Ice Cream Animation

Generally,
Our job for this project was to create an ice cream "shop" where an ice cream cone, bowl, and a scoop would be rotating on a Lazy Susan.

The Process
Our first priority was to create the stars of the animation, the cone, bowl, and scoop. Afterwards, we had to use Blinns and Lamberts to color everything BUT the ice cream, but I didn't get the message until later, so I didn't change anything haha...Anyways, we then had to put a backlight, a fill light, and a key light into the frame, including shadows. Unfortunately, many shadows wouldn't show up, and I couldn't figure out how to get them to. Lastly, we had to render out 120 frames of the Lazy Susan spinning and make it into a GIF/video.

What I Learned
In technical terms, I learned how to group and rotate objects in Maya, along with rendering several frames out all at once.
Professionally, I learned that I STILL need to get over my personal pride and ask people for help if I can't figure out what to do. I'm getting better at it, but I still need to work on it.

Should Be Different
Instead of just leaving it the way it was, I should have made more divisions in the Lazy Susan so that it didn't have edges. I also should have used the cloud thing (???) on my ice cream instead of just picking up images off of Google. Along with that, I should have worked harder to find out what was going on with my shadows.

It's Fine the Way It Is
I'm actually pretty proud of show smooth the animation is, except for a barely noticeable stop when it loops, but other than that I think it's pretty good.

Past Experiences ➡ Future Betterment
I know I should have taken more notes on certain procedures in Maya, but some like pressing "R" for the timeline to show up is something that I will definitely remember. I think it will be especially helpful since we pretty much know the basics of animation and won't just be making stills anymore.

Just Letting You Know...
Even though I already have the GIF on here, I would really appreciate it if you could watch the video too, please (it has music ♪)!



- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Story Animation

Our Job
For this project, we had to create a short animated story [that I didn't finish]. We had to incorporate what we learned in both Photoshop and After Effects into it.

Making It
The first objective we had for this project was to make a storyboard, then edit it along the way according to our needs.
Making characters and sceneries was our next priority, whether we created them by a program or by sketch (both for me). Certain parts of its body had to be separate from the other parts in order for it to move smoothly in After Effects. For our background, we once again had to make multiple layers for a better feel of movement.
After finishing those, we had to add everything into After Effects, finally making our story.

Improvements
Along the way, I finally learned how to use the puppet tool (to move the ant's legs), which I couldn't figure out before and was too stuck up to ask about.
In my work environment, I learned that if I want to get things done, I have to ignore my friends' conversations as much as possible, unless of course it had to do with making my animation better.

Doing Things Differently
If I had the chance to do this again, I would probably do it somewhere where I could easily focus on what I was working on, someplace quiet. I also would have tried to divide my time up equally so I could focus on one aspect of the project at a time.

I Wouldn't Change...
My story. Ants are really cute and I kind of think the story I made for this was cute too...

Learn From the Past
For the next project that I work on, I will try to talk to my friends less and make more time for myself after school if I'm having trouble managing my project.

Lastly...
I'm sorry that I didn't finish this. It may sound like an excuse, but I really am a very slow worker and I didn't have the resources or very much time after and outside of school to really work on it. I will try my best to finish it outside of class! ◔̯◔

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Scenery Animation

Creating an Environment
For this project, we got to create a scenery of our choice, and make it pan across the screen. I decided to go with a beach at night, creating a lonely and colorful scene for the viewer. Sadly, we had to use Photoshop to make it, which was pretty hard, but at least it turned out pretty well. It may be pretty dark, but below ⬇ is all my layers put together.

How It Works

To create a moving environment like the ones frequently used in old cartoons, you need to create several layers without merging them ever (well, unless you just want to show a picture of it??). You just need to make the layers closest to the viewer shorter, farthest (except sky) longer, and the sky doesn't move at all. Characters don't apply to these rules!

Using After Effects

Putting this into After Effects...was actually pretty simple; it didn't take that long at all. All you really have to do with an animation like this is to pinpoint it at whichever side you're starting at, then pinpoint it at the farthest point on the other side. Sorry if that doesn't make sense lol.

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Walk Cycle

Drawing It Out
In early September, we started with our walk cycle project. Our first task for it was to draw out body parts for a particular character and then outline them in Sharpie (I made a sexy astronaut :>). Afterwards, we had to scan in the sheet of paper to single out the body parts and give them color if we wanted to.

