Vocabulary of Animation

Vocab

Displacement mapping: cause an effect where the actual geometric position of points over the textured surface are displaced.

Bumping mapping: a technique in Maya where you create bumps and wrinkles in the surface of an object.

Rendering: a translation.

Alpha channel: is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency.  

NURBS vs Polygons: NURBS: Compatibility of creating organic, flowing surfaces such as animals, human bodies, and fruit. Industrial surfaces such as automobiles, clocks, and toasters. 

                                                     POLYGONS: Can be simple shapes, such as polygon primitives.

Tiling: 1. The action of laying tiles.

                  2. A surface covered by tiles. 

Skinning: An outer layer. 

Aperture: A space through which light passes in an optical or photographic instrument. 

Shutter speed: Effective length of time a camera's shutter is open. 

Focal length: The distance between the center of the lens or curved mirror and its focus. 

Dolly: Create smooth camera movements. 

Pan: Swing (a video or movie camera) in a horizontal or vertical plane, typically to give a panoramic effect or follow a subject. 

Roll Aspect Ratio: Describes the proportional relationship between its height and its width.      

Update for you all.

Hey there you guys. Sorry about not really posting anything lately. It's finals week and it's just  preparation for finals. It's been just a lot and I haven't really been doing any work in Animation cause my other classes are a little more important on the scale so that's why I haven't been really posting anything at all cause I haven't been doing a whole lot. I got like a huge stack of homework and study guides and this just isn't as important as my other classes so yeah. Just trying not to loose my mind in all these papers. And O hey it's also my 17th birthday today. So I am officially 17 now and moving up in the world and in life so yes. Today's a good day for me but I especially hope that all of you are having a good day to.

Awkward Shape 2

Hey there you guys so o my! UGH!! I'm honestly so frustrated right now, this class seems to get harder and harder. But I know things aren't supposed to be easy all the time in life but man this animation class is pushing me to the edge it feels like. I can't figure out some of these things and when someone in the class tries to help me, it's like they are speaking another language that is alien to me. It's just so ridiculous. I honestly think I like Photoshop over Maya. I like Maya when I can just explore for myself but I don't like it when it's someone else trying to explain it to me. I like my teacher don't get me wrong but this class is harder than my level 3 Japanese, and that's a problem. A NEW LANGUAGE SHOULD BE HARDER THAN A COMPUTER CLASS! Do you think so? Agree or disagree? But anyway didn't even get far in class today but here is really all I did today. Tried to get my lighting but camera flipped weird or something and all jacked up. So yeah anyway yeah alright bye you guys.

Lighting

Howdy y'all! Just kidding. So today we started working on this shape that we had to make using vertices. As you can see to the left here, it did come out pretty awkward. But so we have to basically render this thing, and don't ask what render means cause I really don't know haha :). But we have to render this shape so there is light that bounces of it and causes a shadow. We basically have to put value and a spotlight on it to make it look like it is in a spotlight scene. The shape is supposed to look like metal but mine came out kind of weird looking but it still looks good, kind of... But that is really all we did today. Time is wrapping up. We get out June 6th so time is coming to a close and summer is coming to a start! So excited to get out of school. I need a break from all the stress of school. I gotta say this year was rocky at points but it was still good as some spots of the year. I just hope I pass with all great grades cause I'm fighting it in Japanese. Wish me luck you guys, cause I'm gonna need it. But have a great day everyone. BYE!

Claw #1

Hey you guys so here is another project that we are working on. I call it "The Claw," even though it technically isn't a claw. But it's a magnet claw I guess. But so far all I got done right now is just having the claw off of the instructions and the box. I have the wire frame too now. (That is the scene or picture, whatever you wanna call it at the bottom). So basically what we are gonna have to do in this project is have the claw animate or put animation on the claw so that it reaches down and picks up the box below it. And then it has to move the box, or swivel around, and place the box down again. But there are a couple of joints that we have to animate so that it looks like a real crane moving and not a broken crane trying to swivel around. This might be the second hardest project I have had to do in this class. The first hardest would have to be this Luke Skywalker lightsaber we have to create from scratch. Not too happy about doing that but I almost got my 20 reference pictures for it, and yes I said 20. And did you know that you can only get so much before you either run out of pictures or you just start running into duplicates. Yeah not easy to find but I got six more to find so it's all good. But yeah that  is all I did today was the crane and the aircraft so I hope you enjoyed these posts today. Goodbye

