What if you had a nickle for every time you heard: "I have the perfect idea for a great application!"? It’s the buzz on the street. The iPhone has created unprecedented excitement and innovation from people both inside and outside the software development community. Still for those outside the development world, the process is a bit of a mystery.
This how-to guide is supposed to walk you through the steps to make your idea for an iPhone app a reality. This post presents various ideas, techniques, tips, and resources that may come in handy if you are planning on creating your first iPhone application.

1. Have an idea – a Good Idea

How do you know if your idea is a good one? The first step is to even care if your idea is solid; and the second step is to answer the question does it have at least one of the indicators of success?

1	Does your app solve a unique problem? Before the light bulb was invented, somebody had to shout out “Man, reading by candlelight sucks!” Figure out what sucks, and how your app can make the life of its user more comfortable.
2	Does the app serve a specific niche? Though there aren’t any stats on the App Store search, the usage of applications is certainly growing with the explosion of App Store inventory. Find a niche with ardent fans (pet lovers, for example) and create an app that caters to a specific audience.
3	Does it make people laugh? This is a no-brainer. If you can come up with something funny, you are definitely on the right track and your idea may be the golden one. Heck, I hit a red “do not press” button for 5 minutes yesterday.
4	Are you building a better wheel? Are there existing successful apps that lack significant feature enhancements? Don’t be satisfied with just a wine list, give sommeliers a way to talk to their fans!
5	Will the app be highly interactive? Let’s face it, most of us have the attention span of a flea. Successful games and utilities engage the user by requiring action!

Action: Does your app fall in to one of these categories? If yes, it’s just about time to prepare the necessary tools.

2. Tools Checklist

Below is a list of items you’ll need (*starred items are required, the rest are nice-to-have’s):

• join the Apple iPhone Developer Program⁶ ($99) *
• get iPhone or iPod Touch *
• get an Intel-based Mac computer with Mac OS X 10.5.5,
• prepare a Non-Disclosure Agreement (here’s a sample⁷) *
• download and install the latest version of the iPhone SDK⁸ if you don’t already have it.
• a spiral bound notebook*

Action: Load up on your required supplies.

3. What Are You Really Good At?

What skills do you bring to the table? Are you a designer whose brain objects to Objective C? A developer who can’t design their way out of a paper sack? Or maybe you are neither, but an individual with an idea you’d like to take to the market? Designing a successful iPhone application is a lot like starting a small business. You play the role of Researcher, Project Manager, Accountant, Information Architect, Designer, Developer, Marketer and Advertiser – all rolled into one.
Remember what all good entrepreneurs know – it takes a team to make a product successful. Don’t get me wrong, you certainly can do it all. But you can also waste a lot of time, energy and sanity in the process. Don’t go crazy, reference the checklist below and ask yourself: What roles are the best fit for you to lead? Then find other talented people to fill in the gaps. The infusion of additional ideas can only enrich the product!

Skills Checklist

• Ability to Discern what works/doesn’t work in existing iPhone Apps
• Market research
• Outlining App Functionality (Sitemap Creation)
• Sketching
• GUI Design
• Programming (Objective C, Cocoa) (we assume here that we are creating a native application)
• App Promotion and Marketing

Remember to have contractors sign your non-disclosure agreement. Having a contract in place tells your contractor "I’m a professional that takes my business and this project seriously. Now don’t go runnin’ off with this idea."
Action: Select skills that are a good fit for you to lead. For those roles where you cannot lead, hire professionals.

4. Do Your Homework: Market Research

Market research is a fancy way of saying "Look at what other people are doing and don’t make the same mistakes." Learn from the good, bad and ugly in the App Store. Coming up with creative solutions in the app concept development and design starts with analyzing other (maybe similar) applications. Even if you encounter a lot of poorly designed apps, your mind will reference these examples of what not to do.

Action: Answer these questions:

• What problem does your app solve?
• What products have you seen that perform a similar task?
• How do successful apps present information to users?
• How can you build on what works and make it unique?
• What value does your app bring to your audience?

