new stuff

some new stuff



done this end of 06 as a team project, i did mostly animation and effects


a quick work from 6 months ago from time of posting ;)

currently interning at lucasfilm animation singapore. hopefully i'll get the job! *crossfinger*

wish me luck!



cheers
jacko

wheeeeee

hello people of the world.

i'm alive. and well. i think. somehow still kicking and breathing.
i take it as a good sign. everyday's a blessing. stop and smell the roses. what nots.

i've been so busy with animation lately it's godawful crazy. it's been a crazy ride thus far and its getting crazier. my current project is the US-only famous veggie tale, the vegetable-talking-bible-thumping-goodie-2-shoe vegetables...

picture... a bunch of blob objects shape tomatoe, cucumber, gourd, asparagus and what nots, in an colourful animation caricature of real human stories. sounds easy to animate rite?

WRONG.

whenevr i get a new shot, i had to crack my skull open and poke my brains to figure out the best way to convey recognizable, fathomable, comprehensible, understandable, chickedee-ness, expression, movement and acting choice without HANDS AND LEGS and a proper face.

however there is a bonus feature to this wild ride. james chiang, who work for animationmentor.com currently as a widely sought after tutor, animator at bluesky, sony and lucas, is currently the animation director @ my company for 3 months. all i can say is OMFGBBQAFKWTFPWNED!!!!!!

he taught me hell lot so far and i'm soooooooo soo soo soooo lucky X 1000 for someone with his calibre to be even here @ a lowly animation company. but then again i know how far still i have to work to even have half of his skill.

some people are just born with talent. some only have their passion and heart that hopefully can carry them to reach the moon, altho what they want is stars, but that's okay.

i'm still not sure which one i am yet. one day i'll know.

but for now,

here's a mantra that i always say,
may everyone be well and happy.


cheers

woah long blog hiatus

woah.

really. long. hiatus.

i've added so many animations, had a new reel out and stuff, and i have the audacity to not update my blog regarding them. (being that this blog that is all about my career and animation.)

first thing first.
congratulations jacko. i found me a new job in singapore. as animator. after a year plus being an all rounder, it is finally time to zone in on one specific trade.

i have yet so so much to learn, so so little is my knowledge in animation, so puny and measly. but my foot is in the door. now i have to exert every bit of my energy and effort to push the door wide open and go further!! (ie: surviving my 3 months probationary period in the new singapore company!!)

heres the thing, right, working on reel and working on real working environment is 2 completely differnt world. i have every time in the world to create a good reel, heck my opening animation took 2 weeks to make. no pressure, just enjoyable experimental trial and error animating process. but working, u don't have time, u are under alot of pressure to produce, and you have datelines!!!! well now i'm venturing into the latter part, a part where i never explore and tried before. commercial animations that i did in office is nothing compare to tv series where you are expected to produce 5-10 seconds a day!!

oh boy. we'll see how i fare.


anyway here's an animation that i did long time ago, that were never posted. officially, its my 2nd lipsync animation after minnie.





and here's another animation with dinosaur, dino character downloaded from highend3d, textured by muah, background by muah also.




and finally link to my showreel, on my official website
http://www.intangiblemind.com/

or link to download the reel in hi quality format
http://www.intangiblemind.com/reel_jackson_hi.zip

here's to luck and hard work in singapore.
good bye EL. you've been good to me, and i've grown alot. i'll miss all my colleagues and friends dearly. i had a great time in malaysia. who knows what future will bring. i can only trudge forward and try my best.

cheers
jacko wacko

"why vege is bad for you?" production still

actually i havent thought of the title. i wonder what it should be call, something short and simple. doesnt matter its just a short short tiny animation. here's some production still for fun

model downloaded from highend3d, texture and the rest done by muah.



rendered with mental ray with only final gather, etc etc the usual bells and whistles applied. now wondering how to add blood effects later on. hoo ha.

off to watch fantastic four silver surfer, office hour is ending!!


