How it goes down.

Everbody will knock, but not all will get answers. For some, its now, others later, and the rest never.
But when you embrace and say NO to your fears, When you stop running and say there has to be a change. When you pick yourself up from that mud looking @ the Skies with your head up, focused and resolved acknowledging that their indeed is a GOD. And that with Him, You can do All Things.
Then The first two sentences in this post wont apply to You Anymore.
Go do the Impossible. Only You can STOP you

Reid Saying

Nobody‘s going to hand the good stuffs over to you like that and one of the reasons is people WANT TO SEE U FAIL. Are U going to sit down helpless, waiting on people to feed or give to you what should have been your‘s in the first place? Or are you going to GET UP AND TAKE BACK WHAT‘s RIGHTFULLY YOURs? The choice is Yours.

Life and Choices

The easy job gives peace, You do the same darn thing everyday and everybody scrambles for it, regardless of grade and class. But Nobody will know your name or Remember you. There is job security. You go to work with no challenges and thinking nothing in your head. You might make some more than average money but you know, their's something you have to do. There's something missing.

Now, The difficult ones scares people. They run away from it cuz its difficult to tame and they are scared of fail plus there's lots of long suffering to endure. But once tamed, fame comes to you overnight and everytime, you put those feet out walking on the streets you that with your head held high feeling like you are riding on a Dragon and You are The Knight in the Shinning Armour. Then They Know you.

I watched this fantastic 3D animation By Blue Sky Studios and its called ROBOTS starring Ewan Mcgreggor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Amanda Bynes and a host of other wonderful stars and in the end there was a saying that goes something like this;
"The dream that you dont fight for can hunt you for the rest of your life".

On this note, i encourage you to look back at that little bug in your life right now and start fixing. It dont matter how long it will take to fix it as long as you eventually fix it. And i know, that if you do this without fear and lots of determination, you'ld probably fix it sooner than you imagined. Now if you decide to leave things the way they are and move on, it's ok. If and only if, you can guarantee that it will be the last time you encounter whatever it is you are skipping. Now, skipping probably worked for Tom but hey, you are not Tom and probably are not using Tom's formula or there's something somebody should be saying that he didn't somewhere along the line and other stuffs like that.

Afterall, what is living life to it's fullest when your life is still just half full.

The Anime NARUTO.

Hello Guys and Welcome once again to another edition of HypefroActive. As always, I'm your host and Fred Ocheli is my name. Today i'm gonna be talking about the Anime Naruto. Now you've probably heard about Naruto but shrugged it off like i did earlier, but the thing is, once you start watching this Anime, trust me. You'll start singing Michael Jackson's "I just cant stop loving you".

About Naruto

Ok, so the anime is about a young boy called Naruto coincidentally also the name of the film. He's a clueless orphan, clumsy and very annoying yeah and insultive too but a nice kid and level headed i'ld say. The film is all about Ninjas and how they either try to dominate or maintain balance and by so doing starting up wars. Yeah so the big nations chew the little and weaker nations and they also have some monster animals in the anime with fierce and enormous strength and power if i may, that is enough to destroy a whole nation or nations. So everybody wants power right? Yeah, they go after these beasts and try to tame them so that they can unleash the beast against other countries they are in conflict with. There are nine of such beasts and every nation tries to get at least one for themselves. Also, there is the group called Akatsuki. These guys are very Bad Ass. Individually powerful enough to go against any one strongest person in any Nation. They have amazing feats and there techniques are far superior to most other ninjas in whatever land.
So, in general The nations fight eachother, steal or exchange intel for political benefits all for power and dominance. The Akatsuki is kind of like a syndicate that offer their services to whoever can afford them. And the Akatsuki too has a hidden agenda for Dominance as well. Meaning they use people to get what they want, in this case the five nations.

