Friday, October 7, 2011

Maya / Max License Transfer Utility Error

I recently had to transfer my Maya 2011 license between two laptops and the LTU wouldn't launch. With a little research I found the solution*. If the LTU won't launch and you're left in the lurch without your software, you can delete the following files and relaunch Maya:

Win XP / 7
C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_*.data

Win XP
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\FLEXnet\adskflex_*.data


Thursday, September 22, 2011

Open Position - Full-time Interactive Designer

Interactive Designer
The Basement Design + Motion
Indianapolis, IN USA

We are actively seeking a motivated, organized and detailed interactive designer to join our talented team. The right candidate has a passion for design, gaming, animation and innovation. They have a desire to learn, share & grow.

Must haves:

  • Excellent communication skills with clients and internal project team
  • Proficiencies with a pencil, PhotoShop & Illustrator
  • 2+ years working within the interactive creative process
  • Eye for composition, typography & interface design
  • Proven agency experience
  • Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design or related field


Good to knows:
  • Illustration, 3ds Max or Maya experience a major plus
  • Experience designing online display advertising a plus
  • Experience designing style boards for motion
  • Experience designing for mobile & tablets


What you’ll be doing:

  • Working with award-winning illustrators, designers, animators & developers
  • Collaborating with agencies on world-class projects
  • Working with international brands

How to apply:

  • Please send URLs of your work examples / portfolio site to jobs@thebasement.tv

The Basement Design + Motion is a growing digital design and animation studio located in Historic Fort Ben, in Indianapolis. Please refer to www.thebasement.tv to learn more.
EOE

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

AMA Flight School - Peek Inside

Lately at The Basement, we've been awarded some very interesting projects. One I'm quite excited about is a learning platform we are developing for the AMA called the AMA Flight School. The AMA is the Academy of Model Aeronautics and has been around since 1936. The learning platform will be used to educate their audience on varying aspects of flight. Here is a first look at title screen design for the module - Principles of Flight.


An early pitching sketch during a brainstorming session with the client. We live on whiteboards here at The Basement.

We've done around 30 -40 character sketches up to this point. We studied poses, character lines and expressions. In our initial concept, we had an elephant as one of our three characters. We really liked the Elephant, but switched to a flying Walrus for educational accuracy.

Here is Dan's Elephant sketch and Joseph's model.


The logo was inspired from pilot wing pins. Here's my first sketch for the logo.
The Walrus has made his introduction into design at this point.



Another consideration for the logo and title screen was maintaining a pleasing silhouette with all the characters. We carefully posed each asset to create interesting negative space.


Actually, the plane was added to the top left to compliment the negative space and the vapor trail was used to visually tie everything together.


Some technical details: The characters and plane started out on a sketchbook, modeled and textured in Maya. The logo is all vector in illustrator. The vapor trail was built with Particle Flow in 3ds Max. All compositing and layout was done in PhotoShop.

My main objectives for this project are education and appeal. This is driving every creative decision throughout the process.

Hope you liked seeing our progress - stay tuned for the official project launch.

Also, the AMA is celebrating their 75th year with a family event this weekend. More information can be found HERE.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Announcing the 49 Hour Film Competition



Grab four friends, a mountain of coffee beans and as many computers you can put on a farm.

It's time for the MG Collective's first annual 49 Hour Film Competition. The 49 Hour Film Competition is an animation ONLY event based on the 48 Hour Film Project with an extra hour for rendering. The competition begins April 1st at 6pm. Registration ends March 30th. Teams are limited to five (5) members. Two categories include Student and Professional. Students can enter in the professional category, however a professional can not participate in the student category. The competition will be judged by national artists and animators from Sony Animation, Fusion Digital Productions & Industrial Light & Magic. Films will be evaluated on these categories: Storytelling / Art Direction / Animation / Execution


Friendly recommendations:
Teams “should” consist of a designer, storyboard / concept artist, generalist and two (2) animators. Teams can use pre-modeled and rigged characters as long as they have rights to those assets. Start securing your location and production pipeline prior to April 1st.


Registration:
Registration forms can be downloaded HERE.

This PDF is form based. Once you fill in your team's information, save it as TEAM_NAME_49Hour_registration.pdf and email it 49hour@mgcollective.com

After the competition and judging we will have a screening event and announce winners at The Elbow Room in downtown Indianapolis. The screening event date and time are TBD.


for more information contact:
Brian Phillips brian at mgcollective dot com
or Andy Beane at jabeane at bsu dot edu