Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Demo Reel Posted
Technically, it's not much of a demo reel. I really don't have much to show. The video is basically just showing my Robot #7's Dance video. All my previous Maya work weren't too great so I didn't make a formal demo reel. I figured since Robot #7's Dance is the best animating project I've done up to this point, it's best to just show the best I've got. Of course, the demo reel will change once I do more quality projects and such but for now, this is all I have to really show off.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Robot #7's Dance Completed
After 4 months of hard work and stress, my Senior Animation Project, Robot #7's Dance, is finally completed. For details about the project, just visit the "Current Project" tab at the top of the page. For the video of the animation, please visit the "Completed Projects" tab and click on the video link. It should take you to YouTube where it is uploaded. Would upload it here but for some reason, I can't seem to upload any sort of video here on blogger.
There is a warning I want to say concerning the video. The soundtrack that I used for the project abruptly ends so the ending seems a bit rushed. There's nothing I could do about it since by the time I realized it, my project was very close to the due date.
I am particularly happy how this project turned out and I'm also very proud of what I've done in this project. My goal when I started this project was to improve on my animation and comparing this with my previous Maya projects, I've done exactly that and I've come a long way. I'm still learning animation so I am nowhere near where I want to be. However, I am improving and hopefully, I can continue to do that.
Anyways, enough of my babbling. Hope everyone enjoys the animation. As always, any type of critic/suggestions/feedback are welcomed. Also, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on an animation, feel free to pitch me the idea. I do need a new project and I'm open to anything. Until the next project, please enjoy Robot #7's Dance!!!
There is a warning I want to say concerning the video. The soundtrack that I used for the project abruptly ends so the ending seems a bit rushed. There's nothing I could do about it since by the time I realized it, my project was very close to the due date.
I am particularly happy how this project turned out and I'm also very proud of what I've done in this project. My goal when I started this project was to improve on my animation and comparing this with my previous Maya projects, I've done exactly that and I've come a long way. I'm still learning animation so I am nowhere near where I want to be. However, I am improving and hopefully, I can continue to do that.
Anyways, enough of my babbling. Hope everyone enjoys the animation. As always, any type of critic/suggestions/feedback are welcomed. Also, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on an animation, feel free to pitch me the idea. I do need a new project and I'm open to anything. Until the next project, please enjoy Robot #7's Dance!!!
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Blog is Now Fully Ready!!!
It's taken awhile but finally, my blog is virtually ready for show. I've finally uploaded all my project on my YouTube account and I've created a link for each of them to the video here on my blog. I've also made a post for everyone of my projects describing the details of each project I've done. They seem like essays or maybe because I like to babble a lot so they may seem a bit long and unprofessional but I figured it doesn't hurt if I go into detail on certain things. The only thing that I haven't done is upload a demo reel for my page. Reason being is because I'll most likely use my current project as my main feature on the demo reel as it is probably the strongest showing of animation I've done to this point. After all, this blog acts as my online portfolio.
Now I want to take this time to make a quick update on my current project, Robot #7 Dance. The project is entering it's final phase of it's development. Right now, I'm currently fine tuning my animation and rendering at the same time. The animation is about 2600 frames or equivalent to about 1 minute 50 seconds so there's a lot to render. I've been working on this project for nearly four months now but balancing school and work will do that to ya so it's nothing really new on my part. Either way, it's entering its final stages so it won't be long now until it's finally completed. If I get done in time, it may even be screened during the University of Utah's Annual Machinimafest. If that's the case, I won't make a link to the final product until after the event mainly because I feel like I owe it to my university to have it show my product first before I show it to everyone else. I'll make another post when the project is completed so everyone can check it out if they want to.
Robot #7 Dance is coming soon in Late April - Early May so stay tuned!!!
Now I want to take this time to make a quick update on my current project, Robot #7 Dance. The project is entering it's final phase of it's development. Right now, I'm currently fine tuning my animation and rendering at the same time. The animation is about 2600 frames or equivalent to about 1 minute 50 seconds so there's a lot to render. I've been working on this project for nearly four months now but balancing school and work will do that to ya so it's nothing really new on my part. Either way, it's entering its final stages so it won't be long now until it's finally completed. If I get done in time, it may even be screened during the University of Utah's Annual Machinimafest. If that's the case, I won't make a link to the final product until after the event mainly because I feel like I owe it to my university to have it show my product first before I show it to everyone else. I'll make another post when the project is completed so everyone can check it out if they want to.
Robot #7 Dance is coming soon in Late April - Early May so stay tuned!!!
