Animation Semester Reflection

My Animation Portfolio

This semester in animation I did many different projects. In this post I want showcase what I've learned through my best projects. I used programs like Autodesk Maya, After Effects, and Photoshop by Adobe Suite.

The Pen

My final project for the semester was to create I pen in Maya. I had a pen that I looked at and matches in Maya. I made sure to get as much detail as possible. I began with the little grip towards the bottom of the pen. I created a cylinder using the polygons tab and changed the number of subdivisions on it in the channel box. There were three small divisions that extruded from the grip so I also extruded the divisions in my animation using the extrude tool. After I created the gip, I moved on to the body of the pen. For this I created a long and skinny cylinder using the polygons tab once again. Next I created another cylinder that was smaller. This was for my bottom where the point is. I went into vertex mode and brought all the vertices at the bottom in so that it created the funnel look. Then I created a very small cone. I used a cube to cut of the bottom of the cone with the booleans-difference tool. Finally I made a small sphere for the ballpoint of the pen. Once I was finished with the pen body, I had to make the clicker and its clip. I made a series of elipses rhino used the loft tool to connect them and make the clip. Next a made a cylinder and pulled in it's top vertices in vertex mode for the bottom portion of the clicker that the clicker goes down into. Finally I made the actual portion that you press into the pen on the clicker. Once finished with the creation of the pen I had to assign it textures. The bottom tip and the body were textured a lambert and the transparency was adjusted so that you could see through the pen like clear plastic. The ballpoint an clip were made a phong with a file seamless metal texture. The grip and clicker were made a charcoal black blinn. That concludes my product.

The Juice Glass

My Juice glass was one of my favorite projects. We used the revolve tool for this project to make the glass symmetrical. First we created half of the glass shape using the curve tool then used the revolve tool. The revolve tool made the rest of the shape for me. The glass turned out very well. I textured it with a very light blue blind to make it shiny and realistic. I also outlined the inside of the glass with the curve tool to make the juice inside of the glass. I texture this with a red ocean shader texture to make it look very real.

The Hammer

My Hammer was another one of my favorite projects. I used the Vertex mode quite often for this project. I pulled the vertices in for the handle and for the hammer head. I used the bevel tool to shape the claw of the hammer and also the extrude tool to pull the claw out. The extrude tool also created the indention on the top of the hammer for the handle and the actual hammer head. I also made a nail using a cone, cylinder, and sphere. For textures I used phong textures to give it that nice shine. I also used some seamless file textures.

Worm Video

My wom video was one of my first real animations in After Effects. I first created the worm itself in Photoshop. I then imported the worm into After Effects. I used the puppet pin tool to make the worm move in and out. I used ease in and ease out techniques as well. Then I used a null to move the worm across the screen. I learned how to use the puppet pin tool and the null tool in After Effects with this project. My first time using the null was a little rough. I made the grassy background using a printing tool in Photoshop. 

Ice Cream Animation 

This ice cream project was another one of my favorites. I really enjoyed the project because there was no tutorial so we had to figure out how to do it ourselves with only a few hints. I used the booleans difference and union tool a lot on this project. I used vertex mode to just the vertices of the ice cream scoops to make it look more realistic.The ice cream scooper was made using a cylinder and a sphere that i boolean-differenced to hollow it's center out to make it look like a scoop. The ice cream holder was made using some cylinders and spheres. The bowl was a cylinder that I hollowed out by putting another cylinder in and boolean differenced it. The textures were phong for the shiny metal loo and lambert seamless file textures for the chocolate  and strawberry ice cream, as well as the vanilla.