LipSync StoryBoard

Characterization: 

Snooty over confident detective

(comparable to steve martin in the pink panther) 

energy level:

high

power center: 

chest

Temperament: 

Calm but excitable, therefore he always walks with confidence leading with his chest. 

Status: 

Renowned detective for solving every case that would generally not be considered important to anyone but himself, mostly for being a laughing stock of the detective world.

Backstory:

Has grown up  dreaming of becoming a first rate detective,

Is rarely ever right, but always thinks he is.

Feels the need to deduce everything and be the smartest person in the room.

To him every case is the biggest case ever and he takes them very seriously, maybe even to seriously. 

Scene:

He is investigating the case of the stolen custard, some custard has gone missing and he is the only one capable of solving such a mystery! Our detective feels he is very close and has gathered many clues, expect for one.. the culprit! The evidence all points to one man. Boric. After an hour of questioning, our detective feels he almost has it and is trying to get Boric to confess to the crime!

"One thing puzzles me Boric…

HOW did you manage to get so much..

CUSTARD out of such a small CAT?"

Marble Machine SImulation in Houdini (Low Res Pass)

For a research project, I had to make a marble do some kind of activity using the rigid body simulation within the program. I really enjoyed the domino simulation so I decided to have my marble get knocked over by a little hammer which would in turn topple a line of dominos. I am happy with the set up of my simulation. I think once I add in the high res dominos it will look very nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpHjzw2XQR4&feature=youtu.be

Lipsync WIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF3ZDyzlHeU&feature=youtu.be

In my Animation class this month, we have been fine tuning our animation skills. For the final, we have done a lip-sync. I am going to do one more pass to finish up my motions. I like how this project has turned out so far, it was a little difficult at first understanding how an animated lip-sync actually works, but once I got the hang of it it was actually fun! When I go back over I plan to give more movement to the antennae, as well as push some of the strong poses a little farther so that I can have the best possible silhouettes.

Houdini Domino Simulation

This month, I have been learning some new software called Houdini! This is just simple shot of a domino simulation that I made. I liked this project quite a bit. Houdini's node based interface took a second to get used to but once I got the hang of it, it was just a matter of completing the project. So far, I have found the rigid bodies in Houdini fairly simple to work with. The part that I got a stuck on was using the expressions that were needed to create each different domino. If you are able to see, there are not any two that are the same type. Using expressions, I was able to quickly generate each individual Domino in just a few seconds. Which is pretty exciting! I can't wait to dive deeper into this program!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN_iahkymQc

Visual Development Final Project

In the past month, I have been learning all about working in the hyper shade in maya, different types of lighting, texturing using projections and layered materials and rendering layers and passes. For the final project, I was responsible for texturing the scraper and the bottle, adding caustics for the the bottle, the project and and the dirt maps on the bottle and the box. I really enjoyed the process. Splitting everything up using layers made texturing a much less daunting process then I thought it would be. In these photos, I brought my renders from maya into nuke and played with the different lighting effects I could make. By putting each light in the scene into different render layers, I was able to control how each light behaved in post. Allowing me to create drastically different lighting and moods in from one single rendered scene. I definitely had a lot of fun in working on these projects and I expect will probably do some more in my future free time!

Rigging Practice Update03 WIP

Since I am working on this project in mostly my free time, of which there is little, I have just been chipping away and putting in pieces little by little. I have put in some basic controls as well as IK handles for the front and rear legs. I am going to create a control for the tail that will allow me to control the amount of curl it has. This will be done with a set driven key. After I get the rest of the main body controls set up I will begin on the spines. Then the real challenge starts! I will need to figure out how to attach the spines to the body with out them being influenced by joints that don't effect them as well as have the controls follow the body in the right way. More progress will come soon.

Rigging Practice Update02 WIP

     Heres an update on the my The King Of Predators! I have completed the skeleton and I am on to binding my rig to my geometry. This shouldn't be too difficult to do. The only issue that I might run into is that the model has many separate pieces. My solution to this as of now is That I am going group all the pieces together. I want the spikes on the back to be able to move independently so I will leave them separate from the main body and bind them individually after. I will also take the joints that I currently have in place for the spikes out of the hierarchy temporarily so that when I bind the skin they will not be able to influence any other parts of the geometry besides the pieces they are intended for. This will save me time when I go through and clean up the weight paints. After binding it is on to controls!