5. Know the iPhone/iPod Touch UI

If you want to create an iPhone app, you need to understand the capabilities of the iPhone and its interface. Can you shoot a .45 caliber bullet out of your iPhone? No. Can you shoot videos? Yes!
The good news is that you don’t have to memorize the encyclopedic Apple User Interface Guidelines⁹ to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t in iPhone Apps. Download and play with as many apps as you can, and think about what functionality you want to include in your product.
Take note of:

• How do well-designed apps navigate from screen to screen?
• How do they organize information?
• How MUCH information do they present to the user?
• How do they take advantage of the iPhone’s unique characteristics: the accelerometer, swiping features, pinch, expand and rotate functions?

Action: Download the Top 10 apps in every category and play with all of them. Review the Apple Guidelines for UI design¹⁰ and list at least 5 features you’d like to incorporate into your app.

6. Determine "Who will use your app?"

We assume here that you’ve already determined that your app will bring value and that you will have a raging audience for your app. Well, fine, they are raging fans, but who are they really? What actions will they take to achieve their goals within the app?
If it’s a game, maybe they want to beat their high score. Or perhaps they are a first time player – how will their experience differ from someone who is getting a nice case of brain-rot playing your game all day?
If it’s a utility app, and your audience wants to find a coffee shop quickly, what actions will they take within the app to find that coffee shop? Where are they when they’re looking for coffee? Usually in the car! Do present an interface that requires multiple taps, reading and referencing a lot? Probably not! This is how thinking about how real-life intersects design.
Action: Line item out the different types of people who will use your app. You can even name them if you want to make the scenarios you draw out as real as possible.

7. Sketch Out Your Idea

And by "sketch" I mean literally sketch. Line out a 9-rectangle grid on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and get to sketching!
Ask yourself:

• What information does each screen need to present?
• How can we take the user from point A to point B to point C?
• How should elements on the screen be proportioned or sized in relation to each other (i.e. is this thing even tap-able?)

¹¹
Image credit: Cultured Code¹²
Thumbnailing your ideas on paper can push your creativity far beyond where your imagination might stagnate working in an sketching application! You can also buy the iPhone Stencil Kit¹³ to quickly sketch out iPhone UI prototypes on paper.
Action: Create at least one thumbnail page of your application per screen. Experiment with various navigational schemes, the text you put on buttons, and how screens connect. If you want to transfer your sketches into digital format, iPlotz¹⁴ is a good tool to check out.

8. Time for Design

¹⁵
If you are a designer, download the iPhone GUI Photoshop template¹⁵ or our iPhone PSD Vector Kit¹⁶. Both are collections of iPhone GUI elements that will save you a lot of time in getting started. If you’ve solidified your layout during sketching, drawing up the screens will be less of a layout exercise and more about the actual design of the app.
If you are not a designer, hire one! It’s like hiring an electrician to do electrical work. You can go to Home Depot and buy tools to try it yourself, but who wants to risk getting zapped? If you’ve followed steps 1–3, you’ll have everything you need for a designer to get started.
When looking for a designer, try to find someone who has experience designing for mobile devices. They may have some good feedback and suggested improvements for your sketches. A few places to look for designers: Coroflot¹⁷, Crowdspring¹⁸, eLance¹⁹. When posting your job offer, be very specific about your requirements, and also be ready to review a lot of portfolios.
Action: If you are a designer, get started in Photoshop. If you are not a designer, start interviewing designers for your job.

9. Programming

Even though this how-to is sequential, it’s a good idea to get a developer on board at the same time when you line up design resources. Talking with a developer sooner than later will help you scope out a project that is technically feasible and within your budget.
If you are a Objective C/Cocoa developer crack, open Xcode and get started! A few forums to join if you haven’t already:

• Apple Dev Forum²⁰
• iPhoneSDK²¹ (moderated by Erica Sadun²²)
• iPhoneSDKForum²³
• iPhoneDev Forums²⁴
• iPhoneSB²⁵

If you are not a developer, you know what to do – find one! Specify the type of app you want to produce – whether it is a game, utility or anything else. Each type usually requires a different coding skill set. A few places to look for developers: Odesk²⁶, iPhoneFreelancer²⁷, eLance¹⁹ and any of the forums listed above.

10. Submit your application to Apple Store

OK, so how do you submit your application to Apple Store now? The process of compiling your application and publishing the binary for iTunes Connect can be difficult for anyone unfamiliar with XCode. If you are working with a developer, ask them to help you:

• Create your Certificates
• Define your App ID’s
• Create your Distribution Provisioning Profile
• Compile the application
• Upload to iTunes Connect

Action: If you are a developer, map out a development timeline and get started. If you are not a developer, start interviewing devs for your job.

