The Animated Self: Final Animation

In my animation I produced 4 Models in Maya which reflect my personalities with in me. The 4 models I created were a guitar because I'm musical, A Space ship because I like Si Fi, and a batarang because I'm into superheros, and finally I modelled myself because I initially wanted to make myself move but then I realised that it would be too hard to do so. The thing that I'm most proud of is the guitar because I really like how I've modelled the strings and how they look like they're wrapped round the tuners, also I like my batarang because I've used a different material on the wings which is an aluminium texture which makes the wings of the batarang look sharp.

However, I don't like the model of me that much just because I would of liked to put more detail into the model but if I did that it would of taken up to much time. Also on the guitar the right side of it looks a bit different from the other side so I would like to go back and change this.

The feedback that I got back from my peers when I presented my models to them was good feedback because they said that they loved the amount of detail I've put into my work and that they like how the camera goes through the models and not just panning round them. As well I've changed the song I put in the animation because my friend Oscar said that he had a song that he did that would suit the animation better than the awolnation-sial song that I initially put in there.    

Effective Evaluation Writing

Writing an evaluation is a hard thing to do for many people especially me, because evaluating my own work and being critical about it may be confused with what your project is about and who you did it bit by bit.

To make sure you understand how to evaluate here are some things you can consider next time you're writing one, what do you think for the design overall, what would you change, are you happy with the colours, what are the views of other people regarding your designs, and how was you time management?

Evaluations are mainly about analysing and critiquing your own work, not just about what you did and when you did it. The main point of evaluating is to let people know why you did what you did, and how you feel about what you've done. Also it's about if you had another chance at the same project how would you go about doing it differently, and did you learn from the first time and how will you us this knowledge in future projects.  

Putting My Animation Together

To put my animation together I opened all the models in maya and created a camera to pan round and through the models I've made. After doing this I batch rendered the camera in maya then imported the images into After Effects, and then tweaked around with the settings. It took me a while to find a song to go with the animation because I wanted the music to be calming to fit with the flow of the animation. The song that I chose was Awolnation-Sail because the song has a certain beat to it which in me opinion fits in well with the animation. 

The hardest part of doing this was the lighting because if I moved the light the model would change massively be either being to dark or to bright. However, the easiest part was actually putting it together in After Effects because I'm well acquainted with the software.  

Maya Model of Space

Using some of the skills I've learnt from watching youtube videos and from just using the software more I've managed to replicate a ship from the film Star Wars (image beneath my model).

Having no reference image to help me model this ship I feel like I've done a pretty good job, but I do feel like the model I've made is a bit thicker that the one underneath. What I do like though is that I've managed to find out how to put glass on the model by getting one of my tutors to show me how to do that.

But if I did have to change my model or tweak it a bit I would change the texture because I feel that the white is a bit too mush so I might just make it a light grey colour or something similar to the picture below.

Maya Model Of Guitar

This is the model of my guitar for my new idea I came up with. The guitar at the back is an image of my guitar I've imported in maya so that I had some sort of reference to work off of.

To model this guitar I had to use the CV curve tool to trace the outline of the base of the guitar, nut then I had to convert the outline using NURBS to Polygons tool. I did this so that I could modify the body some more, for the rest of the neck and strings I just used cylinders, and for the tuners at the top of the neck I used cubes then just reshaped them to look like what they look like.

I quite the look of the guitar and how it's shaded, but I might have to go back and change the lighting so that when the camera pan rounds the guitar you can see all the details. what I like about it the most is the strings and how I've made it look like they're wrapped round the tuners, but you can't see that in this picture so that's why I'll have to change the lighting.    

Change of Plan!

After watching a load of youtube videos on how to rig and put skeletons in a maya model I found that what I wanted to do was going to be too difficult to pull off. My original idea was to make my character of me move around and object I.E the batarang I also built in maya, but after seeing how hard it was going to be in so little time left I decided to change my idea to something simpler.

My new idea is have a camera pan round and through my models I've built, I'll also model two more objects for the camera to pan through just so there's more things to look at rather than just two. For the other two models I was thinking about doing was modelling my guitar, because music is another thing I'm interested in. The second model I was thinking of doing was a space ship from Star Wars, just because I like the visual effects in the film and was interested trying to model one of the space ships.      

Giving A Good Presentation

To give a good presentation you need to understand what a presentation is. Its a communication of a journey or a story, its for showing your ideas, thoughts, sharing your concepts and it's an opportunity for constructive feedback from your peers/tutors and it should have meaningful information concisely.

Before you do your presentation you should know your audience and assume they know nothing or very little about your work, so you should inform them about it and you, your role and what you're doing and how you got there/ going to get there. Your presentation shouldn't be about you and about what you look/sound like, also they shouldn't be STRESSFUL so prepare and know your subject and keep is easy and simple. Avoid using clip art because it shows that you can't be bothered or you've just rushed it.

Another thing you shouldn't do is use too much text as the message gets lost, each slide in your presentation should be important and communicate clearly. To do this you should NOT use bullet points because they kill your presentation and make it look boring.

If you're still stressed at this point then relax because the audience it there because they want to listen to you, so take a second to run through what you're going to say. Also be enthusiastic, persuasive and expressive and you should know you don't look as bad as you feel. If you MADE A MISTAKE, don't worry get over it correct yourself and carry on.

To summaries be prepared, learn your script and use cue cards or some sort of notes to help you. prepare your presentation and don't leave it to the last minute and practice it more than once, and when it comes to the presentation day arrive early and set everything up and don't forget to enjoy yourself.  

PPP Maya Model Building part 3

After finishing one arm and leg I then deleted one half of the body and duplicated the other half so that it would reflect on the other side and make a full body again.

The hard part was connecting all the arms and legs to the body then making it look symmetrical and even. I did this by using a tool in maya so that when I duplicated the body the duplicate would copy any changes I did on the original body.

Next came the feet to model which in my opinion wasn't that hard because I didn't even need to look up a tutorial online, all I did was extrude the ankles and then reshaped them to look like feet, or in this case shoes. What came after was the hardest part! I then had to model the head, so I looked at tutorials online and they were so hard to follow because you started with the eye first then move out from there. However, all I wanted was a simple design that looked like a head so I started with a cube and just reshaped it from there while using photos of my head as reference.

I've decided not to give my figure any hands because one there too hard to do and another thing is that it would take me too long to do and then I won't have time to finish me actually animating my figure.