Senior Project Progress

Project

Title: Treasure Hunter

Theme: Space and adventure

Moral: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure

Story: A sly treasure hunter finds out that there is an amazing treasure on an uncharted desert planet and sets out to find it. upon reaching the planet, he is greeted by its barren and desolate environment. He pushes on and finds a temple that contains what he is looking for. Trap after trap and trial after trial he reaches the legendary treasure. upon opening the container he finds that it is just full of water bottles. feeling like he's been tricked, the treasure hunter destroys the container in anger only to see that he's being watched by the temple's inhabitants.

Characters: The Treasure Hunter, and The Temple Dwellers

Progress

Character Development Progress

my first idea for the main character in my story was to have a Russian Cosmonaut and his crew explore space to find treasure. I later realized that the models would take too long to make so i decided to go for a more cartoony low poly model. After deciding this, I chose to start making art for my main character and, taking inspiration from a few games I enjoyed, I created a simple character that would be used in my animation.

After finalizing the character design, I created a reference sheet for the character and began modeling in Maya. 

 

Story Development Progress

My main plan for the story at first was very bland so I had changed it a couple of times until it fit. the story I first started with was about exploration and nothing else but now my story is about finding treasure and morality.

Animation Reflection

Animation End-of-Year Reflection

What I’ve Learned

Major Lessons

Over the course of this school year, I’ve succeeded in learning the essentials of animation and further. This year has been a great year for me since i’ve been able to truly show what i was learning by creating some well made and polished animations. One major lesson I’ve learned is to operate as an individual and mostly manage my time by setting goals for certain points in a production to be finished by and to also communicate with many of my other classmates and help them if they get stuck. Another major lesson i had learned was to use different mediums for animating since animating in one medium could limit you to making certain things. I had also learned to be very patient with producing big projects since one of my productions took around 150 hours to make. There was much that I learned and am still learning in or out of school.

Creating Projects and Challenges

This year, I’ve created many projects and worked with most of them to the end. The best of these animations has been my 3D human skeleton. This had been a huge challenge for me since I had little experience with creating custom objects in Maya. I gradually overcame this by getting familiar with the program and got faster and faster at modeling and rigging. Another great challenge I had to face during this project was that I wouldn’t be able to get any help from my classmates. Since no one else in the class had experience with modeling or animating in Maya, I had to look up videos and learn on my own. In the end, this project I created was one of my favorite since I was allowed to work for as long as I wanted and put as much effort into it as I could. The two other projects that I had been proud of from this year were our hand-drawn animations since I was able to try frame by frame animation.

What I’ve Learned and My Growth As A Student

At the beginning of this school year I did not know what it takes to produce a good animation. I had little experience with making anything in any of the programs we used. Over the year, I had slowly learned about the basics or essentials of making a good animation. Some of our lessons taught us how to apply our understanding of these skills while others let us do whatever we wanted. My growth from knowing very little to knowing a lot about animation has been amazing. I’ve enjoyed this year in E-Communication with all the opportunities it provides me. Over the year i learned of my weaknesses and strengths. My strengths are my ability to quickly learn new programs and new skills. My usual weakness is being able to meet deadlines for projects since I take too long on them.

The Year In Summary

In summary, this school year has been a fun and productive one for me. I learned a great amount of new things and honed my skills with older things. I’ve used and applied all my skills to projects both in and out of school and have had a lot of fun doing so. I have even begun working with real clients on their projects. With these skills that I’ve learned, I plan to further my future and work in fields such as the gaming industry. There is one thing that I wish I could’ve changed about this year and that would have been me going too far with a project and trying to make it too polished causing me to never be able to finish it by the deadline.

Stop Motion Animation Project

Animation Project

           Our assignment for this animation project was to make a live action stop motion animation with. We decided to base ours around using 2 people and paper effects

Preproduction

           We had first spent the first day or two figuring out what our video would be over and what props we would need for the production of the video. Then, before the recording and production of the video, we planned out everything in storyboards. our original plan for the video had been very lengthy and we had many ideas on what we wanted to do so we added them to the storyboards and cut certain parts out if we didn't need it later on. After that we had planned out what effects would be green-screened and what would be in the live video. 

