How to Make an Asteroid in Maya

Why Do I Need to Know How to Make an Asteroid?
Just in case you ever want to recreate the legendary "Godzilla Goes to McDonald's" (or if you just want to make a space scene). You do you. This tutorial is for anyone who's interested in learning about Maya, or just confused about a few functions of it.

Just Follow These Steps
1.) Open Maya
2.) Create a cube

3.) Make it smoooooooth (Mesh>Smooth)













4.) Smoosh it in wherever (Surfaces>Sculpt Geometry Tool)

5.) Make it smoooooooth again

6.) Add a Lambert to it (hold down right button on mouse>Add Favorite Material>Lambert>maybe name it "asteroid")




















7.) Click the checker-lookin' button next to "color", choose file, then choose the stretched out asteroid picture up there at the top ↑.

8.) Lastly, add a bump map in the "asteroid" lambert attribute area where it says "bump map". Use the checker box next to it, and use the same stretched out asteroid picture up there. You can edit how deep the bumps go if you want. :>
























More Help

• Maya tutorial : How to create a rock in under 4 minutes in Maya
• Sculpt Geometry Tool overview

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

End of Year Reflection - Animation

What I've Learned
During this year in animation, I've learned a lot of valuable information, and actually got to like it more and more by the end of the year. However, I think the most important thing I've learned is to manage my time well. There's a lot to do in this class, and a lot of times, you don't have much time to do it. I'm a naturally slow worker, but I eventually learned that I could cut back on a few things to make sure I have enough time to do whatever I need to do. In other news...I also learned how to use Maya and After Effects pretty well thanks to all the direction sheets, even if those programs seemed to hate me at the beginning of the school year. Speaking of the end of the school year, I'm very happy about the way my group project worked out, even if no one told me that the storyboard was being changed (we could have worked on communication more haha). But, everyone did their jobs, so that was good. Thank god I wasn't the leader in that group, but then again, I wasn't the leader in any other group project. I would have done horribly in that aspect.

You're Doing Well/Work Harder
I really think that managing my time has become my best skill in this class, but I think I still might need to work on putting extra effort into my projects. Sometimes I just do the bare minimum because I'm stressed out about time when I actually do have time to make it look better.

Outside of School
I wish I could get Maya at home so I can work on personal projects, but it's just too expensive (the amount it's asking for is more than I've ever had at one time, and I actually save my money). However, now that After Effects no longer hates me, I think I might experiment with that a little more at home and maybe make some of my own animations.

But What Will I Do With All the Things I Learned?
Again, I think I'll work at home on some personal projects, but maybe I'll use some of my animation skills when it comes to graphic design, since that is the e-Comm class I have chosen to go into as a junior.

Change the Past
I REALLY WISH I COULD HAVE GOTTEN AN A LAST SEMESTER!!! That stressed me out so much. I really wish I worked harder. That's really the only thing I wish I could change.

The End...
This has been a pretty great class to be in, considering I've learned so much and that Mr. Netterville is pretty funny. I enjoy animation, and maybe I'll take some animation courses in college, but that's a long time from now. I hope I can learn more about it in the years to come!


- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Godzilla Goes to McDonald's

The Scope

This, I'm pretty sure, is our final project. For this, we were put into randomly generated groups to come up with a short story to create using VFX and some of the concepts we learned throughout our year in animation.

Production
My team started off filming the scene where Godzilla (Ashlee) is taking the food from the worker (Josh). The rest was just making models in Maya, which was what I was doing for a lot of the time. After all the models were made, I created the title card using Illustrator. After a LONG time, everything was done, and Gabe and James put it all together in After Effects.

If Things Had Been Different

I know it's not something that I did, but I wish Rowan had decided to make the spaceships in Maya, since it would have been a lot easier to combine everything into one Maya file. That's my only real criticism, but he did do a really, really good job when it came to making them.
Oh, I guess another one would be that we didn't follow the storyboard at all (and I didn't know about it)??? So...maybe we should've followed the storyboard?? There were also so many editing errors made in the story (that I didn't know about) that I don't care to mention them all.

Same Things

I mean, I thought it was pretty funny, and so did everyone else, so I guess I'd keep the humor aspects in it. I also think that the greenscreen effects were dealt with pretty well, even if we couldn't exactly get our hands on believable costumes.