How to Watch Naruto

It is a Japanese manga, starting off kind of dull and maybe weak, because it takes you to how it all began. An earlier time after the third ninja war or something and Naruto was still a kid with one of those beasts placed or hidden inside of him.So because he's associated with this beast called KURAMA meaning The Nine Tailed Demon Fox. Nobody wants to be around him. It was so bad that Parents had to instruct their wards to keep away from him. He was segregated even when The Hokage (Village Head and Normally Strongest Person in the Village or Nation) commanded them to do the opposite. Well, you cant blame them, the Nine tail is a very fierce beast that has either killed their friends or family members, so either or both the fear and hatred for the nine tail still lingers. And that my friends is why the villagers hate naruto so much and now you see why you can't blame them.
So having said all these, don't expect much at the start of the episode. Now if You skip like i did cuz the start was at the time looking kinda boring and childish, You are most likely gonna hate yourself for it when you get to like episode two hundred because then, there would be so much you've missed out on and from time to time as you get into the chapters you skipped into, you encounter a lot of flashbacks and momentos that link to and answers the question of something very interesting that you've missed out on. Why? because you skipped the chapters, remember! Sooooo, you don't wanna do that. However, if You decide to skip to say episode eighty give or take, you'll probably get right into the action and get WOWED and it gets better. So I'll advice you take the pain and watch the whole thing from scratch, episode by episode. The Build up is slow but You will thank me some day for it.

The Akatsuki

Heads up guys cuz as soon as you get here, where the Akatsuki surfaces, things change forever. Dressed in a uniform Black Coat having a kinda white cloud as there logo and floating all around the coat. These guys quickly and unsuspectingly change the face of the anime. Now its not because they are Villains with amazing feats. Its how they get these amazing feats. The story behind them, there strength, what they are capable of and how they were hand picked into the Akatsuki. These guys are stroooooonnnnng, very cunning, experienced and deadly. An Akatsuki member IMHO is capable of taking down over fifty Ninjas in a fight. Yeah, so you get the idea.


CONCLUSION

I'll recommend you watch this anime, it's pretty much a bit of everything you want in a movie. Fun, entertaining, fierce and action packed but most of all, it is matured. You wont get superman flying about and going to the sun to get powers, no spidey to shoot webs but they do all these in there own sort of realistic way that you can identify and live with. I'ld rate it along side Cartoons like FAMILY GUY and THE SIMPSON's.

Blind Faith

I'll end this in less than six weeks. Been the most sought after being
in this country with something NEVER before seen.

I'm the dean with no duplicate twin, with two fists, I bumps, status shape shifting
turning heads, i transform to the mutant known as the thing.

Epic tales of my awesomeness travel around the city,
with good and bad struggling, cuz everybody wanna be me.

overcrowded encomiums from the public shower my body,
running caressing my godlike entity got snoop singing Lodi Dodi.

Ninety minutes no extensions, whistle blown and game's changed,
I emerge the one reason why haters just love to hate,

Forgive me if i laugh, I see competition like calf,
In my office acting bossy, killing animes like the Maff.

Run for cover, sixty bullets locked in two deranged pistols,
I'm faster than the flash, ya'll slower than VW Beetles.

So who the hell gimme the right to say whatever i like,
Clenched fists and a keyboard thinking dang I'm IRON MIKE.






Yeah, You could also find Our work by clicking this link http://youtu.be/sBAKHD4ZKC0

Find some of Our Animations on This Page

This page houses some of Our Animations. Although, there are others that are not or will not be posted here for some reasons. But these ones here are exclusively Our Work. And We hope to post one or two at least every month.


Services We offer includes;

1.    Mentor-ship

2.    3D Animations for Adverts, Illustrations, Short films or Songs.

3.    3D Modelling


For more inquiries contact us by mailing fredocheli@yahoo.com  OR chimatic@gmail.com



 Please click the link to view   http://youtu.be/sBAKHD4ZKC0

                                            
                                             http://youtu.be/opFjvErscKw

Martial Arts in Movies

Hello good people and welcome to another edition of HypefroActive. Today i wont be talking about animations like my other two previous posts. Instead, i'll be talking about something else. Martial Arts movies baby! Yeah, especially the early Asian ones were you have the lips saying something entirely different and the words coming out there mouth are entirely different as well. Now, a good number of us watch martial arts films, you know the ones with the fast kicks, multiple punches and fancy poses with super surround sounds hyping the effects of their blows coming out like "gbish gbish gbish" and having people fly around everywhere either to attack, from the effect of an attack or simply getting away from one.