           Our video was planned to be a fight between Kaid and Laura using paper as weapons and throwing paper planes at each other. The fight was to be started by an evil piece of blue paper that would fly straight into Laura's head and start the fight.

Video Production

           Once we had picked out whose job it was film, direct, and do effects we started filming. our original location for the whole video started in an unused printing room and we were later forced out losing about a fourth of our video. We had then moved our filming to the break room between all the Ecom classes. Because of the set back of being moved to another room we had to cut a large portion of our original plan out and get the main parts of our video. Once we had finished creating puppet controls for our paper plane we began filming everything again. Filming was easy and only took about 3 days for us to finish. Once that had been finished we moved on to post production.

Post Production and Editing

           During post production, we had assigned a few people to do video editing, audio, and intro and credits. Post production had been a bit of a challenge for a few of us since we hadn't used After Effects in a while and couldn't remember how to use Keylight and other effects. I had done most of the editing of the video and added effects to it while Kaid and Laura edited the greenscreen effects, sound, intro and credits. The editing didn't take us too long and we were able to submit the project without it being too late.

Reflection

           Personally I would say this project had been some what of a success since we had a major issue with who was leading the whole project and often got confused with expressing our ideas. We had trouble with teamwork as a whole yet were able to produce a moderate quality animation even after having a massive set back part way through. We did do well with constantly working on the project and picking who did what they were assigned to do. 

           

Animation Project Junior Year

My Project

I personally have never been a fan of 2D animation because most of it consists of drawing the same character repeatedly over and over again and because of how inconsistent I am with most of what I create, it would be almost impossible for me to draw that. Since I don't like making 2D animations I chose to do something in 3D. I was already used to using Maya and Mudbox so I decided to try and create one of my characters in it. The character I tried to create was a simple skeleton with animal horns coming out of the skull. My plan for the project was to model my character and have it do a simple walk cycle while holding a prop.

Modeling

Before I started modeling, I first found videos that helped me understand and create the basic spine and ribs for the skeleton.

I had also gotten all the reference images I'd be modeling off of:

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I first started my skeleton by building the spine. I did this by duplicating the same vertebrae along a motion path that followed the natural curve of the real human spine. After that, I had also shortened and sized down the smaller vertebrae as it went up. 

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Next I started to model each vertebrae to it's corresponding one on the human skeleton. During this step I had colored each section of the spine so I could easily identify which vertebrae belonged to which group on the spine.

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After that I created the ribs by extruding small rectangles along more motion paths and mirroring them. I had also added the last of the vertebrae in the neck and modeled them to their corresponding ones on the human spine.

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After that I began to model the Pelvis by modeling one side with the sculpting tools. This had been a very difficult step for me due to the irregular shape of the pelvis. The tool I used most to create the shape was the Grab tool to pull around the major markings of the bone and then smooth or amplify them. 

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Later I added the tailbone by duplicating a vertebrae several times and modeling them to look like the sacrum. After that I combined all of those parts and the pelvis together.

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Next I added the arm bones by creating simple polygons and using the sculpting tools to create the correct shape and bone markings. Once I was done with one complete arm I then simply mirrored it across to the other side of the skeleton.

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After that I fixed the rib cage and added the collar bones and shoulder blades. The shoulder blades were also a tricky part to model because of their irregular shape.

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Later I added the legs bones and adjusted the pelvis. I had created the legs the same way I created the arms by using cylinders as the basic shape.

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Then I added the hand bones. The hands were very simple to make since most of the Metacarpals and Phalanges were very similar in shape. I had mostly just duplicated the same bone over and over again and modeled it to the correct bone in the hand.

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After fixing the legs bones I made the feet bones. The feet had been a little difficult to model since all the Tarsals were separate objects. I got through it relatively quickly though because of the Tarsals had a cube like shape.  

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Once the body was complete I started to work on modeling the skull along with the jaw. Modeling the skull had been another very long and difficult part to make since it has so many holes and small markings. The most difficult part of modeling the skull had mostly been the eye sockets.

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After everything was modeled, I then began editing and making corrections to the model.

Rigging

Once that was done, I started to finally rig the model part by part starting with the legs and going upward from there. For this part I had used a very easy and simple naming method of having the name of the bone and what side it was on by using "_R" or "_L" at the end to determine left and right.

