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Alison Donato
I have been interested in drawing and design since I was young and looked into what I could do to make a career of it. Only after taking a class in high school on basic 3D modeling did I consider computer animation/3D art. I ended up heading to Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida for their Computer Animation program, knowing only the basics of 3D at the time. Just recently I finished up my senior year, and my 2 minute thesis film which culminated all the aspects of 3D we were taught at Ringling. I just graduated this May and am on a 6 month apprenticeship as a CG Generalist.
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Often times, the focus of people behind CG is on professionals in the industry who have worked on feature films and tripleA game titles. We're switching gears today to talk with Alison Donato, a recent graduate from Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida. Fresh out of school since May, Alison is here to share with us her journey of discovery into the 3D world. Welcome to the AREA, Alison! How does it feel to be finished with your classes -- thesis and all ;-)?
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| Alison:
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Awesome! After working so long I'm pretty happy to finally be done with everything. I'll certainly miss being at school, though.
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You've been into drawing and design at a young age... actually, how old are you?
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Being into visual graphics doesn't necessarily have to translate to an interest in 3D. What sparked your curiosity to try out working in 3D?
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| Alison:
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Well, I was always into drawing and painting when I was younger, so I ended up taking some extra classes delving into different types of art (sculpture, different media, etc). Eventually I ended up taking a short class on 3D art. That was the first experience I had of working with 3D software.
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So while in highschool, what was the first 3D app you used and what sort of things were covered?
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| Alison:
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We used 3D Studio Max in the class, and were taught some very basic modeling (working with and manipulating primitive shapes and whatnot). The final project was to build a very basic car model, along with a street to place it on. The class was very simple, but it was the beginning of my interest in 3D, and gave me some starter knowledge.
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After highschool, you enrolled into Ringling's Computer Animation program. Did the classes allow for a gradual transition from what you learned prior?
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| Alison:
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The classes started with the very beginning aspects of Maya, and at the time I hadn't used the program much before. Having a bit of knowledge about other 3D programs helped me to make the move to Maya. We were also supplemented with more artistic classes in the program, which helped tie some of the basic 2D art knowledge I had with animation production, particularly in terms of things such as shot composition, gesture, and storyboarding.
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Did you experience any learning curves in Maya? If so, what was the most frustrating one that you can now fondly recall ;-)?
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| Alison:
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Probably the biggest learning curve (if it counts as one) would be the idea that I had to save and backup my work so often. Maya crashes happened pretty regularly while working on my project. Along with that, I was slow to learn how to make my files smaller, cleaner, and more efficient. Since this was the first time I was working on larger projects over many weeks of time instead of dabbling, I had never had to worry so much about losing important work, or putting stress on the program with a large, messy file. One of the more memorable incidents involved me heading up to the labs to work on a project and finding my entire drive of files missing from the school's network. The initial shock of losing an entire year’s worth of work (without a full backup) wasn't the greatest thing to wake up to :). Luckily the "deletion" was due to some I.T. maintenance, and was soon restored with their backups.
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Did you have 2D classes (still life, lifedrawing, etc.) to supplement what you were learning in Maya?
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| Alison:
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The first year at Ringling is completely dedicated to getting a basis in 2D art. We had design classes, figure drawing, art history, etc. The first classes using Maya begin during our 2nd year of school, and these classes are then supplemented with more closely related classes teaching more about storyboarding and shot composition; all lessons basically leading up to the creation of 2D animatics. Along with this we have classes dedicated to things such as character design and visual development. These are all precursors to our preproduction class, where we take everything we have learned and apply it to the creation of our final thesis animatic and character/environment designs.
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Your sketching style is very nice - love the varying stylizations. Are there any artists, 2D or 3D, who have inspired you?
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| Alison:
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I have a hard time deciding who my favorite artists are since I find so many inspiring. Right now I guess I could say I really like the designs of Nico Marlet for one, I think he does a really good job of using strong simple shapes while making a complex and appealing character. In terms of 3D, I find something inspiring about any 3D film I go to see, and I'm glad to see more branching out in style occurring, hopefully leading to more daring projects in the future.
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Can you tell us about your thesis animation?
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| Alison:
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My thesis tells the story of an old man, Frank, who dies and is about to be ushered into heaven when his wife (Mabel) suddenly cuts him off with a plea of mercy. Mabel claims she cannot finish all of the household chores without Frank, and pushes him into finishing all of the work around the house before he can pass on. Eventually, Frank's begrudging sympathy runs out and he has to take matters into his own hands.
