them when you sell them sometime. How Do I Copyright Something As of March 1st, 1989, copyright happens auto-magically. As soon as your work is created (art drawn, film developed, or digital picture taken, etc) it is copyrighted to you. If you want to defend your copyright in court, you'll need to officially copyright it first, which costs you $45 or so. I think it's $10 cheaper if you do it online. But there's really no need to do that unless someone infringes and you need to take them to court. Though I am fuzzy on how the officially filed copyright date may effect a court case. Like if someone files a copyright they broke from you, then you file one afterwards. In such a case for art, the judge would want to see the preliminary sketches and early work leading up to the final piece in order to tell who made the original. Before March 1st, 1989, the rules are all wonky. So I won't even be covering them. Copyright protects your work for your lifetime, plus 70 years. A copyright notice, which is no longer needed to create a copyright but is still useful, should contain the following pieces to be an "official" copyright notice: 1) The word "Copyright" appearing as a C in a circle, "Copyright" or "Copr." 2) The year 3) Your name, a common nickname, or a recognizable initials. These are all valid copyright notices: Copyright 2007 Creighton Medsker Copr. 2007 Stickman (c) 2007 CM Since a notice isn't required anymore, it's not so important. But it's good to be educated, and good to date things. How Do I Defend My Copyright So what happens when someone infringes on your copyright? There's a simple, two step process involved. 1) Threaten to take them to court if they don't stop, perhaps demanding some amount of compensation if appropriate. 2) Take them to court and sue them for up to $30,000 per infringement, or even $150,000 per infringement if it's proven to be a willful violation. (I've been told lawyers don't care to deal with it unless it's worth at least $50,000) Did you see that? No police involved. No FBI. The problem is between the copyright holder and the infringer, and the court acts as an intermediary to uphold the law. There are exceptions, like when a big company can't find someone they know is infringing and want to hunt him down, and so the FBI comes in to keep them happy. Or something. I don't know the official relationship. When Is It OK to Use Someone Else's Copyright Now let's talk about this misunderstood "Fair Use" thing. "Fair Use" is a legal term. They might as well have called it "Lemon Pie" for all the word has meaning related to the common English term. The Fair Use rule does not mean it's ok to break copyrights. It sounds like a list of exceptions, but it's intentionally vague. Copyright is handled on a case-by-case basis. The Fair Use list is actually defenses that you can use in court to justify why you broke someone's copyright. And if your reason is good enough (compared to the other guy's reason why you shouldn't have) then you can get away with it. The list of Fair Use are: "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research..." Odd... I could have sworn "parody" was on that list. Well, whatever. Parody is defensible in court. Just remember that parody is using a copyright to make fun of the copyright. Using the copyright to make fun of something else is called a satire and tends not to hold up in court. Parodies hold up even when people are making money off them. That is, if you draw Sonic the Hedgehog in a tutu, that's a parody. If you draw Sonic the Hedgehog getting ripped off by a GameStop employee, you've crossed the line. (Unless Sega owns GameStop and I wasn't aware of it.) Originally, just about any educational purpose was acceptable, but these days not even education is safe. When determining if something is "Fair Use," the court will look at the following four factors: 1) The purpose of using the copyright, including non-profit educational or commercial use. 2) The nature of the copyrighted work. 3) The amount (AND substantiality) used of the copyrighted work. 4) The market effect on the copyrighted work For example on substantiality in number three, if you quoted 300 words from a 500 page book, but those 300 words were the "heart and soul" of the book, you could lose the case. Is Fanart Legal As I finish up here, I'd like to point out that "fanart," which is very common, is copyright infringement. There are a few reasons why no company does anything about it. 1) It would be stupid of a company to take their biggest fans to court. 2) Fanart artists are usually quite poor. The company would lose more money by suing them than it would potentially make. 3) The case may not actually hold up in court, because of Fair Use factor four, above. It can be argued that fanart (some of it, at least), actually encourages people to like and buy the product. In other words, if you break a company's copyright, and you're above the "average Joe" radar (rich and/or famous), you could find yourself in hot water. For more information, you can check out these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright http://www.copyright.gov/ If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the forum. I'm no lawyer, but copyright is one of the many things I need to be familiar with, and if I don't know the answer to a question, I'd like to look I up.  