The Animated Athlete... My Common Art Project!

 Hey everyone-- it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. I've honestly just been working on a lot of stuff in the background, without a lot of time to write about things. 

Well, that all changes today! I'm going to be covering my most recent Common Art project-- an animated athlete! 

You can see him below, juggling the soccer ball like it's going out of style!

And here is an alternative angle.

The inspiration for this project stems from my love for soccer. My family is big into soccer-- so I have a lot of fond memories of trying to juggle soccer balls with my brother and dad. 

That gave me a great idea for an animation-- I wanted to capture the fun fluidity of juggling in my demo reel. For a week or so, I was looking into different types of animations to include on  my demo reel. I wanted the animation to be exciting and engaging for viewers. 

To see more of my inspiration and initial ideas for the project, check out the PureRef board below.

Overall, I wanted my animation to touch on a subject matter that usually isn't seen on demo reels. I know there are lots of bouncing ball and push/pull animations usually on reels and I wanted to stay away from those. I wanted to use a unique subject matter, so I could try something new. 

The below gif really stood out to me, as the soccer player was balancing on a ball, while juggling a ball and kicking another ball. I thought it was a really interesting idea for an animation, so I wanted to give it a shot! 

I worked really hard to storyboard the animation in 3D, which I did by using stepped tangents and keying each time the soccer player did a key pose. Since he did move around a lot, I definitely have more than 20 keyframes, which is a lot for a 47 frame animation. Overall, this animation is just under 2 seconds long, but there is a lot of dynamic motion in it. And yes, I did use a frame exporter to export the GIF frames, which is why I know the exact amount. 

Also, as a heads up, I'm going to be showing my playblast progress between some of the below paragraphs, so you can see all the work I did as the animation progressed! 

My biggest struggle in animation is timing, which I hope the project will help me learn. Already, I'm learning just how fast objects move with the impact of gravity. In addition, the character has a lot of weight, which he places largely on the ground (with his hands) and on the ball he's sitting on. The ball that he's sitting on has some squashing going on, which I hope displays the character's weight effectively.

A big setback with this animation was believe it or not the rig. I had originally intended to use the Dirk the Daring rig on Agora Community, however, it required a MEL script, which I didn't know how to run. I decided to use the Ray rig by CGTarian instead, as he was similar in build to the soccer player in the GIF. He also did not have big hair, excessive clothing, or big hands/feet. The character needed to have human proportions, which Ray achieved perfectly. 

I initially had trouble working with Ray due to a camera issue, which Nassir was kind enough to help me with! So, thank you so much Nassir- you went above and beyond in helping me. Thank you so much for your awesome explanations- I appreciate it! 

After the rig was all figured out, it was just up to how much animation I could power through. I wanted to use this storyboarding period to see how much I could schedule myself to do in the future, so I could get a good idea of how much work I could give myself moving forward. 

Overall, I ended up spending about 7 hours working on the blocking out of the animation. I spent around 4-5 hours planning the project in Jira and 2 hours getting references. 2 hours were spent selecting rigs and around 30 minutes were spent testing and setting up the scene. 

In the future, I see myself spending around 10 hours or more per week on this project. Based on feedback from my peers, I can increase or decrease this number. 

Since this is my own project, assume that all tasks are assigned to myself. I will add more sub-tasks as the project dictates, depending on any re-routes or unplanned hiccups I might encounter. Below is the most detailed schedule I could come up with. I go over additional details in my PowerPoint presentation, which will be shown to the class on May 25, 2023.

Alright, speaking of planning, this project has forced me to learn Jira. I'm actually using Jira to archive and upload my Playblasts and videos, which is great for if I need to re-reference old work. I'm trying to get into the habit of updating descriptions or adding comments to show what work I've finished and when. 

But most of all, Jira is great for planning sprints! I want to figure out how to track my time through Jira, so I can get an even better idea of what I've accomplished and how long it's taken me. 

Thanks to Jira, I was able to plan out the entirety of the project, from this first sprint until the end. While it took awhile, I think this will be useful in keeping me focused. 

So, yeah! I am going to keep working with Jira and continue iterating on the animation . Since this is a highly-focused animation (and since it's only about 2 seconds long), expect lots of little updates, such as me working on the feet or focusing on the face and eyes. I did not do any facial animation this week, so expect some facial expressions and changes in the next few weeks. 

