Final Project

Watch the video here!

Proposal: What if we were to recreate a space battle scene, also depicting the pilot of the hero's ship as he goes through the emotions of the battle in a comical way?

Production Log: Originally, the project would involve a group of fighters like the hero's ship coming out of a larger dropship and engaging in a more animated battle with the alien ship.

1. First, all of the ship models were created by myself for a project created by the Magic Circle game design club that was showcased at the Interactive Multimedia spring laboratory. I deliberately took out all of the changes that my group members made for the game version, so that I may confidently say that all of the ship modeling that appears in the video is my own work, with guidance from students currently enrolled in Animation II. Two cameras were inserted into the battle scene, and a handful of shaded polygonal spheres were added to simulate the firefight.
   
2. The cockpit scenes were then created using the pre-rigged Lowman model, which I then built a cockpit around and used forward kinematics and keyframes to animate.
   
3. As far as the sound design goes, the music was appropriated from the Nintendo Gamecube game "The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker" with the title "Molgera Battle." The explosions and crash sounds were used from SoundBible, and the voice of the computer was recorded by TCNJ's radio station manager, Melissa Virzi, in the station's recording studio and then edited by myself.
   
4. The starry background was taken from here
   
5. All of these elements were then composited together in Adobe AfterEffects.
   

Evaluation: I'm thoroughly pleased with how the project turned out. There are a number of additional steps I would like to take to smooth it out, such as making the crash at the end of the scene more obvious, as well as making the space battle animation more dynamic, but on the whole I believe I have created a very successful project in line with my initial vision for it.

Animating the Lowman

Video

A very basic exercise in animating a pre-rigged character.



edit: second version

Midterm: Alien Abduction in Maya/ After Effects

Watch the video here!

Proposal: What if we were to recreate an alien abduction, where a modeled UFO appeared to take real people away?

Production Log: The initial plan was to animate the alien abduction in Maya, including the tractor beam and the two abductees getting physically moved into the ship, as opposed to the final vanishing.

1. Footage was taken from the AIMM balcony of two volunteers milling around using a standard handheld camcorder rested on a railing. Part of the visual intention of the project was the have low-quality video as is commonly seen in security footage in convenience stores, for instance.
   
2. A UFO was modeled using polygons in Autodesk Maya. Two spheres were created, one of which was flattened 84% in order to make the “saucer,” and the second was cut in half to form the “bridge” on top of the craft. These were then stitched together.
   
3. The texture of the UFO was then created in Adobe Photoshop, where a brushed steel pattern was applied to the hull, along with a handful of “nonsense” characters made to look like extraterrestrial writing.
   
4. The UFO was then animated in Maya. It slowly rotates as it approaches the camera over a period of a minute, stops, and then rapidly flies away. The difference in speeds was used so that the ship would appear to be a predatory animal, slowly stalking its prey and then quickly absconding once it made the capture to get out of harm’s way.
   
5. The project was then brought into Adobe After Effects so that the two separate videos could be combined to create the abduction. Text, “lighting,” and basic photo editing to remove the two actors were also employed in After Effects, and here the final render took place.

Evaluation: I’m really happy with the technical process involved. I learned a lot about both Maya and After Effects, including how to texture in Maya and how to do just about all of the stuff I did in After Effects. Artistically, on the other hand, I feel like more can be done. Especially, apart from physically being present, the UFO does not otherwise interact with After Effects at all. I think if I were to learn how to import the 3D model itself into AE, instead of just the movie rendered by Maya, I could get a lot more done to make the ship look more convincing, including edits to the canopy glass. As well, the scene could probably use reshooting, as the degree to which the wind affected the camera was not immediately apparent when the video was first filmed. All told, however, I think that the project was a big success for me, and it greatly advanced my understanding of the programs utilized.

Create a Revolved object using Curves

For this project, I used a set of four pencil curves to create a sword when fully rotated.

Editing NURBS Primitives Using CVs

For this project, I attempted to take a basic NURBS sphere and manipulate its CVs to create something resembling a clay pot.

Bouncing Ball update

Assignment 1: "Make a Thing"