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When did you begin production on it?
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| Alison:
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I began production of my thesis during my junior year at Ringling. We do all of our preproduction and design for our film during the last half of our junior year, and produce the actual film during our senior year. During prepro we are tasked with coming up with an acceptable story idea, and then tweaking it until it is worthy of being put into production. I had a lot of help creating my story; I received many suggestions from peers, teachers and friends while working on it. My friends and I used to go to Starbucks for hours and sit around helping each other come up with story ideas before story pitches were due. Coming up with an interesting short film idea becomes so much more daunting when there is a deadline and presentation involved. :) I can't easily cite where the idea for my personal thesis came from, as it has changed so much in so many ways from the beginning.
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During Senior year I produced the film, and worked on a schedule set by the school. We would have a set amount of time to complete each part of the project (modeling, blendshapes, lighting, etc). All throughout this process we would have to give presentations of our work and would receive critique. As I said before, these critiques changed my project significantly throughout my senior year and helped me know what people thought of my work at certain stages.
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Did you do this animation by yourself or was it a group effort?
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| Alison:
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This project I did by myself, from preproduction to the final composition. We were given the option this year to work with a group or alone on our films. Most of our animation major works alone on their thesis, as this was the norm in the past for Ringling seniors. However, group theses have been gaining popularity with each year due to the huge workload (it allows the groups to make bigger and more complex projects within our time limit.)
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As you progressed and saw the scenes come together -- creating blendshapes for the characters, animating cameras, lighting, etc. -- were there any roadblocks that appeared?
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| Alison:
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For me the biggest roadblock was the rendering process near the end. Since rendering out scenes took a large amount of time, it was something I ideally needed to get right on the first try. Needless to say, things didn't always work out so smoothly. The whole process of debugging render files and finishing frames was pretty stressful as my final deadline was looming, and I started having less and less time to make things work. I think that this stage in production was the reason behind the larger part of the all-nighters of senior year (at least in my case). :) I learned a lot about Nuke compositing at this point which helped me to work more efficiently and use render passes which, overall, saved time.
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What did you use to simulate the shower curtain deformation?
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| Alison:
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I'm no expert at dynamics, so in that respect I tried to keep things simple as possible. For the shower curtain I used nCloth.
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What did you use for rendering?
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| Alison:
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I used Renderman.
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Why did you use Renderman over other rendering packages?
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| Alison:
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Renderman is what is taught to us at Ringling, and our renderfarm is catered towards it as well. I'm not sure exactly why the school chooses to teach Renderman, I imagine it must be more efficient/faster for the types of projects we are assigned at school.
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All in all, how do you feel after completing and seeing the thesis?
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| Alison:
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Very relieved and happy to see it finished! :) However I can't help but see the little mistakes and imperfections that I never got to fixing within the time limit. Of course they stand out to me the most though, since I've been working on this project for such a long time!
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What would be your ideal job placement?
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| Alison:
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I am actually doing a 6 month apprenticeship at the moment as a CG Generalist. From this, I'd like to gain more of the knowledge and experience I need to become a competent professional, as my lack of 3D studio experience fresh out of college had been the greatest barrier to getting a job. I'm fairly indecisive about what I'd actually like to do, as I enjoy many parts of animation production. However, I love animated films and projects that have a very unique visual style, so I imagine that I would greatly enjoy working on those types of things professionally one day.
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Well Alison, thanks for taking us back to good memories of starting out in 3D. We’ll be on the look-out for you in the future!
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| Posted by me_bharat on Sep 07, 2010 at 07:55 AM
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| hey thtz an amazing work . its mind blowing. how do u make geometry in 3d. i mean like u scan ur drawings or make it wid an idea of ur drawing
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| Posted by FUCK. on Sep 03, 2010 at 04:21 AM
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Um. It is true. Like
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| Posted by Pravas on Jul 29, 2010 at 08:56 AM
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| Yeah You're an Real Inspiration, you encouraged me to rise up through the level that doesn't count..
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| Posted by adobro on Jul 19, 2010 at 10:23 AM
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| hey! great work Ali. am inspired.
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| Posted by banade on Jul 15, 2010 at 04:22 AM
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hi, the style of your model makes me feel comfortable.
I like it.
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