Pre Production Continues

Hi all. Its been quite busy on my front for the past few weeks. We have been focusing on particles and fluids for the past few weeks and recently touched on soft bodies. All different techniques I hope to explore in my final animation assignment. Below you can see the final result of my particle project. Overall I was happy with this but there are many things that I would change and be cautious of in the future. I really needed to focus more on the planes and their movements. At times they become a bit too jerky. I was really excited for the explosion collision, since it was a new territory with the collision event editor. Also gave me the opportunity to explore the hypershade more. Enjoyable stuff!



I have made some updates to the character design of my robot and I hope to share that with you this week. For now, this is one of the main items the main character will be holding.




Im really trying to push texturing on this one since I have some time to focus on it. Im not 100% thrilled on this right now but it is getting there. I still would like to get a more brushed texture look, which I got rid of my attempts for this render. Hope to discuss it, in modeling class tomorrow to see where I can go with this next.

Other than that, I have been hard at work gathering inspiration and sketch ideas for the setting of the animation project. My goal is to start modeling things tomorrow and to get the "set" done by the weekend/early next week. I would like to start texturing next week. We will see if I can hit those goals. Until then, lets have mother nature stop the snow!

Updated Robot Design

After reviewing the last sketch I really didn't like the overall vibe and sense of feeling he was creating. Im trying to go for a serious tone with my story and I want to make sure I reflect that in the design. Therefore I made quite a few adjustments to the design. I also added some more elements that will hopefully help in the actual rigging of the character by putting essentially ball joints where the movement will be taking place. Also due to limited time in the process I wanted to make sure I felt like I could handle the animation load. Therefore the main emotional connection will be coming from the characters eyes and Im going to do a test to see if I can work with the flatness of the grin and the eyes to convey it. We will see how it goes. Hopefully everything will be approved thursday, so I can start modeling.

Dynamics Ahoy! Pre Production Ahoy!

Already two weeks into the term and I feel like things are kicking into high gear! Im thoroughly enjoying all my classes and Im having a blast jumping into the subject matter. One of the first assignments was to approach dynamics in Maya. Let me tell you that it was quite an experience. I learned quite a bit about how certain things can effect the overall picture and trying to get things to act in the correct manner. The first video I have here was a "Little Big Planet" approach to the subject matter.

I ran into a few issues trying to convey that and overall really wanted to go back into the assignment. After the class critique I decided to head back and focus on cleaning up the actual cause and effect of some things. I apologize for the dead space thats in the project but after cleaning it up, I ended up with a decent amount of it. I needed to speed up certain aspects to help convey weight and speed. Overall I was happy with it but alas I needed to move onto the next project.
We are currently learning the basics of particles and how we can apply them throughout our animations. Looking forward to exploring them this next week.

Below I also have some rough sketches of my robotic character for my final animation 2 project. Im currently waiting for story approval but I wanted to get started on preproduction. I can adjust if alterations need to be made. This will at least get ideas down. As always, would love feedback. Have a great day everyone!