Visual Effects 2: Fluid Effects - Project 1

This week I started my November classes, which are "Visual Effects 2", and "Compositing and Scene Finishing". Honestly, I am actually really excited to dive into my visual effects class! There are so many  ways to create life-like effects of real world events. It's really interesting and intriguing to me.

Anyways, for our first project - we are working with Fluids. Our assignment was to have an object in your scene that is emitting fire, anything that is the size of a campfire or larger. 

From there, I decided to make a bonfire with wooden pallets instead of just regular wooden logs. I used the boards of the pallets as the emitters, brought up the opacity of the fire quite a bit, inserted area and ambient lights in the scene (to make the effect of the fire emitting light on the objects around it), and adjusted various settings inside of the fluid to give it its color, randomness, speed, and crisp look.

Here is my "Work In Progress" video of my current Fluids project:

I am learning so much about fluids and the effects that you can create from them! I am excited to finish this project. Also, I realize that the speed is a little too much for this kind of fire, so I plan on slowing it down and also adding in particles for the umbers of the fire. My aim is to match a reference video (one I have chosen) as closely as possible - so I may have to make several more adjustments for the final product.

Stay tuned for the final project! Thank you!

Software Technology: Research Project

For our team research project, we decided to do the marble machine in Houdini. We each modeled 2 props in Maya (4 props total) that were put together to form the machine and then imported the files into Houdini. Our marble machine was successful, thankfully, but we did run into issues. The problems we encountered was that when gravity took effect on the marble (sphere), the sphere would start to slowly move for the center of the grid instead of downward onto the machine, working as a passive object. Without the proper movement of the ball, the machine itself would not work.

First, a geo node was created. When dove into the geo node, we created a file node and imported our OBJ files (our models). The models were made into static objects. From there, transformation nodes were put into place the models in their respective position. Then, the sphere was created, and it was changed into a polygon and placed in its position with a transformation node. We then made the sphere an RBD object so that gravity would be applied to the sphere.

Below I have attached some photos of the marble machine.

This image displays the entire marble machine.

As seen in the image below, the marble started at the top of the machine as gravity took its effect, dropped the ball on the machine, and then sent the sphere sailing down the machine.

 Then the sphere went spiraling down a different type of ramp...

...and once off of that ramp, it then sailed through a tightly spiraled tube, onto another slide and then through the tunnel - which is the finish line.

We had to troubleshoot the errors in our project simply by tilting the first ramp more drastically, and we change the setting "Geometry Representation" to "Concave" instead of "Convex".

I have learned a lot this month about Houdini and Soft Image, and these softwares are both very different than what we are used to (Maya, ZBrush, PhotoShop are what we mainly use). However, I do like how Houdini works and the interesting things that you can create within it. Even though we encountered issues with our project, we were able to trouble shoot the errors for a successful project! I still had a lot of fun with this project and researching information about it.

Character Animation 2: Sound Clip Project Final

The purpose of this project was to learn how to animate the facial movements of the character to match his emotions, and to make the mouth movement match up with the sound to make it believable. I actually really enjoyed this project! I originally thought that lip syncing a character with sound would be difficult to do, and it definitely is a little tricky at first. However, with a little practice and research, you can really create a great lip sync project. I did not encounter too many issues with this project, other than animations issues - trying to make his movements convey with what he was talking about.

I am still learning how to make stronger poses, moving holds, and anticipations as I journey through my schooling. However,  I feel as though I have learned a lot in this class and can really gain from the projects that we did. Finally, here is my final Sound Clip project. Enjoy!

Below, I have included the pre pro that I created prior to this project. I have created two pages of exploratory drawings, the storyboard, and I also filmed my reference. From here, I was able to understand what my composition was going to look like, what action lines I needed to make, and what possible poses I could create as well.

I admit, my drawings are not the greatest and most professional-looking drawings. However, they do get the job done of allowing me to understand how I need to pose my character and my camera for my project. 

Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this! :)

Drawing Process Explanation

I have had several people ask me what my process is when I draw or paint once my projects are completed. After receiving these questions and advice, I decided to take pictures every few hours while creating this piece. 

Everyone has their very own, custom creative process - but with mine, I like to jump around the page a little bit and then bring all of the assets together in the end to form the final piece. I am a self taught artist, and am always learning new techniques with drawing, painting, and other mediums that I am not as familiar with. I am extremely open to trying new techniques and new mediums! Art is such an adventure - I am always willing to broaden my horizons for techniques, project ideas, and mediums/medias.

This piece was created August 28, 2014.

United Nation Climate Change Projects: Art Pieces

Today, I received confirmation that we are now officially allowed to post up our artwork pieces that were used for the competition up on our social media sites! After 2 long months of patiently waiting, I am very enthusiastic to share these pieces with you all in hopes to make a difference in climate change, and to change people's perspectives on climate change as well.

