Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Self Evaluation
Self Evaluation:
Overall- Overall I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of my project. I believe it tells the idea of my story in a very short period of time. What I enjoyed most about it was being able to get my original thoughts down on paper and then on the computer screen. I believe I worked hard to achieve my goal, however I could improve in some areas – for example creating rigs is not my strong point at all. Also I believe I could have developed the characters faces a little more. If I were to continue with this project I would add more to the animation. I would have my characters leaving their houses before they interact and possibly end with the two characters skipping into a sunset. I hope to learn more in animation 2 and develop this project further.
Overall- Overall I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of my project. I believe it tells the idea of my story in a very short period of time. What I enjoyed most about it was being able to get my original thoughts down on paper and then on the computer screen. I believe I worked hard to achieve my goal, however I could improve in some areas – for example creating rigs is not my strong point at all. Also I believe I could have developed the characters faces a little more. If I were to continue with this project I would add more to the animation. I would have my characters leaving their houses before they interact and possibly end with the two characters skipping into a sunset. I hope to learn more in animation 2 and develop this project further.
Final Project Production Log
Final Project Production Log:
Environment- For a majority of the semester I struggled with the idea of what my environment should consist of. I wanted my characters to be in a place that looks bright and happy, however I didn’t want it to be on a street. At one point I had tons of trees surrounding my characters but it did indeed look like they were in a forest. Suddenly I realized that I can have homes [like I originally wanted] but place them on a different ground/plane which ended up being a farm. In order to make the happen I played with the plane aspects, created hills and edited grass.
Characters- My characters are the same that I used for my midterm. LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl were since that date rigid and animated to interact. What I like about my characters is that they are simple, however interesting to look at. If I were to complete this project again I would probably change the look of both the characters faces.
Rigging- Both my characters are indeed rigid. However for a while I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t have the look I wanted them too. Then it came to me; LoveBotBoy needed his nose rigid too so that he can become more animated. After completing that I enjoyed my project even more.
Houses- When working to make my houses I used primitives and played with the vertex of each corner to create that specific look. When I was deciding what to pick as my texture I applied a brick house look and shingle roof. I believe it contrasts nicely with the sky and clouds.
Animation- (see storyboard)
Lighting- I have a spot light and two directional lights to create the look I wanted in my animation. It took almost a week to decide just exactly what lighting I wanted because each lighting effect created a different feel for my project. I am very happy with the look that I currently have. If I was to continue with the project I would probably play with the lights more though so I can create more shadows in the background.
Cameras- I used two cameras in my project. One camera was used to move into the Earth and the second camera was used to show the animation between LoveBotGirl and LoveBotBoy. I tried working with different and unique camera angles to create a cool emotional effect. My favorite angle was definitely when LoveBotGirl is catching LoveBotBoy’s heart. If I were to do this project again I would most likely not change my camera setup but possibly try other areas and views.
Render- The size of my project caused me a lot of frustration when trying to render. My Maya program kept shutting down throughout the process and I had to start over again. After trying multiple times my friend showed me how to batch render by cameras and put my project into After Effects to create the QuickTime. I believe that was successful because Maya only crashed once when I tried rendering that way.
Environment- For a majority of the semester I struggled with the idea of what my environment should consist of. I wanted my characters to be in a place that looks bright and happy, however I didn’t want it to be on a street. At one point I had tons of trees surrounding my characters but it did indeed look like they were in a forest. Suddenly I realized that I can have homes [like I originally wanted] but place them on a different ground/plane which ended up being a farm. In order to make the happen I played with the plane aspects, created hills and edited grass.
Characters- My characters are the same that I used for my midterm. LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl were since that date rigid and animated to interact. What I like about my characters is that they are simple, however interesting to look at. If I were to complete this project again I would probably change the look of both the characters faces.
Rigging- Both my characters are indeed rigid. However for a while I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t have the look I wanted them too. Then it came to me; LoveBotBoy needed his nose rigid too so that he can become more animated. After completing that I enjoyed my project even more.