This project leaves a lot of different areas for improvement and exploration, all of which I am excited to explore, so I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride as much as I enjoy taking this wild ride. Thanks again for taking the time to read my post and take a look at some of my progress. 

See you soon! 

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! 

Industry Review... Part Two!

 Alright, as promised in my last post, here is my Industry Review Portfolio.... Take Two!

Drumroll please!

This go-around, I worked more with walking and motion, as it was something I struggled on during the course of the VR project. I still have a long way to go, but I'm happy to watch these funny animals move around. 

And I'm looking forward to learning more about animation tonight!

If you want to learn more about these animations and the what and why behind them, you can read up more on my last post. 

Also, I think it would be fun to drop my old Portfolio from my first Industry Review here as well.

Let me know if you think I've improved. I definitely think I have. I took the feedback a little too much to heart from last time and I was really trying to emphasize motion and smoothness this time. If that gets me critiqued, so be it. I learned a lot about the art process this go-around, definitely more than the last one. And this time, I actually got to animate WAY MORE than the first time. My first animations in the demo reel from the previous Review were literally my FIRST EVER 3-D animations. And as a 2-D animator, I had no idea what it was that I was doing. 

But, yeah, lemme know if you think I've improved! I am proud of myself no matter what anyone says! 

See you soon with more animations and progress! 

Animation Progress! Clock Town Awaits...

 This is going to be a pretty quick post for me, since I have Industry Review in less than an hour. And don't worry, I'll go ahead and post my industry review stuff here, once I'm ready and set to go with that. 

But first, I've been busy at work this week with plenty of new animations to throw at you. Some of these are older animations with a new twist. So, get ready and buckle up! Because we are embarking on a truly wild ride of animated fun!

First off, we're starting with Boney. Thanks to Ankur and my awesome teachers, Johnathan and Cheryl, I was able to learn more about Maya this week! I got to apply some new skills and put them to the test. Thanks again to Johnathan for the in-depth help and some tips. Thanks to him, I was able to rotate my models for Industry Review, which looks super-spiffy!

Alright, now for Koko! I added the rotation to him. I didn't get around to changing anything about his walk cycle due to time constraints, so I will most definitely get some critique and feedback tonight! 

I know he's not perfect, but I am happy with how much smoother his motion is compared to my earlier Hyena walk cycle. And I'm glad I could get him to smile and blink. He has his flaws, but I'm ready to fix them so I can show you all my next iteration of his walk!

And lastly, I have a couple of BONUSes! I'll share the first of them. I did a run cycle. It's pretty stiff, but I wanted some critique on the form, so this one went straight into my Industry Review Reel.

Look at Umbreon go! Wowza! I know it's stiff, but again, I'm happy this at least resembles a run and has motion. The parts I'm happiest with are the ears and tail. I just need help getting the legs to bend without them looking like they're breaking. They looked so floppy and broken that I took the bends out of them and just submitted this as it is. Yeah, it's stiff, but the arms don't look like wet noodles. 

Alright, and a complete change of pace. Literally, because it's not a walking animation.

I have been silently working on the Bouncing Ball animations, trying to get them to look more natural. While I still have a long way to go, I want you to see what I'm cooking up now!

The one I made the most progress on was 100% the bowling ball. I worked with Ankur getting familiar with the graph editor and he gave me some excellent suggestions for this animation. So, thank you Ankur (if you're reading this!). I really appreciated the help and the graph editor tips. Now, I know a little more about tangents and what they do, too, so I'm going to keep experimenting with them in my animations. 

So yeah, that's about it! 

Stay tuned for my Industry Review drop in like a few minutes! That'll be up here in two shakes of a lamb's tail! 

See you soon! 

Walkin' the Dog! And Walking.... And Walking!

 Wow, we're doing a lot of walking in class right now!

Not only am I getting plenty of gym time this semester, but I'm also gettin' familiar with the art of movement in the digital sense! 

So, we are jumping right from walk cycles of the human variety to walk cycles of the animal variety. Straight from bipeds to quadrupeds... And boy, has it been a wild ride! 

Okay, so where to begin? 

So, this week's assignment was to turn in a quadruped walk or run cycle. I was able to finish a walk cycle and am going to try to work on a run or idle some time this week! 

