My Lessons Learned

In making this animation the biggest lesson that i learned is to always, ALWAYS, set aside time for rendering. When you have still models, the rendering process is much faster than animated characters. Because of this i learned that that the best way to render and animation is to break it into part among several different computers, therefore it won't take as long to render. Another lessoned that i learned is how important the IOP curve is to an animation. Without it there would be no animation.

Project Report - Liya Yitna

Project Goal:
The Project goal is to understand blender and create a simple animation scene using the program.
Storyline:
Our story line begins under a child’s bed. There are three characters that are part of the scene; a cowboy boot, a pull toy and a tennis ball. At the beginning of the scene the cow boy boot kicks the tennis ball towards the pull toy and the pull toy kicks it back. They keep on playing the game till the tennis ball gets stuck inside the boot. The boot struggles to get the ball out and succeeded with the help of the of the pull toy.
Work Break Down:We have divided the whole scene into three parts so each group member will be able to work on different scene. In addition Ashley is in charge of rendering the whole animation.

Lessons Learned:
I was able to learn a lot about blender while I am working on this project. I was able to work on a simple ball bouncing animation using lettuce. In general, it was difficult to learn some techniques of blender but overall it was a great learning experience.

Project Report

Project CGI Project Report: Phase 2

Team Members: Ashley Wilson, Liya Yitna, and Lauren Wiginton

Project Report: Lauren Wiginton

Project Goal:
Our project goal for Phase 2 was to create a simple animation illustrating what could be found under a child’s bed. While we understand that none of us have had much experience with animation or the Blender program before this class, we aimed to make the highest quality production we know how. We hoped to create a story that would be entertaining and enjoyable. We aimed to stay true to our storyline and create characters that are simple, yet have their own personalities in their interactions throughout the scene.

Storyline:
The story begins with a scene under a child's bed. There is a cowboy boot, a pull toy, and a tennis ball. The boot approaches the tennis ball and kicks it toward the pull toy. The pull toy hits the ball back. The game gets going between the two toys. Suddenly, the tennis ball is thrown into the cowboy boot. The boot struggles to get the ball out for a while, unsuccessfully. Finally, the pull toy comes up behind the boot and knocks the ball out by tipping the boot over. The story is resolved in the two toys becoming friends.

Work Break Down:
Each team member worked on creating the armature for the character they created in Phase 1. After each member created their character’s armatures, we went about animating. We decided it would be best to have each member do a section of the animation. I took the first phase of the animation, consisting of the introduction camera work and the boot kicking the ball to the pull toy. Ashley created most of the game sequence, the tossing back and forth of the ball between the two toys. Finally, Liya finished up the animation with the ball getting stuck in the boot and the pull toy helping him out. We all helped each other in solving design and production challenges that we came across. In working this way we each felt we contributed a significant portion to the project. In the end, Ashley took over rendering the entire animation to give us the final product.

Lessons Learned:
In making this animation, I personally felt I learned a significant amount by actually making the animation. When I ran across challenges, I looked up solutions on the internet and in the Blender wiki manual. Overall, I found the actual animation process to be a great learning opportunity. The process was overwhelming and tedious to figure out, but I think I learned a great deal from the hands on experience. I also think all the team members learned something from each other, I am glad that we had a team to bounce ideas off of and to answer technical questions. The support of the team was crucial to this animation’s success.

A Few Pointers for Anmination

• Moving the camera is just like creating a walking sequence: all you have to do is physically move the camera and set it at specific frames.
  
• Each character already has armature in them, so all you have to do is move the bones to the position you want them to be in.
• The ball doesn't have armature (from what i understand) so all you will have to do is physically move the ball and set it at particular frames.
• The bed also does not have an armature...but it shouldn't move throughout the sequence
• If you are having any trouble locating the bones in a character's wireframe- bring down the subsurf. This will open up the wireframe so that it isn't so tight.
• We just learned how to do a soft body in class today- this information can be found in lecture #29. I believe what we want to do for the ball is a rigid body. There is a blender manual for this if you go the the computer graphics syllabus and click on "  Blender user’s manual: Rigid bodies" 

How to import individual files in Blender:
1. File, Import
2. Choose the object you want to import. You must import all the necessary parts of the object (such as the object itself and the armature, the texture, the materials, etc...)
3. The file should be imported into the current scene with all its working parts when you are finished.

Animation Story Outline and Jobs

CGI Animation:

-Each section needs to be 40 seconds long.

Lauren: Deadline Thursday, April 23

1.Pan to below the bed
2.Highlight each character
3.Rotate around each character
4.Boot approach ball
5.Boot kick the ball toward Dog
6.Dog nudges it back to the boot

Ashley: Deadline Friday, April 24

1.Boot will kick the ball harder toward the Dog
2.Game goes back and forth for a few times
3.Ball hits Dog in the face
4.Dog get mad and throws it back and the ball rolls around Boot's foot opening
5.Ball gets stuck inside

Liya: Deadline Sunday, April 26

1.Boot struggles to get the ball out like he's chocking
2.Then Dog goes and knocks Boot over
3.Ball rolls out
4.Boot bows to Dog
5.Fade to black

Should we meet up some time next week or something? What are we going to do about the final animation? I think we should probably find a time to go to the Digital Aquarium so we can append all our files together and get started on making the final.
We should also try to find some music to play in the background. Maybe something playful and just instrumental?

