Evaluation

I feel that I have followed instructions well during this project, and I am pleased with what I have modelled. I think that my modelling skills have improved greatly during this project, as I have used things such as nurbs, which I haven't really used before, quite effectively and I ended up creating something that was decent aesthetically.

I think that projects like these really do help with your animation skills, as you are asked to do things that may be new to you or out of your comfort zone. You could be forced to use new tools that you haven't used before and therefore helps you learn something new - which is very useful in this area of practice as maya is such a vast program.

I feel that some of my strengths were highlighted by this project, as I think I have a good attention to detail when it comes to modelling, and I feel as though I pick up new tools easily. I managed to come up with models that can be used in varying ways, which I think was of benefit to the kind of project this was, and therefore to the person that set it. I do however need to work on my time management skills when working for other people. It is very different from working for yourself as you have someone, or people relying on you to do work. In terms of the animation industry, I think these are necessary skills that I must improve on so I am able to be the most efficient and am able to find and keep a good job! I plan on working on my rigging in maya next as I find this difficult, as I want to be able to animate my own modelled characters. I think that the most productive way for me to work would be if both me and a friend were to create a character and rig them successfully, so that we could swap and animate each others. This creates a sense of urgency so as to not let the other person down. Also I find working together with someone very helpful.

In terms of next year, I feel that this project has helped me see where my strengths in animation lie, and has helped guide me into what kind of project I want to do in my own 3rd year, and what kind of career I want to do later on in life. The plan is to be a character designer for 3D games, animating where I can, so the more maya practice the better.
Next year I plan to join up with some of my coursemates to create animations for our portfollios, because if we work together we can get much longer and more complicated animations done, which is more impressive on a portfollio.

Garden Ornament

Reference:


Natasha asked me to make a garden ornament of my choice, she specified that it did not have to be football related, it was fine being a normal garden ornament. So I did some research into garden ornaments, and a few mushroom ones looked nice to model.

These are my final mushroom ornament models. The stems and the tops were made using the curve and the revolve tool, (similar to the bottom of the basket), which gave a very cute, cartoony and rounded effect to their shape.

Flower Creations

The flower football below was actually modelled over a black ball, so I could line everything up properly. I have given her a file with these separate flowers in so she can use them in whatever way she wants to give my models a bit more diversity in how they can be used.


These flowers I have made using something called nurbs which I have discovered are very good to use for organic models as they are much more easily manipulated than polygons into irregular shapes. I have not used this tool extensively before, and I was surprised to find how easily they were manipulated into petals for the flower.



I started modelling the flowers by editing the vertex of each petal (each one was modified to fit onto the flower correctly), and I found it surprisingly easy to manipulate. Because it is a nurb, when you move each vertex, the others are effected too, giving the model a much smoother, organic look.



The basket has a special texture on it called a bump map, which actually makes the surface of the basket slightly bumpy, to resemble, in this case, a basket.

Research

Flower Research:



The flowers themselves:


I want to try and model some flowers resembling lilys that also appear in a football shape. From this I can create various hedges and baskets for Natasha to use however she wants too. By creating separate black and white flowers she can also create flower beds however she wants using them.

Brief

We have been asked to assist a 3rd year that is doing a similar type of animation to us on one of their projects. I have chosen Natasha to assist as she is doing animation based on 3D character design using Maya, and is creating a short film using her 3D skills - which is something similar to what I want to achieve next year.

The brief given to me by her was to model some flowers and flower baskets in football themes and to also create a garden ornament for her to use in her animation.