In Animation 3, we are working on our final project. I have made the oven, stove, cabinets, and started making the kitchen scene.

These past couple of weeks in Animation, we have started working on our final project. We decided to base the animation on a cooking competition show where everything goes wrong, ultimately ending in the main camera falling into the backrooms. As of right now, we are working on modeling and texturing everything. All things considered, we have been making good progress despite the fact that the bell schedule for our school has been all over the place because of testing. Since this is a class project, we have all assigned roles based on what our specialties are, with five of us working on it in total. Other than this, I have not much else to say about this project, and I hope the final product exceeds our expectations.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_qyT39s2TfAs2wfUc5MiYda3FBe6Z_ugef5wqF_YEhM/edit?usp=sharing

In Animation 3, we have started working on our SkillsUSA Job Exhibit project, where we get to make either an animation or technical render of something we come up with. For my project, I chose a technical render of a nighttime town square. The link leads to the slideshow I made while pitching my idea to the class. I have been thinking of what I wanted to do for this project for a good amount of time, so I have a somewhat detailed image of it in my mind. With that said, I hope it turns out as good as I imagine it to.

For Animation 3, we were tasked with making a Halloween themed animation. This post goes over the planning portion of the project. Our animation is going to consist of a man walking along a path in what looks like a park. He is looking at his phone when the lights around him flicker, causing him to look at his surroundings. He sees nothing, so he goes back to looking at his phone. Then, a possessed jack ‘o lantern flies onto his head from behind. The man struggles a bit before going back into a resting position, where a sword materializes in his hand. While this sounds complicated, it should not be too difficult to make, with the most difficult part being the modeling of the man.

Today during Animation 3, I continued modeling Jinx’s grenade from Arcane. So far, I have managed to model the jaw of the grenade without the tutorial, using only the reference model provided on the ArtStation page where we got the reference image. Since this is a blog, I feel that I should have the right to speak my mind about topics regarding the class. With that said, Animation has quickly gone from being one of my favorite classes to by far my least favorite. I say this because not only are the deadlines unrealistically tight, as stated from a previous post, but also it feels like all we do in this class are tutorials. Using video tutorials to learn something is perfectly fine, but when it feels like that is the only thing done in this class, it becomes annoyingly repetitive. This, combined with the fact that, at least in my case, the tutorials really only go over the same material we have learned in previous years, it makes me wonder what the point of taking this class was, other than the obvious, “because I have to in order to go into the career I desire to.” Going back to the unrealistic deadlines, for someone who wants to put time and effort into their work, the deadlines that we are provided are nowhere near long enough for us to go through each step of the animation process, even with multiple people working on the project. Between planning the animation, modeling, UV mapping, texturing, lighting, actually animating, and rendering, it is all just too much to do within the short time spans we are given. This problem becomes especially prominent when we try to put effort into our work, where the quality of the work relies on the amount of time provided. Overall, I have nothing more of value to say about this.

Today during Animation 3, I continued following a Maya tutorial where we recreate Jinx’s grenade from Arcane. So far, I have almost finished the first part of the modeling tutorial, but have decided to deviate from following the video to make it look better. As I was making the top half of the teeth, I figured out that there is an interactive 3D reference model on the ArtStation page where the reference image was found. Upon finding this, I decided that I would start modeling based on that rather than by following the tutorial, and it turned out really well. I am still far behind because of how much time I needed to take to catch up, as well as with Maya being down on half the computers last week. Other than this, I am going at a decent pace. I do wish that we would have projects where we could do our own thing rather than following along with tutorials. With that said, I have no other progress to report.

I finished the dancing dino plush assignment that we had for Animation 3. I ended up finishing it outside of class because Maya went down on half the computers and I was absent for a couple days. Overall, I am far from satisfied with the product of this assignment. Modeling the dino was rushed since I was already behind from the ball bounce, making it to where I just needed to get it done and over with. Alongside this, the tutorial does not use a front or side view reference, making it to where the tutorial itself has a scuffed final result. Texturing the dino was not that bad, and I based the color scheme on an enemy from ULTRAKILL called V2, since I wanted to have some fun with the project. Adding XGen to the dino was not that bad either, and was relatively straightforward. Rigging the dino was mildly annoying because the tutorial majorly messes up the controllers and does not fix them until later, but was otherwise fine. Overall, I wish I could have spent more time on each of these parts so I could make a final product that I am satisfied with, but I am already behind a fair bit because of the strict deadlines, so I just had to throw something together and call it a day. Alongside this, Maya breaking put me pretty far behind on the next project as well since I needed to finish this, so I will get to work on that.

Today during Animation 3, my partner and I finally finished our ball bounce animation assignment. Overall, we are proud of the final product, but we did have some problems with it. The problems we had were not really with Maya, but how strict the deadline was. We were putting in a great amount of effort to this project to make it a high quality animation, but the amount of time we were given to achieve this was simply too short. As a result of this, we ended up having to rush animating it, were unable to use the props we made to light the scene up, and most importantly of all, had to rush rendering it. I ended up taking this project home and using my GPU to render it because rendering with CPU would have taken too long. The reason this is so detrimental is that rendering with the GPU makes it look very grainy, our animation being a perfect example of that. I agreed to do all the animating because we decided that, since it was initially my idea, I would have a better understanding of how it was supposed to look when animated. This left my partner with nothing else to do on the project, so he moved on to the next assignment because this was on the day that it was due. This still left the entire rendering process, of which I would waste a chunk of my afternoon doing because CPU rendering 20 frames took 2 hours. Overall, while the project itself was fun, the deadline single-handedly made it infinitely more stressful, especially with us putting effort into the animation. With that said, I look forward to animating in this class again, but I dread how tight the next deadline will likely be.

Today during Animation 3, we continued working on making animations for each of the 12 Principles of Animation. So far, I have most of them animated and lit up, so all that is left is to texture and render them. I will be texturing and rendering the animations on my personal computer because it has better hardware installed in it, making the renders go by much faster. As of right now, I am proud with how most of these are turning out, but I have been dividing my attention between these animations, so they definitely could be better. Overall, I currently enjoy working in Maya 2023, and I look forward to working in this class again on Tuesday.