Houses- When working to make my houses I used primitives and played with the vertex of each corner to create that specific look. When I was deciding what to pick as my texture I applied a brick house look and shingle roof. I believe it contrasts nicely with the sky and clouds.
Animation- (see storyboard)
Lighting- I have a spot light and two directional lights to create the look I wanted in my animation. It took almost a week to decide just exactly what lighting I wanted because each lighting effect created a different feel for my project. I am very happy with the look that I currently have. If I was to continue with the project I would probably play with the lights more though so I can create more shadows in the background.
Cameras- I used two cameras in my project. One camera was used to move into the Earth and the second camera was used to show the animation between LoveBotGirl and LoveBotBoy. I tried working with different and unique camera angles to create a cool emotional effect. My favorite angle was definitely when LoveBotGirl is catching LoveBotBoy’s heart. If I were to do this project again I would most likely not change my camera setup but possibly try other areas and views.
Render- The size of my project caused me a lot of frustration when trying to render. My Maya program kept shutting down throughout the process and I had to start over again. After trying multiple times my friend showed me how to batch render by cameras and put my project into After Effects to create the QuickTime. I believe that was successful because Maya only crashed once when I tried rendering that way.
Final Proposal
Proposal:
Idea: -For my final project I decided to take my midterm characters and place them in an interesting environment. Then I would animate them to interact and tell a short story. My aim time for this project was 20 seconds, my final project ended up being 38 seconds so I am very satisfied with my progress.
Idea: -For my final project I decided to take my midterm characters and place them in an interesting environment. Then I would animate them to interact and tell a short story. My aim time for this project was 20 seconds, my final project ended up being 38 seconds so I am very satisfied with my progress.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Midterm
Danielle Cassidy
Midterm – Animation I
Professor Sanders
March 23, 2010
The Story of “Love [Ro] bot” Boy & Girl
Main Idea: A short 15-25 second clip of two characters interacting with only facial expressions and small movement. My inspiration came from Tim Burton and also the idea that so much can be conveyed without verbal speech.
Proposal: To create a project that would make all viewers smile at a simple short movie portraying acts of kindness and friendship. The story revolves around two characters, LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl. LoveBotBoy is sad and unable to find his heart, which he wants to share with LoveBotGirl. LoveBotBoy then stomps around, shakes his hands, and looks into his hat – still unable to find his heart. LoveBotGirl points to her heart and LoveBotBoy thinks. Then he smiles and remembers where his heart is. He gives LoveBotGirl his heart; they smile and skip off.
Story Board: Attached Paper, 16 frames – 60 frames per second. For my midterm there is only a flyby camera that will be roughly 10 seconds long.
While Creating: To create LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl I used “Create > NURBS > PRIMITIVES>…” I used Spheres (for eyes, body) Cube (for the environment/blue sky) Plane (for the environment/ground) Cylinder (for arms) Cone (for the hat) Torus (for LoveBotBoy body). To create the colors and textures I went to “Window>Rendering Editors>Hyper shade…” I’m hoping to add much more detail to my characters for my final. I parented and grouped all the parts and started working on how to rig my characters, however I did not include that in my midterm because I didn’t finish. For my environment I decided to create an open field for my two characters to interact. I also added a simple blue background.
Issues: I ran into a few issues on the way. One in partial was when I was trying to key the fly by camera. One of my characters, LoveBotBoy, was falling apart, pieces were flying all over the screen, and eyes were rolling in his head. While LoveBotGirl stayed perfectly fine. This happened every time I would try to make the fly by camera move. After much annoyance, I figured out how to fix it (for now) by keying LoveBotBoy into his spot on the screen so that he doesn’t move. However I’ll have to have a better plan for the final.