Aircraft

Howdy there y'all! Sorry just had to do that to you guys. :) But hey so today here is one of almost our last projects. It is of an aircraft that flies around the line and then lands from where it started. So basically like all the other posts this week, the bar below is the animation flow of the aircraft. The aircraft speeds up at about 186 and really just zooms off. Still wish I could post videos or something. I think I got it figured out, I just gotta do it now. But yeah that is it for now. Tune back onto this website/blog to see some more stuff. School year is coming to an end but I don't think I'm gonna stop posting. So until next time, bye!

Something I just made.

So hey there guys! So this is just something that I just got bored and made in class one day. It starts off as just a little box but grows into the humongous thing that shrinks and then spreads out and disappears. This is my favorite part of it, that's why I took a snapshot of this specific part. The bar below it with all the colors is the animation flow of the animation. It's really crazy and weird once it got more advanced, as you can see. The more the color, the more complex it got with the animation. The object consists of planes, squares, circles and spheres, and so much more. Everything moves and everything grows and shrinks and expanses. There is just a lot of animation that went into this. So I hope you enjoyed another still picture. I wish I could take a video and post it on here... Hmm I actually might try to do that but okay bye!

Tennis Court with Bouncing Ball

So hey guys here's another one of our projects that we have to complete. It is a tennis ball and tennis court. Basically what we had to do is make a ball jump over a "net" and then land and bounce one more time. This was another simple and basic animation that we had to do. Its just a polygon ball, polygon plane, and a polygon square that I stretched out. This project took about 20 to 25 minutes. Simple things. The bar below is the animation trail by which the ball travels across the court. But yeah that's about it, not that much or that exciting but its something and a grade so here yeah go.

Ball and Door Animation

Hey there again y'all! How you guys doing today? So today, well lately we have been working with animations and this was one of our projects that we had to do. The picture above is obviously the objects that I animated and then the bar below it is the animation key line. That is the way the animation flows and the direction each object flows in. It took like 15 minutes to do and was quite easy. All the objects are is a polygon sphere and a polygon square that I stretched out to be a wall. It was quite simple to do. But yeah here it is. I know its not the most exciting thing I've ever posted but yeah gotta do it for credit.

IB Art Show

 SO today we went to the IB Art Show and looked at people's artwork and examined some things about their artwork. Today I looked at a girl's work who used a variety of vibrant colors of watercolor. She combined a media of emotions and art and really used colors that attract and blend really good together. She had this one picture that had a woman crying and the tears and bright blue in her eyes made the painting look unique and extravagant. Even the tears running down her face looked very real and peaceful. Another one she had was used with colors of bright purples and pinks and light shades of yellow. She had painted another woman but this one had an orchid on her head that was so stand outish that is really made the piece pop with color and excitement. All her pieces had bright colored eyes like neon pink and neon blue which worked well with the surrounding colors of her pieces. But the interesting thing is her backgrounds were just white which worked incredibly well with her choice of colors that she worked with. I wish I could have taken a picture of it but I couldn't but it was amazing and B-E-A-UTIFUL! But that's everything in a nut shell so thank you and have a great day to you all out there in cyberspace!

Gas Ball

So I was messing around again and found some pretty interesting things. Somehow I made a green gas flow out of the sphere and then after that the ball started to lift up and like float away and this rope like stuff like held on to it and it went in like a big circle. See I want to just play around on Maya and not have to do just assignments but can't choose responsibilities. But I just wanted to share it with you, got bored so I just had to play around for a little. Cool right!!

Hydrogenase Molecule

Hello! So today we started to work on the Molecules Maya program that we downloaded last class. It is a big project and we kind of got to do it on our own which sucks cause I suck at 3D animation because the computer is so technical but this is the beginning of my molecule. I picked the Hydrogenase molecule. The picture at the top is the beginning of the molecule at a render of medium. Its going to be big and more of a molecule when it is finished but for now this is the beginning process of the molecule. Gotta fly! Sorry haha wanted to say it, I saw it off of a Batman movie last night but have a good rest of your day.

