Animation Portfolio Reflection 2016

Worm

One of the first projects we made in animation was using the puppet pin tool in After Effects. What we did was first draw a worm in Photoshop, and then import the image into After Effects. Then we used the puppet pin tool to apply spots where the worm could move, and used key frames to make it look like it was moving. I picked this project because it was the project that really taught me how after effects works with the key frames and such. I feel like I did a really good job on drawing the worm in Photoshop, but I could have done a better job on where I placed the puppet pins, because at some points in the animation the worm does some weird stuff with his body. With what I learned for this projects I'm probably going to try and use the puppet pin tool more, since I don't really use it that often. I really like this project because I like what I made the worm look like.

Walk Cycle

When we made our walk cycles I learned how to time animations and how to set up key frames for a walk cycle. I picked this project because I'm really proud of my characters design and the background. I feel like I did a lot of work on my character's design. I probably could have made her less stiff though, since she doesn't move a lot. I'm going to apply more walk cycles to my animations with what I learned when making this animation. This is probably one of my favorite projects, just because of my characters design and how much work I put into the whole animation.

Hammer

After we were done with After Effects, we started using Maya. The hammer wasn't my first Maya project, but it was probably our first major one. Here we learned how to use the multi cut tool and the extrude tool by making our hammer's head and the part that comes out on the back. I picked this project because even though it was stressful, I was really proud of what I had made in the end. My greatest strength with this project was probably making the nails, since I didn't have any instructions on how to make the nails; I just did it on my own. With what I learned here I'm able to use the extrude and multi cut tools more easily since I know how they work now.

Ice cream

When we made our ice cream, the only really new thing we learned was how to add bump maps to our materials, which adds a sense of depth and texture to your objects. We also learned how to animate in Maya, but that was pretty easy as it uses key frames just like After Effects did. We put the bump maps on the ice cream and the cones. For a while my bump maps would move awkwardly while it spun, so I needed to figure out how to make them spin with the rest of the objects. I feel like I could have done something to make the lighting better, since it's really dark in my scene. 

Pen

Our most recent project, and also part of our final, was to model the pen we were using to take notes in class. Luckily, I had a pretty easy pen to model. When I was making my pen, I didn't really learn anything new, since we were using skills we had already learned, but I may have figured out easier ways to do certain things. I picked this project because it's probably the thing I'm most proud of from this semester. I think I did a really good job on making the pen proportionate to what it looks like in real life, but I feel like I could have done a better job on making the clip part of the cap. Making this pen has really helped me be more independent in Maya, since we didn't have a tutorial or anything on how to make a pen, since we all had different pens.