So, what did I do with this here walk cycle?

Lemme show you! 

Meet Koko! He's my little buddy this week and boy oh boy was he a ball to animate! Not only does he have eyelids and funky fresh controls, but he's also very expressive and cute! I had a great time working with him this week! 

Now, I know that this is more likely than not, not a completely finished product, so I am entirely open to feedback from my teachers, as I want to improve my craft! You don't stop learning until you stop, after all! And I'm committed to learn as much as I can! 

So, obviously, I would like feedback regarding the positions of the legs, rotation, and hip movement. Hip movement especially is something I have greatly struggled with, so I am excited to hear from my teachers regarding that. 

So, this is the progress of my animation. Obviously, there is still progress to be made, but I like showing the leadup to the work I present, so here it is! 

I did play around with the Graph Editor for this one, trying to make the legs move naturally. I also edited the tangents, much like my Boney rig, to give it a more natural feel. 

But yeah, I tried a few new, interesting things. From moving the snout to moving the ears and eyes, there was a lot going on in this animation. So, again, I'm looking forward to implementing on it even further! 

But as the salesmen always say... But wait, there's more!

Prior to going with the Koko rig, I tried a few other quadruped experiments and I would love it if you saw them! 

This is the first iteration of a Hyena Walk Cycle that I'm still working on! While it's jerky and a bit janky, this was actually the first walk cycle I worked on for the project. It is rigged with joints, not NURBS curves, so each part of the body was moved individually. Fun times!

I would like to continue to work on this character, as I had a lot of fun making her move! Also, I really like hyenas, so I'm always happy to animate them! 

Next in line is a definite Work In Progress...

So, in Kingdom Hearts, there's a little kitty that carries a fish in his mouth. That kitty is ultra-adorable and I found his model online, so of course I wanted to animate him.

Unfortunately, the model was not rigged, but I tried to challenge myself to do it.

So, I tried rigging my first quadruped!

Which had slightly sad consequences... he doesn't animate right. I'm not sure if it's the topology of the model or my own rigging mistake, but his legs come detached from their joints. In fact, any body part I moved came detached from the joint. 

So, he looks a little funky, but it was a shot! 

So, without further ado, here was my first attempt at a quadruped rig and my first attempt at animating a kitty! 

So, as you can see, he becomes a little paper-mâché-y when he moves. I would love to meet with my teachers to better understand the art of rigging because it is really fun! And yes, the kitty is weight painted and all the joints seem to be parented in a logical order. 

I took a video of my setup, so if something looks off, I would be happy to learn more about the process! I'm always stoked to learn new things! We don't make mistakes here, just happy accidents! And this was definitely a happy accident (since he's my first quadruped rig- yay!).

Now, if you watched until the end of the rigging video, then you will see something interesting. A certain plane made an appearance as another rig I worked on. If you're a fan of Top Gun, then you probably recognized it... It was the iconic and awesome F-14 Tomcat! While my rig didn't perform as I wanted it to for my specific animation, I was able to cobble something together that you might like! 

Cue Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins! 

I want to eventually learn how to get the camera to follow the F-14 eventually, but this is good enough for me right now. The full animation shows it doing a vertical ascent and then barrel rolling, as it continues to climb. My clips only capture the barrel roll, as it is the most interesting part of the animation.

Eventually, I want to add a sound effect that travels closer to the viewer as the jet comes close to the camera, but I will work on that sometime this week! 

Also, I would love to learn how to work more with the wings without the model deforming. A big issue I had with this rig was that it deformed when I tried to rotate the wings, so I just let them be. In reality, the F-14 Tomcat has variable wing angles, so pilots will often bring the wings in to make the plane more aerodynamic at high speeds. I wanted to show this, but since the wings are already pushed in, I just took the loss on this matter. It woulda been cool to see the wings quickly tuck in, but I'll have to seek help from my teachers on that conundrum.

So yeah! Plenty of walking and motion in the animation agenda this past month! While running at the gym is fun, running and walking in animation definitely have their respective learning curves. I just have to remember that I started out slow in my fitness journey and animation has been much the same. As I continue to improve, things will get easier. I just have to have patience and remain open to learning!

