Midterm Proposal and Storyboard

Midterm Proposal

1) Initial idea and complete proposal:

Animation is a completely new concept to me. I have always liked to watch animated movies, but I never thought I would have the ability to actually animate something while at TCNJ. For my project, I decided to work on a simple car animation. I would have cars drive on a road, passing each other, and animating a common scene in our daily lives.   The goal of this project was to explore different animation techniques to recreate this common scene.  I had the general idea, now I needed to explore the possibilities. I made a few sketches in Photoshop to get the idea down, which ended up being the storyboard. I have a very cartoony style, so I wanted to keep things within my comfort zone. I wanted to work with my own style and make a project. I knew that I would use a slightly unrealistic creative style to keep things within the areas I know. I will design the background in Photoshop and create the objects in Maya. I knew that I would have fun with this project.

My target audience is TCNJ students. Hopefully, I can show new students that anyone can make a project, regardless of skill level. I am very new to animation and I don't feel 100% comfortable working in Maya, but I have been giving it my best effort to work on different projects for the class. I have been designing and working in the program that I have never used before this class. It is a fun experience and I look forward to continuing to work in Maya to create. 

Overall, this project will help explore new technologies, techniques, and help enhance my animation skills. I was very excited to get this going. 

2) Project plan:

My creative strategy is that I want to keep the animation looking simple, but have a lot going on. I will use Maya and Photoshop to create all of the graphics. The project will look like a cartoon to keep it going with the cartoony style I always go for. I think that it will achieve the feel I was going for. There won't be any sound in this project for now.  My technical strategy is that I am going to keep it simple. I will use Maya and Photoshop to create all of the images and create all of the animations.  I will try to create everything as consistent as possible. All of the cars will have the same shapes, but I will alter the shadings and colors of each car to give them something unique. This simplistic style will keep things easy to watch and understand for a while. 

3) Production log:

I first made a plane to get the ground established. I drew everything in polygons because I have had more experience with them. The polygons served me well during the creative process. After over a dozen attempts to use the grass fur default (leading to Maya crashing every time), I then decided to use the grass that I drew up in Photoshop. It gave the animation a different look and feel, but I still liked it. I then drew planes for the two intersecting roads. I used different cutting and stretching techniques to get the true feel of perspective that I was going for. I then used a polygonal prism and sphere to create the car body. I combined the two to give a basic car shape. I then added polygonal rings to the sides of the car to make it look like wheels. Once I had this basic car shape, I then used it multiple times to have different cars in the design. Each car has a unique coloring and shading. Each of the cars will move in different directions. I experimented with lighting, shading, and motions to have cars work in different ways. This animation is simple, but I look forward to working on it again in the future.

4) Self-evaluation:

Overall, this project was a success. It has helped me understand my successes and failures with Maya. I tried working on using the grass fur dynamic, but Maya would not let me. I then had to use my photoshop-ed grass, but it gives it a different style. I like the way it came out. This project also let me experiment with lighting, shading, and animation. I can work on different ways to animate the cars, such as working the wily car on a motion path to keep things going. I can work with spotlights and different elements to keep things interesting. I still need a lot of practice with Maya, but I am excited to learn and built more complex projects. It is very exciting to say that I have animated something and I look forward to continuing my success with Maya. 

Storyboard 

Here are the images for my storyboard. 

The animation will have the cars driving on the road in different direction. One will fall off of one road and go on to the other. This seemed like a modest challenge for me to animate, so I am excited for the opportunity to do so.