Well to make matters worse, some others like the "Ninja" types, yeah the guys with bandaged or masked faces! They not only use sword like crazy but can also cut in between depths of a leaf or divide a thread along its length. Some wicked precision if you ask me. Yeah, they sure messed everything up getting ninjas to have that much crazy feat which brings me to the anime "Naruto", but that will be coming up next.

Now, so the japs have got ninjas disappearing with tiny smoke bombs that they drop and lightly explodes and they make a get away or distraction. Nice, but this same Ninjas carry these smoke bombs all the time while they fight, somersault and fall but it never goes off. Funny thing ain't it. Well the thing about them i like the most is they don't do those chinese sounds when fighting. But these guys will cut through anything and i mean anything. And they've got other abilities as well, they disappear. You think it's a myth? well why don't you get on the wrong side of the Yakuzas and find out.

Next on the list is the Samurai and yeah they are again Japanese. The Japs are good at traditional Combat involving weapons, really good. Now in as much as i don't like the samurai "entertainment wise", I think they are the most effective in broad day light combat involving blades or at least they appear to look like it. Dressed in traditional Japanese robes and what will appear to look like a wrapper on first site to an african or what Nigerians will call "shokoto labulabu" meaning very big shorts or overblown shorts, these Asian warriors will cut clean anything with their powerful blades. With a habit of always been on stance, most of which is the front leg, with two hands tightly holding their sword which accounts for the strength in their blows whenever they strike. These guys dont talk while fighting and are very forceful even in speech which kinds of make me wonder if they are like that when the lights go off. That would be very unromantic, matter of fact, that would be the height. Check this, its night and this girl and samo hook up with stuffs unbuttoning themselves and you hear, in a very strong, forceful and harsh voice saying something like "c'mon do it". Aarrggrrr! that's the turn off right there. Crazy ain't it? Well, I'm very sure that's NOT how it is when the lights go off.

Now my favourites are the Chinese. Gosh, i love everything about the Chinese, from the mythical films with the forbidden cities, gates and techniques to their Shaolin Kung Fu with thirty six chambers, to their tiger, monkey, mantis, crane etc. Guys! it don't get better than this. This guys basically study animals and they try incorporating their instincts in a fight making it a fighting style. Funny right! Yeah i thought so too but you know what? It works. And it's called Kung fu. A lot goes into all these arts but trying to keep it simple i wont be talking about its complexities, dark sides or advanced stages. Just simple stuffs we see everyday, some of these we still find hard to believe.
There are lots of variants to Kung fu, and they claim to every School, it's fighting style. Some based on the Eagle or Tiger Claw where they train their hands into been as tough as Iron, like "The Iron fist". The thing about this guys that i like most and hate as well is the shouts. Gosh, these guys shout at everything from fighting to taking a leak. More flexible than Spidey and super fast like they are in two places at once, this little men will mesmerise you, toying with you making you do all the work while they use your force against you. Their fight style is fluid and thus has flow like a dance or they are entertaining. every move always ending up in a loop unlike the Traditional Samurai or Ninja Arts.

At this point it's important to note that this guys actually exists, they are real and they can hurt you real bad. So how applicable is what they do to real life? Very applicable thank you very much. Well except for some types of Jet Lee kicks, where he hangs slantly in mid air say about thirty degrees  to the horizontal delivering over ten kicks again in motion maintaining the distance between him and his opponent. others are where these guys jump unto a roof like over three meters high uuuumm, naaaahhhhh, that aint happening in real life otherwise they'ld be winning the Olympics for jumps and even basket ball.

In all, I'd advice you pick up an Art and learn. Not just for self defense reasons as most guys would claim is their reason but will also boost your confidence and drive, there are lots of exercises to keep that big tummy trimmed and joints oily. There are so many benefits asides knowing what's applicable in real life and what's not. And yeah, health benefits as well.

 Yeah and You could check out This animation by clicking the link below

http://youtu.be/sBAKHD4ZKC0


 Cheers.

Beginner animator!!! Are You sacred yet?

Hello People and i trust you having a great weekend.

Ok, so far so good, all i have been talking about is animation. Is this blog ALL about animations? No. Are you going to go on and on about animations? Eeerrrr No. And Yes. lol. ok, that's just my alter ego trying to take over business and i would have let him but I SAY NO! This beginner animators needs me. Yeah, so today I'm not going to be saying anything scary OR as scary as my other two previous posts. And like i said earlier, they are geared towards beginner animators.