11. Promote Your App

If a tree falls in the middle of the woods and nobody was around to hear it does it make a sound? Apps can sit in the store unnoticed very easily. Don’t let this happen to you. Be ready with a plan to market your app. In fact, be ready with many plans to market your app. Be ready to experiment, some ideas will work, others won’t.

Strategies for maintaining/boosting app sales:

• Incorporating social media. If your users make the high score on his or her favorite game, it is a good idea to make it easy for the user to post it to Facebook or Twitter. Think about how your app can incorporate social media and build that functionality into your app. At a minimum, set up a fan page for your app on Facebook and Twitter and use them as platforms to communicate with your users and get feedback on your app.
• Pre-launch promotion. Start building buzz about your app before it has launched. E-mail people who write about things that relate to your app and see if they will talk up the upcoming release of your app.
• Plan for multiple releases. Don’t pack your app with every single feature you want to offer in the very first release. Make your dream list for the app and make sure that the app is designed to incorporate all of the features at some time in the future. Then periodically drop new versions of the app to boost app store sales.

Action: Make a list of 20 promotional strategies that target the audience for your app. Take action on them yourself or hire someone who can!

So you want to apply to a game studio but you're wondering, "What exactly do I need to put on my demo reel?" Is it different from film? Well, yes and no. Games do present some different requirements to an animator than what might be experienced in film. However, when it comes to putting together a demo reel, the game industry is not that different from the film industry. The bottom line: reviewers still want to see solid animation.

Today there are as many game studios as there are games being made. There's not one standard formula. Just like in film, studios have their own styles, requirements, etc. I've tried to summarize some tips below that may help you if you're looking to put together an animation demo reel for a game studio.

1. Tailor your demo reel to the studio you are applying to.
This is super important. The game industry is exploding and there are so many different studios, different genres of games, and different styles of how games are animated. Do your homework. Research the studio and the work they produce. That doesn't mean you need to have completely new, customized work for each studio. But, if you know you're going to apply to work on an action-oriented, sword-fighting game then put more of your animation that has physical action in it. If you're applying for a job on a people simulation game, then put more pantomime and acting-oriented pieces on your reel.

2. To cycle or not to cycle?
That's a question I get asked all the time. Cycles are definitely a part of every game, especially for things like a character's locomotion or fighting actions. However, game animation today has a lot more to it than just cycles. My first advice is to consult tip #1 and if it's necessary then put 1 or 2 good cycles on your reel to show that you can do them. However, they don't need to be the focus of your reel. People still want to see good animation that showcases solid physical action, acting, performance, and storytelling skills. If you can show that, the reviewer will have no doubt that you can do a cycle, even if you don't have one on your reel.

3. Nail the fundamentals in all your animation.
This might seem obvious, but I can't emphasize it enough. By their nature, games tend to involve a lot of physical action so it's key that you show a firm understanding of the principles. It's also important because the animation can be viewed from all different angles in video games (as opposed to film where you're usually animating to a specific camera). Because of this, the fundamentals need to be working since the animation has to look good from all angles. There's nothing that will make a reviewer hit the eject button faster than if the fundamentals are not executed properly in someone's reel. Weight, timing, spacing, arcs, overlap, etc. It's probably one of the most important things to consider when putting together your reel. Get feedback from your friends and/or colleagues to make sure your reel shows you have a solid understanding of how to execute the fundamentals of animation. It's been mentioned in several good animation books, but something very simple that is executed very well will make a much bigger impact than something complicated that's executed in less than stellar fashion.

4. Don't make the reel too long.
Anything over 2 minutes is probably getting too long. Don't put everything you've ever animated on there. Just the best, most recent work. Reviewers have a very limited space of time to review your work so keep it short and make it count!

5. Always put your best work first.
You want to grab people's attention from the get go. If your best work is later in the reel, the reviewer may never see it.

6. Specialist or Jack of All Trades?
Should I include models, rigs, textures, etc.? Again, refer to tip #1 to understand what the studio is looking for. While some studios may look for a jack of all trades (i.e. someone who can animate and rig), most studios these days (especially the bigger ones) are looking for specialists. That means if you're applying for an animation position, make the focus of your reel a showcase of your animation.