I hope you enjoyed my animations for this week! Thanks again for tuning in and seeing what I've been working on!

Excited to keep sharing more work with you all! 

Walkin' and Rollin'! Getting Familiar with Walk Cycles!

 Hey everyone! 

It's been a busy past few weeks, with many group projects taking up a lot of my time. Thankfully, due to the fact that we have finals coming up soon, 3 out of my 4 group projects are officially taken care of! 

Which means one thing... More time to practice!

Practice makes perfect, as they say. And while I'm far from perfect, I'm proud of the progress I've made on my animation work! 

So, just what have I been up to recently? Well, I'm glad you've asked! 

I've taken some feedback from my teachers into mind and strove to improve my biped walk cycle from a few weeks prior. You know, the one with Mr. Boney in it! 

I still have a lot of work I need to do on it, but I'm happy to be able to spend more time with the rig. I'm also going to keep tweaking this, based on future feedback I get from my teachers.

Without further ado, here's our old pal... Boney!

So, in this iteration of Boney, I attempted to play around with the animation layers, so that everything was separate. Additionally, I tried mirroring the animations on both sides... but I forgot the hotkey for this, so I manually wrote down all of the angles for each of the joints... And "mirrored" them that way. It was painstaking and took a whole sheet of paper, but it worked! And it could have been worse. Way worse!

I'm still not sure about the head movement and hip movement, so I'll probably have to do another iteration in the future. All around, this took at least an entire day of studying walk cycles, medical references, and animation guides. And then, placing each frame. 

I played around with some of the tangents in this one, too. Which helped make the movements seem a little more smooth. A big issue I was having at the very beginning was how rigid the animation looked on the legs, specifically. This was such a problem that I iterated on this scene a lot. There are 31 files I created and 3 separate attempts for this walk cycle. I really wanted this to get done! 

This video is of many of those 31 different edits and iterations, up until the finish line. The first 8 versions of this walk cycle I did not use, as they were really jerky. So, I started over fresh after about 4 hours of work on the first pass. The second pass is the one that has over 20 different iterations. The other several files I tried to create just ended up looking terrible, so I ditched them too.

Why am I rambling on and on about files? Well, because I spent a lot of time working, re-working, and double-re-working my animation. And each iteration is essentially a save state of a certain version of the project, so I was able to work as non-destructively as possible.

I liked working like this, as I was not afraid to "mess anything up" as I experimented with rotation and such. So, I will continue this practice in the future.

Alright. Enough rambling from me! I hope you enjoyed this look into my walk cycle! I'm sure you'll see a few more posts from me this week as I get ready for my finals and continue to implement feedback. 

Thanks for reading! 

Animation Progress- Walk Around the Clock!

 Hello everybody in the world! Mackenzie's back with a whole new bag of tricks! 

I'm still learning, but I'm delighted to share with you that I have learned a lot more about Maya in the time since Industry Review! While I'm not perfect (nobody is), I'm happy with the strides I've made in my animation, tech art, and 3D modelling since starting at FIEA.

But you came to this post for animation, now didn't you? 

So, let me show you what I've been up to! 

So here are my animation projects for this week- I took Box Fox and Boney and made them do a little walk. I wanted to have time to get to do the run and idles, but you know how time goes. It never stops moving! 

Maybe I can have my animated characters help me prep for my upcoming 5K... we can run together!

Okay, that was just cheesy! But, it's true. I'm going to keep working at my animations and try to attempt a run cycle in the coming days. Look out for it!

But, in the meantime, I've taken it upon myself to learn a little more about MotionBuilder this week. Not just because there was an assignment... Well, mostly because there was an assignment. But honestly, it's cool to know how to apply the motion capture data that we take in our MOCAP workshops. 

And also, one of my favorite games is almost entirely motion capture. If you know me well enough, you know which one. 

But Wonderworld aside, I attempted a MOCAP animation! It's not perfect, but I'm happy I was able to actually pair the magnets properly to my actor. My first rendition looked like a Slenderman-esque creature. Glad I didn't take any video of that nightmare fuel. 

Okay, seriously now! 

MOCAP incoming!

Sorry the video is so long. The MOCAP data itself was long. And trimming it is not a power I have yet. So, each walkaround is about 38 - 40 seconds, hence why the whole dang thing is almost 5 minutes. As you can tell, in my first renditions of the MOCAP experience, I had issues with his hand bending. I kind of fixed it as I went on, but I still had issues. 

