Lowman

First, lowman isn't my creation. It is a template to help users understand character skeletons. So, once again, this is not my creation, I just animated it.


This first one was very simple to make, I just bent lowman down with the move tool and then move lowman up off the screen with the move tool again.


The second one was a little bit annoying because lowman is actually moving. The problem is you have to move lowman in such a way that he doesn't seem to slide. If you look hard enough my lowman slides a little as he walks.


This lowman I had fun with. I just thought of a happy cartoon walking and shaped lowman into that. Lowman is just bent at the hip a lot.


This final lowman is what I worked on the most. First I bent lowman at the knees and bent them inside a little bit. Then I moved them back and forth to create a trembling motion.

Next, I placed the right hand into the mouth by rotating and moving the forearms and hand. I then had lowman move his mouth and make it seem like it is biting its nails. This was achieved by simply rotating the mouth.

Finally, I covered lowman's eyes with the left hand with the rotation and move tools. Near the end of the animation, the fingers on the left hand open for the lowman to see. Once again this is achieved by rotating the index and middle finger.

The only problem I had with this one was that I could not dilate the eyes to add an extra effect to the lowman being scared.

Bob Gets an Upgrade: v2 & v3

Bob (yes he will be forever known as Bob) v2 was made during the end production of my midterm. I wanted to make Bob more simple, so I developed a new body for him out of one sphere, instead of three seperate parts.




Bob v3 was developed during midterm presentations. As I was watching Emile's bathtub and the water effect in it, I got to wondering if I could apply it to Bob v2. And behold, Bob looks a lot more like a slime.

Animation MidTerm: Self-Eval

I'm really proud of my project. I am proudest at the fact that I was able to make my slime creature come to life. Ever since I knew I was taking the animation class and I saw that wood print, I wanted to make a slime creature. With the help of Maya, I think I have achieved that goal. I truly believe that my Maya slime is how a slime looks and moves.

The one problem I had and that I am still dissatisfied with is showing my slime's fear. It was hard for me to express its fear through movement rather than sound. That part of the animation still looks funky to me.

Over all, I am proud of the objects and animation I have created. I do hope to continue work on my slime: improving its body and animations.

Animation MidTerm: Production

Abstract:
Well basically, my animation is a slime creature climbing a golden cup only to fall in the end. This project is very animation heavy with a lesser focus on textures and lighting.

Objects:
The main focus is defiantly on my slime creature. This creature, as funny as it sounds, was inspired by an unusual wood print on my bed. To me the wood print looks exactly like a slime with its mouth gaping. My slime creature is made up of four nurb spheres and a curve extrude about a circle base. The base is just a flattened bottom and elongated sphere. The eye socket is made up of a curve and normal sphere. The eye itself is made of two spheres: one normal sphere and a smaller sphere elongated a bit.




The second object is the golden cup/vase. I really didn't have a clue what my slime should climb on. I thought of using a box but I thought that was too plain. Then I though to make a cup/vase out of a curve and revolve it around the center.



The final object is the base, which I made out of a square. I added this object because I thought a base would keep the objects in perspective.

Texture:
The slime has two different types of textures. First, the body and the eye socket have the default texture placed on them with a few modifications: color change and transparency. Whenever I think of slimes I think of the color green and that’s the reason behind the color. Also, whenever I think of slimes I believe I would be able to see through them and that’s the reason behind the transparency of the slime creature. The second texture is on the eyeball. Both the spheres that make the eyeball are blinn to give it a little glare but one is colored white and the other black.

The cup has a blinn texture on it also to add a little glare and is colored in a yellowish gold. I really dont know why I colored the cup gold. It could be the fact that I was thinking of the Holy Grail, which I imagine to be gold.

The base has a 3-D wood texture because I wanted the base to look like a table.

Lighting:
The lighting is a real big deal in this project but I added a spotlight that at first focuses on the slime and the area it is around. Eventually the spotlight's cone spreads out to cover the entire scene.

Animation:
This was definitely my favorite part. The object with the most animation is definitely the slime. The basic movement of the slime is just elongating and shorting the base and moving it a bit.





The eyeball's movement is a simple rotation to make it look at the audience and then the ground and back to the audience.





When the slime finally realizes how high it is, it starts to get scared. To show this I first started by moving the eye in, what I thought, was a trembling motion. It was later revealed to me that that movement alone seemed like a menacing laugh. To correct this, I added a trembling eye socket and made the black part of the eyeball increase in size. The addition of the eye socket and the dilating of the eyeball I think add to the slime's terror.

The final animation for the slime comes from its body falling. To make it seem like gravity is pulling his body down, I elongated the body and the eye socket and moved the entire slime body down. But to add a cartoony feel to my animation, I let the body fall and left the eyeball hang in the air for a bit until I made it fall too.






The only other object that has animation to it is the camera. I added a camera because it allowed me get the different angles I wanted.