Making Future Projects Better

TALKING TO EACH OTHER MORE IN THE GROUP WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY HELPFUL!! You know, just so everyone knows what's happening!! We should have done that more often. :>

The End

All and all, this project was pretty fun to make (and watch), even if it was made pretty poorly. I don't regret it!

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

"Wonder Garden"

Please Watch Before Reading!


Overview
'Wonder Garden' is about a young girl who is transported to a magical world by a teddy bear.

Design Principles
We haven't done actual frame-by-frame drawings in animation, so I wouldn't really be able to critique on that part. However, it looks very well drawn, nicely planned out, and not to mention reminds me of Ghibli.
In-Depth Look
Told from a 3rd person perspective, it tells the story of a girl who sees a teddy bear in a storefront who gives her a beautiful outfit. She and the bear start flying around with other teddy bears to a dark part of the city where a window is, and a huge mechanical teddy bear takes off its head and starts smashing it, freeing everyone. It goes back to the girl, now in her regular clothes, looking at the storefront.
Applications to e-Comm
I love the color palettes they use in this short film, like with the storefront outfit and the magic thing that the bear does in this screenshot. →
Someday I might use some of those color palettes in a graphic design project or something.

Learned Elements
In this same scene (that the screenshot is from), all of the spheres (whatever they are) are moving upward at different speeds, which we learned how to do in Maya a few months ago with our snowflake project. We also learned how to control how far away the surroundings are with a project we did last semester, where we had to create a scenery and make them seem farther and closer away (this happens in the short film).
Well Done!
I don't think there's really anything I dislike about this; the animation looks clean, it's cute, everything is timed nicely, and, again, it reminds me of Ghibli movies (especially when there's a gust of wind).
Improvements
I'd like to see an extended version of this, with an actual story behind the bears and everything that's happening (and why it's happening). Other than that, I don't think any improvements could be made.
Conclusion
All in all, there was almost nothing bad about this film, other than the fact that it left me wanting more.


- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ


Wonder Garden. Dir. Yojiro Arai. Prod. Yoichi Kawakumi. YouTube. Spiral Cute Inc., 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

Marks/Symbols

Article Summary
All in all, logos/symbols/marks/etc. have to be pretty compact, and yet easily recognizable; everything in it has to work well together, too.

Symbol or Logo?
A lot of people get these two confused; a symbol is a picture used to identify an organization, etc., while a logo only has to do with the actual name of it. Logos use type, symbols use graphics. When you combine these two, you get a combination mark!

What I Learned
Before reading this "article", I actually learned what I explained in the previous paragraph, that a logo and a symbol aren't the same thing. If I hadn't learned that, that probably would have caused a lot of confusion in the future. I also didn't know that Gestalt principles were used in graphic design ("close gestalt" and "open gestalt") in order to serve "as a magnet for the eye".

Picking Favorites
I feel like I'm being really repetitive with this, but believe it or not, my favorite thing that I got out of this article was that *gasp* logos and symbols aren't the same thing!!!!! No way!!!!!!! I already explained why it was valuable!!!!!!!!!!

All Together Now
Articles are usually pretty lengthy for me to read, even if this one was only two pages. However, most of what I learned from it was pretty important (like what I mentioned in the paragraphs above :> ).

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

Making 'Kubo and the Two Strings'

Main Idea

Generally, this article briefly describes several aspects of the creation of the movie 'Kubo and the Two Strings', such as making the puppets their clothing.

Author's Feelings

You can already tell how Giardina, the author, feels about the process just by reading the first paragraph. It's very obvious that she believes the process to be—and it is—extremely difficult, especially when she compares moving a single finger to preparations for a lunar launch. She doesn't seem to have any negative feelings towards it—she seems absolutely fascinated.

But Does She Actually Support This...?

YES. She does support this. Heavily. Giardina doesn't necessarily cite any particular documents/videos/etc., but she does describe many of the efforts it took to create the movie, such as carefully designing clothes for 9-inch tall figurines, printing thousands of different faces for multiple characters, and doing a seemingly endless amount of research to get the feel of the movie just right.

