Animation! Exaggeration Assignment!

 Promised I would be back with some animations, so here is me keeping that promise! 

I've been busy with a multitude of Mocap projects, so I'm happy I got the time at all to do some KEYFRAME ANIMATIONS! I have been cracking at this project for the past month and a half and I'm really happy with how far it came. I started with just some poses and then brought it all together into an animation. 

So, I figured that an awesome place to start for my first animation assignment of this semester would be one of my favorite childhood movies-- Air Bud! I used to watch these movies all the time. I rented them from Blockbuster with my parents and brother. I am really dating myself by bringing up this information, but I LOVE Air Bud! 

Since I had a lot to work on with my quadruped animations from last semester, I really wanted to challenge myself and work with a quadruped character, so Air Bud it was! 

I chose this clip from the movie, just a little section of Buddy shooting a basket! 

I also used this other video as reference, as the Air Bud scene shows a lot of camera cuts and front views. Those are helpful, but I really needed to get the poses right for this dynamic animation.

My main goal with this animation was not quantity (or number of seconds), it was just getting the action right at all. I did a lot of behind the scenes studying of animal motion, particularly in dogs. I also studied a lot of Maya books regarding the Graph Editor and tangents. I'm still getting the hang of it! 

I also worked a lot with the Motion Trail feature this time, which really helped out with the ball! 

I'm going to drop a few of my iterations for this animation below! Let me know what you think! This was a big endeavor for me, but I'm really happy I was able to push through it. 

I feel like I'm getting "used" to 3D animation now. I'm not perfect at it, but I'm really trying my best and I hope I continue to improve! I'm learning a lot and want to keep learning and applying that knowledge every day! 

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported and helped me on this journey. I'm truly thankful for all of the help I've gotten and all of the support I've gotten, too! Thanks so much for taking the time to look at my stuff; it means the world to me. I'm thankful for you! 

I hope you enjoyed looking at my stuff this week! Looking forward to working even harder on some other upcoming projects! 

Lighting Assignment IV- Wait, Who Turned Out All The Lights?

 Hey, how's everybody been?

I've been just peachy over here-- doing my best to solidify my understanding of animation and MOCAP. 

I've got lots of stuff I want to show, but I need some time to compose a reel. I've been moving at 100 mph over here- with no signs of slowing down!

So this week's assignment was interesting! Well, they all usually are, but you get my point!

We got three separate lighting challenges issued to us, which I will briefly reproduce below:

1. Create a scene where 80% of the world is in darkness and only 20% is lit. Use shadows to your advantage!
2. Create a scene that plays around with different colored lights to elicit different moods.
3. Create a scene that looks different at different types of day. Establish mood, while you're at it!

I went ahead and attempted these three challenges on my own. I'm not going to tell you what's what, either. 

Instead, guess which image I was pinning on which challenge. That'll tell me how well I did! 

Anywho, let's get right into it!

So, since we needed to utilize Megascans and asset packs for this assignment, I thought it would be great to utilize some desert scenes. 

After all, the Southwest is my favorite place on planet Earth, so I decided to start close to the heart!

Secondly, I decided to utilize an iconic car, the AE86, in this picture. This is quite an old car and would be interesting to see in a desert scene, which is why I slapped it in. 

So, my scenario was born from this silly thought. I'll go into some details so you can get a good idea of why I staged my scene the way I did. 

When I lived in New Mexico, there was this hiking trail that I loved going to, but my little hatchback had a struggle getting up to the path. 

The path was filled with potholes and steep inclines. And, since my car lacked four-wheel drive, I obviously was up to the challenge. 

I thought it would be funny if I took that fun experience and poked fun at it. I made a steep incline and slapped a "NO PARKING OR STOPPING" sign there. Because, who in their right mind would stop on the side of a mountain?

To dress the scene up, I placed some succulent plants and some abandoned equipment and barrels. Really makes you wonder who dumped all the stuff and why. 

I played around with different days, different lighting, and a few shadows here and there. And although there are definitely some things I could've done better, 

Between Capstone, GameLab, eating, sleeping, and working out, I have been really pressed for time. But I'm thankful I was able to spend many, many hours working on lighting this week. 

And I'm even more thankful that Unreal did not crash or corrupt this time! This was definitely a huge blessing; I didn't have to finish my project all in one go or open it to the shock and horror of it being corrupted or gone. 

So yeppity yeppity YEP! That was my crazy Friday workday, everyone! I hope the result looks nice and I hope you were able to figure out which pictures utilized which challenge.

As always, I'm looking forward to critique and learning even more about lighting!

Thanks a bunch for stopping by and making my day!

Now, I'm off to bed! Yay!