A Boy and His Robot
This was my third project using AutoDesk Maya and for this project, a fellow classmate, Kelly Root, who was also in my two previous animation classes, and I decided to team up and make an animation short together. The concept was pitched by Kelly and I really enjoyed it after hearing it from him. It sounded like a very fun project and creative idea.
First off, Kelly has had way more experience than I have when it comes to animating in Maya. Apparently, he's worked with Maya well before he even took the beginning animation course that I took at the same time as my very first Maya experience. His experience showed with the two quality pieces he produced during the two previous semesters we were classmates. I was glad I get to team up with him because I know I would be able to learn a lot from him outside the classroom setting. I'm not saying my professor isn't good at teaching the materials but sometimes, it's a lot better learning from your peers because they're not restricted to the criteria of the class.
For the division of work, we agreed that each of us will have a part in each phase of the developmental process of the animation, from pre-production to post-production. This way, we agreed that if we particular struggle with an area, the other would be there to help and give advice but not to the part where the one struggling doesn't do anything in that area and don't learn anything from the struggles. The only real noticeable division of work between us is that during the modeling process, I did the majority of the environmental modeling and sets & props while Kelly modeled and rigged the two character models. The reason for this division of work during the modeling phase was because I was more comfortable modeling the setting than I am with characters. Also, I struggled a lot with the rigging process during my last project, Tigerade, that I didn't feel comfortable doing it and potential set us significantly back from our schedule. Other than that, we split the work evenly between the two of us through each phase of the development.
During this partnership, I learned a great deal from Kelly, as expected. I learned how to improve my modeling techniques significantly, especially the UV mapping. The most important things I've learned from Kelly is definitely from the animation department. As I have struggled with that area during Tigerade, it was really important to me learn what I can on animating and applying it. I still struggled with some animation as shown in the animation compared to Kelly's portion but looking at the animation done in this animation compared to my previous one, I've made a lot of progress. Still not great with it but at least I'm getting better and improving which is a good sign.
The story for this animation is that a boy genius tries to create a robot that mimics the boy's movements. This is done so through a pair of gloves that the boy wears to control the robot and the robot responds by mimicking the boys movements. Throughout the animation, the boy has trouble calibrating the robot to follow his movements exactly. With all the calibrations the boy has made, the robot eventually began moving on its own free will and eventually escapes from its creator.
This project was the most productive one I've done mainly because of everything I've learned from the more experienced Kelly. I was able to take what I already know and the teachings of Kelly and apply it to this animation. I'm still struggling in the animation department but I like to think I've significantly improved compared to what I've done in Tigerade. The end result of the animation was fantastic and I was happy about how it turned out.
First off, Kelly has had way more experience than I have when it comes to animating in Maya. Apparently, he's worked with Maya well before he even took the beginning animation course that I took at the same time as my very first Maya experience. His experience showed with the two quality pieces he produced during the two previous semesters we were classmates. I was glad I get to team up with him because I know I would be able to learn a lot from him outside the classroom setting. I'm not saying my professor isn't good at teaching the materials but sometimes, it's a lot better learning from your peers because they're not restricted to the criteria of the class.
For the division of work, we agreed that each of us will have a part in each phase of the developmental process of the animation, from pre-production to post-production. This way, we agreed that if we particular struggle with an area, the other would be there to help and give advice but not to the part where the one struggling doesn't do anything in that area and don't learn anything from the struggles. The only real noticeable division of work between us is that during the modeling process, I did the majority of the environmental modeling and sets & props while Kelly modeled and rigged the two character models. The reason for this division of work during the modeling phase was because I was more comfortable modeling the setting than I am with characters. Also, I struggled a lot with the rigging process during my last project, Tigerade, that I didn't feel comfortable doing it and potential set us significantly back from our schedule. Other than that, we split the work evenly between the two of us through each phase of the development.
During this partnership, I learned a great deal from Kelly, as expected. I learned how to improve my modeling techniques significantly, especially the UV mapping. The most important things I've learned from Kelly is definitely from the animation department. As I have struggled with that area during Tigerade, it was really important to me learn what I can on animating and applying it. I still struggled with some animation as shown in the animation compared to Kelly's portion but looking at the animation done in this animation compared to my previous one, I've made a lot of progress. Still not great with it but at least I'm getting better and improving which is a good sign.
The story for this animation is that a boy genius tries to create a robot that mimics the boy's movements. This is done so through a pair of gloves that the boy wears to control the robot and the robot responds by mimicking the boys movements. Throughout the animation, the boy has trouble calibrating the robot to follow his movements exactly. With all the calibrations the boy has made, the robot eventually began moving on its own free will and eventually escapes from its creator.