Self Evaluation: I believe that I did a good job on this project but I still have a lot more to learn and complete for my final project. I used a lot of reference materials including our “Learning Maya” book to help me step by step in creating things. Both my characters are made out of NURBS shapes that I parented and grouped together. In the future I will need to rig those body parts together so that it moves. The easiest part for me was the design of my characters and the storyboarding. Also I enjoyed figuring out how to key frame the flyby camera, it reminded me a great deal of my favorite part of IMM, creating movies and documentaries. After rendering though I realized that my flyby camera might be moving a bit too fast. However I’m happy with it for now and like how it ends on the heart, the most important part of my future short animation film. I’m hoping to get back to working on this project as soon as possible to fix things and advance it to be exactly how I envisioned my final project.
Production Log Timeline:
3/16-3/23 Complete models 1 & 2, camera flyby, environment
3/23-3/30 Rig my characters , texture/shade
3/30-4/6 Animate frame of story board 1 – 8
4/6 – 4/13 Animate frame of story board 8 – 16
4/13 – 4/20 – Fine tuning, re edit
4/20 – 4/27 - Present
Next step: ANIMATION!!!
Midterm – Animation I
Professor Sanders
March 23, 2010
The Story of “Love [Ro] bot” Boy & Girl
Main Idea: A short 15-25 second clip of two characters interacting with only facial expressions and small movement. My inspiration came from Tim Burton and also the idea that so much can be conveyed without verbal speech.
Proposal: To create a project that would make all viewers smile at a simple short movie portraying acts of kindness and friendship. The story revolves around two characters, LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl. LoveBotBoy is sad and unable to find his heart, which he wants to share with LoveBotGirl. LoveBotBoy then stomps around, shakes his hands, and looks into his hat – still unable to find his heart. LoveBotGirl points to her heart and LoveBotBoy thinks. Then he smiles and remembers where his heart is. He gives LoveBotGirl his heart; they smile and skip off.
Story Board: Attached Paper, 16 frames – 60 frames per second. For my midterm there is only a flyby camera that will be roughly 10 seconds long.
While Creating: To create LoveBotBoy and LoveBotGirl I used “Create > NURBS > PRIMITIVES>…” I used Spheres (for eyes, body) Cube (for the environment/blue sky) Plane (for the environment/ground) Cylinder (for arms) Cone (for the hat) Torus (for LoveBotBoy body). To create the colors and textures I went to “Window>Rendering Editors>Hyper shade…” I’m hoping to add much more detail to my characters for my final. I parented and grouped all the parts and started working on how to rig my characters, however I did not include that in my midterm because I didn’t finish. For my environment I decided to create an open field for my two characters to interact. I also added a simple blue background.
Issues: I ran into a few issues on the way. One in partial was when I was trying to key the fly by camera. One of my characters, LoveBotBoy, was falling apart, pieces were flying all over the screen, and eyes were rolling in his head. While LoveBotGirl stayed perfectly fine. This happened every time I would try to make the fly by camera move. After much annoyance, I figured out how to fix it (for now) by keying LoveBotBoy into his spot on the screen so that he doesn’t move. However I’ll have to have a better plan for the final.
Self Evaluation: I believe that I did a good job on this project but I still have a lot more to learn and complete for my final project. I used a lot of reference materials including our “Learning Maya” book to help me step by step in creating things. Both my characters are made out of NURBS shapes that I parented and grouped together. In the future I will need to rig those body parts together so that it moves. The easiest part for me was the design of my characters and the storyboarding. Also I enjoyed figuring out how to key frame the flyby camera, it reminded me a great deal of my favorite part of IMM, creating movies and documentaries. After rendering though I realized that my flyby camera might be moving a bit too fast. However I’m happy with it for now and like how it ends on the heart, the most important part of my future short animation film. I’m hoping to get back to working on this project as soon as possible to fix things and advance it to be exactly how I envisioned my final project.
Production Log Timeline:
3/16-3/23 Complete models 1 & 2, camera flyby, environment
3/23-3/30 Rig my characters , texture/shade
3/30-4/6 Animate frame of story board 1 – 8
4/6 – 4/13 Animate frame of story board 8 – 16
4/13 – 4/20 – Fine tuning, re edit
4/20 – 4/27 - Present
Next step: ANIMATION!!!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
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