Senior Reflection

Briefing

These past four years have gone by so fast! It feels like just yesterday I was walking in as a nervous freshmen with endless possibilities.  Now, I am graduating this Sunday, getting ready to start a new life in college studying music education at the University of Kansas. High school has given me so many great opportunities I could have never imagined like leadership in the marching band, learning new computer skills, and meeting so many people that I can call my family. It's time for me to move on but I am so happy that I can look back at an amazing past as I have left my legacy.

Communication

Through my four years at Olathe Northwest I have gained great communication skills not only with my peers but teachers, and large group speaking. Animation taught me how to get work done in an efficient manner. Which made it easier for me to pass it on to the marching field as I led the band. It was important that I learn great communication as it will help me for the rest of my life and throughout my music career.

Strengths and Weaknesses

As I am a decent student for the most part I had some contingencies. I can procrastinate a lot in my classes and sometimes can be a bit overboard. However, when I know I have to get it done right then I can hunker down and get the job done.  I have made some improvements on my thought process on how to start a project and my thought process through it.

Senior year has prepped me very well for college. I have become a more independent thinker and have become stronger as a person in general. I have ran rehearsals with the band helping me gain more experience in public speaking and experience in music teaching. I has so much fun this year leading the band and making so many great friendships that I will keep forever.

Projects

Trumpet
Marimba
Trombone
Clarinets
Light Saber
Living Room
Fish

These were probably my favorite projects I made this year. I wanted to make several instruments and I was able to achieve that goal by using the program Maya.

Conclusion

I would have never thought that high school would have been a tough place to leave. It will be tough to watch some of my closest friends go off on their separate. I want to thank my teacher Mr. Netterville for putting up with me for four years. You have been a great and fun teacher to work with and it's going to be hard to not be in animation everyday next year. I will be sure to come visit next year.

Maya Instruments and Band Room

Above you will see the trumpet. If you
if you look at the buttons they can
twist off.

This past semester I have been working on several instruments and modeling of a band room. I have not yet finished the all the instruments. I worked mostly on brass this semester, needing to finish a tuba. I want to spend what I hope to be only a month on the woodwind instruments. I need to figure out how I want to approach them.

The Start

Last semester I began working on a trumpet almost completing it. I added a few touches this semester and also began to work on a brass texture, which I am still working on.

Chairs and Stands

Band room at my school. Giving me a

good idea on how to line the chairs

and stands

When this semester started , after I got done with the trumpet touch ups, I went down to my band room at my school and took several pictures of chairs, stands, and the room as a whole. When I was done with that I went back down to the animation room to begin working.

The ensemble line up in maya

I started on working on the music stand. This consisted of a little bit of time and patience. I began working on the bottom of the stand which has 3 legs. I moved my way up using a cylinder and ending the cylinder with a connector piece. That connector piece connects to the the top of the music stand. That part is what makes the stand a stand to hold the music. The top part of the stand took me a while because there is an awkward curve on the stand t

hat holds the pencils. To make that curve I added multiple edge loops to the bottom of the stand and started lining it up to give that curve effect. I then making it size right to the picture I took in the band room.

I wanna than Anthony Rima
for this chair he helped with

After  made the music stand I then
moved to making the chair, if I wanna make the band room I have to get some of the smaller details of the room, like the chair. Anthony Rima helped me out making the chair. I needed his help cause the chair had some awkward legs that bended where the back and bottom part met.


I then copied a lot of chairs to line up look look like a wind ensemble set up. I will copy a lot f stands as well, I just need to adjust the size to make it fit and be portioned right to the chair. Not to big, not too small.

Above you will see the podium.
Notice the handle behind it

The Podium

The podium, was was surprisingly a little finiche. The first part of the podium was rather easy. I had to make a few cubes and extrude them. The next was the not harder part, just squirlly part. It was the handle on the back of the podium. It took me a while to make it go straight across. When I extruded it it wanted to go diagonal rather than straight, giving me more things to line up. Making it take longer.

Instruments

View of the Trombone

After the podium

Top view of the Marimba

I made I worked on was the trombone. I had some issues to size the trombone correctly. It looked not right. I restarted it a few times. I also couldn't think of a way to make the curve like I did the trumpet. But the problem was I didn't remember how to do tat. I tried sever things like extruding and soft selecting a long cylinder. I ended up taking a log break from the trombone and began to work on the flute and a marimba. But more on that later. Once I went back to the trombone I figured out how to do the curve. All I literally had to do was copy and past the same curve from the trumpet and make it larger. I was so mad that I couldn't figure out something as simple as that. Once I did that I also copied the same mouthpiece from the trumpet because why
reinvent the wheel. It made so easy for me to complete the modeling part once I figured out those few simple steps.