7. DVD, CD, VHS, Web?
These days, the most common format to submit your demo reel is on DVD. However, it's also a very good idea to have your reel available online somewhere. This allows you to furnish a company with your work samples quickly, especially if you've been referred by someone and they haven't received a DVD yet. Make sure if you do have samples online that they are in a common format for people to view, otherwise you run the risk of being passed over. Generally, QuickTime movies are the most popular format.

8. Always Include a Shot list.
This is particularly important if you have group projects on your reel. Be very specific about what you animated so it's clear to the reviewer. Well, I think that about wraps it up! I hope you find these tips helpful and I hope to see some of your solid reels soon! Good Luck!

About Dave Vasquez - Dave is an animator at Electronic Arts and is currently working on Sims 3. His interest in filmmaking began at an early age with a Super 8 camera given to him by his parents. After attending UCLA Film School and working in the live action film industry for a few years, Dave discovered animation. He initially attended the Academy of Art University (where he first met Bobby Beck, the CEO and co-founder of AnimationMentor.com) and then graduated in the first class of Animation Mentor. When Dave's not busy animating, you can usually find him surfing a wave or plucking away on a bass guitar.

Source:http://www.animationarena.com/video-game-animation-demo-reel.html

As you might expect, artists in the game industry do a range of diverse jobs, and as such, several specific job categories have developed over time. Each of the categories is associated with different styles, techniques and areas within the game development process.

Although the details will vary between companies, the following list of definitions should be useful at least as a guide:

Concept Artist
2D/3D Animator
2D Texture Artist

Concept Artist

This person will create and design characters and worlds used within the game.
To begin with, everything is created on paper as a rough concept. When this is approved, it goes through a cleaning up period which may involve scanning the designs on to computer and using an art package such as Photoshop to perfect fine line work and add details. Colour is then introduced into the Image so that the texture artist can create the correct textures for the world or character. Once the concept artwork has been completed it is passed on to the 3D Model Builder (or Animator if it is an animated character).

A concept artist will be required to:
Ensure the design fits with the general look and feel of the game

Achieve maximum effect with minimum complexity - complex designs eventually lead to more complex 3D models (something that can be easily created with as few polygons as possible is desirable)

Consider colours and colour schemes used to maintain a balance of colour throughout the design.


How do I become a Concept Artist in the games industry?
Hmmm, this is a tricky one. Concept art cannot really be taught. Being a good concept artist is about drawing as much as you possibly can, whenever you can. The great Chuck Jones once said that every artist has a million naff drawings inside them, it's just a matter of working through them so you get to the point where you only produce your best.
I myself have been drawing from the very first moment I picked up a pencil, but to get really good takes time and persistence. It's good that you admire Disney and Anime but don't try to copy and imitate them too much, use the style and line construction as a guide and try to develop your own line style and characters. If you spend most of your time copying other people's work you will never learn how to come up with outstanding creations of your own.
A good way of getting good is to focus on an aspect of drawing that you really enjoy. I chose traditional animation and background art, it teaches you a lot about a character's attitude, emotion, and motivation, aspects which are all to important when creating believable characters and environments.

Drawing characters and animals
One of the most important parts of becoming a good character and animal illustrator is life drawing and good observation skills. Try to learn as much as you can about anatomy, proportion and skeletal structures, this will ensure that you put the right muscle in the right place, there's nothing worse that a character with made up anatomy. Life drawing may be a little daunting at times but if you get good at it the rules of construction and pose that you learn will come across in your own creative work.

Creating environments
Again, as with characters, observation and drawing from real buildings and landscapes will teach you how to produce realistic environments that seem real and believable. Focus the layout and try to find the hidden composition that makes for a captivating and impressive environment, this will all go towards helping you to come up with your own creations and how to make the unreal seem real.

What you need to do now
If you're sure (as I was) that illustration and design is the direction you want to go I would suggest you find a course which tries to encompass all aspects of Art and Design. After School I went into a Graphic Design course at Stafford Art College which taught me many different aspects of Design. The course itself involved life drawing, graphic design, photography, animation, illustration, calligraphy and technical drawing. All of these media types helped me find an overall understanding of art and design.
After my 2 years at college I went to University to study Traditional Animation. This again involved a lot of drawing from life and a lot of observational drawing, as well as learning how to animate characters and produce background artwork.

The route here isn't necessarily the best route and everyone's different but the best advice is to try to find a good art course at a respectable art college and see where it takes you. You may find out that you have other skills that you never thought you had.