Overall, I learned a valuable lesson with this assignment.

There's a lot that I don't know yet!

So I'm gonna keep learning. 

See you soon! 

VR Progress

 Here is some of the stuff I did for VR this week:

I will continue to iterate on this, as I keep working with the rig more. Between last and this week, I have done at least 10 different animations for the claw and tentacle. 

I am excited to see how this all looks in engine. Overall, I am slowly getting the hang of animating in Maya, which has sped up my process a bit. Hopefully, I'll keep getting the hang of it, as I will probably have to redo these again.

Not sure, though. But we will see.

Thank you for reading. I'm overall happy with the results of this animation session. Gonna keep at it.

Animation Progress!

 Guess who's back?

This crazy gal!

I've been working on some animations that I really really REALLY wanted to share with you! 

None of them are perfect, but I just wanted to have a nice place where all these come together and you can sit by a campfire, picture of a campfire, or campfire scented candle and take them all in. 

I have a lot to learn. I knew that when I started, especially as a 2D and traditional animator. But I've already learned a lot in my two (2!!!) months here. I am doing this as a reminder to myself that I CAN learn these programs. I just need to consistently practice. And develop self-confidence. In any particular order. 

I have a lot to learn about rigging and naming conventions and Maya, oh my, but I will keep on truckin'. Speaking of truckin'. I will also present you with this to start off this wild ride...

Guess who finally learned to render in Maya while retaining a slight semblance of quality? Me! Too bad it doesn't render in 1080p or above, but this will definitely do! 

I didn't change anything about this animation since my portfolio. I'm going to go back to it when I learn a bit more about rigging. The truck is not rigged whatsoever, hence why it looks like it's sliding. Since I made this animation in my first week at FIEA, I had no idea rigging was even a thing. I just thought animation was me taking parts of a thing and moving them around like magic.

Well, that's at least how my 2D animator brain tries to perceive it. 

But, onto some of my NEW stuff! And you heard me... NEW! I have been hard at work trying to learn fundamentals, which includes walking. Between that, MOCAP workshops, and other awesome feedback opportunities, I have been busy improving my craft. Hopefully!

And that reminds me. RPP has also been a newfound source of animation. I'll show those after I show some portfolio progress. As a reminder, none of this is definitively on my portfolio. Yet. I'm still getting a feel for animating in Maya, after all. I've only done a handful of 3D animations at this point, so none of these are necessarily gold-tier works of art. Not yet anyway!

Okay, enough rambling. You can tell it's late. Have some animated goodness! 

Here is my current iteration for a walk cycle project. I'm not done with it, but I'm slowly chipping away at it and adding more bounce and influence from traditional animation. He needs to look more alive, but I'll post here when I give him more life. 

Here we see our friend Boney might have had a few drinks before showing up to my blog. He's moving and swaying a tad, which makes him look drunk! Pretty funny for my first walk attempt with Mr. Boney, huh?

This character was actually what I was going to use for my walk cycle project, but the rig is just too janky at the current moment. It's a character from Balan Wonderworld and it came from a site online. I'm surprised it works, honestly. I just wanna make her move better because she is just so cute! 

She moves a bit better in this one, but then the model itself started to deform. Most likely since this is not a really great rig. I will probably end up rerigging it somehow. And maybe adding controls to make it easier to move. Because for now, I've been individually moving every joint. Hence why I only did half of the walk cycle in both of these... I wanted to test the limits and this rig didn't pass. Which is a shame because the character is just so dang cute! I'll keep working on her in the background as I continue with other projects. You'll see an update here if I can get her to move organically! 

Speaking of limits, here's her range of motion. This is essentially me moving the model like a madman to show people where the model's limits are. So, in a team setting, this would be helpful for a protagonist character, so the entire project team can be completely aware of what is or isn't possible. But, it sure does look crazy, doesn't it?

I will also post some cool RPP things that you may like. I know I like them! This RPP project is the first one that I've had to do 3D animation for... all my other projects were 2D. So it's been weird and very alien to learn all this jazz. But I'm trying, which is all that matters! 

