CAGD 545

Blog Post 3

Since my Last blog post I've been trying to polish all my scenes and change anything that I was told to. I also tried to get a more consistent lighting through out all my scenes.

I had a lot of problems trying to find my scenes because of how I named them.

There were multiple times during my work sessions that I couldn't find the scenes I needed and ended up redoing a couple. the positive that I can take from this though is to better organize my scenes so that I won't have trouble finding them and I won't end up wasting more time.

I played with the eyes more to make them squint. This rig is weird to work with because it does have blink controls but once you key them they won't change from that position. So the only way to make the Moth squint is my using the nurbs surfaces on its face.

I still have to meet with my team and finalized every and make any changes that I need to. My group and I are also planning on adding sound to this animation soon.

so far I actually enjoyed working on this animation, besides the parts where I had to hunt down my scenes. But hopefully I get better at naming and organizing so I won;t have a problem and could have a smoother work flow.

Blog Post 2

Currently I am still working on scenes 4, 5, and 6 on the story Moth to a Flame. Since the last portfolio I was able to get the second pass of scene 4, first pass of scene 5, and the first pass of scene 6 done. Right now I am task to make a second pass of scene 5 and 6. 

In scene 4 I changed the moth's stance when he sees the lamp. I did this because of feedback I got from the CAGD 493 class. I was told that originally it wouldn't be possible for the moth to have both of its hands on its face and keep its current stance. I also got an added task to create a shot where we establish the moth and lamp see each other which I added. I've also added our lights to the scene and played around with it.

For scene 5 I added camera movement to the second shot. I did this because I felt that part was too static. I didn't go back into this scene yet and add the lights so currently there is no lighting in this scene. When I go back for the second pass for this scene I am going to try and add more movement on the moth and try to make it look more natural while flying through the air. I like how the camera is on the first part of the scene so I don’t have any plans currently to change it. I might have to change the way the cameras are in this scene since the lights aren’t currently in and I don’t know how they would affect them.

I had a few problems working on scene 6. One of the problems I ran into was my Maya file for the first part of the scene getting corrupted.  So I had to redo that section and I decided to do it a little differently. I decided to  keep the cameras that I currently have on this scene because I didn’t think I needed to change them. I was also told to make a shot where the moth is landing before seeing the flower. So I made the moth glide a bit then land in the beginning of the scene. I also added the lights into this scene and played with them to try to show more of the light from the lamp.

Blog Post 1

The name of the story that I am a part of making is called A Moth to a Flame by Austin Moore. Currently I am assigned to block out scene 4,5, and 6 and to make a first pass of scene 4. I have complete blocking scene 4,5, and 6.Currently the work I have in progress is the first pass of scene 4.

An issues I had with scene for was finding the right camera angle. In my initial block of  the scene I started with a static camera angle close up to the moth. Now on my first pass of scene 4 I decided to have the camera come in at an angle to the moth then zoom in. I did this to make the scene feel less static. I like how the camera moves currently but I will change if later if I need to.

 

The main problem I had in scene 5 was making the moth fly. I currently have the flight blocked out but I need to add more movement throughout the moth’s body. I looked up videos on moths and butterflies taking off and flying to reference for the animation. But I am having issues animating our rig to fly like a moth because I don’t think that the rig we are using is a moth. And because of this its difficult to mimic an actual moth.

Also, I was playing with the graph editor and I decided to make the translate y on the main controller to constant throughout the flight but keeping the translate x and z on auto. This made the moth fly in an erratic way and I liked how it looked. I don’t know if this will be in issue later when I continue to work on it.

I initially had problems in the begging when working on scene 6. I didn’t know where to put the moth and the flower. A lot of our the shaders for the forest would turn black at certain angles. In my playblast you can see a lot of the grass colored black instead of green. This goes away when I render but then texture for the moths eyes disappear.

This is what I have done so far but I am still working on scene 4 right now and will continue to research more on the movement of moths so that I can better mimic their movement onto the rig.