My Demo Reel

Hey everybody. Dan here.

As some of you know, for the past couple of years I've been studying Computer Animation at Full Sail University in Orlando, FL. The last bit of time at school was spent working on my first Demo Reel. Essentially a demo reel is an animation portfolio containing a few short scenes that demonstrate what kind of stuff I am capable of for prospective employers. It's what I'll use to get a job - hopefully. Otherwise I'll just continue pitching in on Ross's soon-to-be award winning series of books.

I recently submitted my reel to the 2008 aniBoom Awards Animation Festival. Essentially this is an annual competition put on by the YouTube of the animation world, aniBoom.

So if you have a minute (1 minute and 20 seconds to be precise), and want to watch my efforts, I've included my reel in this very post. After watching it if you have another 10 seconds or so to kill, and want to help your friend Wheezy out, go give my video a ranking over at it's aniBoom page.

Hope you like it! Thanks for taking the time to watch it.

The competition goes through December 14th, so I imagine I'll be mentioning this again sometime within the next couple of weeks. Indulge a poor unemployed animator.

TF2 Sniper and Sandvich - Valve

Today I've got some more video game animations for you. Why so heavy on the video game stuff lately? I dunno. Let's call it a theme month or something.

The guys over at Valve have released a few more videos to promote their game Team Fortress 2. For those of you that have been following my Twitter, you know that lately I've been on a bit of a podcast kick, and one of the podcasts I listen to is the ReAnimators. These are a group of video game animators that talk about various aspects of their industry. One interesting point they brought up was that in a field where photorealism is so strived for and desired, something stylized like Team Fortress 2 really stands out.

And I couldn't agree more. These promotional animations are the icing on that cake. For me, something unique and well designed like the Team Fortress 2 crew are so much more appealing to me than a Marcus Fenix or Master Chief (although I do like Master Chief's design in general). Just like movie animation, it seems like the more you try to make things look super realistic (Beowulf) the further you get from something appealing that I'm actually going to enjoy (Ratatouille).

Anyway enough chat from me. Here's the first video introducing "The Sniper."

That character has been around from the beginning, but the next "character" is something new that was only recently introduced to the game. There really isn't a lot of actual animation in this one, as in character movement, but the animation that is used is perfect for what needs to be accomplished.

Haven't had enough videos? Wander of to Immediate Regret and vote for who you think has the best picks in our "Best Will Ferrell Character" Draft. If I lose I have to go see Disaster Movie, which I believe is still rocking a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. So go vote! (Preferably for me, but you should really watch the videos and decide for yourself).