cheers
jacko

puppy-rex

here's a new animation i did

not sure i like it as much as i should but what the hell

playblast with some text wordings for fun, not yet render tho
will post some render stills later when i manage to fix the other barney animation renders grr. apparently if i use invisible on and off in keyframing, it'll screw up the photon calculation in mental ray and its horrible!!

oh well. maybe i'll go to cgtalk and ask for help


cheers
jacko

WIP barney

a playblast for a short animation sync i'm working on. here's the final sync. going to tweak a little more of the animation before rendering. and adding burst of flames and all.

then off it go to youtube.com

I'm modeling the weapons now. ooo this is going to be so much fun

some render test but i'm still looking for the right look for the 12 second animation
is it worth putting in so much effort for this 12 sec animation? i love rendering and designing so... :P i mean i get more satisfaction from doing that, you know what i mean?



cheers
jacko

this week in entertainment

i've been following some of the biggest reality shows and tv series of late and most of them has reach their respective season's end. i must say this time around, not much whomp-bham-slam moment for me in tv, reality or fiction.

let's start with the biggest.

American Idol 6
Jordin Sparks winning American Idol. Could it be anymore predictable? The moment Melinda Doolittle got voted off it was Jordin's game. Heck Blake may be original but he's nowhere close the vocal chops of prior winner Taylor Hicks, or any other idol winner for that matter. Srsly. This season of idol has been meh for me mostly, altho I still catch it every week if i can. I know. I'm obsessed. but its a singing competition! i love singing! melinda should have won she was the best there is this season. altho her winning may be predictable but it was predicted since early on and her flawless performance every week, not to mention few showstopper in between warrant her a win (my funny valentine, all time best idol performance). her leaving is a prove that people today do not appreciate good vocals anymore. how sad. really really sad. at least i do. *pats self*

meh stop acting all surprise

jordin is good and all. but something about her that is missing. i dunno what it is. i love some of her show stopping performances but i dislike the others. in fact she was pitchy throughout the competition more than blake. oh well. and the finale was so meh-worthy. i rarely get to see any top 12 performances, and even though they manage to gather most of the previous idol winner, it was STILL so poorly orchestrated. I don't really care about all those old stars that appear on idol save tony bennett.

Season 3, 4 , 5 result show finale was amazing. they were such good conclusion to a 6 months long show. but not this one.
America's Next Top Model 8

janice dickinson and I are two soulmates, only she's older

Jaslene wins. boo-hoo. i wanted natasha to win altho her covergirl photo was horrible. but throughout the show she was the best out there among the rest, learning and growing and she cracks me up.. they should really just give her the win. but i guess they need a latina girl to win, to represent america's latina population. when is an asian gonna win then? april came the closest to win, i still think she's among the prettiest to appear on ANTM. jaslene looks old sometimes and she reminds me of janice dick-whatever-sen. This season ANTM was fun and funny, but the finale was meh not only cause my favourite didn't win, but maybe i was getting bored of the same ol' same finale style.

Heroes season 1
By far the most disappointing finale. I have high hopes for heroes finale, i thought i'm going to get cliffhanging slam-dunked like lost season 1. but disappointed. srsly. its not THAT bad but ITS THE FINALE FOR GODS SAKE. in fact i was shocked and slam-dunked mentally by some of the earlier episodes in heroes, heck even some of the effects in earlier episodes were much better (5 years back - oozing with plots and effects) why oh why oh why they end it with such a tiny meenie bang. why do they have to kill nathan, i know nathan may not be dead according to speculation but it just doesn't make much sense to me. claire KNOWS that peter can regenerate, noah (mr bennett) can just fucking shoot peter and don't let claire shoot if claire is so afraid. Peter can so fly up and blow up there. Jessica can punch him out cold. ANYTHING. except killing nathan up in the sky. its so cliche, for a series that claims to have xplosive ending, sticking to cliche is not what you call explosive ending. (the renegade brother returns and sacrifice himself for the good of everyone). the battle was so weak. nowhere near the time where sylar battle peter in suresh's apartment. my heart stopped couple times there. not the final battle.

