Please Move To Minimum Safe Distance

Saturday night, I had a meltdown.

Let me try to explain that statement. I know myself fairly well and act to deal with stress and pressure on a regular basis, but there are times when things build up uncontrolled and I don't really notice. I have been under enormous stress this semester from my work, my marriage, my family, my wife's family, school, finances and especially the production of this short animation. After having gotten through the death of my father-in-law I - very foolishly - assumed that things were back to normal and I could get on.

I was wrong.

I had not had a chance to release all the emotional energy in me that had built up in me. You see lately I don't have time to work out, I don't have time to visit my friends, I don't have time to get out and play, and I don't have time to sit and talk with my wife. I just don't have time for anything except this project. So, Saturday night when I sat down to do what should have been a fairly simple walk cycle and everything went wrong, all that pent up energy came flooding out.

It was ugly. It was exhausting.

I simply stopped animated, and watched some TV. The next day I spent 10 hours working on a project for another class, then spent some time with my wife. Today, I spent most of the day working on a resume, cover letter, and website project I need to complete to be able to apply for internships - something critical to my degree, and also something that I have put off due to time constrains. Then I went to class, reviewed the project I spent Sunday working on, and then talked to John Cone about what I had done wrong on Saturday.

I found my mistakes. I found some understanding.

After that, I came home, had dinner, and sat down to start over on the animation that had made me explode on Saturday. I did it calmly, slowly, precisely, and you know what?

It worked. Moreover, it looks good.

There is still some tweaking to do, but it shouldn't take that much more to finish the scene. Three more scenes after that and my part of animating the 3D portion of this film will be over. Beyond that I have a lot of facial animations to do. These however, will not be anywhere near as painful as the 3D work has been. I enjoy working in After Effects, I do not enjoy working in Maya.

Now it's back to work. Deadlines are looming close and I have far go before I can sleep. Until next week - same bat time, same bat channel.