The internet is for sucks.

ARGH. Even more proof that the internet hates me. Or..computers. Right now, at least. This was supposed to be last night's post. NOTHING IS WORKING RIGHT.

...

So. I was having what was supposed to be a good day. I was working on my website, my portfolio was online. Then my mom told me that my coding wasn't working in IE. I hate IE..

Anyways, she told me to contact someone at my parents' company who deals with coding, so I did. She emailed me back this evening telling me how to fix it. So that was good.

Picked up Sarah around noon. We got lunch, then went to Michael's. I got supplies for my drawing midterm. Also totally useless things like several Scratchbords. They were on sale for one fifty each. I like them. They're fun. I may go get some more tomorrow.

Anyways. When we got back to my house, Sarah gets a phone call from her dad. They've been having problems with her brother this year; long story, and kind of personal, so I won't get into it. Anyways. Suck things have been happening. Things that will require me to kick his ass next time I see him. If I ever see him again. Which is kind of the problem. (He's Max's age, a high school freshman, and really smart. He's just so fucken stupid, and ruining what they have of a family.) So that was bad. Also depressing.

Also, I'd asked her to bring over her laptop because I needed to use Maya to finish my reel. I had three things that weren't rendered; the rest of the reel I'd put together this morning. Turns out iMovie is only easy to use for people who aren't used to using Final Cut Pro. I'd come home this week thinking I could just download a trial of Final Cut and put together my reel then, but nooo. Apparently there's no such thing as a trial of Final Cut, because, as someone put when I Googled for it, 'If you're the kind of person who uses Final Cut Pro, you're going to need it, so you might as well buy it'. So I resorted to iMovie. The interface is..GAH. There's basically no such thing as a timeline. Oversimplified things that should be in the browser are down where the timeline should be, and the thing that's pretending to be a timeline is in the browser's spot, and there's no canvas window. It's weird navigating the timeline, because the time cursor goes wherever your mouse is, and you have to click to stop it from moving. There's no frame-by-frame. It took me a while to figure out how to insert a title card (I was searching frantically for a text tool); apparently drag-and-drop is a big thing in these sorts of programs. Then it took me a long time to figure out how to change the text from TITLE GOES HERE to what I wanted it to say. Blugh.

Anyways, it ended up working out. But when I tried downloading a trial of Maya on the desktop, licensing errors kept popping up and telling me to restart the computer, and kept coming up again after I'd restarted the computer. It's been doing that for the Adobe trials I tried downloading as well. So I wanted to use Sarah's computer. We spent half an hour trying to get it to connect to the internet without success. So I asked my dad to bring his laptop back from work.

That worked out, kind of. Took a long time to download the trial; the connection on that computer is shitty, and the computer processes slowly. Downloading stuff is easier on a Mac; for his PC I had to keep clicking things, instead of just letting it sit until it was done.

Got into Maya. Opened my file. Tried to playblast. Failed. It closed itself. Tried again. Failed. Again. I decided to just render a different way. Waited around for it to render. Rendered the next two. Those were annoying because for some reason Maya decided not to display them; I had to go on faith that the window was in the right place. Tried to download After Effects. Didn't work. Tried again. Didn't work. Tried again. Blah.

Gave up for the night. Hoping for a better day tomorrow. Because today computers hate me.

I am going to go watch Napoleon Dynamite. Maybe that will make me feel better. Good night.

Olivia

PS. Next day's continuation of The Many Rendering Adventures of Olivia the Animator, Part I:

Went over and downloaded After Effects on the other desktop. Turns out, since I'd already had a trial on it over winter break, this time I was opening it would be the last time it would open without making me buy the software. Prayed it wouldn't crash.

It didn't crash. Yay.

Rendered the clips. Realized I hadn't linked in the sound. Tried to figure out how to link sound to video in After Effects. Failed. Did it in iMovie. Yay.

FINALLY FINISHED MY FUCKEN REEL. See today's post. When I get around to it. Or..just go to my website.