Avatar Opening

The goal of this project was to create a short video using SFX, green screen, and maya. We worked in groups and started out by coming up with the idea to kind of recreate the avatar intro, then we made a storyboard for it. After that we filmed each of our actions in front of a green screen and recorded the voice over for it. Then we edited our own parts in AffterEffects.

I edited the green screen by using color keys and a simple choker to get rid of the it and put in an image. I made myself a silhouette by making the brightness and contrast 0 on the video, which is something new I learned. I also learned about collaboration and how it can make a big project a lot easier. 

After I had all the green screen and silhouette work done I added in some dust SFXs for the air. I think it looks pretty good but I would have tried to do better on the movement of the wind, if I did it again, because it looks a little off. But overall I liked how it turned out and would keep pretty much everything else the same because it looks good.

I think this project helped me work on my green screen skills and learn how to make a silhouette. And even though I won't be in animation next year this project helped me learn about collaboration which will be helpful. Overall I liked this project and had fun doing it and if I did it again I would work on the movement of the wind but keep everything else the same.

Maya Tools

  After I created the polything I lighted it by going to rendering and adding 4 lights, 3 directional and 1 point light. I put 1 directional light in front which was my key light, 2 in the back which were my back lights, and 1 in the middle of the polything which was my fill light/point light. My key light is very bright and uses cast shadows. My fill light is less bright and doesn't cast shadows like my back lights which are the brightest.

  To make the hammer I used polygons then distorted them. For the hammer head I used the cut faces tool to make the claw and the extrude tool to make the head of the hammer. To make the handle I just went to control vertexes and moved the vertexes. Then I made the nail with 2 cylinders and pointed the bottom of one using vertexes.

  When making the ice cream I used a bump map called cloud. Then I edited it to make it look more like ice cream by changing various settings in cloud attributes. After I finished making everything I made a looped animation by setting a start key frame, turning it 360 degrees then setting another key frame. To make it a movie I rendered it out in Maya, changing the render settings a bit before hand, then rendered it out again in After Effects.

    To animate the balls I made I started by filling out a table with which key frames each ball started, ended, touched the ground, and when into the air by watching the videos we had made earlier. Once I had all the frames recorded I started animating in Maya. I went to each frame I had recorded an set a keyframe there while also moving whichever ball I was animating to about where it is in the video of the ball. To make sure the balls weren't bouncing in a really weird way I went to the graph editor which is in Window - Animation Editors and made all of the bottom points linear instead of curved.



   When making the cups I used NURBS, curve and revolve tool. NURBS create curves and surfaces in a shape. To create a cup I used the CV curve tool in the bottom left perspective and made half of an outline of a cup. Then I used the revolve tool to make it a surface.

In order to make the salt shaker I made a circle from the curves tab and went to control vertex to move the four corner points in. Then I duplicated it several times and moved them up and shrunk the top one a bit. I went to the surfaces tab and hit loft which made the body of my salt shaker. 

Serpent Character

My character is a serpent creature. I designed her this way because I though it would look cool. 

The tail was a bit of an issue in thinking of how i would make it move across the screen. I didn't really have any issues with the key frames except figuring out how to move the body from one side of the screen to the other. When creating the key frames for the tail I positioned it how I wanted using the puppet tool and put in a key frame. I positioned the tail every second. Since I didn't have to time each step it was a lot easier to animate.

I learned how to use the puppet tool to make the tail wiggle and I learned how to use the puppet starch tool to make part of the tail stiff. And again thinking of how the tail would move the body across was kind of an issue. If I could redo anything I would make it slower. But I feel that I did ok considering i'm new to animation.

The Chase

In my animation there is a girl on a mars like planet being chased by a big black dog and to get away from the dog she jumps into the water.

When I first thought of this it was actually just the girl running then jumping into the water but then I needed to add a plot so I added the dog so there was a problem and a solution. Before I added the dog I had already plotted out the scenes in a storyboard. One of her running through my multiplane background, which I had already made in a previous project. Then a worms eye view shot of her jumping off the cliff and after that a side view of her falling into the water. Finally, I added the dog to the scenes. I drew my characters and scanned them in. To give them color and shadows I used Photoshop. After that I put them in After Effects and put the anchor point in place. Then I added the key frames and rotation key frames to make the running scene. Which took forever! Then I added the the backgrounds that I made in Photoshop as well as the other views of the characters and put in their key frames. I also put in a splash that I had to move around a bit. Finally I went back through it and made little adjustments to my animation like making the characters in the running scene bounce when they run.

While working on this animation I learned a few things. I learned how the tabs at the top of the view work and what they do. I also learned about meeting deadlines and how you should try to spread out your focus so you don't spend forever on one single thing.

If I had to do this again I would change the dog into a dark cloud or something for a few reasons. One it would be sooooo much easier to animate not to mention it would probably look a lot better and two it would be a bit easier to draw and color. If I could keep something the same it would be the background and girl because I like the way they look and how I made them.

I will use what I've learned during this animation by spreading out my focus and planning things all the way through to make sure I like what i'm going to get. But overall I think I did an ok job even though I would change a few things about it. This was pretty fun to do even if it was a bit frustrating at times.

Mickey

In this scene Mickey is walking through a mirror which in our world would be impossible because mirrors are solid. It's possible because when you look in a mirror it seems like you can walk through it. It looks to be real because they give the mirror a plastic feel to it making it probable for Mickey to walk through it.

Here we see Mickey has gotten very large from sting a walnut. In the real world this is impossible because we don't instantly grow to the hight of a room by eating a walnut. Its possible because he ate a magical walnut. It seems possible because even though it's impossible to grow that quickly Mickey does because of the walnut he ate.

 Then Mickey shrunken after being really big. This is impossible in our world because you can't just instantly shrink. It's possible because we see him shrinking. It looks real because even though it's impossible to shrink Mickey does because of a magical walnut.

In this scene we see Mickey fighting against a king if hearts card. This is impossible because cards are inanimate objects. It's possible because the card has human on it so it would move like a human. It seems possible because even though it's an in animate object it looks human so it has human movements.

Finally we have Mickey using a fountain pen as a squirt gun. This is impossible because a fountain pen doesn't have that kind of squirting power. It's possible because a fountain pen can squirt a little ink. It looks real because even though a fountain pen doesn't squirt a lot of ink in the animation world it's exaggerated.

Multiplane

In this project I learned how to make different layers to create a multiplane and make a starry background in Photoshop. I also learned how to make it look like the things in the back are farther away when moving. 

Bouncing Ball

To make a bouncing ball I first created a horizon, a ball and a sky. Then I moved what I made into After Effects. I did this because the key frames in After Affects let you do more with them, I just used Photoshop to create the ball and background I was going to animate. Then added key frames to make the ball move up and down across the screen and to make the ball squish and stretch I adjusted the size of the ball when it was on the ground or in the air. I also edited the key frames to make the ball ease in and out of the air. This project was fairly easy but got frustrating at some points.