Learning Animation…(1)(Start here if you are starting Blender-it takes you through the steep learning curve part): I am taking you through Blender 3d animation software…The very beginning is the hardest, it has a steep learning curve…The next 11 posts will guide you…Each post represents one whole day of work…These are the most important things you need to learn in Blender…Note: Modeling, which means actually shaping something is a free form kind of thing that I am going to let you experiment with yourself…In my posts I mention the Youtube tutorials that I watched for each lesson, watch them too! I am not here to repeat those tutorials but to hold your hand through Blender 3d animation software so you get through the hardest part & stick with it…This includes emotions, thoughts of other software that costs big bucks, giving up, & other very basic hardware needs, & stupid mistakes you might make…If you can get through the concepts of the next 11 posts you will be fine on your own…You will still need tutorials, but you will have confidence enough in yourself to move forward without getting discouraged in the same way you do in your first week of Blender…Sari Grove

Update to this Post: Oh Lord God Almighty!!! I shouldn’t have recommended Blender software so easily…The learning curve is so steep…Steep…STEEP…Like STEEP…I sort of got discouraged after tutorial number 7 or 8(free on Blender Cookie are beginner tutorials-watch them- http://cgcookie.com/blender/…Then I went to look at more reviews of Blender…Turns out everyone says the learning curve for Blender 3D animation software is steeper than anything else…Ok, so for now, I am trying out DAZ…http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials Here is the link to DAZ learning tutorials…DAZ is also FREEWARE like Blender…I am hopeful that DAZ will be easier than Blender to learn…So take the rest of this post with a grain of salt…I wrote it before I knew exactly how hard Blender was to use…I may go back to Blender later after trying something a little easier to get my feet wet…But be forewarned…Blender is crazy hard…(even though the teacher keeps saying how easy it is in the videos)…Update again soon after: Oh to heck with DAZ…Can’t even install it easily…I give up on DAZ!!!…(maybe going back to Blender)…Update maybe 10 mintues later: Ok, so for Mac I found another freeware program called Art of Illusion…http://www.artofillusion.org/ Art of Illusion looks to be a little bit easier…I will post an update after I learn how to use it…!!! Update this same very evening:Ok, so I tried Art of Illusion…It is way easier than Blender…But the problem is I already watched 7 of Blender’s tutorials…So now the easier program looks lame to me…So after a talk with my husband & my mother, my confidence in myself is back! I deleted Art of Illusion & with husband’s permission & mother’s blessing I joined Blender as a “CITIZEN” which means that for 10 dollars a month I can watch all the tutorials I could possibly ever watch to learn Blender…So I am back…I am going to learn animation…Apparently on the hardest program there is…But Joseph says once you pass the steep learning curve it will probably be much easier…This is so exciting it’s like going to animation school! Wish me luck!

End of updates…

Warning: Animation is HARD…For people who like to learn difficult things…(Do not bother if opening a can of pop is too much work for you…This stuff is tiring, creatively too…)

((this is my first try at using Blender 3D animation software)

So, after being emboldened by my work(see the Grove Body Part Chart below) in Pencil http://pencil-animation.org/ (free animation software), I ordered a slightly used Wacom Graphire 4 tablet with pen on ebay.ca (I bid & won it for about 30 dollars Canadian), & set about finding more animation software that I could use…

Grove Body Part Chart from Sari Grove on Vimeo.

While reading a review on Amazon.com for Anime Studio, a reviewer mentioned that if you wanted to do 3D animation that you should try Blender(also free)…

http://www.amazon.com/Anime-Studio-Pro-Old-Version/product-reviews/B0052VKP0W/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 This is a link to the review on Amazon that changed my life…Scroll to the first full review & read it…Look for the words LIBRARY PICKS in the name part…In this great review, the person mentions Blender is free & great & gives a link…That is how I became a Blender girl!!!(join me)…

So I went to the Blender site & watched the first 5 of the beginner tutorials http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/…Downloaded Blender, & well, it is pretty hard…But so cool…It took me like half an hour just to figure out how to save an animation as a movie file…If anyone tries this, btw, here are the steps for that:

(also putting this here in case I forget)