During the majority of my break I working on a marimba. The Marimba took
me about 3 to 4 days to model, but I need to think about a texture it.  I made a xylophone a long with that. It was very similar to the marimba because the keys are aligned the same, just like a piano. After tat I made some crash cymbals, I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna make the handle for the crash cymbals. I'm thinking of adding an nCloth. But I'm still not sure.

Bottom view to see the pipes

Nearing the end of the semester I started to work on a tube and a flute. The flute is rather difficult as will the clarinet be. They have small buttons and details that matter at lot to them. However, most of the m are small cylinders  that just need to be sized and lined up properly The tuba, the only hard part about that is making the tubes spin around the whole instrument. I have already made the horn part which is now the easy part for me.

Animation School Year

2015-2016 School Year

This past quarter I decided to work on instruments. So far I have modeled a trumpet but I plan on make most of the other band instruments like the clarinet, saxophone, trombone, tuba, etc... I will then submit in next year into the eMagine festival. This Trumpet has taught me a lot of useful skills about different ways of modeling and how I can use this to make more instruments in an easier fashion.

Trumpet in its early stages

While modeling this trumpet I learned several new ways of how I can use multiple polygons to make it look like one whole polygon. I learned about a new tool called the Target Weld Tool.  I'd say this is one of the most important things I learned this year about modeling. To find this tool make sure you are in modeling, then go to mesh tools and then go to target weld at the bottom. This tool was used to take the vertices from one polygon to the next. However, you need to make sure that both of the polygons are the same shape and have the same amount of vertices. If they have a different amount than you won't be able to weld the objects together properly. I mostly just welded cylinders together with the torus. I used the torus and cut it in half and then welded the cylinder to it. I used the torus so I could have the smooth curve on the side of the trumpet.

I needed to learn a new way to get a smooth curve instead of making it from a cylinder and curving it. It would just make the curve look very sloppy. The importance of this tool turned my project from looking like a student made it, to a much more professional looking model. A lot of times when you see an object made from multiple polygons, you can see were each object starts and ends. But what this target weld did was made it a lot harder to tell where each polygon started and ended. This was the most important tool because of how much it changed the way the trumpet looked. The target weld tool would have really come in handy in a few of my other projects like the light saber

Final modeled stage of trumpet

I would say my greatest strengths of this year is being able to  think of something I want to model and I can figure out a way to make it. I am good at sticking with what I want to make and finishing it. Sometimes I can get distracted by other people in the classroom, myself, and my computer. Next year I want to work on not getting distracted as easily. I can get a lot more accomplished as long as I don't get distracted, talk to others for long periods of time, and not getting out of my seat. I'm gonna work on that for next year to improve upon that. This year I have improved a lot on just modeling in general. Last year I had a tough time figuring out what to do to make things. I've thought out side the box a whole lot more.

With these improvements I plan to take on my senior year with an iron fist. Making sure that I'm not getting distracted as much, taking the modeling onto the next level, and continue to make more instruments so I can finish the big progress. I'm gonna work over the summer, hopefully finishing 2 other instruments. I plan to learn how texture a lot better in this year to come. My texturing right now is eh. It looks too generic. I want to make it look a lot more realistic.

Final scene of the light saber clip

Things I would change in my trumpet is I would defiantly add a lot better texture, rather than just the typical phong e. I want to give it a more  brass look, than just a shiny yellow color. I plan to watch YouTube videos on how to make textures better.  For next year I'm gonna change my act more. I'll still talk just not as much, I'll get more things done,  and learn more techniques.

This year was mostly a successful, I made a good house interior, designed and animated a light saber, and worked the last quarter on a very realistic trumpet. There were some ups and downs this year, but over all it worked very well in the end. My modeling got a whole lot better. I think it started with the house. I put some fine details in that and it really transferred over to the trumpet very nicely. I can't wait to see what next year has to offer. I will see you next year.

Lightsaber Emagine Entry

Lightsaber

The past few months I've been working on a lightsaber. Within the video I modeled it, I textured everything, made a moving camera, and also wrote the song for this animation. After I completed my house the move Star Wars Episode VII came out, getting me into the Star Wars mood. So I decided to just make a lightsaber.

Tutorial

I started by extruding a cylinder to the size I wanted it to be. After that I took a second cylinder and added several faces to it. With the several faces on it I pulled them up giving an area for where the light from the lightsaber would go. It starts out short and goes taller and taller as the tip goes on. Once I managed to get the tip to look the way I wanted it to look, I made a cylinder and rounded the top and textured it green. But when I rendered it out the lightsaber looked like a popsicle not a lightsaber. I had no clue how to add a glow to it. I found a couple of videos on how to do it but some did not explain very well how to do it. I found a glow intensity setting on Maya and it worked beautifully. It looked like a lightsaber!

