In Maya we once more created art. This time it was a chalice, along with a salt shaker. First was the cup, which we made using NURBS to draw a 2D half on the cup, and then pressing REVOLVE to make it go full circle and fill out the shape.
LOFT
For the salt shaker we drew a circle using NURBS, and shrank the corners to make it a sort of plus sign. Then I copy-pasted them 4 times to make the skeleton of the salt shaker. I then selected them all from bottom to top, and clicked on LOFT, which smoothly connected the wireframe with the base material.
After making them, I just put them in a big box and textured them. Oh and added some lighting.
This is my favorite thing I've created in Maya so far. To make the handle, I created a long and tall rectangular shaft. I extruded said long and tall rectangular shaft's face to start on the head of the hammer. I extruded once more and spilt it into two pitchfork-looking things. I then rotated said forks down to make the claw of the hammer. For the striking part of the head, I just beveled it enough to round it off completely.
Lastly, the handle. I split it into three distinctive parts and manipulated to look like a modern rubber handle.
TEXTURE
Then I was on to make it actually look "real", and not like it was 3D printed. I used the phong shader for the metal head, dark grey for the rubber handle, and a seamless grass texture for the ground for über realism. LIGHTING
Finally, I was ready to light it up. I used 3 directional light to simulate sunlight as well as natural light. Then I put in ambient light to really make it pop
Friday, December 15, 2017
BLACK BELT JOURNEY
This video was our first feature news-type of story that we made in Exploring Video Production. It took us about two or three weeks to fully complete, which is really kind of sad looking back. One of our challenges was finding someone to interview in the first place, but we finally decided on myself reaching black belt in Taekwondo, as no one else could think of anything. We learned how to use a two-shot system, with overlapping audio in many places. The feedback I got back wasn’t negative or constructive. They just praised it, so I left my video as it was. That was probably a bad move on my part, not gonna lie.
In class we took quite a bit of time o get to the point of being ready o film. I happened to be chosen to be a group leader, and we got to pick our own teammates. We took about three or so days to figure out questions, camera angles, and visuals. We were never early to do anything, so when we got to filming we had to hurry.
My area of strength I think is editing clips and audio after they’re filmed. My best quality is making quality content, but it might be a couple days late. I stay after school a lot to edit videos. It’s kind of fun, but it drains the soul very quickly.
Like I mentioned before, time management is where I struggle the most. I haven’t really done much to try and fix that, so that’s my bad honestly. Next semester I plan on speeding up a lot. My hands will be flying over the keyboard, you won’t be able to see them.
NEWS PIECE IN ONW NOW
Well this project started out okay. We got to choose groups again, which was nice, and I ended up with some different people this time. Once in our teams, we were assigned a specific part of our student news show, ONW Now. it took about two weeks, which is respectable enough I guess. It definitely would not cut it in the REAL world.
For our news piece, my group chose to cover an Orchestra Performance and a Band performance. The day we picked them out was also the night the Orchestra had their performance. So I had to stay after school until 9:30 p.m.
Another challenge was the audio for the band, as we accidentally only recorded on the right side chanel, so the audio only came out of the right side of the speakers. I did learn how to set up a tripod real quick, mostly due to necessity. Once I got to editing, I was in my element. I learned how to stabilize a shot using Warp Stabilizer, ad that made my B-roll significantly better. The band files were very good as well, thanks to my other team members.
Then we were on to putting it all with the other groups features and interviews and such. Without our teachers guidance it quickly became a mess, and we were very confused. I forgot to sign up for a role, so I just went into the studio for moral support. But then it seemed i forgot to make lower thirds for the anchors, so I went a made them. I forgot export them however, so they were useless. It turned out okay though, as the anchors introduced themselves anyway. We managed to film and play all the clips we needed in that class period thankfully, even with those cutoffs and dead spaces.
What I enjoyed the most of this semester was making the Black Belt Journey video, as editing it was much fun indeed. I would try to work a lot faster next time, though. I can’t wait until next semester where we start on entertainment. Let’s get away from this journalism stuff. I shine when I have the freedom of creativity. What we worked on these past two quarters was not something I enjoyed that much.
