For the past two weeks in Berkeley College’s online classes with Chris, I have found it enlightening and relieved to be going over work from 2nd semester in 1st year and still using Maya and improving graph editor. Here is my work progress from the last two weeks.
Ball Animation
Single Pendulum
Pendulum Course
For the summer I have been watching videos on Blackboard talking about the walk cycles from 2D to 3D. I will talk about the 2D first with two walk cycles I’ve done. For the 2D animation I had a small bit of knowledge with frames and different poses for the character when moving then being a still image. After looking on 2d animation on blackboard by Sarah and watching LinkedIn learning with animation tips, I became familiar with the walk cycle and tried doing two sperate work for it on Krita with the number of frames used for each pose like an animatic.
The first practise
The Second work
The first was a practise to working on the layers and movements from the legs where one is shown in the light and the other in it’s shadow.
For the next one I chose one of my original characters with the arms, legs, hair and skirt. The arms and legs where easy enough and doing the skirt was simple as I watched on LinkedIn learning tips for fabric animated. I also added in some colour for the skirt and nose as a simple practise with the colour as well for the skirt to show it flowing.
Now the 3D animation walk cycle was used on Maya with a rig from blackboard called the azui.rig. Totally different from the 2D animation cycle where we used 32 frames and we didn’t have to draw. Watching Alecs videos helped me through the process to understand about the curves, rigs and motion of the character when walking. I couldn’t get the texture colours displayed on the rig but everything else checked out perfectly in the end.
Throughout this semester, I have learnt new things and went through some ups and downs for some projects but managed to pull myself up again. Just like the previous assignment with the 2D animation project it was interesting about the 3D concept like the 2D with storyboards and animatics but had rigging and a pre vis to the characters movements as well as lighting in Maya. It was enjoyable with my group having amazing ideas on our project and how to make it better by editing some plot stuff out even if it was a 15 – 30 short animation project for this semester.
However, there was some issues with Maya in the topic of rendering as it took up the whole week to finish my animation and export it to after effects. As well as my team who had trouble in rendering the whole sequence throughout this week while asking for an extension to give us more time to finish it up. It was a struggle some times this animation course especially with Maya and its projects but I thoroughly enjoyed this year and how I learntΒ more of animation but I must say I still prefer the 2D more then the 3D.
But for the future, I promise myself that I will try to sort out myself when it comes to animation by doing the summer work and practise more with the animation on Maya or Krita by watching video tutorials and improve my techniques for next semester.
This project has been quite the experience with 3D animation, just like last semester with a previous project involving 2D animation during Christmas. But it has been time-consuming with this project and how software apps don’t work as intended too especially when it comes to Maya and rendering. But here is my work for the bee project from the beginning of animated narrative class:
Lightbulb Model Final design
Animatic Part
Bully Bee Model Final Design with concept art
Pre-vis part before models were sent out
Second Previs
Final version of Animation
This semester with 3D Digital Literacy has been very creative and diligent with 3D while using the software Maya, Substance Painter and Blender for creating the our characters. This assignment 2 is just like the previous when we created objects and sent them off to Sketchfab however this time we used Blender that was very handy and interesting as it opened my mind on how Maya took basic shapes and polygons while Blender was flexible and gave us so many options to create our cute characters. Overall the assignment was very enjoyable but there was some issues with the retopology/UV in Maya and Substance Painter.
The Retopology was very time consuming in Maya and there was times that an objects UV did not show when it was topologized so I had to do it manually which was time consuming. Also substance painter had to go through multiple updates which I had to patiently wait for it to finish. But I managed to get it done in time, I’ve learnt that I maybe have to get better equipment or make sure everything is updated. It became much easier to do the work while watching the videos on blackboard to help me out on any issues I had or had been stuck on.
Here is my model uploaded to my sketchfab website which I have done over the weeks up till today. Watching the lesson content videos on blackboard from Henry and Mike has really helped me out over the weeks with creating my character. Using Maya and Blender was a fun experience.
Here is my UV from doing the retopology which now I fully understand other than last assignment from re-watching the previous videos on UV located in blackboard to get my head around it. My substance painter kept shutting down so I couldn’t send any pictures of my work on painter but my models are uploaded onto my OneDrive.
Textures and models are onto my OneDrive for here is the link
3D Digital Literacy Assignment 2
Here is the link to my sketchfab website
For week 12, it was our last week before the Easter holidays where the lecturers would give their guidance for our assignments before submission in May. On Wednesday in 3D Literacy we were going over our models, for I was at the retopology stage when Henry gave some tips to do it faster by using a shortcut or just to do it manually. i decided it do it manually on Maya so there would be no problems with the software.
On Thursday I was not in but I had recorded my part for the PowerPoint presentation for my progress on models and previs. My team informed me what changes had to be made to my animation pre-vis part, the summer practise that was added onto blackboard and what we have to download for semester 2. Furthermore I am working on both projects up to early may so I may submit my assignments on blackboard.
For this week we had learnt on UV mapping and had a sketchfab recap like what we have done for assignment 1 models. For this we learnt on what we had to do after the retopology on Maya and move onto Substance painter before sending it off to Sketchfab before release.
Here is where my blender project has finished with my character, before sending it off to Maya.
For my progress on my character I had saved it a Fbx and moved into Maya ready for retopology.
I watched the lecturers and other videos on YouTube to help work on the retopology faster for my work with Quad draw on specific areas like the arms or petals.
For this week I have rendered an image, controlling the volume of light and making sure the Maya model is 100% rendered to look realistic. It was an easy process that helped me to understand and control light for a lightbulb that I have entered into my Bee sequence.
Lightbulb idea
For this week we have been learning about lighting within the environment especially for shots and scenes used in animation. We practised lighting on a 3D model in Maya using rendering to make the effect and controlling the volume of lighting to make it brighter. My lecturers showed me HDR images that can be used for the environment when using the aiatomsphere light option.
For our group project I have been working on a prop for the bee project which is an lightbulb for the main character.
