3D Progress

Throughout this semester I have been working a lot on 3D animation. My main focus has been a couple of robots which I have had fun building and rigging.

My first part of the project was a small slender robot which was supposed to be a maintanance bot. The thin figure was meant to bring out the other features of it so that people would be able to tell what exactly its purpose is. I also decided to go with a claw hand and a nail gun for the other hand. I am really happy with the design and I think the other one that I'm working on will work well with it.

The next part that I am working on is a security robot, which has a much bigger body. It's not completely finished, and I am working on the treads for the wheels at the moment. I wanted to make the security part plain to see, so I added lights to a dome in its head. one hand is a loop that can be used to restrain something, and the other is a launcher which can shoot out shock capsules to knock someone down. I haven't even started with the rigging, and I'm only part way through coloring.


So far, I have taken about a month and a half to make these two things, but that's only because I take very long and frequent breaks. Even though I do take a lot of breaks, I've had a lot of fun making these robots. Once this entire thing is done I want to add one or two security robots to the animation with the maintenance bot so that it makes it more like this is being presented like how Apple presents their new projects.

Short Film

I learned a lot about putting scenes together and I'm really happy with the outcome. I do need to do more work on transition because most of mine were jump cuts, but they still slightly fit with the video.
I enjoyed working with the group that I had because they all did their part and made sure that everything was how it needed to be. I would definitely want to work with this group again if I had a chance.

Trailer Project

The Scope

In this project we worked to make a video game or movie trailer, my group decided to do a video game trailer. before we could film we had to find a good trailer to go off of, and the best choice for us was the Dead Rising trailer. After we picked the trailer we moved on to storyboarding and figuring out how exactly the trailer is going to go. During recording there were some problems with the video not being in focus but I did my best to work with that while editing

What Did I Learn?

While working I learned a couple of things about the cameras we used and the editing software. I found out about the camera that we used, which is EOS Rebel 60D, that the focus can be adjusted to a very fine point, and if you are even a little bit off four it can mess up the entire thing. The software I used was Adobe Premier Pro, and I learned that when editing scenes that aren't white balanced you are able to go back into Premier and fix that to make it the correct color.

What I Would Do Differently or the Same

If I had to do a project like this again I would most definitely use a EOS Rebel 60D, it is an amazing camera that has so many setting on it that you can make a scene look exactly how you want it too. Another thing I would do the same is working with the team I had, we all worked together well and all of us did the part we needed to do. For something I could do different, I would get a better dolly, the one we used while recording had small parts that limited the ways it could move and made it shake, which is very noticeable in the video.

The Next Project

In our next project I will definitely use what I learned this time. I do want to work more on my editing skill and making everything fit together perfectly.

Music Video

The Assignment

This semester we started out by working on a music video that turned out to be a really fun project. When we first started we had to choose a group and then choose a song, the song my group decided to go with was High Hopes by Panic! at the Disco. We had to create a beat sheet and then a story board for how our video was going to go. The concept of our video was inspired by the original music video of the song, except we had our own twist, which was making the focus on a student instead of a business man. The hardest part of all of this was the recording, I was the main focus of the video so on different days when we recorded I had to wear the same thing and keep my hair the same. At the end of the project we had to make sure we had enough clips and that we could make everything fit together with the song.

The Team

My team consisted of me, and four others. we all had to work together to get the project done, and with how everything came together, I would definitely want to work with these four again. The biggest part was making sure we had a schedule so that everyone who needed to be there could be, and we had to get a teacher to be able to go up onto the roof, but in the end everything worked out.

The Tech

The camera that we used was a Canon ESO Rebel T5 which wasn't the easiest to work with, but it got the job done. One problem we had with the beginning shots was that they weren't white balanced, which caused everything to look blue, luckily, since we were using Premier Pro, we were able to fix that problem and make it completely unnoticeable.

The Takeaway

If I could do anything different with this project I would have taken more shot, because of our lack of shots we weren't able to use the entire song, but the problem we had was that there wasn't much we could record to make it fit perfectly. If I were to do something the same in the next project I will definitely keep the lighting, I think the outdoor lighting added a flair to the video that made it look good and have enough light where you could see the actors face.

The Conclusion

This project was really fun through the whole process and I think if we have to do something like this againI would have just as much fun. I think that projects like this are really good for students since it allows them to have fun while still learning good shots and lighting.