A Noob

I may have asked this question before but nobody responded. So here I go again. I wanted to know if there was any where I could get earlier versions of softwares like toon boom, maya and flash. This is because I am using an older imac as I said before.

Thanks much!

Cheers,
gavvalion.

Amazon's new-and-used-sales Marketplace (where normal folk and small businesses as opposed to Amazon sell things) and eBay would probably be the widest net you could cast as far as buying earlier versions. They tend to go for cheap once the Next Big Thing comes out.

I suggest downloading the Maya Personal Learning Edition over at www.alias.com. Then pick up an introductory book on Maya, or start reading tutorials online, of which there are tons (I'd recommend the book first, though).

That's how I got started, except with different software.

Have fun!

-David

Welcome Gamer,

The way i got started is at my local college. I was taking traditional 2d classes and then they started offering 3d. There is nothing like the help from fellow classmates and the guidance of a good teacher to answer ur ?? when u have them.

when I started out there was no internet. I came from a small town and as an artist no one knew how to give me any guidance whatsoever toward my career. When I said; " i want to animate cartoons for Disney" they would say, that's nice, you draw really well. Guildance councilers were useless and I honestly didnt' know what to do. As a result, I kind of tenaciously stumbled into my career.

Lucky for you, you have an enormous amount of resources available to you. You have forums like this where you can ask questions, straight from the pros!

First off is, how do you get the skills. Well, let's list the skills you'll need to be a good animato

1. Good Work Ethic - animation is tedious, time consuming. It requires a lot of dedication.

2. A good Attitude - people who are hard to work with get a bad reputation fast.

3. A good understanding of Storytelling - immerse yourself in good movies and good books. Learn what it means to express ideas.

4. A good understanding of Acting - watch great actors and great cartoons. Learn what makes these people so unique and attractive.

5. Good Art - I know you are interested in computer animation, but understanding how to draw will put you ahead of the grade and will make you more desireable. I can't tell you how many people get in ruts that they could solve if they could just sketch out the solution. I come from traditional animation so I know how important this skill has been for me.

6. Familiarity with Technology - in the earlier days many traditional animators got hung up on their phobia of computers. That and they were just plain stubborn. Embrace technology, get a computer learn it. Most principles of computer animation as the same across most software packages. There may be variables how particular software packages handle different tasks but the general principles are teh same. A sphere is a sphere, a polygon is a polygon, a key frame is a key frame. Familiarize yourself with a couple of 3d platforms, I'd recommend Maya and 3DStudioMax, or Lightwave. That should get your feet wet. I believe the developers of all 3 make a student or evaluation version available for free on their websites.

7. Drive - you have to want it. This industry is competative and there is always someone waiting in line when people burn out or drop out. Staying power is the only way you last in this industry.

Animation can be a fun and rewarding career if you are tenacious, driven and a hard worker. You can accomplish some amazing things. And while the job market can be really rocky at times, it can also be really rewarding. You'll most likely have the opprotunity to work at many different places with many different people on a lot of different kinds of projects. You'll also work on things you will flat out dislike, just grind through it.

I'd recommend picking up the following books to get you started:

The Animator's Workbook by Tony White
The Animator's Survival Kit - By Richard Williams
The Art of 3D - Isaac Victor Kerlow
Stop Staring, Facial animation and modeling - Jason Osipa
Maya Character Animation - Jae-jin Choi
Mastering Maya 3 - John Kundert-Gibbs (This one is out of print because it's for an older version of the software. You can still buy it from the Publisher at www.sybex.com, or you can buy a used one from amazon and order the companion disk from sybex.com for $10. I recommend this one because it is THE BEST intro book to Maya out there, hands down.)

Here is a list of schools recommended by Pixar themselves to learn the skills of computer animation:

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/schools.html

These are the best recommendations I can give you. If you're serious about the craft then there's more than enough information here to get your feet wet. You have the internet as a bottomless resource to help you along your way. Good luck, God bless and I hope you get what you want.

Hey Guys,
I want to thank omnigon for his out line for the beginner. I am in the process of planning my first short in 2D traditional. I am doing everything by hand, characters, backgrounds, etc. Then I am photographing everything with a digital camera. Which is a good software to put the frames together. I am using an older imac desktop os 9.

Thanks in advance.
gavvalion.