Quarter 1 Animation

It's junior year, and the mediocre blog posts continue! First quarter of Animation so far was kind of different, but in a good way. I've completed two projects this year, and am currently working on a third. Here are my thoughts and details on all three.

Picture Animation

The first project of the year was a simple story made from 30(ish) pictures edited and spaced out with a soundtrack in the background. There isn't a lot to say about this one; I used some of the skills from Video that I learned last year (six shot system and basic framing stuff) to make an animated story.

The Fish Project

This project started out similar to any of the projects we did last year, a basic model in Maya. For my fish, I was kind of inspired by the shower curtain in my bathroom. I guess looking at it every morning for the last 15 years ingrained it in my mind.

I started out by drawing it on paper, then I scanned it into Maya, and used it as a reference to model. After making it look pretty good, I made a texture for it. Something went weird here, making everything slightly transparent, but other than that, it went pretty well. Next, we rigged the fish, which I didn't find too difficult, since I taught myself how to rig last year. Last, I animated the joints to make the fish swim, adding a little piece of fish food for some reason. I didn't render this one, so the video is just a rough playblast.

Castle Model (work in progress)

My most recent, and most likely most complicated project yet is my gothic castle. I've always been kind of interested in architecture, so I decided to make a building for my first semester project. The idea to make a gothic castle specifically came from the game Bloodborne, which is heavily inspired by gothic architecture and culture. I was kind of obsessed with the game over the summer, so it was the first thing that came to mind. Recently, I've also been using Hogwarts castle from Harry Potter as a reference.

So far, I've only made a few models for the project, just simple gothic castle-ey stuff. I started with the arches, maybe one of the most pronounced features of gothic architecture. Since then, I've made a few towers, a gate, and am currently making the main hall area.


My plan for this project is to put all the pieces together and then do a camera fly through as if it were a person touring the castle. Depending on how much time I have, I may try to work in some plot portrayed by the environment, but I'm not at that point yet. This project could turn out really cool, and I hope it does. We'll see at Thanksgiving...