Again, I just want to say thank you to Full Sail members for helping us through this, and also to the Embassies of France who proposed such a great opportunity to us students. I really enjoyed this extra circular project, and hope to find more opportunities such as this in the near future!

This piece won first place in the Art division
Title: "The Erosion of Us"
Date: August 13th, 2014
Medium: Prismacolor pencils

Lastly, this piece won second place for the Art division.
Title: "United as One"
Date: August 28, 2014
Medium: Graphite pencil

United Nations Climate Change Project: Winner Announcement

In August, I created a post explaining what the United Nations Climate Change project was and what it entailed. For those of you who are unaware of this project, this project was proposed to Full Sail University and it's students by the Embassies of France to make a difference in climate change. They asked us to find creative ways to promote solutions and raise awareness for climate change so we can change the world for the better. The Embassies of France would also like to use our artwork and creations at conferences that will be held in Canada, North America, as well as France. We were proposed to use our artistic freedom to create what we thought would raise awareness in the best ways possible. We were given a two week deadline to complete this project - on top of the courses that we are currently taking at Full Sail for our degrees. This project started on July 6, 2014.

Today, the winners for this project were announced! Each category (art, film, marketing, and music) had first, second, and third place winners. I am proud to announce that I was fortunate enough to win first, as well as second, place for the two traditional art pieces I submitted in the Art category! The directors of this organization at Full Sail also provided all of the participants of this project with letters of recommendation to add to our portfolios. I am so incredibly blessed and thankful for this opportunity!

This project taught me how to manage my time management skills, I learned about the effects of climate change and what we can do to change it, and I also feel honored to be a part of such a great organization that will make a difference in this world. This project gave many of us fantastic opportunities to blossom as artists. With that said, I just want to say a big thank you to the Embassies of France for providing us with this great opportunity, and thank you to Full Sail as well for providing us with this challenge as artists.

Character Animation 2: Pantomime Final Project

For the past two weeks, we have been learning how to make a character change from one emotion to another one through a series of body movements and facial expressions. Earlier this month, I posted up the "block out" version of this final project. From there, I added in anticipations, breakdowns, moving holds, and made adjustments in the graph editor to create a smooth flowing animation.

My characters emotions change from sad/deeply depressed, to exhilarated and very excited.
I used a parent constraint on the hand control and the piece of mail that the character grabs out of the box, and just keyed it on when it was needed. I hope you enjoy it!

Below, I have added in the Pre Pro work that I created before taking on this project and making it into a 3D Animation. These drawings helped me understand how the line of action needed to look, how to pose the character, the composition of the project, the breakdowns and what poses I needed to do in order to create the correct emotion at the correct time. 

What I learned about making pre pro for each project is that reference is key to a strong project. From reference, you can see how the body moves realistically. From that reference, you can draw out key poses, breakdown poses, and exploratory poses that could be possibilities for the project at hand. Without reference, a project will be lacking significantly. 

Software Technology: Kooshball

This month I am taking Software Technology at Full Sail. In this class, we are learning how to model in different software programs (other than Maya and ZBrush) such as Houdini and Soft Image so that we will have a more diverse knowledge of how to model and which software would work best for a specified project. We are also learning different modeling techniques - newly introduced as well as old techniques - for future reference and to help improve our modeling skills.

Yesterday, we learned created a Kooshball in Houdini. This was the first time I have ever used Houdini, but I quickly learned that the nodes worked very similar to Nuke, and the scripting was similar to the scripting we would do in Maya for rigging purposes. Also, this helped open up a new way for me to model and create objects that would be very difficult to create in other software programs.

Character Animation 2: Pantomime Project (1)

This month, I have Character Animation 2 as one of my classes. In this class, we are being taught how to make a character change from one emotion to another based on events that happen in the scene. We will also be learning how to create lip syncing for the characters with voice audio's applied to them, but we will won't move onto that until we reach Project 2: Lip Syncing.

Below I have attached a progress video of the Pantomime project that I am currently working on. All that I have completed so far is the blocking out of the keys in this video. From here, I will carry out my break downs, anticipations, and moving holds to make the movement more fluid and believable for the audience to understand what is really going on.

The Back Story: The character is female, in her early 20's, living a normal-average life. She is currently struggling for money, living alone away from her home state, and working extremely hard to land her dream career, but it is taking some while for her to reach that goal. In the meantime, she has a boyfriend who is a United States Marine, whom of which she can only speak to through letters and she does not receive letters from him often. The letters are on the biggest highlights of her day, as she is always worried and thinking about her Marine.