Thoughts about Molecular Project

I have to write my thoughts about the project before I start my molecular 3D project so here are my thoughts... Mr. Cornell is making us do these molecules because he wants us to gain experience and work more with the more difficult aspects of Maya but also to challenge us to do it on our own and to try and accomplish something without his help or guidance a lot of the time. I'm not really a 3D kind of student but I like science over all other subjects so I think this is cool but this will challenge me to do something I don't usually do or like to. So those are my thoughts about this molecular project. 

Hey you guys check out this molecular molecule video> http://www.glcheung.com/images/research/mrp.mov
This is what we are trying to do in class but not so movieish and big, we just wanna make the molecules and post them, not actually make a movie.

Hey you guys! So today's update on 3D Animation class and me. Today, well Tuesday we installed a molecular Maya, where you can make proteins and molecules in 3D ways. I guess scientists and hospitals and a lot of places are using it, especially if in the field of molecular study. Anyway we downloaded it in Maya today well last class and now today I think we have to pick a molecule and create it in Maya but I couldn't really because by the time we got done with a video on it, class was a bout to be up and well I had to blog to you guys. So unfortunately I can't post a picture of it today but the more we start to work with it, I will post one up. They look really cool and I can't wait to do one. And here is the website encase there are any of you out there who like this kind of stuff and want to do it (http://www.molecularmovies.com/). Check out the video! >http://www.glcheung.com/images/research/mrp.mov

Salf Shaker

Hello you guys!! So today I did, well started a salt shaker that we are doing in class. That is the beginning of it but it really isn't that close to being done but it is fairly close to being done. I do have to fix the circle inside of the actual tube because it is too small and may be even the bottom. Still trying to figure it all out right now. But I hope you enjoy this oddly shaped salt shaker. :)

Egg Head

Hey you guys so today as you can see, I did an egg head! Well it's not technically done but here is the beginning process of it! So the only thing I got so far is the nose which I may have to fix, because it is way too big. But besides the nose and the eye sockets, there is really nothing else done yet. But also today we looked at a new popular thing coming out in this year... IT IS A 3D PRINTER! Go to the website (http://www.shapeways.com/), and look out all the things you can have printed and made for you! You can literally buy those things on there and if you have an idea that you want to submit to it and want them to build personally, I think you can do that! Browse around on there and just look, and get interested because it's going down! haha. Well have a great rest of your day.

Egg Cup Holder

Hello you guys! So today I will be posting up my egg cups. It is well obviously an egg cup that holds eggs I guess while you eat them, I've never seen them or anything so I don't know. But this was pretty basic, it took me about 10 minutes to fully complete it and do it. It wasn't that hard to do. But well I'm gonna sign off for today because well class is over so until next time, Sayoonara, or in English, DEUCES!!

Hey so today I really didn't do much, we were checking our grades and seeing what we need to do to get credit still so nothing new today. So nothing is really new today. Just an update on how I am doing well today is one of those days where I don't really know how I am feeling. I'm just praying and asking God to comfort me today and to just fall in love with him even more today. I just wanna give God my attention today. But I should have something new up for you guys soon here. Tell me how you guys are doing today? I'm curious, I wanna know how you guys are all out there. Reply to this and let me know.

Bevel Practice 2

Well here is the second practice today with bevel. The middle two should not look the way they do, they should look completely different and I will try and figure that out and fix that as soon as I can. Thank you for looking at these slow processes of my pieces. Enjoy you guys. I will have some more things coming up soon. God bless you guys today.

Bevelling

Hey you guys! Sorry you didn't get anything from me for a couple days, I had a severe headache and hip was really tight and hurting so I was absent. But when I came back today I saw that we had started to learn about beveling. Don't quite fully understand what beveling is but it looks like it just rounds off the ends to be more round than corners and sharp. But I say they look good but I will post up the rest later. Have a good rest of your day you guys bye. :)

Dangling Clothe

Hello out there! SO today I wanted to show you one of my pieces again. So this time we have to work with clothe and well I was playing around and had a whole bunch of big shapes and just let the clothe fly. It turned and wiggled out of the place where I put it and not it was just gonna flap around. To me it kind of looked not so cool on just a regular shape so I just let it go and I think it looks so tight!! ENJOY!!