1)Find the Render button & choose from the menu the show/hide render view

2)Set the thing to QUICKTIME instead of JPEG which it is pre-set as…(this is in the far right menu list & you just have to look at all the words, the choice is almost at the bottom, right)…

3)In video type choose MPEG4 from the dropdown list…(Right beside the quicktime button you just chose)…

4)Double click on that TMP button area, a whole page comes up, NAME the file so you can find it again, then CHOOSE the output location (I chose DESKTOP)

5)Click the button called ANIMATION which is actually just a picture button but if you hover over it it says animation…(also in the far right menu area)

Ok, then it takes a pretty long time, so go & eat something or watch tv…

Now when you get your MOVIE file , this is what I do…

I open SIMPLEMOVIE & stick that movie file into it…Then I hit COPY, then I paste that same file in several times…This is because many animations are quite short, so I often loop them this way…Then I EXPORT that file using APPLE TV settings…

From that new movie file I then open GARAGEBAND…Drag that movie file into the movie project area…(I created a new movie project & named it first of course)…Then you can add a new basic track…Usually instrumental…Then add another track & you can record voice…I like to choose vocals, then different voices for fun before recording…

Then EXPORT that file to iTUNES, then I upload to Flickr so I can share it…For very large files, like the Grove Body Part Chart I did in pencil, I uploaded to VIMEO…YOUTUBE & FLICKR cannot really handle large files well, especially if they are animations-the audi goes out of sync sometimes due to the unusual frame rates…

NOTES: I first began my journey into learning animation using PENCIL…This was a steep learning curve for me…I watched amateur tutorials for Pencil on Youtube to figure it out…I recommend that anyone new to animation try Pencil first…Blender will be way too hard to understand without first trying a basic animation program like Pencil…Now I am told Pencil does not work on Mountain Lion…Which is one reason I am still on Snow Leopard…It appears that all Power pc programs do not run on Mountain Lion…(Which tells me that I think people should go back to Snow Leopard…)I couldn’t find a free program to run animation software that runs on Mountain Lion…If someone does, please tell us in the Comments, so others can try it too…

Thanks…My biggest thanks go to Hanno Phenn, who really understands digital & got me interested…Hanno Phenn can be found here…http://hwphenn.wordpress.com/

My second thanks go to my husband, who, after I showed him my very first tiny bit that I animated on Pencil, said that that was really cool…Joseph is like Mikey, he hates everything…So if he likes something I move forward…When I showed him the finished Grove Body Part Chart he said I should do more of this stuff…He even suggested I could go out & buy the pen & tablet I needed…So I did…(It should arrive next week maybe, it is coming from Calgary, Alberta!)…http://www.grovecanada.ca/#!about/c10fk this page has a picture of Joseph…

My 3rd thanks should probably go out to Scarborough Arts & The PaperMill Gallery…My Dragonfly is in a show at PaperMill & my elation during a show leads me into new possibilities fueled by the outside encouragement…Though I kick & scream about shows, they are very useful for artistic development…http://mad.ly/6ffc83 here’s the link to the show newsletter thingy…

https://sarigrove.com/2013/03/24/learning-animation/ I logged my pain & agony in 11 daily posts so far…These 11 posts represent the steepest learning curve part of Blender…The part where you are sad because nothing works, you spend half the day trying other easier programs, you consider spending $1500 for something you don’t need…Took me 2 days to realize that I absolutely could not use Blender without a 3 button mouse…It also dawned on me that the Youtube video tutorials by kind strangers were far less boring to watch than the official Blender tutorials which were painfully thorough…Deciding what I needed to know, instead of just following along anything was crucial…I decided I wanted to learn first how to save an animation file, then how to make bones move- rigging, then how to make hair which was cool & how to make hair move dynamically even cooler, then deformation of the object like blinking or talking, & so on…I am only on my 12 day of Blender 3d animation software…Possibly the word “Master” is a little premature, but I like it if maybe it is prophetic (me being egotistical & silly)! 🙂 But I think the first week is the hardest, not just the program but all sorts of other decisions like ‘do you need a tablet & pen?’ ‘can your computer handle Sculpt mode energy demands?’ (I added a little program called CPU Speed Accelerator which helps with that), the biggest fear or obstacle is ‘should I be using another program’? which causes you to waste time looking at them & trying out their free trials…