Tuesday, March 31st
Activity: Today, I continued to model the factory. I focused on making the key components of the factory, and got the majority of them done. I did have some trouble making the claw, because it didn't bend how I wanted it to at first, and it took some playing around with to get it right. I still need to make the walls of the factory and maybe other background things in order to make it feel less empty.
Reflection: I should be able to finish modeling and texturing the factory and robot by tuesday and be ready for animating, though I may use some simple placeholder textures if it takes longer than I think. Since I don't have much left to make in the factory, finishing the modeling shouldn't take too long, especially since most of what I have left to model can easily be made of basic shapes. Putting everything together might be a bit more troublesome, since I'm not exactly sure where everything is in relation to each other, but I'll figure it out after I model everything. Texturing also shouldn't be too hard, minus the robot, since I'll need to explore the body paint tool.
Files: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
Thursday, March 31, 2011
12
Tuesday, March 31st
Activity: Today, I continued to model the factory. I focused on making the key components of the factory, and got the majority of them done. I did have some trouble making the claw, because it didn't bend how I wanted it to at first, and it took some playing around with to get it right. I still need to make the walls of the factory and maybe other background things in order to make it feel less empty.
Reflection: I should be able to finish modeling and texturing the factory and robot by tuesday and be ready for animating, though I may use some simple placeholder textures if it takes longer than I think. Since I don't have much left to make in the factory, finishing the modeling shouldn't take too long, especially since most of what I have left to model can easily be made of basic shapes. Putting everything together might be a bit more troublesome, since I'm not exactly sure where everything is in relation to each other, but I'll figure it out after I model everything. Texturing also shouldn't be too hard, minus the robot, since I'll need to explore the body paint tool.
Files: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
Activity: Today, I continued to model the factory. I focused on making the key components of the factory, and got the majority of them done. I did have some trouble making the claw, because it didn't bend how I wanted it to at first, and it took some playing around with to get it right. I still need to make the walls of the factory and maybe other background things in order to make it feel less empty.
Reflection: I should be able to finish modeling and texturing the factory and robot by tuesday and be ready for animating, though I may use some simple placeholder textures if it takes longer than I think. Since I don't have much left to make in the factory, finishing the modeling shouldn't take too long, especially since most of what I have left to model can easily be made of basic shapes. Putting everything together might be a bit more troublesome, since I'm not exactly sure where everything is in relation to each other, but I'll figure it out after I model everything. Texturing also shouldn't be too hard, minus the robot, since I'll need to explore the body paint tool.
Files: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory331
Thursday, March 24, 2011
11
Thursday, March 24th
Activity: Today, I finished modeling my robot and all its various parts. I made heavy use of the magnet tool to distort spheres and make the right shapes for the robot, and also used booleans to make indents for where the different parts attach.
Reflection: Modeling the robot took about as much time as I expected, but I think modeling the factory itself will take more time than I initially thought. Also, I learned that it is very helpful to enable only one axis when using the magnet tool, else it skews in crazy directions. I still have to texture the robot, though with body paint, that will be far easier than I first thought it would. I also may add intents for the eyes of the robot, rather than just draw them on.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory324
Activity: Today, I finished modeling my robot and all its various parts. I made heavy use of the magnet tool to distort spheres and make the right shapes for the robot, and also used booleans to make indents for where the different parts attach.
Reflection: Modeling the robot took about as much time as I expected, but I think modeling the factory itself will take more time than I initially thought. Also, I learned that it is very helpful to enable only one axis when using the magnet tool, else it skews in crazy directions. I still have to texture the robot, though with body paint, that will be far easier than I first thought it would. I also may add intents for the eyes of the robot, rather than just draw them on.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpfactory324
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
10
Tuesday, March 22nd
Activity: Today, I just planned out my factory project, filling out the project plan and drawing a story board. I also experimented with the conveyor belt a bit, as I will be using it in the animation itself.
Reflection: My factory project is about a factory that makes robots. I'm not exactly sure how to texture the robot yet, as I want it to have a certain design rather than just look like its made of some material. I'm also not exactly sure what the factory itself will look like yet, but that can wait for after I actually begin modeling it. Other than that, I don't think there are any big issues yet, but I'll probably run into some trouble with the animating itself later on.
Activity: Today, I just planned out my factory project, filling out the project plan and drawing a story board. I also experimented with the conveyor belt a bit, as I will be using it in the animation itself.
Reflection: My factory project is about a factory that makes robots. I'm not exactly sure how to texture the robot yet, as I want it to have a certain design rather than just look like its made of some material. I'm also not exactly sure what the factory itself will look like yet, but that can wait for after I actually begin modeling it. Other than that, I don't think there are any big issues yet, but I'll probably run into some trouble with the animating itself later on.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
09
Thursday, March 3rd
Activity: Today I did lots of work on my Word Play, and changed up a few textures in my fly through, which I had rendered overnight. I mainly animated the solid portion of the wordplay, and also created the model for the word Liquid and made a placeholder water texture, though I didn't use it yet. I also learned how to animate scaling, as before I was having trouble with that.