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This was the first basic layout for the skeleton of the skeleton.  After the skeleton was finish, I added IKhandles to the arms and legs.

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Next I created all the controls for the skeleton by constraining curves to the joints.

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After I constrained everything I then started adding custom attributes to certain controls so I would be able to control finger movements, hand toe movements, and the jaw. During this step I was also adding certain constraints to joints in the spine. This was a very tedious part since I had to add limitations to how far each joint could move but I had done this so it would be simpler to control and looked more natural.

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Once I was done with the basic rig I went back and made adjustments and fixed a few problems with the skeleton and IKhandles.

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Finished rig and model

Animating

Once everything was done I simply went on to create a basic walk cycle for the character by manipulating the controls I made.

Conclusion

My original plan for the project had been to create a skeleton with horns holding a prop and walking but I had run out of time to implement those into the animation. Although I didn't do exactly what I had set out to do I was still satisfied that I was able to create and demonstrate the 3 main steps to making a 3D animation with a custom character.

Graphic Design Reflection

What I Learned

I first began my year by having a completely different outlook on Graphic Design; I thought it was more artistic and had less to do with business. Though I didn't learn anything about artistic stuff, I did learn very useful skills from this class. The most important skill I learned would probably be how to work with a client and other professional skills. We didn't do much in groups but I did learn about how important communicating and leading a group is. Another skill I learned was simply all the technical stuff we did with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. With the knowledge I have about using these programs, I'll be able to so much more professional looking work in the future. The last important thing I’ve been taught is document the process for anything I make.

Why It Was Important

All the skills I've been taught in this class won't necessarily help me with my future career but the professional skills I’ve learned from this class will greatly help me with any future career. 

Where I Am With Graphic Design

I’ve come from having a completely different idea of what Graphic Design is to knowing the very basics of what graphical designers do. I would say that this isn’t something I would pursue mainly due to all the rules there are to making something look correct or professional. I did enjoy the class though because it was a creative outlet for me to make things.I would say that my greatest shortcoming in this class would be how I was terrible at documenting my process and managing a portfolio properly. On the other hand, my greatest strength in this class would be how I know how to use lots of the programs we used.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this class isn’t something I would continue but the skills that I’ve been taught will be very useful for the career I wish to pursue in the future.

Animation Reflection

What I Learned

When I first entered this class, I knew almost nothing and I've grown exponentially since then with the many skills I've been taught. Through out the year I learned many things that dealt with managing a portfolio, working in a group, technical knowledge, and communication. The most important thing I l learned this year was over how to manage a project and how to manage a portfolio. I was taught these skills from projects such as our group final, character story, and various other things we did in Maya and After Effects. 

Why It Was Important

All that I've learned from this class will have a huge impact on my future career since I intend to go into the entertainment industry. I want to work on animating shows, movies, games, or whatever I come by and the skills I've been taught in this class have greatly helped me come closer to my goal already. 

Another way this class has been important to me is that it has helped me know where to start and organize a project since I never knew how to before. 

This class is also a way for me to create my ideas and have a way to make them look better. 

Where I Am With Animation

Where I am with animation is that I've become very familiar with the multiple programs we use and wish to start working on more and more complicated projects and even work on more things with groups. The only thing I've fallen behind on is I'm not good with due dates because I always like to add as much detail as possible into my works.

Conclusion

My conclusion for this class would be that it has greatly helped me in achieving my goals for my future career and has gotten me familiar with the many programs I'll be using in the future. I had lots of fun with this class and can't wait to do more with it next year.

Professional Project Review

Professional Project

I had chosen to do a review of the video "Alarm" By Jang Moo Yung

the scope of this animation was to show a story of a salaryman dealing with the many alarms set around his house to keep him awake in the morning.

My Review

I would say this short film was well animated because of how fluid everything seemed and how much detail was put into every little scene. The part where it shines the most would be the secondary motion on many of the objects, specifically the cloth and hair. Another great thing the animators did was have reflective textures on all the surfaces that would reflect light. 

I didn't see too much that was wrong with it besides it having a simplistic style which overall made the animation much more appealing.

Conclusion

A few things I think I'll take from this animation is how well lit the environment was and how there wasn't too much secondary motion with objects.