Today during Animation 2, we started working on a timed project similar to that of the SkillsUSA Animation Competition. We will be working on it for this entire week, and hopefully it turns out well. So far, we were able to complete the storyboard, assign jobs, and get started on modeling. I ended up making the model for our character, which is a robot. The model I made was very simple, being just some cubes, a few torus rings, a cylinder, and a sphere. This type of model is one I make almost every time when it comes to these timed animations, mainly because it is simple to make and easy to animate without a need for rigging. With that said, I look forward to working on this project again tomorrow.

Today in Animation 2, we continued learning about nCloth and finished adding clothing to the Mini Man. I ended up not exactly making a dress, but I made a shirt for the sake of simplicity, which ended up being easier than a dress. Learning about nCloth has been pretty fun, and I look forward to finding more opportunities to use it again. I do intend to tinker around in Maya over our 4-day weekend, so I will see if I could do anything to improve this (or turn this into an abomination, depending on what I feel like doing). I haven’t had many problems with this that have hindered my progress that much, but it was annoying to get ads while watching the tutorials. Other than that, I look forward to working more with Maya.

Today during Animation 2, we continued working with nCloth in Maya. The screenshot shown is something that I decided to test for fun, taking the Mini Man and making him an nCloth with the “Beach Ball” preset. In doing this, within 9 frames, he inflated and started taking off, as if he were a rocket.

Today during Animation 2, we started watching tutorials to learn about using nCloth in Maya. nCloth is basically something that turns a mesh into a cloth-like material, with different attributes that can be adjusted to change the properties of the cloth. It is an interesting tool, and can allow for some very cool and very funny effects. I did end up getting distracted at one point while tinkering with this feature, and ended up applying an nCloth to my Mini Man model. The effects of this were hilarious, with the Mini Man appearing to compress and effectively deflate as he collided with the plane more and more. Knowing that things like this can be done using nCloth, I look forward to working with it more tomorrow.

Today during Animation 2, I finished my SkillsUSA project. I am satisfied with how the render has turned out. This project has been in progress for months at this point, and I feel like I put all of my effort into making this. I do feel like I could improve some things, such as spacing out the trees a bit more, but for the most part it turned out really well. I did have a few problems, but I was able to figure out solutions rather quickly. Other than those few problems, it was mostly smooth sailing. I did have a few points in time where I felt like I wasn’t being very productive, but otherwise I was getting a lot done, even taking the project home to finish it up. Overall, I am really proud of how this turned out, and I may even do another SkillsUSA Technical Render Job Exhibit so I can make another thing similar to this. With that said, I look forward to learning more about Maya in this class.

Today during Animation 2, I continued working on my SkillsUSA project. So far, I have made the snow completely, so all that’s left is to finish up a couple other textures, import the trees, and make the lighting. There was a problem with the snow at first because it was distorting the entire ground plane, but I was able to fix this by extruding the plane and inverting the normals. I am getting extremely close to finally finishing this, and I am excited to see how the final product will turn out. Other than this, I haven’t had many issues with the project, and I look forward to working on this again.

Today during Animation 2, I continued working on my SkillsUSA Technical Render. So far, I have been able to texture the other logs. I haven’t had many problems with Maya today until I tried to use the Render View. Maya would freeze any time I tried to look at it through the render view, and on top of that, when it did work, the wood bark texture showed as greyscale. It then proceeded to spontaneously fix itself. Aside from this, I have had no issues and look forward to continuing to work on this.

Today in Animation 2, I continued working on my SkillsUSA technical render project. So far, I have finished UV Mapping all of the objects that I needed to and was able to make a wood bark texture, as well as a bump map for it. I have not had any issues with this so far, and even though the deadline is approaching, I feel more confident in my ability to get this done.

Today during Animation 2, I continued working on my SkillsUSA project. I was able to add the window details and make mountains in the background today. I didn’t get much done because I was having a difficult time trying to figure out how to make the trees, but I ended up moving on from that as to not waste all my time being stuck. I ended up adding mountains in the background, as recommended by my teacher, so that way there was more to the project than just a cabin and some trees. It has been a few weeks since I worked on this because of Winter break, but I believe that I will still be able to finish this in time. However, because of this time away from the project, I may need to pick up the pace a bit and not worry about small details unless I have more than enough time to. Other than that, I look forward to working on this tomorrow.

Today during Animation 2, I continued working on my SkillsUSA project. As of right now, I have almost finished modeling everything. Soon, I will move on to UV mapping and texturing, but for now, I still have to finish up with modeling. I haven’t had any trouble with Maya deciding not to work today, so it has been going pretty smoothly today. I look forward to working on this again tomorrow.