First order of business... Hand Rigging. I've never rigged before, at least not successfully, so this was crazy! From weight painting to parenting... I did the whole nine yards. It ain't a perfect rig, but at least it moves! 

Let's check out that sweet motion! 

As you can see, it's not perfect, but I'm proud of it! I have literally never even MODELLED a hand, so I'm happy that my little proxy geometry resembles one at all. I gotta do something with the joints, but I will figure it out later! 

And here's another animation from that project for you! It's a beautiful butterfly! 

This beautiful proxy was made by Levi... Thank you Levi! Levi made an even better game-ready model, which I'm excited to get into! 

I'm not super-proud of the rig I did for this, as it was my first ever rig. So, I just did the head, thorax, abdomen and two joints each for the wings. I'll show a more dynamic rig when I have something to show.

But those are my animations for now! 

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my process! I'll try to update this as I continue to practice, practice, practice! 

Industry Review - Animation Portfolio I

 Hey all!

This will be the shortest post ever from me, but today is our much dreaded anticipated Industry Review! I cobbled together a quick portfolio of three animation projects I'm currently working on! 

Here is my final iteration:

You can check it out in the YouTube link below for my first iteration:

Wish me luck! 

Bouncing Ball Animation!

 Alright everyone! 

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! 

I finally finalized my animation of the bouncing ball in Maya. I've come a long way from my first two posts, learning how to use the Graph Editor and squashing and stretching. I am still learning how to light in Maya, so please pardon some of the glare. Once I get that down, I would be happy to re-render these shots so you can see the ball bounce in all of its 3D glory.

Before I drop my Playblast below, I wanted to let you know that there are two different balls at play in this animation. You heard that right, I'm learning how to imply weight through animation, so we have a tennis ball (the green colored ball) and a bowling ball. 

Initially, I was going to do a beach ball, but I couldn't get the timing right (it looked like it was sliding instead of floating), so I changed it to a tennis ball. I based the tennis ball off of a life study, whereas the bowling ball came from a video (as I do not keep a bowling ball with me in my dorm).

Prior to starting the animation, I actually drew some arcs for my initial beach ball and bowling ball, which were based on frame timings from videos and gifs on the internet. 

This video features my initial arc for the beach ball animation. Notice how light it is- it takes half of the animation to do half of the arc! It's very floaty, too, which is something I had difficulty capturing in Maya. I'm going to consult with some of my peers and come back to this exercise in the future. I really want to learn how to do this, as it seems like a fun challenge! 

And here is the bowling ball. Notice how quickly it falls and is on the ground rolling. I adjusted my roll in Maya, as after referencing other videos, I noticed that a bowling ball stops after about 3 bounces and a teeny amount of rolling. In fact, the whole arc of a bowling ball should only take 2 seconds or less. 

Now that you know the origin story of this bouncing ball animation, why don't I give you a look at the final product? 

I'm really happy with how this turned out! I have never made a 3D table, let alone animated TWO bouncing balls before! I'm stoked that you can tell that both balls behave differently. It was difficult to achieve that effect, but I'm happy I pulled it off!

Because of the lighting, it's a little hard to see the wall I put in the video. Don't worry, I've got a different angle for you below! 

I have a couple of individual shots of each respective ball, so you can get a feel for their behaviors a bit more. 

Here is the bowling ball rolling off a table and bouncing. I wanted to give both of the balls a piece of setting to interact with, so the bowling ball interacted with the table, while the tennis ball interacted with the wall! 

Both of my references were around 4-5 seconds in length, so I feel that the 110 frame length was perfect for both. I'm especially pleased with how the tennis ball animation turned out, especially since it bounces against the ball and travels backward! It took me a while to figure out the graph editor, especially with the rotation, but I'm happy with what I did! 

Notice how the ball's arcs get smaller and smaller as it continues. Also, take a look at all of these values! I added them procedurally, so I was only working on one at a time. That way, I was able to perfect parts of the animation before moving onto other steps. 

And look how different it looks from the bowling ball's movements! It sharply drops down because it fell of the table, bounces once for real, and then a TEENY bit for a final time before rolling a couple of units. Bowling balls don't really move forward, they almost bounce in place, which was tricky to make natural in my work. I'm pretty happy about the final result, though! 

Now, do you want to see some progress shots? Here are some rough cuts of some of the first passes of this animation challenge! 