A few main points to remember:

Keep drawing and don't copy other people's work, use it as a guide and learn from what they have done.

Don't be afraid of blank paper - just get in there and draw, nothing ever comes out right first time anyway.

Be critical of your art, and look hard at it to see what doesn't look right and then change weak aspects and improve on parts that already work within the illustration.

2D/3D Animator

The job of a 3D artist is to provide a game's levels and character content. You may also be required to provide high definition models for concept and marketing purposes.

The animators position involves animating individual characters and scenic elements within a game. They may also be required to animate filmic introductions, cut scenes and endings for the game.

The task of texturing a 3D object is often given to a specific 2D artist, but you may be required to create textures and apply them when needed.

2D Texture Artist

The job of a 2D Texture Artist is to provide all the texture elements within a game for the 3D models.

We use in-house developed tools for applying the textures to the models, but the creation of the textures requires the use of packages such as Photoshop, Painter, Deep Paint and vector based applications like Xara and Illustrator.

There are also other 2D elements required within a game such as lighting and special effects.
Source:http://www.animationarena.com/game-design-artist.html

I wanna get into the games industry!!, but how?? 

 

First off you shouldn't try starting up your own game development team. Game development is no longer the kind of thing that you can just do in your bedroom with a few friends, it's a big money industry run by professional people who demand quality or the heat will rain down on you and you'll be lumped with a mass of debt. If you want to make your own game development group that makes games you might see on a store shelf then you should get a few years experience in the industry at least. If you want to do it on a hobbyist level to get some practice in i'd suggest looking for mod teams to join. There are hundreds of mods out there and most are always on the look-out for fresh talent.

So that leaves getting a job with an existing developer...

In order to be a video game artist you have to have a good mix of traditional art skills and modern computer based art skills, the balance of which will depend on the eventual specialization you go for. Within the title "games artist" are many sub-categories of artist including animators, texture artists, character modelers, object modelers, concept artists, etc etc. While it's ok for now to look at your target career simply as a games artist or game designer, the eventual specialization you do will have an impact on what you should be learning in the mean time, so you should start out by sampling everything and then concentrating on the bit/bits that you enjoy doing the most. For example, a concept artist will do purely traditional art, so they won't need to know much at all about computer based art. You can find out more about what each specialization of artist should be learning in the Animation Arena Video Game Design section, which is pretty much dedicated to answering the question posed in this title.

So once you've got in mind what you need to be learning you need to go about doing it. Unfortunately with all art the only way you're going to get better at it is through practice. Some people maintain that people that are good at art are "naturally artistic", like artistic ability is somehow genetic, but ask any good artist how they got good and they'll tell you how they got where they are by practicing their asses off.

Traditional art wise you should be drawing at least one thing every day. Whether it's a cartoon or a still life or whatever, it doesn't matter, but making sure you draw at least one thing a day will improve your drawing dramatically. Doing an art night class would help alot too. Considering this is for games, you need to be drawing lots of people, so learning to draw anatomy will be greatly beneficial too. One thing I would suggest is steering clear of anime. Looking at the portfolio work of other aspiring games artists just goes to show where this generations art influences are coming from, and learning the anime style won't help you stand out from the crowd at all when it comes to getting a job.

For 3D you should worry less about learning a wide variety of programs and more about learning the general concepts of modeling. All the 3D packages work differently but the core concepts are all the same, so it's best to choose one program and get to the point where you can be creative within that, than trying to learn all the different programs at once. There are tons of books now on each package, or they typically have decent tutorials in the help files. As for which program you should go for, that used to be simple, but it's getting a trickier choice by the day. It used to be that everyone used 3D Studio Max, because it was powerful, reasonably easy to use (as 3D programs go), was well suited to games, and yet it didn't cost the earth. Recently however Discreet who make 3D Studio Max have started aiming their product at the movie industry, while Alias|Wavefront that make Maya and Avid that make SoftImage have recently switched their focus from the movie industry to the games industry. If it was me personally I'd still recommend you start by learning 3D Studio Max.

For 2D computer based work, such as textures, you should be learning Photoshop. Photoshop is like the mack daddy of industry standard 2D art, and absolutely everyone uses it. Again, it's best to just get a book on it.

