Animation

5/6/14 - Final Animation 

This project was meant to be a narrative. Inside of an old arcade game, a gummy bear would face-off against a pair of chattering teeth.

The gummy bear was designed first, and meant to be more like a cartoon than a typical looking edible gummy bear. Using a blinn texture, it then gained the appearance of being shiny and almost candy-like. I then designed the teeth to be much larger than the bear and using a downloaded set of teeth, modeled the plastic and feet around them. Using simple nurbs figures and photo-shopped images, I then created the environment both inside and around the crane game.

 While working on the second half of this project, I encountered many problems when trying to rig the bear and teeth, add a skeleton, and have them function physically. I watched and tried many tutorials regarding rigging and joint work and was able to get the joints to work properly. Because of this I had to move and keyframe each joint individually throughout the whole animation. Since there were so many disfigurements and unnatural movements when using some of the joints, I could not animate this as a whole piece and rather had to animate it in about fourteen different pieces and edit them together in Final Cut Pro. I also downloaded free sounds from freesound.org and after editing them in Audacity, brought them into the project timeline in FCP.


As a whole, the project could have gone better than it had. I wish I had stronger modeling abilities and understanding of rigging a character. I feel like in time, with improved skills, this animation could really improve and become something more entertaining and polished.

I enjoyed animating more than modeling and texturing. Although after having a finished product, I have a deeper appreciation for those who are talented modelers. Being able to create something and literally see it come to life is a very satisfying accomplishment. As rough of a work that it currently is, I was excited to see it rendered and living as a finished product.

I found texturing easy. I did, however, use simple textures and edited images. I learned to position the textures and use it to the shape's advantage. I found myself very indecisive when it came to design of the figures themselves and their textures, which I think became a disadvantage as I worked. I feel I wasted a lot of time when it came to designing each element because I frequently changed and deleted pieces of the textures and models.

I do plan to continue working on this project. I would like to first do more detailed work in the models themselves. That will take the most time and effort. I will also need to work on my skills as a modeler first using texts and online tutorials. I would then like to brush up my skills in animation, so I can create a more natural-looking, fluid narrative. I would like to fix the environment and create more of a three dimensional floor of more realistic looking candy. I plan to eventually publish this onto my personal website and hopefully connect with other animators to not only collaborate but learn from them as well. Cleaning up the models, textures, and even the sounds, will not only help to improve this piece but make it more meaningful and enjoyable.

 

4/22/14 - Lowman Animation

I decided to not really have my lowman animation be doing anything very specific. I needed to understand how to animate a character for my final project and chose to fool around with the rigged model rather than go crazy trying to have it do some sort of intense set of movements. I wanted to get used to how a character would move.

I made it so he did a lot of leg movements, because that is what I need for my final project. I know nothing about ballet but that is what I tried to mimic. I found that moving the body parts individually difficult at first because I wasn't using the outline window, so I restarted quite a few times.

3/24/14 - Midterm Progress

For my final animation I am creating a gummy bear falling prey to wind-up chattering teeth inside of an old candy crane game. It will be similar to a Jaws-like situation where the teeth will act as a predator hunting the unsuspecting bear.

At first, I had difficulty modelling. I kept changing my mind when it came to the overall design of the bear and the setting it would take place in.

Once I had decided on appearance, I then had difficulty texturing. Every time I added a texture to a surface, it applied to every surface in the piece, rather than the single designated surface. So originally, I ended up having to create each element of the animation in separate scenes.

  While creating the inside of the crane game, I wanted to give it the appearance of a dirty, unkempt, old arcade game, but instead I feel it comes across more murder-ish than just old.

  I downloaded a full mouth model from the internet, and deleted everything except for the teeth. I then modeled the plastic part around it and added a red blinn to the surface. The wind-up screw and joints still need to be added to the model.

 After some more adjusting, I finally succeeded in adding a texture to the eyes of the gummy bear. They aren't quite the shape I would have liked, but there are always more ways to improve the model.

 After fixing the texturing problem, I was finally able to import all the pieces and create each scene.
                                      
                                     
 These are the rendered image and video. In the video, you can see the slight wiggle of the ears.

 To be honest, a lot of things went wrong with this project. I am far from a strong modeler and kept having issues with texturing. So far, I am satisfied with it but hope to improve its appearance before the final. I do not yet know how to work with the camera but I plan to really utilize it for this animation as well as deformers. I want the bear to really move throughout the area and be able to turn his head and show emotion.
The teeth should be able to move as two separate pieces and I have yet to figure out how to do that. I also plan to include sound over the project as well. I want the viewer to hear the chattering of teeth as the bear moves his head in each direction and then music as well at certain points. There is a lot of work to do towards this scene and I hope to accomplish everything I have planned.

3/9/14 - Bouncing Ball With Texture

This is the completed version of the bouncing ball tutorial. Rather than use the face texture on the ball, a bump map was used.

2/24/14 - Model Using Curves

Originally, I had tried to create a plane, which had worked fairly well until it came to creating its smaller parts like the wings. I could not figure out how to close the plane body's surface and work with the finer details. It is saved and I plan on continuing my work on it as I learn and understand more regarding Maya. So I decided to work on a new project model, a glass, just so I could begin using more tools and get more practice in the program. I drew it using curves, and rotated it around its y-axis. I then adjusted the finer details via its components. This experimenting in one simple and complete model and one more advanced and incomplete model.

2/17/14 - Advanced Model Using NURBS Primitives

This project was to create a model using NURBS primitives but modify it using component selections and transformations. I was having a bit of a hard time with it, so I made something a bit more simple, and modeled the vase on my coffee table.

2/10/14 - Experimenting with Maya NURBS Primitives

This is the first assignment whose purpose was to become familiar with using Maya. I didn't really have any idea as to what I was doing, so I made an evil robot.


2/3/14 - Bouncing Ball Tutorial

https://vimeo.com/86923035

This is the first animation tutorial I have completed. I am still unsure how to make it appear more natural but the squash deformer is done correctly. It took a while to finish, but for a simple first animation I am fairly happy with it