Yeah, everybody (I think) knows that this weekend will happen the big party Blender Conference, in Amsterdam. But one thing not everybody knows is that...

... Blender Pro, the II Brazilian Blender Conference is also near. It will happen in Belo Horizonte, november 9th. I'm definitely going this time, since I missed last year.

I think it's good to notice that the submissions for the Blender Pro's art festival (stills and animations) are still open. ;)

It was a long time ago when I talked about Disney reusing animated pieces on its films. I'm just bringing this again on topic because now I've found a video:

At least they copied good pieces, kind of a homage. :)

Finally the render is done. :)

Without much talking, here you can watch the result of my classes with Keith Lango in his Animation Personal Trainer program.

You can also download the quicktime in higher resolution, so you can see the details, like the smoke on the cigarrete. :)

About the classes, I couldn't be more satisfied. Keith is a really nice guy and an outstanding teacher: he expresses his ideas like very few and his experience makes him have a very keen eye for details.

On his introductory video, he made something very clear: if anyone in the program is looking for unconditional praise, it's more effective to show your animation to your mom. His job is to criticize what is needed, point out better solutions and praise only what deserves to be praised. This kind of feedback is really important for anyone who wants to grow as a professional. He looks at EVERYTHING on your work, and gives you very detailed information on how to improve your skills.

To take the four week classes there is a fee of 950 dollars. It's a considerable amount of money for who lives in a country with a weaker currency like mine, but what I've got in return is priceless. I even want to make it again in a near future.

One big advantage of APT is its "personal" side. The program fits your needs and areas of weakness. Because of this, if you make this program more than once, it won't be the same.

It follows a pretty simple method: there are some exercises for the week and, after you send him the results, he returns you a video with his impressions/suggestions/critics.

The classes are application agnostic, so you can use any program you want, and any medium (claymation, 2d...). In my case I used Blender, with Bassam Kurdali's rig Mancandy with some changes made by me.

In my humble opinion, I can't recommend it enough. If you have the money to invest in your animation education, I'd say go for it. :)

You can read more on the program on its FAQ page.

Saw today at Blender Newbies website a cool thing: there is now for sale a DVD compilation of the tutorials.

It made me think about a CGTalk thread on the new Blender release, where a forum user complained about the lack of documentation and training. In my humble opinion, this is a problem that gets smaller every day, since lots of new tutorials and trainings are popping around.

As examples, I can point Andy's DVD, Bassam Kurdali's one, Tony Mullen's books (1 and 2), Roland Hess' Essential Blender and Animating with Blender. I received the latter on my mailbox yesterday, sent by the publisher for a review. Soon I will talk about it with you. :)

Back to the DVD, some things I found cool about it:

• Over 14 hours of video tutorials;
• Better sound and resolution than the online versions;
• The videos were revised/corrected;

You can get more info on its website.

Much easier get info on using Blender today than when I first started, with version 2.28. :D

Maybe you remember when I posted about that great script for intuitive rigs in Blender.

The developer of this script, known as cesio in the forums, now made another very cool thing: he applied his script into my rig Otto!

Take a look at this:

Otto with masks from Leandro Inocencio on Vimeo.

I'm planning to release a 2.0 Otto version sometime soon. If possible, I think it would be interesting to leave the script as an option for the user.

Along with that, I will add some great contributions to the rig made by Christian, AKA seabee in the forums (take a look at some cool animations made by him) and some needed features like IK/FK switching. :)