Truly The Man

Hello! I'm Truly The Man!

I am a student at the University of Georgia, majoring in Computer Science. However, I know that you probably don't care about that. Instead, I am going to be talking about something that I see people rarely talk about, but something I am passionate about: Animation!

If I could, I would love to embed some animations I've worked on, but alas, I cannot without spending some money. Instead, I will just have to tell you my journey with animation.

My love for animation started when I was a kid, even before I could truly appreciate what was happening in front of me. When I got a little older and finally learned how to draw, I found out how hard animation (and animating well) really was. I, instead, focused on learning how to draw and how to use perspective. It wasn't until I learned what “Blender” was that my passion for animation got fired up again.

Around 2020, I began seeing videos on “How to use Blender” on my YouTube feed. This was around the time that Blender had an entire UI revamp, making it much more user-friendly. Before this, though, I was familiar with what Blender was-- it's a program used primarily to create 3D models and animations-- but I didn't actually know how to use it. I began where everyone else began with Blender, starting with BlenderGuru's donut tutorial and following along. However, I quickly got bored with watching the tutorial on the basics and began working on my own projects. To no one's surprise, the projects and renders I made were utterly horrible. I went back, began listening a little closer, following a little better, and I was finally able to make something resembling a human. It went on like this for a long, long time. Eventually, though, I got confident enough to begin rigging my 3D models.

If you are unfamiliar with the term “rigging,” then I honestly cannot blame you. Think of rigging like this: imagine a doll (our 3D model), but we want to make that doll into a puppet (a rigged 3D model). Alright, but the question is, how do we turn a doll into a puppet? Well, we add strings to parts of the doll's body so we can begin moving it around. That is essentially what rigging is, but a highly abstracted form and somewhat inaccurate definition for the sake of simplicity.

Moving on, I had to learn what terms like “weight painting” meant, and why 3D animators say “that thing doesn't have enough bones in it.” It was a long and grueling process, especially rigging a model's fingers and face movements, but I have the basics of it down now. All it took was hundreds of hours (699.5 hours, to be precise) of my time to learn all of this. In the end, though, I think it's worth it.

The reason I like animation so much is because I can convert my ideas into real-world ideas that people can interact with and see. The same thing goes for computer science and writing; it allows me to convert the fuzzy feelings in my mind into definite things that can stand the test of time. Although, to be good at anything dealing with the conversion of mind into matter takes a lot of time and a lot of practice. This is why I live by the ideology of “the day you plant the seed is not the same day you eat the fruit.” However, one day I hope that I and others can enjoy the fruits of my labor. Now, however, I must still take care of this budding sapling that are my skills.