This was before I had the tennis ball do any squashing or stretching! I was just happy to have it bounce off the wall. Thank goodness for the graph tool! 

And here was one of the first passes of the Bowling Ball. It kind of floats before it fully rolls off the table. Almost like an anticipation (cue Wile E. Coyote!). I did this because the bowling ball was actually clipping through the table, and I had to make the table a bit bigger to prevent this. Thankfully, it resolved itself and the ball looks more natural and less like a Looney Toons cartoon! 

So that's my Ball Bounce animation! I hope you enjoyed watching my process and learning a bit more about my Animation Journey! Thank you for stopping by to read- I'll keep you posted on my future animated endeavors soon! 

Bye-Bye!

3D Ball Bounce Progress!

 Hey everyone! 

I took another crack at the Ball Bounce animation. This time, I let myself utilize the Graph Editor, which worked to my advantage, creating a smoother overall animation. I also created a rig for the ball, which was surprisingly easy. I'm sure making other rigs won't be as easy, but I definitely had fun learning a new aspect of working in Maya! 

For those curious, I posted my Ball Rig setup bellow. All it took was a NURBS circle and a little bit of messing with Maya menus. But, thankfully, I learned a lot! For future reference for myself and others, here is the tutorial I followed to gather my bearings.

I know that rigging the ball wasn't necessarily necessary, but I wanted to use it to teach me how to do more complex animations. That way, when I start animating humans or other creatures, I know how to get around the interface. 

You can also take a look at my graph editor, for more reference. I'm not too sure how to smooth out the points on it, but I'm relatively happy with the motion I've gotten from this attempt. The bounce itself is much smoother than the translation to the right. If I learn how to adjust these values to make them smoother, I will post my results here! Anyways, here's the graph!

Enough of the technicality aside, right? You came to see a bouncing ball and, heck, that's what I'm gonna give you! 

Again, I will continue to post updates here as I explore my art and animation further. I'm so happy to be doing stuff like this and I know it will only keep going up! 

Until then, I'll see you soon! 

Ball Bounce Animation... My First Attempts!

 Hello World!

So, I've been hard at work learning all there is to learn about 3D... Well not ALL there is to learn, but a lot! It's been fun bringing extra dimensionality to my work! 

I'm hoping that 3D will be as natural as 2D is for me, but that will definitely come in time. Until then, I'm going to keep studying and practicing. 

One of the things I've been studying is animation in this mythical Third Dimension. 

I'm starting with the absolute basics here... You heard me right-- I've done a Ball Bounce!

The Ball Bounce animation is like a rite of passage for animators. Many people start with it because it beautifully demonstrates some of the principles of animation, while showing animators the ropes of their respective programs. 

Heck, I started my 2D journey with a Ball Bounce or two... Check it out! 

So, it only makes sense that I would start my 3D journey with a Ball Bounce, too!

I technically started this project BEFORE starting all of the other stuff I've shown on Maya... But I wanted to show my progress through the animation itself. 

Also... My computer had to be reset and I'm just re-downloading the files now... But that is neither here nor there. It's fixed now and I'm thankful for that! 

So, without further ado, here is my work-in-progress Ball Bounce animation! 

As you can see, there are no bells or whistles... Just a bouncing ball! And a plane!

The ball moves kind of slow, as I'm not all too familiar with the Graph Editor yet. But it's definitely a work-in-progress.

Now, check out my second attempt! 

This one was supposed to roll at the end, but I was having trouble with the keyframing. I managed to rotate and scale it a bit to give it a more cartoony effect than the first attempt. But, it's still definitely a work-in-progress. 

I added some color to it, though! I think that makes it look really nice! 

These are the three attempts I have for now. Again, I'm still working with Animation in Maya, so I have a lot to learn. I'm just going to keep at it and continue to post updates here. 

Thank you all for coming along on this journey with me! I'm going to be so excited to get this down, especially since animation is one of the things that excites me the most.

3D Truck... Now In Color!!

     We're almost over the hill, folks! We've officially learned about geometry in Maya, lighting, shading, and a teeny bit about rendering. You know what that means? Our truck got a paint job!

    

    She's certainly a beauty, ain't she? Fresh off the dealership lot and ready for a test drive. Woohoo! 

