Sweet Bakery

This was my very first ever, 3D computer animation project. This project was created for my first semester of computer animation. For this project, we were to pick a painting of your choice and make models as close to the original painting as possible. Once all the modeling is completed, we were to do some simple animation with the models to make an animation short.

Since this was my very first exposure to AutoDesk Maya, everything about this project was produced based on the knowledge I've gathered from the class lectures throughout the semester. My professor would lecture about the basics of Maya and after every week, we had a small assignment that relates to all the materials she lectured during that week. In doing so, my knowledge of the program grew every week and was able to put that to use for this project. The end result of this animation is based on what I learned throughout the entire semester so it's not the best animation ever but it was the best I could do with what I know.

Obviously with no experience with any sort of 3D animation, the learning process was probably the most difficult thing about this project. Learning about the Maya program wasn't bad but there were a lot of stuff that could get overwhelming had I not taken notes or paid attention during the lectures. The weekly assignments based on the lectures was a great measuring stick for my progress as it gives me an idea of how well I know the material based on the score I receive on the particular assignment.

By the end of this project, I pretty much got the basics about the modeling process. I did struggle with the texturing section, however. It was completely new to me and some of the stuff about texturing I didn't get the hang of such as laying out a models UV or applying Bump Maps to a model. I didn't have that much trouble with the Photoshop portion where I had to edit and/or create my own textures. It's just the whole UV mapping that really got me and to be honest, at the end of the semester, I was still struggling to understand it entirely. I think that weakness showed in this animation. In the end, I did what I could with my knowledge of the material and make it work with what I wanted to do overall.

All the music and sounds were from a program called GarageBand that the film department of my university offered. There weren't any restricted criteria when it came to incorporating music with the animation so I tried to find sounds that would fit the mood I was attempting to create in my animation. In the end, I got what I wanted and more from the music and sound effects and I think it fit really well with the fun, joyous nature mood.

It was a great experience learning about 3D animation and animating in Maya. It made me want to continue my education in animation so by the end of the semester, I had planned on continuing with the animation courses provided at my university. I didn't hesitate signing up for the second portion of Computer Animation class offered during the following semester.  It was because of this class that I decided to get into the animation business.