I'm free after 5:30 M-TH, but only for an hour on Wednesday and all day Friday

Cowboy Boot Animation

Here's a simple animation I whipped up of my boot when it will kick the ball (Liya's project) to the Doggie Pull Toy (Ashley's project).
We will have to incorporate all the images together later.

Push Pull Dog Toy Progress

Animating the Push Pull Dog Toy

Skinning the Tail

The Armature for the Push Pull Dog Toy

Cowboy Boot Progress

Lauren: Added bones to boot



Toe raised up:


While animating the boot:

For Thursday

We are each going to have posted:
1. At least 3 screen shots or renders of our animation process
2. A rendered animation of our figure

Project Plan

CGI Project 1 Report
Team Members: Ashley Thai, Liya Yitna, and Lauren Wiginton

Project Goal:
Our group hopes to learn the fundamental techniques of Blender and other basic 3D modeling skills. By the end of the project, we would like to have created a fun and visually interesting 3D rendered scene and animation. Specifically, our scene will represent what could be found under a child's bed. Obviously, we do not expect our animation to be the best quality, seeing as we are only beginning to learn all of what Blender has to offer. Still, we would like to demonstrate our current skills to their fullest potential. Through this process we will no doubt acquire a greater respect for 3D modelers and animators while experiencing what it takes to create a simple scene or animated sequence.

Team Members and Roles:
Designers: All members (Ashley Thai, Liya Yitna, and Lauren Wiginton)
Modelers and Animators: All Members
Rendering Lead: Ashley
Webmaster: All Members may post items on Google Groups page

Brief Description of Story:
The story begins with a scene under a child's bed. There is a cowboy boot, a pull toy, and a tennis ball. The boot and pull toy approach the tennis ball and begin to toss it back and forth. The game gets going between the two toys. Suddenly, the tennis ball is thrown into the cowboy boot. The boot struggles to get the ball out for a while, unsuccessfully. Finally, the pull toy comes up behind the boot and knocks the ball out by tipping the boot over. The cowboy boot is angered by the whole situation and kicks the tennis ball out of the scene.

Work Break Down:
In Project 1, everyone worked individually on creating their own chosen 3D character. Each member chose an object they think would be found under a bed and modeled it using Blender and the help of tutorials found online. In the final stage, everyone’s 3D models were compiled to create a cohesive scene of what could be found under a child's bed.

Brief Description of Each Model and Techniques:

The Push Pull Dog Toy (Ashley Thai):
Ashley created this model with a combination of cubes and cylinders. The cubes and cylinders are subserfed and both have several extended regions.

The Tennis Ball (Liya Yitna):
Liya's model was created from a UV sphere. Furthermore, she created mirror images from selected faces and vertices. She then scaled and modified the object to come to the final product.

The Cowboy Boot (Lauren Wiginton):
I created the cowboy boot model using a variety of mesh objects and molding them together by moving the vertices. I am sure there is a more efficient way to achieve this same goal, but this is what I chose to do while learning. The hole where the foot would go was created using the Boolean modifier to make the difference, using a cylinder. The leather texture was created using a Musgrave filter under the textures tab.

Lessons Learned:
In particular, our group would have benefitted from selecting specific objects that could be explained through a tutorial, considering our lack of experience with the program and computer graphics in general. In the beginning, we chose a fairly complicated storyline and complex characters. Our first ideas involved a group of shoes learning how to dance in a studio. We each tried to create a certain shoe for our model. These proved to require more experience than each of us had. Being that it was everyone’s first time using Blender, we should have taken that into greater account. In the end, we chose to go with a simpler story line. We decided upon two toys playing with a ball, and chose characters that we were confident we could model. We each also found techniques in Blender that work better for us than others. For example, Ashley found that it was easier for her to create her model using subserfed cubes and cylinders, rather than spheres.
Overall, Blender has proven to be a very complicated program to learn. We each expected Blender to be hard to learn, but it was even harder than our first impressions. Learning the interface has taken a lot longer than expected, and we am still continuing to learn the finer points of it. The whole process has been incredibly overwhelming and frustrating at times. We seemed to have higher expectations for our models and skills, which were unrealistic given our experience. However, online tutorials have been fairly helpful while working on this project. We have realized that the best way to become familiar with the program is to jump right in, trying to solve problems while we are modeling and learning from experience.

Plan for Project 2:
Our team's plan for Project 2 is to use the characters we have created and place them within the environment described in the story outline and storyboard. We hope to animate each of these characters using Blender. Hopefully we will continue to increase our familiarity with Blender and the animation process in general. It may be best if everyone is responsible for the animation of their individual character. However, we will all need to work together to create a cohesive animation style. The group should meet at least once a week to go over progress we have each made individually and work on the animation cooperatively. By midpoint the group should have completed the rough workings of the whole animation sequence, including camera angles and sequencing. From this point until the end, we should focus on tweaking the transitions and detail work. At the end of the semester, we should have met enough times to have created a complete animation that runs for approximately two minutes and follows the storyline we have set out.