    I added some luminance to the front and back lights, which looks really nice when the truck is in motion. I also added some translucence to the windshield and windows, so it gives the model a neat look. 

    You can really see the rendering effects on the back here. Not only do the brake lights look activated, but the exhaust has a nice sheen to it too! Looks good enough to drive, but I don't think you'll get too far (I haven't built the engine yet, haha)!

    Since I learned how to texture, I played around with some area, volume, and point lights, so that you could see where the truck was headed. I also added in some color to the world and gave the truck a little road to drive on. 

    Once I learn how to properly texture, I'm excited to see how this world builds out. It would probably look nice with some flowers and bushes. Sounds like a town beautification project is in order! I'm in! 

    I figured out how to (very basically) edit the terrain. I am honestly really happy with the way the plane turned out... It reminds me of a Spyro level. Take me on back to Dream Weavers Home World already! 

    Hopefully I will one day make 3D models (and skyboxes!!!) that look like the OG Spyro trilogy. But until then, I'm going to keep learning until I get there.

Oh, and we weren't done! You probably figured I did another animation of the truck. And you would be right! Here it is! 

As it did last time, something about the Playblast made my video a tad sluggish, so I sped it up to make it seem more like it was drifting and less like it was stuttering around. 

    I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I still have a lot to learn about lighting and shading, but for my first rendering attempt, I'm pretty stoked that this turned out the way it did. The car hasn't burst into flames (yet), so we're good to go... Maybe!     

    Thanks for taking the time to look over my stuff. The next thing I need is a musical backing track from Stewart Copeland and it'll be good to load into the PS1 dev kit. 

    Jokes aside, I'm excited to continue to show you my progress. To whoever is reading-- thank you for embarking on this journey with me! 

    Battle On! 

Breaking Into The Third Dimension!

     Ladies and gentlemen, we've finally done it. We've finally entered the Third Dimension. It's not so mythical after all, huh? 

    Thanks to Nick's awesome Introduction to Maya, I have successfully modelled my first object in Maya. 

    Huzzah! 

    As a huge car aficionado, it was especially convenient that our first 3D model was a truck! I am happy that now I know how to build basic vehicles. This will help with creating props or other assets in-game (and it also makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside).   

    I took a few liberties with the design, deviating from the tutorial a bit to add doors, mirrors, license plates, mirrors, and exhaust! I wanted it to have a nice, stylized look, which I think the additional details help out with nicely. 

    It honestly feels so awesome to finally break into Maya. I'm hoping that my other pursuits into this new realm will be just as fun with this one! 

    I did do one more thing with this Maya Experiment, however... One that is right in my wheelhouse.

    You guessed it, folks! I animated it!

    The animation is playing at 60 fps, which looks a lot faster in Maya than it seems to run in the video. That's okay because I sped my video up. Double Huzzah!

    Look at 'er go! You can tell I was listening to eurobeat when I made this. I'm an Initial D fan through and through, after all! 

    There were a few previous iterations of this video (one that turned sharply, and one with a waaay too fast drift), but those Playblasts saved in my Temp folder and I didn't realize it so now they are gone to the Digital Wasteland. 

    Oh well! 

    I will continue my travels through Nick's tutorials and I'll post any findings here! Hope you all enjoyed the ride (ha) through my first 3D project (in Maya at least)! 

See ya on the Flopside! 

Animation!

     Animation, especially 2D, is something I've really grown to love over the years. I started with animation in 2008 when I watched a YouTube animatic of my favorite book series, Warriors by Erin Hunter.

    The first time I ever drew digitally was in 2008. I opened up MS Paint and just drew to my heart's content. And here is what I created, all those years ago! 

    Since then, I have been teaching myself the fundamentals of animation on my own while learning from the likes of Richard Williams and Eric Goldberg (in book form, of course). One day, I hope to improve my animation, which I think FIEA will help me out with excellently. 

Hopefully, I will be able to use Maya and Unreal to bring my animations into the mythical Third Dimension! Come with me on this journey- I'm excited to show you my progress.

In the meantime, have a small animation (my first ever on Maya) of a primitive polygon truck rushing the camera! 

    Going to be working on a bouncing ball and some other fun things this weekend. I'll keep you posted as my art continues to develop!