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