HA-HA, you can't kill me you suckers. I rock and I'm strangely hot.

it seems like the writers couldn't tie up the gaping holes in the plot when all the heroes come together. there were still nice moments. but its the overall ending idea that turns me off majorly.

however, some gold for the next season, "the guy who can see me when i look at him", hiro (I LOVE HIRO) nakamura returns to samurai-era, sylar survival - does he have other powers we don't know about?, peter and nathan - any of them survive? presumably peter, the tracker girl finds a family with cute micah, WHAT is peter's mom's power???, WHAT is the previous generation power??? what are their real plans? do they plan their children's power also, only linderman power has been revealed.

all in all heroes is a good series. the ending just.... ended it horribly for me. but still i was bamboozled so many times in so many earlier episodes and still so many questions, i MUST MUST watch season 2. good thing is the cliffhanger didn't make me jump impatiently so i can wait and let the bad taste of disappointment leave me first.

going to watch desperate housewives finale soon, and catching up with lost season 3, as well as grey's anatomy seasons. whoopee.

tortoisey vehicle

what ails sea turtle? lack of knowledge or conservation skill among ppl?

well mee mee's tv series for kids is about nature mostly, and about conserving nature in the most simplistic view. mee mee is my old character minnie, her name has been change to suit tv series idea because minnie refers exclusively to minnie mouse.

so this is a vehicle that mee mee will encounter in her "dream world" in which will bring her to the episode's treasure. each episode will bring her to somewhere where mee mee has to solve a certain idea in order to acquire the treasure. the treasures collected in each episode will ultimately restore the dilapidated forest, which is the ultimate goal of the series, but not without a series of puzzling mysterious encounters with creatures that stole the forest of its colour and vibrancy. here is the vehicle.

gonna build and rig in maya but gonna give it a paint job first. what do you think?

cheers
jacko

oh no diarrhea!!!!

ah there are plenty way to deal with stress at work. and here is my way. click for full view.




chezel is a brand. the cheesy ring snack food that we all love to eat. the advertising agency love demanding changes in matter of hours. or even better. you can send them the WIP for 2 whole day and they will ask you for some last-minute changes 2 hours before the final presentation. ah. well.

cheers
jacko

what a wreck

i am.

not having enough knowledge can be a burden; when experience has not ripen and are still in infancy stage, hard-earned confidence can plunge down the depths of obscurity. oh how i abhor the feeling of being weak and powerless with only so little to propel me forward. true, you can look at plenty others and ponder that your burdens are not as heavy as theirs, but you can also look at plenty others and ponder why are their burdens almost non-existent? things hardly stay neutral, as is with any matters in this universe, they're either up or down, left or right, positive or negative, or a little between. and it is very easy to go the other way when you are paving the slow painstaking path upwards. the struggle continue to become a struggle, and after finishing one struggle another one emerge.

i truly believe that there's always a time for everyone that one day things will fall into perspective for them and they will see the beauty of life and the grand perks that poets and lyricist writes to. but is that all there is to it?

sometimes when i face a bump, i feel like running away, cowering in the shell of ignorance that i weave for myself. there is always the other path to take, an endless variation of path that are given. it is easy for society to say get over it or you'll come out of it. true, if one continues fighting, one will ascend from beneath all the obstacles, whether victorious or not, is another matter. as always the end of the rainbow are 2 sides, one with pot of gold and the other is without any pot of worth. but sometimes the fray to any end of rainbow is worth throwing both hands up in the sky and admitting defeat. and how unworthy some battles are. just because society dictate what is worth fighting and what is not, thus we struggle endlessly against the very passion that we hold for life.

oh how i dislike myself sometimes for letting things get to me so easily. how briskly some of my emotional shield is penetrated and tore apart. i have tried in vain to take things with a grain of salt but my personality seem to disagree. my brain is like a sponge that absorb matters that are mere negative frivolity. and with that burden of fluff, i shrink in uselessness and wallow in self-absorbing depression. the stress hormone in me gleefully prance around enjoying the surge . and here i am, emotionally vulnerable and weak.

i have to learn to pick myself up and while nursing the bruise, continue fighting through the thorns. after all, isn't that what society and life dictates us all to do?


cheers
jacko