Reflection: I'm still not sure exactly how to animate the liquid section, so I'll have to experiment with that separately over the weekend. I'll also need to rerender my fly through, since one of the textures was acting oddly. Other than that, I don't think I'll have any other major problems finishing these two projects, since everything else is pretty straightforward. I'm basically done with half of my word play and just need to add sounds to my fly through once I've fixed the texture thing, which will probably involve messing with different material settings.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpwordplay33
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpwordplay33
Activity: Today I did lots of work on my Word Play, and changed up a few textures in my fly through, which I had rendered overnight. I mainly animated the solid portion of the wordplay, and also created the model for the word Liquid and made a placeholder water texture, though I didn't use it yet. I also learned how to animate scaling, as before I was having trouble with that.
Reflection: I'm still not sure exactly how to animate the liquid section, so I'll have to experiment with that separately over the weekend. I'll also need to rerender my fly through, since one of the textures was acting oddly. Other than that, I don't think I'll have any other major problems finishing these two projects, since everything else is pretty straightforward. I'm basically done with half of my word play and just need to add sounds to my fly through once I've fixed the texture thing, which will probably involve messing with different material settings.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpwordplay33
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpwordplay33
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
08
Tuesday, March 1st
Activity: Today, I started to work with sounds with Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut. I mainly explored Soundtrack Pro to see what it could do, and also looked through my own music to see if I could find any songs that may fit with my fly through just as background music, as I can't think of many sounds that could be used. I downloaded two sound effects that I was experimenting with, a wind sound effect and a wind chime sound effect, though if I do use a wind sound effect I'll probably just make my own. Since I didn't have my rendered video, I followed along with the lecture about Final Cut but couldn't test it out myself. I also did a little bit of work on my wordplay, but quickly ran into some issues so I didn't get too much done.
Reflection: I'll have to look over the Final Cut stuff again, since I didn't get to test it out today. As for sound, since I already played around with it in my other animation class I took, it's really nothing new. The only new thing is the new program, but even that isn't too much of a jump, as I'm only working with one sound effect at a time and not making music tracks or anything like that. As for what sounds I'll be using, I think I'll use wind and chimes outside of the tower to give it a really high up and almost heavenly feel, and also add whooshes when the camera passes close to the tower. Inside the tower I was thinking of having a song play as though from a radio, since there's technically no sound in space.
Files: Desktop > wchimes.wav, wind01.aiff
Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
Activity: Today, I started to work with sounds with Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut. I mainly explored Soundtrack Pro to see what it could do, and also looked through my own music to see if I could find any songs that may fit with my fly through just as background music, as I can't think of many sounds that could be used. I downloaded two sound effects that I was experimenting with, a wind sound effect and a wind chime sound effect, though if I do use a wind sound effect I'll probably just make my own. Since I didn't have my rendered video, I followed along with the lecture about Final Cut but couldn't test it out myself. I also did a little bit of work on my wordplay, but quickly ran into some issues so I didn't get too much done.
Reflection: I'll have to look over the Final Cut stuff again, since I didn't get to test it out today. As for sound, since I already played around with it in my other animation class I took, it's really nothing new. The only new thing is the new program, but even that isn't too much of a jump, as I'm only working with one sound effect at a time and not making music tracks or anything like that. As for what sounds I'll be using, I think I'll use wind and chimes outside of the tower to give it a really high up and almost heavenly feel, and also add whooshes when the camera passes close to the tower. Inside the tower I was thinking of having a song play as though from a radio, since there's technically no sound in space.
Files: Desktop > wchimes.wav, wind01.aiff
Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
07
Monday, February 28 9-11 PM
Activity: Today I worked solely on finishing my fly through animation up, which I was successful at. It went very well, and actually took less time than I thought it would. I also started rendering it, but when I checked this morning it hadn't gone well, so I will have to try rendering it again tonight.
Reflection: The only real issue I had with this, besides rendering issues, was the automatic interpolation making it impossible to make the camera stop. I ended up rereading about interpolation to figure out how to fix it, and once I did I didn't have many other problems. I ended up turning the default interpolation back on, however, as the camera's movements became really jerky. From this I've learned that the best thing to do is toggle interpolation based on the current needs, allowing complete halts when needed and also allowing very smooth curves and snap backs to make it feel a bit more natural. As for the rendering, I think it was mainly my clouds that screwed it up, since, for some reason, they've been causing me tons and tons of lag, despite not even being the biggest object. However, I think if I give it one more shot I should be good.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
Activity: Today I worked solely on finishing my fly through animation up, which I was successful at. It went very well, and actually took less time than I thought it would. I also started rendering it, but when I checked this morning it hadn't gone well, so I will have to try rendering it again tonight.
Reflection: The only real issue I had with this, besides rendering issues, was the automatic interpolation making it impossible to make the camera stop. I ended up rereading about interpolation to figure out how to fix it, and once I did I didn't have many other problems. I ended up turning the default interpolation back on, however, as the camera's movements became really jerky. From this I've learned that the best thing to do is toggle interpolation based on the current needs, allowing complete halts when needed and also allowing very smooth curves and snap backs to make it feel a bit more natural. As for the rendering, I think it was mainly my clouds that screwed it up, since, for some reason, they've been causing me tons and tons of lag, despite not even being the biggest object. However, I think if I give it one more shot I should be good.
File: Working Volume > Ben Potts > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
House > Documents > 3D Animation > Exercises > bpflythrough228
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