Craig Crane

New project in Maya….

This is the real one,

and here is the one I am making in Maya thus far… She has a looooong way to go because the final model (as per the 3DBuzz advanced modeling DVD ) has some insane detail. But the old showreel could use a decent car and render… so here goes…

Cant wait to get wet again. Last sunday saw us taking a wee trip to Horsea, try out a new Camera and Delayed SMB.. All went well, and just cant wait to get in again!

As a child of the 70’s, there was and still is only one superman… Still, I have just checked out the latest trailer and I must admit that I am intrigued. However, for all its flashy content, VFX and snappy direction, I dont think I’ll ever be able to replace Reeve and Kidder with these new ones.

The DVD’s re-release with the extended opening is still one of the best DVD’s to watch in the home theater on a Sunday morning with the kids…. and as much as I enjoyed the X men movie, I think this new version of Superman will be nothing more than a competant comic adaptation… and the 70’s original can retain its crown

back in 85, I came home to some bad news.

No one died.

It was worse. Mum gave all my action man stuff to the hospital!
I iwas so angry. “WHY DO YOU DO THAT?” I pleaded. “THEY ALL TO ILL TO PLAY ANYWAY, THATS WHY THEY ARE IN HOSPITAL!!!!” and then stormed of to my room, to check out the now empty draw where campaigns of dearing do were once planned.

In the mid Nineties, we heard that action man was back. Under the guise of Hasbro’s Action man, this was a camp, pumped up wannabe. Roller blading action man was very NOT ACTION MAN!!!! More like a man looking for “action”, if you know what I mean.

But somehwere in the depths of Caterham, Surrey… a small modellers shop secured the rights to re-create Action man as he was meant to be….

Mine arrived today, and I dare say its the first of many!

As they are for the 40th aniversary, make sure you get the correct one from your era. I nearly ordered one with the earlier rigid hands, not the griipy ones…. but WOW he is awesome. EXACTLY as I remembered him…. but not only that, but the box AND the brochures inside are all 100% authentic! How did they do this?

Turns out that once they secured the rights, they were given MINT BOXED ORIGINALS to break up and create new molds…. shame for the originals, great for me. I have an army to re-build. We’re of to my mums on Sunday to exact revenge!

Today, my father in law, Louis Illiano, Lost his battle with Cancer. It was a very short battle, because he was only diagnosed less than two weeks ago. He was of Sicilian descent, and lived in Algiers before moving to France to settle and raise a family. He was just a nice guy. Sympathetic, calm and very amusing. Small in stature, but my kids thought he was a giant

Tonight, I had to tell my 5 and 10 year old daughters that Pippi has gone, and that was the hardest thing I think I have ever had to do.

The eldest (Charlotte) cried… naturally…. but the Chloe was just devestated…. I guess she thought Grandad was invincible, like all little kids do… and that he would get better, well enough to chase her round the garden and tease the hell out of her, just as he did when Charlotte was 5.

Both the girls are in Bed… and Chloe has taken the picture of Mimi and Pippi in their little french kitchen to bed with her, and the last time I looked in on her, she was looking towards the heavens, trying to figure out what little star was now her pippi… and I could feel the exact same choked feeling then as I imagined she had. A feeling that I remembered as being the worst feeling ever as a kid….

He was a good good man, and I wish I had known him better…. I just hope Marie Claire, my wife is ok, out there with her family….

I cant beleive how tired I am. I seem to have spent the best part of the day swimming. A long swinm in the morning, scuba night at the pool… and Im beat!

There is no such thing as a shallow learning curve, I have come to realize. Any curve I have been on has been steep, and as such, the steeper it is, the better the end result. But this month I think that my brain is about to explode.

Reviewing for a magazine in the UK, I watch learning DVD’s from places such as Gnomon. Its the way I learnt my trade, and now I hope that my reviews will help others make informed choices when it comes to choosing their learning material.

But where as it would just be easy to open up the DVD and watch a few chapters, selected at Random, I prefer to watch the DVD’s in the exact same way I do when I buy them. That is: Sit and watch once, then sit and work thru alongside the DVD.

And this month is set to be a real brain stormer. My brain has to assimilate the following titles…

All six of the new Gnomon Matchmoving titles!!! Their Character animation for games title

116 hours of the Advanced Modelling course from 3DBUZZ (when the dvd actually arrives )

Simplymaya.com’s orc head building and lipsync DVD’s

Fortunatly, I am on holiday at the moment, having finished providing animation for the UK tour of Jeff Waynes THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. But at this rate, Im hoping that once I get back to work, all these DVD’s will have not only provided superb review material for the mag, but also upped my game somewhat! Camera tracking and Matchmoving has been one of the areas that I have shyed away from in the past because I have always been fortunate to be with people that know how to do it, but I would like to see one of Jeffs Martian Fighting Machines create havoc thru the streets of Chichester, or my own Kiro Droid doing what he does best… or even a miniture version giving the Family Cat (FiFi) a run for her money.

Then again, I also have been dying to give the CG version of me the POWER OF SPEECH!!!! As a puppeteer, it pains me to have this character AND his blend shapes set up, and yet not have the time or the proficiancy to get in there and get my hands dirty.

All in all, I have some 200 hours of high end CG learning ahead of me. Break that down to normal school hours of say 9-3, thats a whole month of school!