Final Video

Self-Evaluation

One of the biggest issues I ran into while animating this model was the lack of movement. His head and body could not really turn without his whole face melting. It was funny but did not really work for his little dance. Another problem I ran into happened when i brought it into final cut. Final cut would drop some frames when the shots were put all together. It works best if played from the desktop. Overall I am happy with how the project turned out. I wish i could have animated his movements more but for one of my first projects its not to bad.

Production

In order to create separate shots I had to render different cameras and sets of frames. I created four cameras which focused on different parts of the animation. The first camera focuses on a far shot of the whole scene. The second camera zoomed in to focus on the tapping foot. The third camera zoomed in on the characters face as he caught the match and the fourth on the match as it fell to the ground. I also used the first camera to render a scene without cuts in which you could see the entire animation with no closeups.

Production

I used keyframes to animate this character. I was only able to move certain elements in the character which limits his movement. The only change I made to the model was the background. I eliminated the wall and simply made an infinite stage for him to dance on.

Storyboard

My storyboard is very simple and just shows some of the simple movements i wanted to make the character do. The beginning of the scene would show an empty spotlight illuminating the tile floor/stage. The character would then slide in from the left with his arm up and cap over his head. I then wanted him to roll the hat down his arm. Next he would reach around and throw the hat which would land on the floor beside him. He would then tap his foot/base as if to a beat. Using his foot he will kick up the match which will spin and land in his hand.

Final Project Proposal/Abstract

For my final project I decided to continue working with the model I made for the midterm. Since the model I made did not move or interact i decide i wanted to animate him. I especially wanted him to interact with his props. He does a short dance in which he uses both his cap and the match.

LowMan

For my lowman animation i decided that he would simply wave and awkwardly walk away.

Final Video

Evaluation

For my first attempt at modeling I am pretty happy with how the character turned out. The most challenging part of building lumiere was the face. It is still kind of rough and not quite as complete as I would like it to be. It was challenging to create a smooth symetrical face that had all the right elements of the original character. If I compare it to my source image it is not exactly the same shape. I choose only to do the camera fly over for now so I could pay more attention to the modeling aspect of this project. He still needs some work and hopefully iIl will eventually be able to make him dance.

Final Model

To complete my figure I refined the face some, added the pupils to the eyes and a simple floor for space.

I also added the characters hat and match. These are also made of NURBS primitives and colored with blinns.

Next I added some color and began to put some detail into the face. I primarily used blinns to color the figure except for the eyes which I would later add phong's to for the pupils. I also began to sculpt the face by moving points and the sculpt geometry tool.

Model

I created my model out of various NURBS primitives. He is constructed primarily out of cylinders, spheres and torus'. I put a smooth shade on all and found he was starting to take shape.

Project Proposal

For my first model i decided to recreate a familiar character.I wanted to have a source image that I could refrence. I chose to model the character Lumiere from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. I found an image on google and tried to recreate it in three dimension.

About Me

My name is Kim McCauley and I'm a junior Digital Art/Art History major. This blog was created for my Animation 1 class.