Here's a list of the best places to study 3D animation in the world. This ranking table is from 3D World's 98th issue.
1 Supinfocom 2 Filmakademie Baden-Wuertemmberg 3 Gobelins, L’école de l’image 4 Ringling College of Art and Design 5 Vancouver Film School 6 Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs 7 Royal College of Art 8 Bournemouth University, NCCA 9 University of Southern California 10 Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning 11 CalArts School of Film/Video 12 National Film and Television School 13 Ecole Emile Cohl 14 Savannah College of Art and Design 15 School of Visual Arts 16 University of Wales 17 Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques 18 University of Teesside 19 RMIT Univeristy 20 Rhode Island School of Design
I've got friends studying in Supinfocom and Ringling and I'm so happy for them!
I have been to Gobelins before and hence I'm so happy and excited for them to be amongst the top three! Gobelins, L’école de l’image has a superb learning environment, teaching force, and technical assistance such that I could focus thouroughly on character animation!
I have also always been very impressed by student works from Ecole Emile Cohl (EEC). It goes to show that these 20 schools listed are really of superb quality!
I hope one day Nanyang Polytechnic's School of Interactive and Digital Media can be amongst these! Jiayou! (;
Click [here] to find out how they compiled this ranking ;)
Channelbox has been recognised as one of the Most Promising New Media Creative in Asia Pacific!
We did not come in first, but.. Ranked second and third are the following entries by us! Ronald Fong, Lee Yong Yi, Tan Zi Chao (channelbox) - Impossible is Possible Ronald Fong, Lee Yong Yi, Tan Zi Chao (channelbox) - Eyeka Creative Challenge
Here is the IAS Awards Channelbox Profile I designed for the upcoming Advertising Hall of Fame Awards event! :D
It's been described as "A neat demo reel, a pleasure to see"
Thanks to the editors of deviantART!
This may not be a big achievement to some, but for me this is very encouraging! :D
Just in case you'll like to watch the embedded version I uploaded to deviantART, here it is:
Here's one of the winning entries for CGSociety's Secret Agent Challenge by Ishan Shukla. This entry won the Video Individual Excellence Award. Congratulations, awesome work Ishan!
I find the art direction super cool and overall very impressive for an individual effort. Will like to share it with you guys :)
I'm SO SUPER happy for Pulcinello, Waltz of Joy and Story of I team!! They swept away numerous awards at the Crowbar Awards 2009!! Congratulations guys! We had a celebration dinner last Saturday and it was an awesome get-together and catching-up opportunity. Hope we'll have another outing soon! :D
Awards are as follows:
BEST OF FILM Category Film - 3D Animation Title of Entry Pulcinello Student(s) Gabriella Mesenas, Hong Kai Wei, Lee Yong Yi, Sheetha Lakshmanan, Tan Jing Hua, Tan Tai Chi, Tan Zhi Chao, Vanessa Yeap Min Rong School Nanyang Polytechnic
Awards Gold Category Film - Film Craft: Art Direction Title of Entry Story of I Student(s) Syarah Mahmood, Jinky Gilbert, Phang Ni Zhen, Rosalind Sam, Stella Ng, Theodora Hui, Wei Linfang School Nanyang Polytechnic
Awards Gold Category Film - 3D Animation Title of Entry Ronen-Waltz of Joy Student(s) Anastasia Christina Mas', Jacqueline Chow Pei Qi, Carol Lee, Oh Han Wee, Edwin Liew Wen Jun, Tan Yong Gang School Nanyang Polytechnic
Awards Gold Category Film - 3D Animation Title of Entry Pulcinello Student(s) Gabriella Mesenas, Hong Kai Wei, Lee Yong Yi, Sheetha Lakshmanan, Tan Jing Hua, Tan Tai Chi, Tan Zhi Chao, Vanessa Yeap Min Rong School Nanyang Polytechnic
Recently, I re-designed the Channelbox Official Logo with the help from my buddies at Channelbox.
Channelbox is coming up with a new short film (yet to be named) which is scheduled to finish preproduction work August 2010. It is currently in the process of refining the story and visual exploration.