It's Alive!
When we had our character(s) and background ready, we then uploaded the files into After Effects where we had the character move across the screen. Although we were supposed to use the puppet tool to make the movements more realistic, I couldn't figure it out, so I just made my astronaut march instead (special guest star: extraterrestrial).

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Starter Animations

Sorry in Advance
I will be uploading a few projects within the next day or so that I meant to put on here a month or two ago, but I've just been really busy and haven't gotten around to it. This is one of them!

Bouncing Ball
Our first project was to create a bouncing ball, even though we had already done that as freshmen. It was fairly simple, but we used a different technique that we did last year. This time, we used After Effects instead of doing it manually in Photoshop.


Inchworm
Using basically the same scenery we used in the bouncing ball animation, we had to create an inchworm, and, using After Effects again, have it inch its way along the screen. We could make the worm look like anything we want, so I made mine look like Wormy from Spongebob :>.
(Sorry this is pretty bad)

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Photoshop Tutorial

What Did I Learn...?
All in all, I'm pretty sure I learned more from these tutorials than I think. There are still many concepts, options, etc. that I don't have any clue how to use. HOWEVER, here is a list of some that I do know how to use because of the tutorials :> :

• Healing brush
• Patch tool
• Layer masks
• Inverting selections
• Hue/Saturation
• Cropping canvases
• Probably more

Most Important Tools (For Me)

Three key tools out of all those up there ↑ would definitely be layer masks, the patch tool, and the healing brush. To me, these are the most important tools because not only are they pretty easy to use, but they can help your picture look all dolled up and fancy, like cleaning up the kid's face in the black and white picture. The patch feature can help replace a certain area with another so it will blend in more with the background (if that makes sense), the healing brush can make your face look less greasy, etc., and the layer masks can just make your picture look super neat like in the picture below ↓ with the tree coming out of the guy's neck. It's really not as hard as it sounds!

Favoritism
There definitely are so many Photoshop tools that I really value, but my favorite has to be the layer mask. It was tough to learn, especially with a project as big as the one with the girl in black, but as soon as I got used to using it, it was a really interesting tool. When I use it in future projects, it will certainly be helpful if I need to get a picture of someone or something and a fancy background to go with it. I can't really explain it all that well to be honest.

Strengths/Weaknesses
I honestly think that I have more weaknesses than strengths when it comes to this, but I can't tell you what they all are. I'm a slow worker, especially with programs like Photoshop. However, I think this is sort of a good thing because it shows that I pay a lot of attention to and care about what I'm doing. Another one of my strengths is that if I didn't understand how to do something that was done in the video (more specifically, the videos about the girl in black haha), I looked it up online instead of complaining about it. I also kind of had trouble figuring out the Hue/Saturation layer after being finished with the girl in black, but after messing around a little bit, I figured it out. Other than that, nothing specific (i.e. certain tools, etc.) really comes to mind.

Pick Something Different!
I'm assuming that with the question, "What would you do different? Why?" you are asking about the final challenge to just do whatever with the pictures given to us. Well, sort of. I kind of wish I cropped the picture a little bit on the left so that the man would be more in the center. There isn't much else I would change about it.

Stay the Same!
The roots! I would definitely keep the roots. Before actually making them come out of the man's neck, I thought it would really neat, but not so much afterward. I was in a rush to finish it, and I wish I made the neck and the tree blend in better with each other. Although, now that I think about it, it looks pretty cool and I don't think anybody else did it.

Et Cetera
As much as I didn't like doing this project, I sincerely think it helped me learn the Photoshop skills I've wanted for years.

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

End of Year Project

BabyVac by Team 1
Nearing the end of the school year, finals are bound to come up. For e-Comm, our final was to present a made up product with a pre-assembled team. Our product was the BabyVac (the Baby Mop was already taken), which is basically a portable vacuum attached to a onesie. When the baby crawls around, it cleans your floors (amazing am I right????). Totally original.

Team Work
Overall, our group effort was alright; it wasn't good, but it wasn't bad. Distractions would come about every so often, but for the most part, we worked hard to make our presentation funny and well-designed.

Next Time...
I think that if I were to be put in a group like this again, I hope that I would try to get people more on track rather than just sitting there and watching a couple people in my group slack off. I don't want to have to work as much to get other people's parts done tbh!!

Improvements
Becca and I spent a lot of time working on the commercial, so I think I know a lot more about Final Cut than I did before (merging clips, etc.). I now also sort of know how to make a sphere in SketchUp, but since it didn't end up in the final animation, that doesn't really matter.

Commercial


Animation


"Official" BabyVac Website

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