Strengths/Weaknesses

According to the Visual Effects Society, Carolyn Giardina has been writing articles for topics like this for over 15 years, which explains why I think she does such a good job of thoroughly explaining what all went in to this film. However, the ending of the article didn't really seem like much of a conclusion; it just kind of stopped. I wish she would have ended it in a better fashion.

Giardina's Conclusion (If It Was One)

As said in the last paragraph, she didn't really give a conclusion. The article just ended with her talking about the individual pieces of material that made the clothing for the Sisters. So...it wasn't that great (imo).

Significance of the Main Points
Most of what the writer talked about seemed like they're pretty significant, excluding little side stories, even though they were informative. Her main claim was that the set of this movie was much more "advanced" than previous stop-motion films, and easily supported that with multiple references to the small portions that made up the whole of the movie.

But Does Her Argument Support the Main Points...?
Please read the surrounding paragraphs.

Convincing Evidence

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yesssssss! She uses more than enough evidence! She convinced me in the second paragraph!! I don't think I have to say any more!!!!! ❤

Connecting It to E-Comm

Being in (and doing this for) animation, this makes me realize that even if it takes a really, really long time to work on something, and it's super frustrating, I need to keep working on it for the final product. The people at Laika worked on 'Kubo' for about two years, and it ended up being one of my favorite movies. It can basically be summed up by the VFX (visual effects) supervisor of the movie, Steve Emerson, when he said, "Making this movie wore me out. I can't wait to do another."

Here's What I Didn't Understand...

There were a few words I didn't know the meaning of in the article (i.e. "verbose"), but I was able sort of figure out what was being said using context clues and knowledge of what happens within the movie.
That wasn't such a big deal for me, but I wish she would say a little more about this "Shannon Tindle" that she mentioned, who apparently came up with the concept of 'Kubo'.

To Finish Things Off,

I could not agree more with this lady!! Not only do the creators of this film say it was extremely difficult to make, but 'Kubo' just looks so well made that it's almost impossible to disagree.

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

"Carolyn Giardina." Visual Effects Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2017.

Giardina, Carolyn. "How 'Kubo and the Two Strings' Merged Stop-Motion Animation and 3D Printing (Plus a 400-Pound Puppet)." The Hollywood Reporter. N.p., 15 Dec. 2016. Web. 09 Jan. 2017.

Posters!!!

Overview
Posters, viewed in the way consumers see it (not posters that you hang in your room), basically reflect the economic, social, cultural, and political state of everyday life. They can also suggest, unveil or remind the viewer of their personal "wishes". Most of all, a poster should inform its audience in stimulative way so that it is not forgotten and it is possibly dispersed to others. Today, posters have become common enough to the point that we see them everywhere.

Follow the Rules
The laws of designing a poster, as boring as they may sound, can actually make your product more noticeable to a passerby. Supposedly, it isn't very often that people stop to look at a poster, probably because they didn't "follow the rules". There are many factors in this, including:

• Color
• Proportion
• Contrast
• Rhythm
• Form
• etc.

The factor "color" can have multiple meanings; it can create a specific mood, "clarify situations", and is especially recognizable when having to do with politics (Democrat, Republican, etc).
Another factor, "lettering", is very important, but not as much as "color" might have. The fundamentals of this element incorporate its size, legibility [from a distance], and style.
Lastly, there's "shape", another one of the most significant principles of poster design. Some of its effects on the overall product include the shape being large in size, but not too dominating, obvious from a distance, "forceful presentation" to catch someone's attention, clarity, visual appeal, overlapping with other elements of the poster, and a dynamic display. Like other functions of the "laws", it won't work correctly if used improperly.

Key Points
The three main points I believe this article is trying to get across is that most posters aren't as publicly tasteful as they could be, they should be made to pop out, and most importantly, they recognize situation that are happening in real life. The first two are prominent because they both attempt to get the reader to not follow the crowd with boring posters, but make them influential in your own way. As for the last one, you may be so used to what's happening in the real world that you don't realize how important it is until you see it reflected on a poster.

Valuable Aspects
To me, the most interesting thing I read from this article was that, as said in the previous paragraph, there aren't many posters that strike people's aesthetics like there might have been before. By keeping this in mind, I will try my best to make my projects more optically appealing and study successful posters in the hopes of having the same effects of them.

Dumbed Down
In conclusion, posters are important and should be made with care.

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