web design is hard.

Web design is hard. Responsive is hard. Throughout this project, I really struggled with CSS. It kept breaking and moving places it should not have... I blame DreamWeaver.

Mr. Martin... I Shrunk the Student Teacher

My team members were Hannah Iverson, Katie Conley, and Rachel Hide. I contributed by making the 3D model at the beginning of the video, filming the green screen of the student teacher, and editing the green screen of Madame B.

Final Blog - Animation

Over the past year in animation, I have learned many things from the five guarantees of e-Comm. For Technology, I have learned that no matter what you try to do, the computer will almost never work exactly the way you want it to. files will disappear, things will delete, and things will be laggy and slow. This is an important thing to know because then you can try to prevent some of those things from happening. To try and prevent losing your files, you can keep multiple copies of one project in different places. I have also learned that while collaborating for a project, it can be really hard to efficiently work together. During our final project, we had to film multiple things at different times, and we ended up forgetting a few shots. It took a little while to decide if they were important enough to go and shoot. For communication, I have learned that is is hard to always be on the same page. There were times when my group had to film, but not everyone knew where and when it was happening. One thing I have learned about project management it that it can be tough to stay on task, and this year I could have done a lot better with that. Lastly, I have learned that sometimes you have to step up and be a “leader” when someone needs help, even when you really do not want to. I really struggled with this during the start of our Maya projects because I was one of the first people done and I was also one of the only people who knew what I was doing. 

I have improved a lot in the past year. Last year I could barely animate a bouncing ball, and now I can kind of animate multiple bouncing balls. I have really improved with animations by making them smoother, and seem more realistic (with the exception of my walk cycle). Of all the things I need to work on the most, time management is the biggest one. I have really struggled with keeping myself on task. I can improve on this by talking to my friends less and doing some work at home.

I am going to take these skills that I have learned and use them next year, even though I am taking web instead of animation. I have learned many things that would be of good use in web, such as saving projects in multiple locations, good color schemes, and how to manage my time wisely.

If I could have changed anything about this year, I would change how I managed my time. I feel like I could have gotten a lot more out of e-Comm if I actually did all of my work. I will definitely work harder next year. I would also do all my blogs for all of my projects. I would have had a better experience if I had not gotten frustrated when things went wrong.

In conclusion, this year has really helped me understand what I should do, and how I should help myself grow and get better. This class has helped me build relationships that I would not have had otherwise, and I am really thankful for that.

Container Project

For this project we had to create an imaginary product and make a container for it. I chose to remake our Kansas Springs water bottle from our final project in e9. This project was difficult because it was really hard to make it look realistic and to make maya do thing things I wanted it to. The water bottle does not look that realistic, but thats ok. Some new thing I learned were how to use lighting to make things look more realistic, and how to wrap an image on a curved surface.

Final Blog - Web

The assignment we were given was to make a website all about a certain topic. My topic was watercolor. My process for this was actually all over the place: I started with research and then I coded the actual website. I didn't add any actual content until the last day, which was hectic. One thing I learned while doing all of this is that I can't make anything do exactly what I want, which stressed me out for a while. If I could do anything different, I would use my time more efficiently. My next project will be much easier for me, because I'm getting a hang of what I'm doing. Overall, this last semester has been really fun. I came in only wanting to do web because it was the only other option, and I came out loving it. I'm really glad that I didn't go into another strand.

Final Review

Over the last quarter, my class has worked on many projects. Here are a few of my favorites:

Bouncing Ball

The first project we worked on this year is the bouncing ball. We did a similar project last year, but we animated it in a different software this time. During this project, I learned how to animate in AfterEffects. It was really different than photoshop, but it got easier as we went along. I picked this project because I feel that I did a good job, despite it being my first project. After this project, I used the skills I learned in many other projects, it was helpful to learn these skills early on. Overall, this was my favorite project we did in AfterEffects because of how complicated it felt to make it at the time.

Worm

With this project, we used a series of new tools in AfterEffects, including the puppet pins and the mesh tool. Adding those tools into what I already knew made it a lot tougher to remember what everything was used for. I chose this project because it was the one of the more challenging projects we made because of the way the actual worm moves. I wish I used my time better so I could have finished it on time.

Polything

The "Polything" was the second project that I completed in Maya. We learned a lot of new skills, such as how to add lighting and how to increase the polygons so it doesn't look all jagged. This project was really short and only took me about ten minutes to complete. I chose this project because I liked the way the final product looked like with all the lighting.

The Castle

Overall, this project was the most complicated and fun one to make. We learned many new things during this, such as adding textures, cutting out objects, combining objects and overall, just adding more details. This project was really fun to make because of how creative I could be. 

Walking Girl Animation

Overview

To start this project, we first had to draw a character on paper, then scan it and upload it to Photoshop. After that, I traced it and divided it into sections (head, body, arm one, arm two, leg one, leg two). I finished coloring it in, then I uploaded it to After Effects. I then parented all the body parts to the actual body, so they would stay on the body. To move the legs, I had to put key points at every moment the legs were moving, same with the arms. After everything was moving, I had to put it into a pre-composition. I added a null object layer to make it move across the screen. After I finished, I rendered it out.

What I Learned

During this project, I learned a few things. First, that to easily move the object across the screen, I just needed to add a null object, instead of moving it with key points. I also learned how to easily access the layer options without having to click transform everything; there are short cuts with the keys.

Things That Went Well

A few things that went well are the actual movement of the arms and legs. I hope to improve the actual drawing aspect. Also, moving it across the screen, I wish I did not rush as much.