So, lets say you've read all this mumbo jumbo load of crap i've put together and you proceed with caution towards learning animations on your own. yeah by animations, i mean character animations. So your system is ready, power aint a problem, you have books, matter of fact you have loads of books stock piled, millions of videos and you roaring like a mustang ready to go, but You still dont have a mentor. Ok, dont panic, you can still go some miles on your own. And it's also possible you start looking for a job in the next 3months forgetting about the whole thing. Why, Because you are not getting the results. You've seen a lot of movies and you've seen how cartoon characters in these movies behave and you're like 120years away from them. Well, there are a lot of explanations to that. First of, these pros spent a lot of resources like you are doing right now except for the fact that most of them were in a school at the time. Eeerrr i'll probably go ahead and rule that off, but they did have a mentor over there and you dont. Another thing is, It's not the millions of books that you read, or the videos that make the difference. Its the resolve and determination to focus all of that energy to a single point in time. Kind of like Bruce Lee's principle to unleashing "The One Inch Punch". So its really not in there millions, unless you're reading the same topic in all these books but then, reading about 5 to 10books at once can make you loose sight of your goal cause, its possible, they may be approaching the same problem from different perspectives. What do you do here? Simple. Get a good book or two. And focus on one topic at a time.

 Back then i had friends with hundreds of art books of how to draw, how to colour or blend colours... Jeeze they even had books on how to turn a system on and off. And whenever we played down to there cribs, guy's would be like, yo Alonzo, you the Bomb mhen, you've gat all these many books stacked in ur shelf like leaves on branches mhen. whatsup mhen? Blabalabla, now two years down the line, Alonzo's still busy trying to model right and can't do it effectively on low poly. And when the pressure get's too much, because he dont have a mentor and other people look at him with some form of respect like he's the baddest animator around and he just can't let them down, he results into using MOCAP (Motion Capture) if he's lucky enough to get to mocap that is.

 Mocap at this point, is where you dont want to go because it makes you lazy and desperate especially when you use them and the animations still have issues within them. In these instances, you'll see the legs sliding, the hands and wrists posing very weak and unreallistic. rotations on the upper arm becomes unnatural and other stuffs. At this point, the purpose for mocap has been defeated. Mocap (Motion Capture) is a recorded live action motion coming as presets that can  be applied to rigs to create animations. It's designed to be quicker, more efficient and more realistic amongst other things as  comapared to your manual frame by frame way of animation, but in this scenerio, the reverse is the case. For more about Mocap you may click this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_capture.

Now it's imporant to understand that i'm not against  the Mocap process of animation. I'm just saying, you've lost or beginning to loose focus on your initial goal. check out all the great animators you know, they were'nt doing Mocap. Most of them ran from it. For me, Mocap is good, only if you know how to animate well.
Because after applying it to your rig, it's possible that the body ratios of the characters are not thesame and then you have to blend seamlessly between one action and the other or even in between poses and the in-betweening just at this time isn't a believably realistic one.

In conclusion, do not try to read too many books at a time. Read and practice related topics and Practice like it's your passport to heaven. Look for people like you with like minds going somewhere with animation. LOOK FOR A SCHOOL OR AT LEAST A MENTOR. Do not take the easy way out.


Yeah You could click the link below for some cool animation

http://youtu.be/sBAKHD4ZKC0

Good luck Animating and Cheers.

Character Animation! How do I start?- The Beginners question.

Ok, so you've probably read my first post, if you have'nt then i suggest you do. My posts are primarily geared towards those of us wanting to get into animations as a profession or hobby. So, if you a pro then bigups to you and kudos to all the nice jobs you've put out there. really fascinating.
Starting up for me was frustrating because the infrastructures to learn weren't in place. And up till date, i'ld say it has gone from bad to worse if you are considering fueling your generators, depending on PHCN for power blablabla "you'll understand what i'm talking about if you a Nigerian". But that was or is just a third of the problem. there were issues about one software been better than the other and what's industry standards, what softwares had the most helpful online communities for learning and mentoring and the list just goes on and on. Now up till this point, i'ld say just about 50 to 60% of the problem has been solved, the real problem is getting to animate and animate well. And in between that, you still have to learn how to rig your characters. ok, so rigging isnt much of a problem if you thinking of simple rigs or presets that ship with these animation softwares at least for now. matter of fact, I dare say, if any one can animate with this presets, you can animate almost anything. So yeah, go ahead with the presets if you can.