This project was the most productive one I've done mainly because of everything I've learned from the more experienced Kelly. I was able to take what I already know and the teachings of Kelly and apply it to this animation. I'm still struggling in the animation department but I like to think I've significantly improved compared to what I've done in Tigerade. The end result of the animation was fantastic and I was happy about how it turned out.
Fatality
This was the first film project for my Film Production class. Technically, part of this short came from an earlier, smaller assignment in the class. All I did was take that assignment and added on to it. Anyways, for this assignment, we were to create whatever we felt like doing as long as it didn't have any synced sound. We weren't allowed to have any dialogue or background noises that was in synced with the scene during the recording. All sound must be done outside the confines of the scenes.
I want to give thanks to my two friends, Parker Haws and Austin Johnson, for helping me out by being my actors for this project. Parker and Austin doesn't have any formal acting experience but I think they did alright for virtually their first time acting as well as what I wanted for the project. All shots were done at Parker's house with natural lighting. The option of checking out lights from the university's film department was available but since I hardly know a thing about lighting on set, I rather use natural lighting than potentially make it look completely weird and unnatural with the lights. Besides, there was barely enough room at Parker's place to shoot the scenes. There wouldn't be enough room to add more equipment to the place even if I did want to play with the lighting equipment.
The concept of the story came from a smaller, earlier assignment as mentioned before. For that assignment, the class were to draw three random cards from three separate jars, one jar contains cards representing a place, one an item, and one with a person. With the three cards drawn, we were to create a one-minute video based on the cards drawn. For me, I drew out A Warehouse, A Balloon, and A Drug Dealer. We were also given the opportunity to change only one of the cards drawn to anything we want if it doesn't work out in the long run. Since there are no warehouses anywhere near where I live, that's the one thing I changed. Unfortunately, there isn't really anywhere that was "shady" in my neighborhood either to fit the Drug Dealer card I drew so I ended up doing it at Parker's house. In the end, I think the setting worked out mainly because it somewhat adds to the comedic factor but also my thinking was a drug deal could happen anywhere, even in a normal looking house. This smaller assignment was only one-minute long so there rest was shot on location and added on at a completely different time.
As for the story, it's basically a comedic approach to a drug purchase gone wrong. The balloon prop was used as the "drug" sold by the drug dealer. To attempt to make it a little more amusing, I had Austin, the customer, buy the drug of Parker, the drug dealer, with Monopoly money. During the confrontation, I thought it would be fun to do a fighting scene and top that off with a Mortal Kombat Fatality spoof.
For my very first film project ever and being a director, it was a lot of fun. Maybe because it was due to the fact that I was working with two good friends of mine. It made it enjoyable and there was a lot of fun moments between us during the shoot. For example, the fight scene took a whole lot of time to get right mainly because they would mess it up somewhere along the choreography I came up with. It was quite hilarious watching them do that scene. I probably had enough footage to make a blooper reel if needed. Parker's little sister who's just a couple of years younger than Parker probably enjoyed watching his brother fail. Anyways, it was a fun project to do and I'm happy with the end result for my very first attempt in making a video short from the beginning to end.
I want to give thanks to my two friends, Parker Haws and Austin Johnson, for helping me out by being my actors for this project. Parker and Austin doesn't have any formal acting experience but I think they did alright for virtually their first time acting as well as what I wanted for the project. All shots were done at Parker's house with natural lighting. The option of checking out lights from the university's film department was available but since I hardly know a thing about lighting on set, I rather use natural lighting than potentially make it look completely weird and unnatural with the lights. Besides, there was barely enough room at Parker's place to shoot the scenes. There wouldn't be enough room to add more equipment to the place even if I did want to play with the lighting equipment.
The concept of the story came from a smaller, earlier assignment as mentioned before. For that assignment, the class were to draw three random cards from three separate jars, one jar contains cards representing a place, one an item, and one with a person. With the three cards drawn, we were to create a one-minute video based on the cards drawn. For me, I drew out A Warehouse, A Balloon, and A Drug Dealer. We were also given the opportunity to change only one of the cards drawn to anything we want if it doesn't work out in the long run. Since there are no warehouses anywhere near where I live, that's the one thing I changed. Unfortunately, there isn't really anywhere that was "shady" in my neighborhood either to fit the Drug Dealer card I drew so I ended up doing it at Parker's house. In the end, I think the setting worked out mainly because it somewhat adds to the comedic factor but also my thinking was a drug deal could happen anywhere, even in a normal looking house. This smaller assignment was only one-minute long so there rest was shot on location and added on at a completely different time.