The Official Website of Channelbox is scheduled to be up on the 30th of September 2009. I hope you guys are as excited as I am about the official website launch! :D
As part of receiving the Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award [Animation], I had a 3-month internship opportunity to be part of the Lucasfilm family for Summer 2009. I was so excited to be part of one of Singapore's largest animation production studios!!
This internship program, known as Jedi Academy Singapore, has just ended last week. During my stay at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, I have made many fantastic new friends and learned a lot of new things.
As an animation trainee, I discovered a whole new perspective towards character animation and I feel that my character animation skill has improved a great deal. I hope to be able to put these newly acquired skills to good use in my personal projects and future animation work.
Once again, thank you Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! It has been an awesome summer! I'm off to catch the all-important National Day Rally 2009 Live on television! :D
The article is a special edition for NYP Graduation 2009, covering the highlights of the memorable occasion and interviews with some of the special graduates. The section "Glad to have graduated!" covers how "Ronald bounced back after a major operation" and some other interesting stories about my learning journey in Nanyang Polytechnic.
Ronald Fong wishes Singapore a Happy 44th Birthday! Singapore is doing well in so many areas in recent years, including the digital media industry. I am very excited to be part of this growing industry in Singapore and hopefully Singapore will be a digital media hub in the coming years! Majulah Singapura!!
Guest-of-Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division [Left] Media Development Authority of Singapore
Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right] Recipient of MediaCorp Silver Medal Award Recipient of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award [Animation]
Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks [Left]
Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right]
I am very honoured to receive my Diploma in Digital Media Design with Merit, MediaCorp Silver Award and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award from Guest-of-Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division, Media Development Authority of Singapore and Industry Guest Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks at the Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009 Ceremony.
I know I have mentioned this before but once again, thank you Nanyang Polytechnic, MediaCorp and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! =)
I have picked up a little bit of Maya Embedded Language (MEL) Scripting in my own free time and have quickly written two scripts which can be helpful when rigging characters.
The Shape Switcher Have you ever come across rigs with controllers which are difficult to select? You can now use the Shape Switcher Script to swap away controllers which you do not like. It has proven to be useful for animators and riggers.
The Curve Color Changer Having different colors for different controllers in a character rig can save a lot of hassle when trying to select the right controllers, especially in the case of differentiating the limb controllers of the left and right sides. This little utility can help you change the curve colors of either the shape node or the transform node (override color) depending on your preference. Once again, it can be very useful for both animators and riggers.
Though they are meant to be used for rig controllers, they can largely be used for any Maya Dag Object. :)
If you have any suggestions to improve the script or report any bugs, please feel free to email me.
Enjoy! :D
The MEL scripts are written by Ronald Fong with the sole intention to help himself and fellow digital artists who wants to learn. Use at your own risk and do not use them for commercial use.
The Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009 Ceremony was awesome! Guest of Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin and Director of SIDM Mr Daniel Tan each gave a very inspiring and encouraging speech.
I have graduated with a Diploma in Digital Media Design with Merit! Plus, I am super happy to receive the following awards:
MediaCorp Silver Medal Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Award for Outstanding Project Work (Animation)
Thank you Nanyang Polytechnic, MediaCorp and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! =) With this encougarement, I am even more motivated to do my little part and contribute to the digital media industry.
I did not win, and I got an honourable mention! :)
"It was a very close race to the finish but Gorgeous Prabowo (kutudaun) of Indonesia took the top honors! Two who almost made it were Ronald Fong (minifong) of Singapore and Tomasz Ochotny (tomay) of the UK. Congratulations to Gorgeous for winning the US$3,000 prize! We will contact you shortly. On behalf of F1GPSG.com, thanks to all those who participated in the competition. It was an incredible race!"