If you want to be an Animator then it's important not to get too carried away with what the computer can do. Motion capture is getting bigger by the day, and games are now beginning to really take on stuff like physics simulation, but while games still require stuff like monsters and big robots there will always be a need for animators, since you can't motion capture say... a dragon. You should be learning the principles of animation first and foremost, things like squash and stretch and the wave principle, and some traditional animation will always help with that. For animation principles The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams is the absolute best animation book you can lay your hands on, although be warned that it has nothing in there about animating with computers (books about 3D programs will have that).

For all of these there are a number of courses at universities and vocational schools that you might look at (see Animation Arena's list of Video Game Schools in your area). While some game developers are particular about their artist having a degree, most places are more concerned that you can demonstrate ability through a portfolio rather than a piece of paper, so a degree isn't needed if you have the talent. That said art schools and vocational schools are a good place to spend time working on developing your skills and creating a portfolio, and most people with the talent are the kind of people that could have got a degree fairly easily anyway. The Animation Arena Video Game Design section also has a section on how to get into the industry, which includes a list of all the universities and vocational schools in the country that do games development degrees.

So once you've actually learnt all this and you start apply for jobs, what next. Well you need to be able to demonstrate your abilities. When you apply to places you should send copies of your traditional work, and more importantly your reel. This is a video cassette which has 3D model turnarounds and animations on it. These days even better is a CD containing examples of your work.

I said I'd try and be succinct and I've not been, so I should probably finish off and any more questions you might have then feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them. Hope this has all been of help and good luck with the whole getting into the industry thing.  

Source:http://www.animationarena.com/getting-into-video-game-industry.html

 Pixar Animator Alex Orrelle Speaks Alex Orrelle talks with Israeli Animation Forum members about Pixar, Manex, Matrix 2 and more.

About Alex: Alex Orrelle is a London-born, Israeli-raised animator. He has studied animation at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, where he directed a group project CG short called "Freeware". The short won the Alias|Wavefront student competition. Alex went on to work at Manex Visual Effects, as a character animator for the Matrix sequels. His current job is at Pixar, where he serves as both character animator and storyboard artist.

Working at Pixar:

hermonir: Hello everybody, hello Alex.

aorrelle: Shalom from San Francisco

Phoebs: How did you get accepted to Pixar?

aorrelle: Getting into Pixar was a three year project. I studied at the academy of art in SF and took Pixar´s short film class there.In that course I got to know the teachers and made it clear to them that I want a job at Pixar... I had to prove myself worthy through working my ass off and exceeding expectations. Even if you are as good as animators at Pixar, it doesn´t mean you have a job there. It´s very much about timing...

morobuse: What is your background? Traditional cell animation? Claymation? Life drawing? Tell us the secret."To get into Pixar you have to be good. There´s no secret."

aorrelle: My background is a lot of drawing. Since I was a kid I would draw, make home movies with my friends and a super-8, and even try to shoot animation. It was very unsuccessful but at least I tried. To get into Pixar you have to be good. There´s no secret. You have to love animation, love talking about it and understand what makes it so appealing...

galrt: Going to schools in the US is quite expensive in local standards. How did you handle it financially if you don't mind me asking?

aorrelle: School was very expensive for someone who can´t work. It´s a privilege I owe to my parents.

Kfiram: I've always wondered how big studios like Pixar divide the work between artists. The general conception is that a modeler does nothing but model, a shading artist does shading alone, the guy in charge of LipSync doesn't animate the body, etc. Is that really the case? And if so, how come you're both character animator and storyboard artist? What exactly do you do anyway?

aorrelle: Great question. Pixar is constantly re-evaluating how artists are defined on a production. So much, in fact, that no two movies are made exactly the same way.Toy story was made by very few people. At that time, the modeler was also an animator, and the shader artist, and layout etc.But since Pixar got successful and the technology more complex, it became necessary to split up people into categories, mainly because the tools are too difficult to master on all separate tasks.I work in the shorts department and when I was hired, the head of story on the current short film was my storyboards teacher from school. So I got to work on the story as well, which is a big bonus for an animator...



