Animation Final - Reflection over the year 

Technology

This year in Animation we learned how to use Maya and aftereffects. My favorite animating software was aftereffects because it was easy to get around and was compatible with the other adobe softwares. I first learned how to use photoshop to scan in my sketches and create the object on the computer to animate. After learning how to navigate photoshop, then we would take our jpeg into aftereffects and begin the animation process. Aftereffects was fairly simple to animate in because it was the same basic set up as photoshop. Once we learned how to do 2D animation, we started to learn how to do 3D animation. I wasn't able to pick up the instructions in Maya very quickly unless it was demonstrated. I hope to take what I have learned with me onto a career in this field. I still need to work on the different ways of animation using more than one software.

Collaboration

 I learned how to collaborate on different animating techniques and styles in our final project. I felt it was important to get other peoples opinions on my projects and learned to draw on their feedback. My greatest weakness for collaboration is the way I take other peoples opinions. I was and still am very hard on myself when people don't like my work.  I plan on taking what I have learned about collaboration and use it in my other classes, especially on group projects and presentations. I would change the amount of collaboration I was involved in because I did not really work in a team very often. I still need to work on getting around the different softwares and become more familiar with the different techniques.

Communication

I feel my communication was ok for Animation. Animation itself we don't really do a lot of group work so it was really easy to agree on things when you are working by yourself. When I did have to work with other people though, I feel we always did well because we understood each other. Im going to take what I have learned for communication and apply it to other parts of my life like work. I would like to try to gain some communication skills next year and apply them throughout my life. I still need to work on communicating with each individual member of a team when one of us is confused.

Project management

My project management could have been much better because I was gone a lot I was most of the time behind. I feel that I did use the time given to me during power 50 well though to get caught up. I feel that I have had better time management in the past. I feel that part of what contributed to bad time management is that I had learn a new software that I was not use to. The other thing that majorly contributed to my poor time management was my attention to detail, I would get so caught up in the way I wanted it to look that I would take way to much time trying to make it look as perfect as possible. This would set me back pretty far in my time line of the project and I would be behind on the following projects. I want total what I have learned onto my junior year in animation and hopefully get a little better withy time management. I would try to change how often I missed class because missing one day would set me back for the entire week.

Leadership

I felt that I did not really take a leadership role when we did group projects. I felt that I was very "go with the flow" about it and did not take charge in my group. I was more the one that would make sure everyone was ok with what they were assigned and helped if needed. Not to say that I didn't ask for help, because I asked for help 9 times out of 10, but I felt that there were some parts that I could easily help with. I feel that I would like to have more opportunities to take more of a leadership position in following years. I would like to still be able to help when I can but also be able to help manage a team. I still need to work on how shy cam in a group of people and make more of a presents.

What has changed over the year 

I feel that I have greatly improved since I have been in e-Comm. I was not able to participate in some of the basic classes that was taught freshman year, but I feel that I have caught up and used my prior knowledge to help me along the way. I feel that even though I was gone I was able to pick up very quickly and am ready for what is ahead.  I am excited to continue in animation next year and gain new skills to begin working with clients.

I have built great relationships with my teachers and peers. I really enjoy coming to these classes, not only because of what we do but because of the wonderful teachers who are guiding me through the process. I like the more relaxed feeling of their teaching style compared to some more strict styles of teaching. I feel that I have good relationships with my peers because we all kind of understand each other. we all kind of think the same way and it helps to have them in a creative environment.

The longest I have probably spent on a single project was about a month and a half. The project I felt that took me the longest was the snowflake animation. I feel this project took the longest because I wanted it to look a specific way and did not quite until it was the exact way I wanted. I remember being after school until 9pm one night working on this project. I was working after school on this project a lot and stressed over this project because of how I wanted it o turn out.

The projects below are the ones I am the most proud of for the year. These projects are also use Maya which is a new animating software I learned how to use this year. After creating the 3D models in Maya I had to render them and take them into aftereffects. The only project I did not animate in aftereffects was the snowflake project, which I animated in Maya. This was very confusing to do for the first time.

Ball Drop

What did you learn?

For this project I learned how to animate from footage. This project required a lot of work in aftereffects, google docs/word and Maya. For this project I had to take the footage into aftereffects, which was new for me. I had to track every time the ball hit, the frame, and how far it bounced back up.  Google docs was used to keep track of all of this information. I had to do this process for each individual ball. This was a little time consuming but was fairly simple. After this was done I was ready to start creating in Maya. After I created each individual ball I had to find textures, bump maps and color maps. The golf ball bump map was easy to apply. The bump map and color map for the tennis ball was a little confusing at first but overall worked out as soon as I figured out which channel to put them in. For the holes in the bowling ball I had to create cylinders and bolenes-subtract. This was really simple, and its one of the first things I learned how to do in Maya. The process of actually animating them was a little frustrating because it was so time consuming and I did not know how to do it. I had to create all linear curves which was very confusing for the first time. After doing this fro each ball I had to create a background. I just created a cube and deleted 2 of the faces to make it simple. Then it was time for lighting this was really easy because it the animation does not rotate. I then took it into aftereffects and finished the animation. All I had to do in aftereffects was render it and make it a jpeg. This project was not as simple as I expected and very time consuming.  

Container

What did you learn?

In this project  I learned how to create a jar shape using the curves tool. After I created the label in photoshop I had to attach it onto the jar. I had to learn how to make the label fit all the way around the container without repeating. Then I had to turn the jar transparent and create the jam that goes inside. One of the hardest parts of this project was creating the shape of the container and the lid. the lid had to be a little bit larger that the top of the container and it was hard to make it even.  After this I had to begin rendering. The difficult part was animating this in Maya because I had to rotate it and keep all of the different parts together, my main problem was making sure the pivot point for all of the separate parts in the center. Other than that the rest was already done for me through the program. After rendering, which went really quick surprisingly, I took this project into aftereffects to animate it. This was really to deal with and I fell I got it done in a good time frame.