I cannot help but introduce this new product to you! :D
I bought a Wacom Intuos3 about 3 years ago and I thought very highly of this technology then. During these couple of years, I enjoyed my user experience with Wacom Intuos3 very much. I liked it's highly customizable driver and functions, it actually allows users to customize different ExpressKeys for different applications! I had a separate set of ExpressKeys for Photoshop and Maya. A downside will probably be the fact that I'm actually left-handed, hence it was slightly tricky to customize. I kept telling myself that it was such a good product, such that it will take some time for its successor to be released. Indeed, I felt that it took quite awhile, now it's here - Wacom Intuos4
Here's the official trailer:
The Intuos4 can now turn 180 degrees to suit the user regardless of left or right handed users. And then, I was thinking - "Wouldn't the cord get in the way?" I read on an article that the USB cord at Wacom's end is actually detachable!! The scroll strip is ingeniously tranformed into a scroll wheel which allows infinite zooming in and out as far as the application can take you in a single stroke! (Just like the Ipod) The wheel allows intuitivity when rotating the painting canvas, which is newly introducted in Photoshop CS4. There's also an OLED display beside the ExpressKeys to remind the user what are the shortcuts assigned to them.
I have only written down the functions that I'm excited about and I feel are noteworthy. Please read this [article] to find out more!
Thanks to all who have helped to put up a successful graduation exhibition! Specially those who came down to visit my booth and everybody who made this possible, including visitors, my family and friends, lecturers!
Pixel and Pencil Awards 2009 Most Outstanding Portfolio | Best CG Art | Most Outstanding Personal Work I am very happy and honoured to have received these awards. Thanks everybody!
I started creating a 3D character [Digiron] who is supposed to resemble myself early last year. At that point in time, I was not very confident with 3D, I was afraid of cloth.. rigging.. and other potentially technical stuff. As a result, I came up with a very easy, typical and quite ugly character design.
Now that I've become more familiar with how to go about creating a 3D character, I target to redesign and create a nice and appealing 3D caricature.
The current work in progress is the guy you see at the top right of the screen. Yep, that's Digiron! I have some plans for some live footage compositing for Digiron, so we'll see! :)
I also just started a CGTalk thread to seek opinion from the creative industry gurus. Will be back soon, see ya!
I was reading about this in the papers this morning.
Here's a link to their popular franchise Winx Club
If I'm not wrong, Rainbow is the top animation studio in Italy! Italian animation studio Rainbow is putting $25 million into a new gaming unit here in Singapore. And it is by far the biggest investment here!
This is gonna be so cool! Looking forward to the vibe in the interactive digital media industry in a few years to come! :)
We have put a lot of effort into this Eyeka Asia Creative Challenge and we are very excited about it!
Just a couple of days ago, the winner of Eyeka Asia Creative Challenge is announced! It's us, Channel Box!!
We are so so happy!! :D I'll like to thank Ms Grace, Mr Jacques D and my two buddies Yong Yi and Zi Chao for making this possible! Thank you guys! Can't wait to show you guys what we've been up to so here goes! Hope you'll like it!
Our objective was to create an engaging animation that will inform the audience about the pronounciation of eyeka.
Simple visual elements are used for audience to relate better. For instance, the mouth literally provides a visual demonstration of the pronounciation of 'Eyeka'. Therefore, the concept allows the audience to register the correct pronounciation of Eyeka without much complexity.
Chasseur de Dragon is now on the big screens in Singapore! I remember Yong Yi and I hunting all over Paris for the art book for this film! Didn't manage to find it in the end, such a disappointment.
In any case, our master Mr Kyle Balda is the animation director for this film! It's gotta awesome. Gonna catch it very soon! :D
I thought it's time for some change in the look of my website! Along the way, I made some improvements and hope you'll like it! :D
Updates and Improvements: New works to the portfolio and reels section. [eg. RC Helicopter, Single Leg] The Demoreel is now at a bigger resolution too. Resumé is updated.
Possible Future Enhancements: Write up on Masterclasses attended. [eg. Gobelins Summer School] More visuals in all sections Motion Graphics header
I had this idea in my mind about a month ago to get together a couple of my good friends and work on CG projects together where we are in total control of the whole process.
This urge became especially strong after I went to Gobelins, Paris and realise that there is a serious lack of creativity, adventure and boldness in the CG content created in Singapore.
Hoping to bring up this daring-arty-culture in Singapore....................
Yong Yi, Zi Chao and I came together to form Channel Box.
The main objective of Channel Box is to experiment CG content creation wildly in search for style.
Through this process, not only do we have a channel to put our skills to practice and showcase, we can also learn to work together efficiently and brainstorm te wildest ideas.
Ideally, we will be able to create and recognise our own style and have all these creative input evolve to an identity!
