Final Animation / Evaluation

I'm pleased with the final outcome, and i think the concept works well, Although im not completley satisfied with the animation, it's a little slow and the impact at the end isnt as strong as i thought it would be, I also think the camera could've been a lot smoother, it starts of a little too fast at the beginning. The video is also quite dark, and i didn't think about using lighting. I think the textures work very well, they give depth to the desk making each object stand out boldly. The wallpaper is a little blurry but it works well with the colours of the objects and it makes the scene look simple, not too much, not too little. Its easy on the eyes and feels like an office theme.
I enjoyed working on this project, working in Maya has been a challenge but its so fulfilling when you reach your goal.

Animation Tests

 

This was a quick test to get a feel of how to apply animation to my models. I found animating one of the most fun parts to bringing this project together. For this test, i have animated the Pendulum too slow and its very unrealistic. Also it would look much better if the first ball where to be pulled by a hand or something but to keep it simple i will continue with this.

 

My second test was more comfortable, i was more familiar with how to time things correctly and how to make the objects work together. Although i dont think i have gotten the weight and such spot on, i think it's an improvement from the last test and i feel much more comfortable animating.

Refernces / Domino effect videos

 

To start me of, I did a wide search on youtube for the domino effect and how people took there own take on this chain reaction. I found some interesting videos and some simple but effective videos, the domino effect is a very interesting subject because once you have a starting point, its very exiting to see where you will end up. I took a look at some 3D work students or schools have worked on in Youtube and the result is always "I think of simple but effective ideas, but when people are actually building these sets in real life and you can see the ideas that they have created, you wonder how they got to that conclusion."
These videos helped me to be imaginative and inspired me to challenge myself.

Textures

When thinking about an office, I wanted the atmosphere to feel simple, but an atmosphere that was interesting. I think most of the textures I found here are very simple and colours we see everywhere, but they have some depth to them. I think they would work really well and add that extra professional feel to the animation.

Texturising the Desk

Texturising the desk was difficult because I wanted a clean look but most of the textures I was finding either weren't a high enough standard of pixels or gave the animation a plain, rushed look. Even when i put them in Photoshop, they still didn't fit correctly. I finally found a texture that had a smooth feel to it and complimented the colours of the objects on the desk and defined everything to look sharp and of high quality. For this texture I didn't have to edit it at all.

Modelling

 

The end result of my chain reaction was that a small harmless hammer, was going to hit a stapler, that staples a piece of paper. Modelling the stapler was my biggest challenge because it has many parts that are all of different shapes and i wasnt sure how to create these shapes, such as rounded edges and curve points. I looked at many tutorials on modelling and found usefull techniques on youtube but in the end, i worked from an image i found on google and experimented with tools throughout the process of modelling. I used the difference tool to create the small holes in the stapler. Even though the camera wont get close enough to see these tiny details, i still wanted to challenge myself to create the finished product. I am very pleased with the outcome and learnt many tips and tricks and how to set myself my own way of working with Maya.

Modelling/curves/Change of idea

Modelling in Maya has been a challenge and I honestly think that it was complicated and frustrating because I was scared of the software, I wanted to know exactly what i was doing before pressing any buttons and that made everything even more complicated, so I sat down and started working on a new idea, once I had the plan out on paper, I started working in Maya, investigating everything, and it became fun, and experimental, now i started to enjoy doing everything, even if it took a day to even days of modelling one object.

To help me structure my new idea better, I started by picking a theme. This was "office desk" and then thinking of objects and how to model these objects, what the whole reason for the chain reaction would be and so on.

 

This is a birds eye view of my desk with the objects in order I made in Photoshop.

I now started to model for my final idea, It was extremely challenging to get the hang of working with vertexes and extruding to bring all parts of the desk together. I created the desk shelf, then extruded the legs, and used extrusion to create the empty spaces above the drawers. I then made a seperate piece for the back and combined the objects together. I am  happy with the outcome of the desk and whenever i had problems, Lavell would point out how to fix or improve certain parts, this helped me a great deal.