As for the story, it's basically a comedic approach to a drug purchase gone wrong. The balloon prop was used as the "drug" sold by the drug dealer. To attempt to make it a little more amusing, I had Austin, the customer, buy the drug of Parker, the drug dealer, with Monopoly money. During the confrontation, I thought it would be fun to do a fighting scene and top that off with a Mortal Kombat Fatality spoof.
For my very first film project ever and being a director, it was a lot of fun. Maybe because it was due to the fact that I was working with two good friends of mine. It made it enjoyable and there was a lot of fun moments between us during the shoot. For example, the fight scene took a whole lot of time to get right mainly because they would mess it up somewhere along the choreography I came up with. It was quite hilarious watching them do that scene. I probably had enough footage to make a blooper reel if needed. Parker's little sister who's just a couple of years younger than Parker probably enjoyed watching his brother fail. Anyways, it was a fun project to do and I'm happy with the end result for my very first attempt in making a video short from the beginning to end.
Tigerade
This was my second Maya project. For this project, the main focus for this assignment is character rigging and animation. As the semester progressed, my class learned about how to create a rig for a character and then using the rig we designed for our characters, animate it. There are no other specific criteria for this project.
The modeling process wasn't that hard. Then again, I didn't model a very complicated character. I wanted to keep it simple since the focus was rigging and animation for this course anyways. I figured if I focus too much on the modeling, I may miss something and fall behind with what I was suppose to learn during the semester.
I was glad I thought that way because creating a rig for the character was quite overwhelming. There are a lot of details to pay attention to especially when it comes to constraints of a particular joints. There is a lot of information just for rigging that it's can completely be it's own class. The stuff learned during the semester about rigging was kinda rushed due to the fact that we had to learn everything during a semester so some information I gathered were a little confusing to the point where I just got lost. Overall, I got the basics of rigging but what really gets me is the different constraints applied to specific joints. I was able to create a reasonable rig for my simple character but not without a lot of confusion and hours trying to figure things out.
Originally, I wanted to animate my character to do some crazy, complicated dunk to make animation the forefront of the entire animation short. However, I spent too much time figuring and creating the rig for my character that I fell behind my original schedule so I had to make some adjustments to my original story. Instead of doing a complicated dunk, I changed it to where there are just simple animations, but a lot of it during the course of the animation. I don't have a background in the animation due to the fact I wanted to make it seem like one of those commercials where you see the entire basketball court but hardly anything beyond that. I guess I could've done more to it then what I have in it but I was falling behind and I just didn't have the time for it.
As for the story or the concept of this animation, it's basically a commercial spoof or parody of the Gatorade and Red Bull commercials I've seen on TV. It's more towards the Red Bull commercials with their trademark quote "Red Bull, it gives you wings." I needed a fictional product name and since I play a lot of basketball and drink Gatorade, I used that as a base and created Tigerade. With a product name, all I needed was a catch phrase so I used Red Bull's quote as a base and came up with "Tigerade, it gives you MAD hops." From there, I just needed to create something to center around that quote. Instead of making it boring where I could have a character who couldn't jump but after drinking the product, it can finally jump higher, I changed it up a little bit. I went with more of a comedic approach which I applied in the animation.
This was probably the most difficult project I've done mainly due to the huge amount of information given in such a short time about rigging and animating. It was a lot to take it and I wasn't able to fully absorb all that information. I wasn't exactly happy how my animation turned out but that's due to the fact I struggled during the semester to process information given so I have no one else to blame but myself. The way I see this animation is a piece that measures my progress of where I was at in the area of rigging and animation at that time and would go back and see this piece to see how far I've gone in future animation projects.
The modeling process wasn't that hard. Then again, I didn't model a very complicated character. I wanted to keep it simple since the focus was rigging and animation for this course anyways. I figured if I focus too much on the modeling, I may miss something and fall behind with what I was suppose to learn during the semester.
I was glad I thought that way because creating a rig for the character was quite overwhelming. There are a lot of details to pay attention to especially when it comes to constraints of a particular joints. There is a lot of information just for rigging that it's can completely be it's own class. The stuff learned during the semester about rigging was kinda rushed due to the fact that we had to learn everything during a semester so some information I gathered were a little confusing to the point where I just got lost. Overall, I got the basics of rigging but what really gets me is the different constraints applied to specific joints. I was able to create a reasonable rig for my simple character but not without a lot of confusion and hours trying to figure things out.