Kfiram: Have you worked on "Mike's New Car"?

aorrelle: I just helped with the title animation on that, because I was working on a Buzz lightyear cereal TV commercial at the same time.If you want to search for it - it´s called "Buzz Blasts" and is a 30 second commercial.

hermonir: If people create animations for different characters, how do you keep the characters act the same, consistently throughout the movie? Is there an "animation sheet" for each character where the style is established for different moods, and people refer to it? Or is it just the director´s job to keep everything consistent?

aorrelle: Animators are usually cast shots according to the animators specific strengths, like physical action or subtle emotional acting.There are sometimes, character leads, but no animator is married to one character for a whole movie.It´s all the animators jobs´ to keep animation consistent on characters. That´s why we have dailies - a daily review of the work that´s been done the previous day, when everyone gets to comment on everyone else´s work.

hermonir: What is the animation quota? How much final character animation does an animator produce in a week?

aorrelle: Four feet per week - about three seconds.

Phoebs: Do you use Renderman (Alfred)?

aorrelle: Yes.

hermonir: Pixar animator Victor Navone (creator of "Alien Song") is working on a new short called "Big Bang". I wish my finished films looked half as good as his animatic...

aorrelle: Victor is my office mate. He´s been working on the animatic for six months already and has special permission from Pixar to make it independently.Don´t hold your breath, though. It will probably take him two years to make.

hermonir: Six months? What's taking so long?

aorrelle: He also has a full time job.It´s really tough working at work and then spending nights and weekends on such an involved project.

Personal work:

galrt: is there a place we can see some of your personal stuff?

aorrelle: Sorry - not yet. I´ll have a website later this year, though. I´ll keep you all posted.

Kfiram: What can you tell us about your personal films?

aorrelle: At the academy I made two hand drawn films and directed a CG short film.The first film (for the Pixar animated short film class) is called Soda (3.5 minutes) and it´s about a guy who´s waiting for a subway train and gets in trouble with a soda vending machine.The second was called Lou (3 minutes) and was about a kid in a public urinal, who can´t reach the urinal. A cockroach called Lou tries to make a deal with him...The third, Freeware - you can read all about at ifilm:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,424515,00.html


Being inside the Matrix

Kfiram: What exactly did you do on the Matrix sequels?

aorrelle: At Manex, I was a character animator on R&D for Matrix 2 and 3, before I moved to Pixar. I also did previsualization, which I really enjoyed. It´s basically rough 3D animation that conveys information about the complex live action shoot before it happens, so the editors can work on it before it´s shot.

Animation and employment tips

morobuse: What is the common mistakes with young inexperienced animators and how can one avoid them?

aorrelle: The most common mistake of inexperienced animators is shutting themselves at home and not showing their work for critique, thinking that they´ll figure it out themselves.The second mistake is showing their work to EVERYONE, including their mother and never finishing the film.

jhones: From your experience, when creating a film intended to impress a potential employer - should I try to show a great deal of technical control, have a unique animation style and work on some complex models, or should I create something loose with a good idea?"The things you´re not good at - you don´t like doing anyway."

aorrelle: The only way to impress an employer is to show what you´re good at. In the unlikely chance that you are an incredible designer, modeler, shader, animator, rigging artist, cinematographer AND lighter - it will take you too long to make a film by yourself, to get a job.It´s important to get a feeling of what you are strong at, so you can keep working on your strength - instead of trying to work on what you´re not naturally talented at.You´ll find out quickly that the things you´re not good at - you don´t like doing anyway.Example - if you love animating - you should make a very simple scene, even a film (IF you like making films. Not everyone does...). then your potential employer knows what to look at. Having a ton of effects, lights and camera moves usually makes people here detect that you´re trying to distract them from bad character animation.

3Dennis: Do you think drawing ability is important for work on visual effects? If I can't draw, what can I accomplish?

aorrelle: Just learn to draw.There´s no excuse not to know how to draw. As good as you are at effects and modeling and animation - you can´t see half your mistakes if you don´t understand good composition, good design and appealing shapes.It´s just a fact. Sorry. I can recommend some books if you´re interested...

talotan: After writing dozens of scripts, and acknowledging that I'll never find the time to actually make them (as long as there's "real" work), I've come across a really astonishing script. The question is, should I try to involve outside sources to help with the production? If so, will I still have creative control?

aorrelle: The answer is tough: You can´t get anything off the ground alone - you need people who have what you´re missing. As far as creative control, if you´re afraid of someone walking in and taking over - you should be so lucky to at least get the funding for it. It´s a negotiation. Like peace! You have to make "tough concession" for the other side to have any reason to help you.If you get the money for it yourself - you can control it.
Source: http://www.animationarena.com