I got the chance to act out deepest fantasy. I learned how to animate a worm to make it look like it’s moving. Mark Olson taught his young Padawans how to do it by using the puppet pin tool in Adobe After Effects. I am very proud of this project, as it was my first time making a 2D animation that didn’t make me want to burst into tears. My greatest strength would have to have been drawing my worm, while my weakness was animating it to look a little more realistic. If I was forced to do this project again, I would be tempted to sigh uncontrollably. But, I would make the background of the animation so much better.
STORY ANIMATION
This was easily the project I despised the most throughout my Animating career. We took everything we learned from AfterEffects and poured it all into one single story. This is my child, the apple of my eye, the piece de resistance, my legacy. When my grandchildren ask me what my best accomplishment in life was, I will link them my e-Comm blog. I drew every possible scene for this story that I could think of in PhotoShop (which I despise), and animated it all in AfterEffects. The only thing I would change is adding more scenes to this beautiful piece of art, as I was greatly saddened when we reached the deadline.
MAYA CASTLE
For the final two weeks or so of this semester we shed our Adobe skins and shouldered 3D modelling in MAYA. I personally enjoyed this more than PhotoShop and AfterEffects, and I was ridiculed for my opinion. I learned how to create 3-Dimensional shapes, and how to modify them further. After some trial and error work, we started the base of a castle, and then formed turrets from the ether of MAYA. After completing the castle shape we added textures and lighting, as well as our own personal touches.
MAYA POLLY THING
After mastering MAYA, we went back a couple steps and just made this weird hollowed out sphere. We used shaped to cut out spaces from other shapes, and made a normal sphere look a little thin. We also used more lighting in this, three point lighting specifically. The final product was just a geometrical mass that looks kind of pretty with the lights on. If I could’ve done this again I wouldn’t. But if I had to do this again, I would try to make the shape a more appealing color.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Story Animation
My story animation’s plot has to do with a bird. The bird is flying minding his own business, when suddenly a storm appears and he’s forced to perform evasive maneuvers. After a couple seconds of flying he gets struck by lightning. Just kidding it misses and he actually survives. That’s about it.
This was the most complicated animation I’ve ever done, because I had to use all I learned this past quarter and a half. We used position frames, multiplane techniques, and arc tools to make it happen, as well as opacity keyframes to switch between scenes. After many grueling hours, I managed to finish it. Here’s the finished product:
A good feature story needs expert use of the six shot system, using the power points. Strong audio leveled out through the whole video. The most important part is a good interviewee. If the story OR the person is boring, the whole thing is kinda kaput. An interesting delayed lead is essential, as it's the hook to capture your audience's attention.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Boy, have the last two weeks been a wild ride. We went from inchworms and walking straight over to multilayer designing. Which is not at all hard to animate, but designing it is another thing entirely. I started in PhotoShop once again, and made my sky a nice light blue with an almost white gradient toward the horizon. I added a sun as well, which I colored pure white and added a nice outer glow. I picked a nice muted green for the ground, and made a hilly foreground layer. I repeated the process two more times, the green getting slightly lighter as it got closer to the sun. After I had my ground and river drawn in, I moved onto foliage. Well, trees. I drew my nice pine tree with the brush tool, using individual strokes for each branch and pine needles. It took 45 minutes. But they look beautiful. Then I just copy pasted them a total of about 120 times, filling out each layer, getting progressively smaller the farther back. I also added Christmas decorations to one single tree at the end. I was done. With PhotoShop. Into AfterEffects I went, and I set up the positional key frames I needed for each layer in about 5 minutes. I went to export. That’s where the trouble began. No less than SIX times I exported the clip, and every time I went to open the QuickTime file it said “could not open”. Each rendering takes 15 minutes, and after the first 5 times I realized my resolution was set to 10000 x 1080 pi. So, I bumped it down to a reasonable 1920 x 1080 pi. Guess what, though? It still didn’t work. I gave up, and just had to show it from inside AfterEffects. This is why I don’t have a video. Still my favorite project so far, though.
