Magic Potions

Magic Potions!

For this project we were given the task to create a bottle of our own brand and create a wrapper with logo, description, and barcode. This project was one of the easiest we have done thus far and I really didn't find anything about it challenging.

Sketching

The first thing we needed to do was create a mock up sketch of both our bottle and the wrapper. This was simple so it didnt take much time. Everyone else was doing things like soda and juice but I was feeling a little creative and decided to make a "Magic Potion". It was titled "Gunter's Elixir". The name is based off my online name and I just thought elixir sounded cool.

Modeling

This model was very simple to create. I just created an outline with the bevel tool, created the surface with revolve, and converted surface to polygon. After this I created a duplicate to serve as the liquid inside the bottle, with the original being used for the glass with a bit of transparency. After this it was to photoshop! In PS I created a canvas of the dimensions required and drew the logo, got a barcode off the internet, and my wrapper was created. All I had to do was save for web (bc I'm not a fool who uses low quality images) and import it as a texture in Maya. 

Really bad web design

Dodge these design habits/stupid ideas.

So at the moment our websites are really bad. I mean really bad. But compared to these we honestly look like web design veterans that created the internet. 

STOP USING IMAGES FOR SIDE BAR BUTTONS

WHY. Like seriously WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS. It looks awful. I have seen next to NONE that use images to an advantage with the side bar buttons.

Color scheme, or ya know, just don't have one. That works to.

Just make a color scheme. Like don't have every color as a color scheme because thats not actually a color scheme. Fine I'll just give you one. Blue Orange and white. Go have fun.

Sound on websites....

I hope water falls on your keyboard.

Make images look nice.

Like ok if your going to add images at LEAST make it seem like they fit.

Other Ideas:

buttons...EVERYWHERE

not aligning anything

having a front page that has a link to the actual front page

white text on yellow background

autoplaying anything

Why do people do this?

Well to put it simple, they are to self centered. The designers of these websites are too scared to look objectively at there work so they cant improve themselves. Another problem is that these people lack simple understanding of design fundamentals such as color schemes and alignment. Sites such as these have been completely abandoned do to the introduction of sites such as wix and other automatic formats available.  

Credit to crappy web designers

http://www.roverp6cars.com/

http://www.arrestling.com/index.html

https://nwokillers.weebly.com/our-beliefs.html

http://www.libertyvan.com/

First 3d animation

3D Animation

So for our first animation project we went back to the good old ice cream models. The animation was incredibly simple but it just got us a little more comfortable with the animation workspace in Maya. This project was probably the easiest that we will ever be given in this class and I say that with the utmost certainty.

So All we had to do for this project was create a "lazy Susan" and make it rotate the ice cream models. And surprisingly its as easy as it sounds. All we had to do for this project is create a couple of groups and rotate those groups. I did it within like 30 minutes, fastest e-Comm project ever. There was nothing really complex but again, this was just an intro to the topic so we really didn't have many complicated tasks to complete.

2 objects, 2 new tools.

The Creation

With this project we were tasked with creating a salt shaker and a cup. This was actually much easier then I thought it would be. It was because of two new concepts introduced known as "lofting" and "revolving". 

Revolving

Revolving is a tool used in combination with other tools to rotate a shape around itself. This may sound really complicated but its actually very simple. Using a curve creation tool, I went into 2d view to create an outline for my cup. After I did this I used revolve and that line was formed into a cup. Thats it. It sounds like an expert technique but you just press a button.

Lofting

Lofting is another tool similar to revolve but functions differently. Instead of rotating around the object it adds polygons in-between objects. The way I used this was I created multiple shapes with the bezier curve tool and duplicated them. I then stacked all the shapes on top of one another leaving a bit of space in-between so that polygons could fit in the spaces. It then created the saltshaker base! After this I did a couple of basic techniques to create the cap. 

3d Hammer

Hammer Time!

So winter break is over and were back on track with class unfortunately. At least were back to animation! So our first project we were assigned was to create a hammer and nail within a 3d animation program called Maya. 

Modeling

The first and most time consuming part of this project was the modeling. This process was the creation of the 3d model I would use to represent a hammer and nail. This can be a very fun part of the project but we all encountered the same problem will modeling. Tumble. Tumble is a mode you can be in within Maya that forms everything even though its not selected. This was obviously a big issue considering that we needed to select certain parts of the model to do certain things like create the claw of the hammer. All of us were almost screaming at our computers when suddenly Mr. Netterville comes and fixes literally all of our computers with one button. B. Moral of the story: Tumble is turned on with B. Anyways We had 4 things we had to create in Maya: The Handle, Hammer Head, the Claw and the nail. The hardest of the 4 had to be the claw but that was only because of the tumble tool. You just had to use the scale tool and rotate the model downwards to create the claw. To create the handle you first start with a high rectangular block and add divisions and start forming the divisions into the handle. The head was pretty easy with just a couple of extrudes and forming here and there. The nail was the easiest because you just make a thin cylinder and make a point on the end.