Mechanical Planet

So these are just me having fun and experimenting around on the program. The little swirl you see on this right picture> that is the middle of the whole big thing of the picture above^.

Mechanical Saturn

So I got really bored today in class and couldn't figure out how to do the clothe mini assignment because there was no instructions. So I did this. I started off just swirling and creating a bunch of helices in the middle and then made the big coins to surround it. I probably could have done more but class ended and I couldn't do anymore. It is really big just small in this picture. But I hope you guys out there are liking these random projects or bored assignments that I'm doing! :) Have a good day bye

Temple

Hey y'all! So my temple is coming along really good right now. I am just adding the details to it and kind of put some of my own flare into it so its not like everyone else's in class. I added a table in the back of it and added one side of steps but I think I wanna add more and just have fun with this temple. I do have to fix one side of the steps because it is jacking out too much. But I  really like it so far and I hope you guys do too. I am working on the steps, the dome roof, and maybe adding somethings on the inside to give it an extra cool look to it. I will post the completed result here probably next class.

Daily Update #5- 3D and Animation

Hello again you guys!! So today I worked more on my temple and as you can see in the image to the left top corner, it is almost done now. Just have to add the details of it now and then it will be complete! I am gonna need to fix the point at the top because it is crooked and off balance. And then in the image right under it is just something that I got bored with and I just started to play for the software and found this Helix animation tool so I made this enormous helix around my temple, yeah that little thing in there is my temple. You don't get to just play around and make your own things so that is what I decided to do with mine today and just experiment and play around. But I hope you guys like all these postings I'm making to you guys. Thanks for the support and everything!

Daily Update #4- 3D and Animation

Hey again you guys. So today I can't post our first mini assignment because I couldn't get the stupid tentacles to "extrude!" I got it then I lost it, I got it, then I lost it! It was a constant cycle, even after the teacher helped me twice, I still couldn't even get it, but hey I just guess that is the life of 3D graphics, frustration and more frustration until you finally get it. I'm so stressed out and frustrated because of that but whatever I will try and do it next class again. Sorry I didn't have any picture to post, but yeah all that headache caused nothing and I ran out of time, so be on the look out next week, probably Tuesday. But ugh (sigh)... well you guys have a good day. Just gonna shake it off.

Daily Update #3- 3D and Animation

So hey again. So today I worked yet again on my temple project and I just gotta say, this is the longest a project in class has taken me. Everything has to be even and look good and not raggedy and ugly. But I would have to say for using a program like this for the first time in my life, I think I got it and am getting the hang of it. I think I honestly like 3D graphics and animation better than computer graphics. Whose with me? But I won't bore you with my lame puns or anything so have a great day and the completed temple should be up on Friday of this week. Thank you for all your support!

Daily Update #2-3D and Animation

Hello you guys! This is Elijah again posting my 2nd daily post in 3D and Animation class. So today as you can see in the photo above, I added a total of 2 more columns to my temple and only need 5 more which, I do believe I will be able to finish next class with some really deep concentration just on the temple and its structure. The hardest thing today was getting everything to look even and not all unbalanced and out of wack. But the most nerve racking thing still is the dome but I think, no I believe I can do it. But goodbye and I will be posting up more pictures of it and more updates on my class work and the temple. Have a good day!

Daily Update #1-3D and Animation

Hello you guys! Coming at you with my first daily update for my 3D graphics class. So today I started our first mini project or starter for the class and that is us making a temple. There is about a total of 10 or more pieces to this temple and each one must connect and not be floating in mid-air, because that wouldn't look right. I think the most difficult part today was getting the base. I had to delete and redo it about seven times, and I'm not exaggerating that either. But I think the future challenge is gonna be the dome on the top of the temple, nervous about that part and the columns but I have pretty much figured out the columns by now. So yeah that is my daily update for today and I hope to be posting that up here soon.

I found a really cool wallpaper on Google.com and wanted to share it with you guys, even though it is my background image, still just wanted to show you my Lion Of Judah wallpaper. I like how it says Lion Of Judah in the mane. But yes just wanted to share with you guys. Enjoy.

