For my final for advanced animation, I knew I wanted to do an action sequence. A chase scene/battle was what I had in mind. I knew that I wanted to use an android/alien type of character for the antagonist and he came out exactly as I hoped he would. For the protagonist, I wanted to have a human, buff, pilot type. However, as I created him, that is not how he came out. He ended up very thin and rounded so I gave him a suit with a rubber texture and used him as an alien. This worked out better because it allowed me to do things during the battle that likely would not have made sense with a human. I also wanted to add in special effects. However, Mayas special effects are rather taxing on computer power and quite a few of the things that I wanted to do just where not possible with the computers afforded to me. However, I was able to add some effects in with After Effects and in the end I really thought that gave me an extra opportunity to become a little more familiar with After Effects as a program. In the end, I was really happy with how my project turned out, though there are a few things that I would like to clean up before putting it in my portfolio.

Travis Lane DTC 435 Final

For this project I wanted to do something very simple that would also be interesting to watch, I decided the best way to do that was to focus on a very simple object while things happened around it. I decided on an egg that finds itself rolling through danger while its mother (a Pterodactyl) protects it from being destroyed. I originally had multiple scenes in mind for the egg to go through before making it safely back to the nest but settled because of time constraints I decided to do two of the scenes, rolling down the hill and then falling over a waterfall.

I had some trouble with rigging my creatures but eventually figured out how to successfully get them to fly and swim and complete the tasks the way I wanted them to. The biggest issue I faced in this project was the rendering process, while using mental ray not every frame would render out and because of this I resorted to using the Maya Software. This project was a lot of fun I especially enjoyed crafting the environment and modeling my dinosaurs which each went through several iterations before being completed

Although the project changed quite a bit from what I had in mind to start out it still has many of the scenes I had imagined when putting together the storyboard. If I could change some things in my project I would have added more motion to my characters that at the moment both only complete one action. In order to make them feel more alive I would add more actions and interactions with the environment.

Production Statement:

This is an animation creating a conflict between two characters for an advanced animation class. My original goal was to create a sword fight between two characters using realistic sword fighting techniques. I also wanted to bring a cartoon look. But as I made it I quickly went for a silent narrative approach as I found it more interesting. I created an approach that has realistic textures but still has a cartoon look as well as tone. I also didn’t want music in order to better flesh out what was happening I felt that no music made this more comical. The biggest problem I had by far was character rigging and getting the skinning right. This coupled with animating each joint throughout the animation. This was difficult as it took an extreme amount of detail and time. I would also say that much of what I learned was certainly in rigging and important techniques which will make the animating easier in the long run. I was happy with the outcome but I certainly would make more changes earlier on which would have saved me time.

https://vimeo.com/165199716

This was one of the most difficult 3D projects that I have ever had to tackle, for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, my specialty is 3D modeling, not animation. Additionally, my background is in hard-surface view models for games. This stands in stark contrast to the requirements for character and environmental modeling. Instead of focusing on clean geometry, both environmental and character modeling are distinctly more freeform, and require a completely different outlook to succeed in. On top of the stylistic difference, I was simply not knowledgeable in character modeling. This led to issues, particularly which how the clothing was modeled, and how the hands were positioned in the T-pose. Together these issues served to compound issues I was already having with the rigging and skinning. Combined, these errors resulted in an incredibly frustrating process, especially when my perfectionistic tendencies were taken into account. Finally, when I sent the file off to be renders, I accidently failed to include my textures, which resulted in a final animation which was completely lacking in textures. Even with the troubles that I encountered throughout the process, I was fairly happy with the outcome. The music and visuals came together to create a unified whole. Additionally, the camera work was successful in creating the spaghetti-western vibe which I was intending for.

This short, one-minute animation tells the story of a highly improbable series of draws in a “friendly” game of Blackjack. The setting is a run-down tavern advertising itself as a far classier establishment than it is, hence the opening and closing slides. This was my first attempt at modeling human characters, and though they’re simplistic, I think a recognizable style emerged from it. Story, animation, and models are all made by myself, textures and audio from various sources.

This project was fun and at the same time infuriating due to missteps that I had taken. Although this turned out well there are mistakes that I could have caught onto before rendering. Though again, I think the animation turned out well and I got to learn or rather relearn to frustrations of rigging. Let us start with what I enjoyed from doing this and how it will have affected my own approach from here on. First off, the characters were designed to be slightly cartoony, though there was an issues with using too many edges so they required a quick cleanup of unnecessary things. After that though came rigging and my own personal nightmare in a way. Another thing I noticed only after I had rendered this was that some of the surfaces are reflective, something i didn’t notice until i had taken this to After Effects, though at that I could only work with what I got. Another thing that i had trouble with is of rigging. Rigging in my own opinion can be considered an art, one of which I became all too aware of during the times when I could rig. One of the things I noticed was that I was not properly parenting them, though I tried to fix that as much as I could. I don’t think it I did enough to get the rig to look right although what I got out of this mistake was experience for what not to do in the next rigging.
There are many things that I could work better on for the next time I need to rig a character for animation and what I’ve learned from here will prove invaluable in what to do properly at that time.

Music came from Free Music Archive: Oh! By Jingo! By All-Star Trio