Shading and Lighting

I put these together because they literally coincide with one another. To have shadows you have to have light so these two have to be treated the same way. So for this project we used a technique called     3 point lighting. This contains a Fill light, Key Light, and Back Light. The Back and Fill light are mostly used as support to emphasize the key light and its effect. All of this is used to manipulate shadows to make the object seem to pop. Im generally new to this which you can see in my pic but I'm learning.

Web Reflection

Web Semester 1 Final Reflection

So 1st semester has come and gone so we can look back on the war that is web design, and just like war web design never changes. Anyways im going to be reflecting on my progress throughout the semester through describing the work that went into creating my final project.

Overview

In this project we were given the task to create a website based off of what we were interested in.  My topic I decided on was Gaming Genre. Since I know a decent bit about the topic I loved to do my project over this. The overall purpose of this website was to fully test our overall knowledge that we had obtained throughout the semester. The process that went into making my site was simple. Just copy paste code from other sites I had made and edit them to match what I wanted.

What did I Learn?

Well over the project I really didnt learn anything. This project was more a test of skill then anything else. The one thing that I had learned from this project was that your website has to stay consistent. All color schemes have to match up to look appealing, all the text has to look good, the writing style has to stay the same. All to ensure that the viewer never gets confused or disinterested.

What would I do different?

I would like to have had a drop down menu bar for my side bar instead of the bar but time restraints forced me to stay with the simple option. The one thing I liked about my site was the color theme. The color theme, in my opinion, was by far the best part of the site with the site looking very clean with the banner. I think that the color scheme was the best aspect of my project and is probably the skill I will carry over to different projects.

First Semester  Reflection

This is my walk cycle project. It took a pretty long time and I was pretty harsh with myself in my blog over this project but looking back it really wasn't all that bad. I will say that it could have been improved if I had a proper model to animate with.  I wanted to reflect on this project because this project (besides my story) gave me the most trouble. Looking back on projects that gave you a tough time can really help you improve. To improve after  reflecting back on this project I noticed that the animation was really rigged with the character reacting to changes in movement with sharp movements making it look unnatural. Something that we didn't touch in the project but is still important to point out is that the rest of the body besides the legs and arms do not move.




Oh this project..... This project was a REAL pain. I mean almost EVERYTHING went wrong when creating this and on top of that we had a strict schedule we had to keep to. I chose this project to reflect upon for the reason I reflected on my last project,  the problems I encountered while creating the project. One of the problems I encountered was that my character WOULD NOT STAY TOGETHER. For the life of me I could not figure out why the puppet pin and parenting tools would not work. I ended up just animating each part individually. Something I learned from this project is that you will have to compromise. When doing something you will almost always encounter a problem and you have to figure out a way to work around it.



This was a fun one, my first 3d animation project. So far I am enjoying Maya much more compared to after effects just because of how easy it is to use. Another factor going into my enjoyment could be that I want to become a 3d character or environmental animator but still this program feels amazing to use. Anyways this project I was tasked with creating a castle by using booleans and textures. I thought this was a great intro project and it was a lot of fun for me to do. I picked this project to reflect on because I want to become a 3d animator and I think I can learn a lot from this project.  One of those things includes how to be effective in Maya. From what I have learned so far from Maya is that you have to take it slow. You can't just throw something together and hope it turns out well because something WILL go wrong and ruin your project. You also have to be able to see what will and will not work with some textures being just too bright or not being repeating.




This was my second animation project and you may notice that it looks MUCH more realistic compared to my last project. Well this is because of the use of lighting. Lighting in animation is absolutely essential if you want to create a world that feels alive. In this project we learned how to use the most basic lighting tools and shadow tools to cast onto our "poly thing". This "Polything" was created with the soul purpose being to demonstrate lighting. One thing that I learned from this project was that lighting is very realistic in these spaces. They act like they normally would if it was reality. If I were to use the spotlight tool it would look like a spot light is being used directly towards the object. This project in all is pretty simple to understand, we basically flashed lights at a weird ball and made it look cool. Even though its simple I can still learn the basics of lighting from this project.