Originally, I wanted to animate my character to do some crazy, complicated dunk to make animation the forefront of the entire animation short. However, I spent too much time figuring and creating the rig for my character that I fell behind my original schedule so I had to make some adjustments to my original story. Instead of doing a complicated dunk, I changed it to where there are just simple animations, but a lot of it during the course of the animation. I don't have a background in the animation due to the fact I wanted to make it seem like one of those commercials where you see the entire basketball court but hardly anything beyond that. I guess I could've done more to it then what I have in it but I was falling behind and I just didn't have the time for it.
As for the story or the concept of this animation, it's basically a commercial spoof or parody of the Gatorade and Red Bull commercials I've seen on TV. It's more towards the Red Bull commercials with their trademark quote "Red Bull, it gives you wings." I needed a fictional product name and since I play a lot of basketball and drink Gatorade, I used that as a base and created Tigerade. With a product name, all I needed was a catch phrase so I used Red Bull's quote as a base and came up with "Tigerade, it gives you MAD hops." From there, I just needed to create something to center around that quote. Instead of making it boring where I could have a character who couldn't jump but after drinking the product, it can finally jump higher, I changed it up a little bit. I went with more of a comedic approach which I applied in the animation.
This was probably the most difficult project I've done mainly due to the huge amount of information given in such a short time about rigging and animating. It was a lot to take it and I wasn't able to fully absorb all that information. I wasn't exactly happy how my animation turned out but that's due to the fact I struggled during the semester to process information given so I have no one else to blame but myself. The way I see this animation is a piece that measures my progress of where I was at in the area of rigging and animation at that time and would go back and see this piece to see how far I've gone in future animation projects.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Practice Makes Perfect
This project was done in my Introduction to Animation class. For this project, we were to make a 2D animation of our choosing. The only requirement was that everything was to be edited using Adobe After Effects to generate our final product. My choice was to go with traditional animation where you draw the movements and such on separate pages.
I'm not particularly a great artist but I thought to experience animation, I should experience animation, which I believe, in it's earliest form and that's frame by frame drawings. I didn't have the drawing board with the begs for this assignment so I had to draw everything out as close as I can to the page before. I basically just used basic tracing paper that you can get from your local art store. Nothing too fancy or complicated.
The drawing process took quite a bit of time. I had to draw quite a bit more than I thought I needed. Once everything was drawn out, I scanned every image I had and then used Adobe Photoshop to crop, resize, and some image tweaking to make the pencil drawings more clear. After that, it was import everything into After Effects and start rearranging the files and produce the animation I wanted.
I also want to give a special thanks to my friend, Drew Bingham, for helping me out with the project. During this assignment, I didn't have my Adobe Suite on my computer as I had lost my copy of it so until I could get a new copy, Drew was kind enough to allow me use his computer for this project. I definitely felt bad for bothering him during the project but I live quite a ways from my university so I had to do what was best for the situation I was in. On top of letting me use his computer, he also helped me out doing some of the Photoshop work as well, which I'm really grateful for. He's an undergraduate graphic designer at Weber State University so if he had something to say about Photoshop, I wasn't going to argue with him and listen.
It isn't the greatest animation but it was still a fun one for me to experience traditional animation at its earliest form. I can say that it's probably the most difficult thing to do. It makes me realize just how much we take technology for granted and also just how far animation has evolved.
I'm not particularly a great artist but I thought to experience animation, I should experience animation, which I believe, in it's earliest form and that's frame by frame drawings. I didn't have the drawing board with the begs for this assignment so I had to draw everything out as close as I can to the page before. I basically just used basic tracing paper that you can get from your local art store. Nothing too fancy or complicated.
The drawing process took quite a bit of time. I had to draw quite a bit more than I thought I needed. Once everything was drawn out, I scanned every image I had and then used Adobe Photoshop to crop, resize, and some image tweaking to make the pencil drawings more clear. After that, it was import everything into After Effects and start rearranging the files and produce the animation I wanted.
I also want to give a special thanks to my friend, Drew Bingham, for helping me out with the project. During this assignment, I didn't have my Adobe Suite on my computer as I had lost my copy of it so until I could get a new copy, Drew was kind enough to allow me use his computer for this project. I definitely felt bad for bothering him during the project but I live quite a ways from my university so I had to do what was best for the situation I was in. On top of letting me use his computer, he also helped me out doing some of the Photoshop work as well, which I'm really grateful for. He's an undergraduate graphic designer at Weber State University so if he had something to say about Photoshop, I wasn't going to argue with him and listen.
It isn't the greatest animation but it was still a fun one for me to experience traditional animation at its earliest form. I can say that it's probably the most difficult thing to do. It makes me realize just how much we take technology for granted and also just how far animation has evolved.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
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.
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.
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