One Point Perspective

So here is a late assignment. It was a classwork one that we worked with one point perspective. It isn't finished but credit is better than none.

Red and Blue Whirlpool

Here is another wallpaper for today. I call it the whirlpool effect. So what I did was created a new document with the height of 600 and the width of 800. After that I went to Filter>Render>Clouds. From there I went to Filter>Pixelate>Mezzotint and made the strokes medium strokes. Then I went to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. I set the amount to 100, made the blur method Zoom, and made the quality Best. After that I went to Filter>Distort>Twirl and twirled it to 120 and duplicated that layer and then repeated that same step but twirled it to -180. I then clicked Ctrl+U and did a different Hue/Color for those two layers and got that result.

Afro Poka Dot Circus

Hey there you guys! Hope your day is going good. So today I created kind of my own wallpaper. It was originally supposed to be something else but I changed it to make it my own. So what I did was went to Filter>Render>Clouds. After that I went to Filter>Pixelate> Mezzotint and added long strokes to the background layer. After that step I went to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and got stripes going down vertically but instead took my own style at this step and got the bars going down. Then I went to the Gradient tool and picked my colors and then started somehow making circles. I clicked Ctrl+M and changed the curve of the color and used the Eliptical Marque tool to make the circle to really make the center pop. And that is all I did. Hope you like it.

Yellow Hurricane

Hello there!! So for today I did this. Its an abstract background. What I did was created a new document and made it an 800x600 pixels, and I filled the background with the color black. I duplicated the layer (Ctrl+J), and then went to filter>Render>Lens Flare. I moved the settings to 100% brightness and 50-300 zoom for lens type. Place the Lens Flare in the middle of the document and then I went to Edit>Transform>Scale and squeezed the Lens Flare down to be almost flat. After that I duplicated it again and then rotated it by going to Edit>Transform>Rotate. You should get a cross looking shape. After I changed the second layer to lighten. I repeated that step twice and got a flow shape, it is done four times total to get the flower effect going. After that I merged all those layers together and went to Filter>Distort>Wave and pumped up the Number of Generators to 38, Wavelength to 85 min, and 136 max.Set the Amplitude to 1 min, and 34 max. Set the type to "Sine," and then set the "Undefined Areas" to Warp Around. Then go to Filter>Distort>Twirl, and set the twirl to 366 but I set it to 400 to stylize it to be my own. After that I duplicated that layer four times and rotated each layer to go clockwise. Finally after all that I clicked Ctrl+U and cranked the color up to yellow but you can make it any color you want to. And then got the end product that you see up top. Well I hope you enjoyed that small tutorial.

Twirl Wallpaper

Hello. So this is one of my wallpapers that I made today. It's not a complicated one but I liked it. So basically what I did is used the gradient tool and just slashed vertically down and it should go from white to black. Then I went to filter>distort>wave and set the settings to number of generations:5, put it on square, and repeat edge pixels. After that I went to filter>distort>polar coordinates and then just clicked Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. As duplicating the layer stayed on the duplicated layer and went to edit>transform>Rotate 90 CW. Set the duplicated layer to "overlay," and then filter>distort>twirl and set the duplicated layer to 200 twirl and then set the original layer to -200 twirl. And the went to Ctrl+U and just picked the color I wanted. And that is the result. Hope you enjoyed. More difficult ones are to come here soon.

StarryNebula

Hello today! Well I wanted to present my second mini challenge to you all today. I call it, "Starry Nebula." There is a lot of steps so I won't say all but there is about 5 layers in the picture and all are painted black. I added a lens flare over lighting effects.There were some blurs and I made it the size of a wallpaper. So yeah I hope you enjoyed it and sorry about the lack of details but there was just so many. But have a nice day.

Today I did one of our mini assignments that challenged me to create a signature background. There was a couple of things I had to do but I made a canvas of 400x400 and then used the gradient tool and just started to cross it all while in the colors of black and white. And then I went to filter> distort> wave and did that 5 times over and over and clicked randomize each time and them got that. I pressed Ctrl+U and then the Hue/ Saturation bar pulled up and pumped the settings to 205 and 50 and picked the color purple and then BAM! The end product. Hope you enjoyed.