Having a mentor around me was my biggest challenge. I had to read like hell, animate for very long hours, a lot of the time making mistakes and thanks to Google once again, i get back on track. Now, i'm always opposed to the fact that people should start learning by watching videos. That my friend might not be the best approach, and just reading one strange tutorial might not be of help also. I always encourage beginners to read first or alongside watching the videos. The tutorial been the most important in my humble opinion.
So after all these in place, you still need a mentor, but it's not impossible for you to figure out how all the principles of animation works all by yourself though, but will probably take a lot more time than you necessary should. So why try re-inventing the wheel?

Alright, asides all these, animation has to reside in you or you should at least have a good eye for detail. Coming from a construction background, that was pretty easy for me. Because I was trained to fish out errors, to see the bads. This helped me a lot because no matter how much i read those principles, i just couldn't apply them. And everybody from where i came from had the same problem. To make matters worse Everybody started yelling "YOU HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO DRAW, YOU HAVE TO LEARN HOW DISNEY DRAWS", LORD HOKAGE SAMA!!! screaming like the leaf shinobis in NARUTO SHIPPUDEN. And that was a big problem for me at that time as well. But in time, i realized that, that wasn't even the main problem. the main problem was from going from point A through an in-between to point B, and blending between all three in such a way that would appeal to the eyes of the viewers and having them nod, giving the animation their approval. That was the problem.

Prior to learning animation, i was always reading about comparisons between softwares. How long it will take to master animation? how much it will cost to get an animation education etc. what these softawares are capable of, who is using what and a whole lot of questions like that. some of them made sense at the time, while the others didnt make any till this day. And people keep fighting about these things till date.

In Conclusion, I don't think animation requires anybody to know how to draw fancy figures or come from an art background because i've defied both and Jeff Lew is an Electrical engineer by training before picking up animation. You too with all determination can again defy whatever that seem to be a pre-requisite to learning animation and standing in your way as a barricade. Yeah, Lest i forget, i did know how to draw fairly well as a kid and i know a ton of other things as well that i put into practice when animating. But note that it could turn out to be a painful process and most likely an effort in futility. So when You start going through all of these, know that you are not alone, and People have walked that path before.
My last words? Still look for an animation school to learn animation . it's going to do you a lot of good, you'll be more confident of yourself as an animator and it's going to save you a lot of time and plenty of pain. yeah, because you don't want none of that.

Yeah, so you can either reach me here or mail me on chimatic@gmail.com or fredocheli@yahoo.com for any assistance or more information.


Yeah, please click to watch this blast from the past by my company http://youtu.be/opFjvErscKw

Also check this out http://youtu.be/sBAKHD4ZKC0



Cheers.

So You want to Learn Animation?

INTRO

 Hello World. my name is Fred Ocheli AKA "Reid Krugger Al'Jabbar". I am first a construction person and now a 3D character animator. Animation is one subject i cant stop talking about. Not because I know so much about it but because i'm so in Love with it. As a kid it amazed me to see people put pen to paper, make some scribbles and okey dokey, the scribbles start walking, talking you know, just come to life. i guess that led me to animations.

Yeah, its not so much of a big deal in other parts of the world as thier works speaks for them. Companies like Pixar, Disney and Bluesky have made tons of dollars, creating jobs and Wacking Block Busters all from making animated movies. Here in Africa and sadly Nigeria, the story is however different. I doubt if the animators here are up to 2% of the entire CG populace. I mean look around You, We have very good modellers and texturers and when I think of it, a lot of the People in our CG industry are in it for the money not because they have the passion for it. And a lot of the times when You try to like, hey that's not how its done lets do... yeah they cut you off with "yeah, I know". They Know. they always know and that's why they are still where they are today. No! they dont know, and they are where they still are because of pride.

I've gone around a bit and have seen some Character Animation Schools in Nigeria and trust Me, most of them are not at All what there advert say they are. Matter of fact, they know nothing about Character Animation. Unless of course You consider moving boxes about as Character Animation. And Yeah, i'm always here if anybody feels otherwise as regards what has been said here so far.

