Software skills

Although software doesn't do the creativity, and they are just tools, I did gain a lot of experience fiddling around with them. It's the lessons I learned when figuring out the software that was valuable, and those lessons are much more cherishable than the individual knowledge that I gained for using a specific sofware.

When I learned software such as Flash, Blender 3D, Anim8or, and currently Autodesk Maya, I never sought any additional help other than a couple of essential tutorials.

I figured out how to make a character do whatever I want by looking at a walking cycle tutorial. I figured out different light setups by pure experimentation, and through the experiments, I learned a lot more than I could have by looking at a tutorial.

My friend said that having to make a big switch from using a particular animation software (or any kind of software) to another one is like pulling a tree right out of its ground. I completely disagree with him, because all animation software are achieving the same goal: to provide the tools for creative purposes

I think the problem for many people that want to switch from one software to another is that they don't fully understand the software developer's intention, and that person might think that the concept of the new software is the same as the old one, and they get things mixed up really easily. I usually don't have a problem of understanding what the developer of the software want the user to do to make use of the full potential of the software, but when I misunderstand or assume what the developer was thinking, it would take me a long time to figure out that I was wrong.

For me, I don't have much of a problem switching between softwares. It took me about 2 months to transition from Flash to Anim8or. When I was in Grade 7, I posted my Flash animations at around December, and finished my 3D work at June (You might have noticed the animation was very rushed). When I was done with Anim8or, I picked up Blender 3D, which was very confusing for me because of the unusual interface, but I eventually understood the logic. It took me about a month to figure out the basic modeling and character rigging skills of Blender.

Having no helper around me was at times painful. From time to time, I encounter technical difficulties, and it takes me a very long while to solve it. The bright side about the whole solving-by-my-self thing is that when I go through the solving process, I look for every possible solution, which would bring me to areas that I would not even bother touching, and force me to learn stuff about that area. That would help me a lot, because someday, I might encounter some other problem concerning about that area, and I would know how to solve it.


SOFTWARE

Animation software:

-Flash 5, Flash MX
-Swift 3D
-Anim8or
-Blender 3D
-Autodesk Maya

Other Software

-Windows Movie Maker
-iMovie
-Sony Vegas 7.0
-Adobe Premiere
-Adobe Photoshop