Monday, May 21st, 2007 - 4:22am - [Direct Link] I'm not sure if this is the "It's past three in the morning and you've gone mad" phase, or "It's finally clicked" event, but I think I've got something important. Probably very basic, but important. Especially in relation to art. It's one of those "It's so simple, I can't believe I didn't think of it" kind of things that everyone says they would have thought of themselves, but no one did for some reason. There's been a great many things I've learned at DigiPen in the last year I've been there. I've put this knowledge to use when working on my own art and working on other pieces of art, and I've seen that it's effective and proper. The latest one is a lovely little critique I left on this piece. Last night... or tonight. I can't remember... I was speaking with Mr. Maglot. The problem we both expressed to having was that even though we can learn all this amazing and wonderful knowledge about art, when we draw the drawing just "happens." I've talked with my friend Ember about art, and he said something that Betty Edwards mentioned in her book that a lot of people experience. When you're doing art, you lose track of time. You're making something, then BAM, it's suddenly hours later and you find yourself with something finished on the page. The problem Maglot and I were expressing is that during that multi-hour "BAM" that's occurring, there isn't much "left brained" or logical thought going on. We go into auto-pilot for drawing, and just draw. So basically, the situation is thus: -Art knowledge is awesome and excites and is so very, very useful. -You can't actually use any of that information when you're drawing. When I was younger, my church would also talk about making your choices before you did them. Being a Mormon, we don't do things like smoke, drink alcohol or coffee, have premarital sex, kill people (without good reason), and other things some people put as commonplace or acceptable. They taught us at church to already make the choice before the event happens. If you're never in a situation where someone offers you alcohol, great! You never have a problem. But if you haven't decided that you won't actually drink it, you may find yourself trying to decide whether to have some or not during that moment. It's very similar to the "say no to drugs" thing, except it explains the principle behind it and says "make your choice" instead of "say no." Though I guess they did want us to make the no choice anyway. Right, back on subject. The whole making up your mind beforehand method is actually very effective. And it works with lots of other things, too. Which brings us back to art. One of the first things they taught us at DigiPen was "WTF." That means "What's that for." Whenever you start a picture, that's the question you ask yourself. Something else they mentioned, after giving us all sorts of knowledge about art, is that it's just a big toolbox, and like any toolbox, there are some tools that are right for the job. You're not going to be using 50 different tools to change a light bulb. You're going to want a stepladder, and maybe some heavy rubber gloves if you're really paranoid. And maybe some sunglasses in case you forgot if the switch is on or not. But you're not gonna pull out the crescent wrench, and the left-leaning gyroscopic horseshoe tuner, because you don't really need those. Yeah, they're useful, but not for this job. So lemme try and bring this all together in an actual lesson we call the "oh no it's 4am and I haven't gone to bed yet" lesson on art. In order to apply the art knowledge you have into your actual art practice, you must decide before you even start the picture what your goal for that picture is, and what tools you're going to use to reach that goal. The choices of what your goals can be is an entirely different discussion. According to the Modified Bloom's Taxonomy Accordion Diagram (which I have never mentioned before now but it is a stepladder of learning things) everyone starts out on any given topic as ignorant, and eventually becomes better and more knowledgeable and practiced until they internalize the knowledge and it becomes second nature to them at the top level. To start, you learn of the existence of the left-leaning gyroscopic horseshoe tuner and all about its greatness. Then you find a situation that's a good use for it, pull it out of the box, and go... what the heck do I DO with this thing? You stumble around with the knowledge you have, because you know it's a good tool, and after 10, 50, or a thousand drawings specifically trying to use it, you finally reach the point where you you don't even have to think about using it because it comes naturally. So you pull it out when you're changing a light bulb and crank an extra 50 watts out of a 60 watt bulb without even breaking a sweat. Another thing I've learned tonight is that obsession is respectable to limited levels, proportional to the person's own desire for the subject, until it passes a certain point and the