STUDYING ANIMATIONS
 Now I'm a self taught meaning I learnt Animations by myself. And if you want to do that in Nigeria, there are 2ways you could do that. either you Learn by yourself like me, trust me you don't want to take this route not unless you have plenty of time, financial support and literally living life like a kid where almost or all of your needs are met by your parent, guardian or something and you are not responsible to or for anything or body. Now the last one mentioned is important. However, if you choose this path, I wouldn't recommend you start with YouTube Videos because You probably will get carried away trying to achieve what it is that you see in these videos. And Walla, You now know how to animate. No, You still don't know how to animate because there's a lot more to Animations than watching YouTube Videos. Though there are books that will teach you how to Animate by first learning the principles but what most of us here don't know is that, most of these books are for people that already know a thing or two about animating.
The other way to this is getting around this is by searching for a school to learn like what they do abroad. This one is more effective and will prove to be more productive if You are lucky to get a competent hand to teach and mentor You through this process. Matter of fact, I highly recommend this one. But be careful, a lot of us don't even know how to use the basic tools. Yet we want to teach Animations. So Beware of these set of teachers. Either way, it will be nice if You get The ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION [Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas], or Jeff Lews Cds, or My Personal Favorite "The Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams. Yeah get any of these books and CDs especially anything from Richard Williams and You could be on your way to your goal.


CHALLENGES
 In this country everything is a challenge as regards animations. The best your school will teach you is modelling and texturing. Going to School is Expensive, Yeah i know and so is Learning Animations. Abroad, people learn Animations for thousands of dollars and that is NOT about to change here.
So the real "challenge' for me is POWER, PHCN or NEPA if you like. Thank God for Google and Internet, but You still need power to Light up your system. So, in this regard, I'll recommend you get a laptop with at least 4gig ram and say 300gb hard drive, i3 or more and yeah you get the idea. But this is a temporary solution to your power challenges because with this you are sure of at least say 3hrs of practice everyday, every time your lap top is fully charged.
Yeah you still have to get a very good hand to teach you how to use the software and Animate properly.
Dedication, Determination, Focus and Time are other things that could kill that dream of your's if not properly harnessed. So you have to be disciplined about it.

VALUE AND TIME
I'll give it to You Straight. Animation is EXPENSIVE and it takes time, lots of time to learn as well as create. So speaking in nigerian terms, You cant Learn Animation or at least Character Animation FROM SCRATCH in 3mths or 6mths. HELL NO. If You've come across somebody that's gone through that path, Hey let Me know. Maybe he could give me his autograph or something, or maybe give me a bit of whatever he's smoking. Not that it's impossible though, but from experience, it's almost impracticable an achievable fit. Also you cant learn Character Animation with N100,000. No Sir. At least not on a level that you gain recommendation for. As per Value, I think every School and it's worth fixed and for a lot of reasons too.

CONCLUSION

 True there is money in animation, but animation like other professions is not for everybody. If you take it as a path because there is money in it, you might not get to that promised land. But if it choose you making it your purpose to fulfill, and you are determined and are ready to give at least 8 to 12 hours of your life every day or at least 6days a week with same hours, then you might be on your way. The true test is not knowing how to model or move boxes or things in general. The true test is knowing exactly what plug to pull and why, because only then can you manipulate your way through. So get any software, Learn and master it's interface and tools. Love the software and animation because if you don't, your journey's going to end up most likely like a kid that hates maths. And that's how it all starts until the final blow sets in like "you know what? f**k this, i dont need this s**t blabla yadayadayada. and you close shop. Lol, ok i hope it doesn't end like that for you.
So read and ponder upon these words before you make that Journey and if you need any assistance, you can reach me here or on chimatic@gmail.com or fredocheli@yahoo.com and i"ll be more than glad to offer any assistance within my capacity to help you push on.
And Yeah, i'll be uploading some of my animations here, just so you have an idea of whatever it is i'm talking about. But in the main time enjoy this blast from the past i did about a year ago http://youtu.be/opFjvErscKw. And do feel free to comment and subscribe to our channel. Thanks.

Good luck Animating and Cheers.




Click the link to watch our videos http://youtu.be/opFjvErscKw