level of respect plummets. That is: To someone with a Beanie Baby desire level of 5.0, they will respect a Beanie Baby collector's obsessive tendencies to the level of 8.0. However, the average person has a desire level of 3.3, which only allows them to respect to the level of 6.3. Therefore, the original Beanie Baby collector has a respectable hobby, and the later has an unhealthy obsession. This principle is why gamers think staying up all night playing games is "cool," while parents think it is "not cool." If the parents had a higher desire level for games, they would also see it as "cool," baring other crazy ideas like "growing boys need plenty of sleep." I need to make graphs for this later, and not talk about it at 4am. They would probably help it make more sense. Or not make any sense at all, so I could stop trying to explain it.  Thursday, May 10th, 2007 - 7:24pm - [Direct Link] For the summer, I'm only taking one class: Sequential Art, ART 234. Fridays, 1-4pm. Don't really think we need a visual schedule for that. This is my planned schedule for next Fall:
And here are what the classes actually are: ART 201 - Advanced Life Drawing Credits: 3 Prerequisites: ART 125, ART 151 Instructor: Robert Kmiec Description: This course builds upon the anatomy and drawing courses students have already taken. Students will continue to improve their ability to capture kinetics in humans and animals. By engaging in a series of exercises designed to enhance their visual memory, students will build the foundation for drawing accurate figures from their imagination. They will also explore putting the figure into an environment, figurative composition, and introductory sequential figurative composition. BIO 200 - Animal Muscular, Skeletal, and Kinetic Anatomy Credits: 3 Prerequisite: BIO 150 Instructor: Dr. Chuck Wood Description: This course introduces the major skeletal and muscular structures of animals. Students will extrapolate their knowledge of the human form to the structure and form of a variety of animal types, specifically focusing upon the impact of locomotion and feeding strategies upon form. Additionally, students will consider terminology, structural arrangement, and kinetic function. The course also considers standard locomotion cycles and the relationship between humans and various animals. It will give special emphasis to adapting this knowledge to the needs of artists and animators. CG 201 - 2D Raster Graphics and Animation Credits: 3 Prerequisites: ANI 151, ART 101, ART 125 Instructor: Robert Kmiec Description: This course introduces students to the industry-standard software and practices of raster graphics and animation. The course begins with basic information such as interface organization strategies, system components, bit depth, resolution, memory management, and output strategies. Then it explores techniques and critical thinking skills for digital painting, scanning, still compositing, and texture creation. Additionally, it looks at basic interface customization options and strategies in 2D raster graphics. CG 225 - Introduction to 3D Animation Credits: 3 Prerequisites: ANI 151, ART 101, ART 125 Instructor: Adam Crespi Description: This course introduces students to the industry-standard software and practices of 3D animation. The course begins with basic information such as interface organization strategies, equipment options, and production elements. Then it introduces techniques and critical thinking skills for texture mapping, modeling, rigging, lighting, cameras, and animation. Additionally, it looks at basic interface customization options and strategies in 3D graphics, culminating in a series of applied problems in 3D production techniques. PRJ 201 - 2D Sprite Animation Production Credits: 5 Prerequisites: ANI 151, ART 125 Concurrent Courses: ART 201, BIO 200, CG 201, CG 225 Instructor: TBA Description: PRJ 201 introduces students to the basic concepts of the production process utilizing smallscale applied problems in 2D sprite animation. These digital artists heavily employ sprite animations in hand-held devices such as watches, cell phones, PDA’s, and hand-held game platforms. Sprite animations are also a cornerstone of Internet graphics and fundamental to animated texture maps. Their restrictive nature makes them excellent teaching platforms because they cannot be readily solved through brute force. Digital artists must account for each pixel and thoroughly plan for issues such as color management and movement. Students must successfully navigate the production pipeline in order to achieve professional results and hone their professional critical thinking skills. Only five classes! 17 credits! This is gonna be a piece of cake.  Saturday, April 28th, 2007 - 2:04am - [Direct Link] Edit: I AM AWESOME! Got three in so far. I'll update this as I get the rest. Animation 125 - Acting for Animation - B+ Animation 151 - Advanced Animation - B Art 125 - Tone, Color and Composition - B Art 151 - Basic Life Drawing - B- Bio 150 - Human Anatomy - A Film 151 - Film Analysis - B My current GPA is I passed my Freshman year! See also DigiPen Fall 2006 Grades
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