Above you can see a cylinder with the
edges stretched out

Now that I had a good top and a lightsaber, I needed to add some grips and buttons. The grips for me took a little while, I had to make each one basically the exact. I probably made it harder than what it had to be. I extruded and remembered each of the numbers that changed. I also wanted to smooth out the edges, so I beveled out the edges and made it look like more of a grip. If I remember right I believer there are about 5 grips.

Once the grips were done I wanted to go around the lightsaber and add some detailed buttons. I booleaned a small hole in each of the areas for buttons and screws. I made the screw by just extruding a square on a rounded tip cylinder. A few more details to add, a lot of it is just personal preference.

Overall

Overall this project was really fun to work on. I enjoyed ever minuet of it and I didn't run into too many problems. It  was just a fun project to occupy my time very well.

House Model

Modeling House Fun

This past semester I have been mode modeling a house. This house has taken me a long time to create and I'm still working on the texturing and some other rooms. This house has taught me to be a patient worker, a model doesn't just "poof" onto my computer screen.  It has taken me lots of time and effort to put forth theses rooms in this house.  I mostly worked on the inside detailed parts of the house, but there were a few outside elements, the detail in the garage and also the front porch.

Building and idea off of paper

This is one of the couches with the front door of the house in
the background

My idea started with just a simple drawing that I drew in my sketchbook. I was the living room. The living room consisted of a TV, 2 couches, 2 end tables, a coffee table, and a TV stand. That drawing I was almost identical to the model in Maya 2016. Once I took the idea into Maya, I made a flat plane and the two walls that were my living room. I started with making the two couches, which were probably my favorite because of the butt print I made on the couch using soft select. I made the tables with drawers and made a cool little effect on having the drawers open in a lot of the modeled items. After done withe the tables, I added the TV to the model. The TV consisted of a lot of extruding and shrinking faces to make a good frame on the TV. The last and probably most time consuming thing I modeled was the lap top. There was lots of extruding in that as well however I like to put detail into things so I made the keyboard pretty detailed with the arrow keys being put out correctly.

Finishing the outline of the House

Once was done with everything in the living room, I decided to finish of the outline of the house.  I had to figure out though what kind of house I wanted it to be, trying to decide between modern or Victorian style. I decided to go more Victorian style because I just like the way they are shaped and the way they look. I made a rather larger outline which eventually I shrunk down a little. But I had it well mapped out where and what I want every room to be. I wanted there to also be a basement and a second floor, I haven't gotten to them yet but I have both entryways done. Like I explained I have it all mapped out and ready to go.

Modeling the Kitchen

Modeling the kitchen was probably my favorite part so far of this project. There is just a lot of things you can add with a kitchen. The sink, stove, dishwasher, toaster, fridge... The list goes on. I started with the cabinet, getting a fresh full layout of where the stove, dishwasher, and fridge would go within the cabinets. I also added cabinets above the main cabinets to give a more finished off kitchen look.  After I got the main look in the kitchen I started to add details to it, like the fridge with the water dispenser, which was  just a lot of extruding. I also added pretty detailed stove, that was probably my favorite thing to make in the kitchen, just because it took a decent amount of time to make, but in the end it really make the kitchen stick out. I also made a window in the kitchen that looks off into the living room making a good eating space between that wall. I also added a great little island in the middle of my kitchen which really just binds the whole kitchen together as a whole. Problems that I ran into were I need to save more often because Maya hates me and will crash a decent amount of the time.

Texturing 

Texturing was the very last thing that I did so far with this house. I saved it for last because texturing is not my strong suit. I  just don't get colors to work as well as I wish I did. I used lamberts and, blinn and, phongs. I haven't quite finished my texturing yet within the house, I am still experimenting with the floor and what color I should make the wall. Some problems I ran into were mostly in the texturing, like just simple things like figuring out what the color should be for the walls, floors, etc... The picture to the right you will see that the table has a nice dark granite counter top.

Overall

This is definitely my favorite most challenging project yet. It tested my ability for how fast I can work, which is not very fast yet. I just like modeling houses in general, or any interior of a building, I would say that is my more stronger suit, especially when it comes to adding detail to the model itself. I will still definitely keep working on this, when it is 100% down, it will be on here.

Beautiful Fish

Since school has started I have been working on a 3D animated fish. It took me roughly a month to get this fish modeled, rigged, and animated. A lot of this project showed me how much work has to go into just one little animation. It made me realize why it takes a long time to get an animated film done. I wanted to do this project because I was anxious to learn how to rig and animate the fish. Last year we never really did much animation, it was more move a ball, which was good for starters but didn't excite me very much.

Pre Project and Maya 2016

I started with a drawing of the fish on just a piece of paper. I wanted to get an idea of what the fish would look like. I took my drawing and put it on the scanner and scanned it onto my

computer. I then took the image and put it on Maya 2016. I made a cube and made it x-ray to the image in the back and started moving the vertexes to align a rough outline of what it looked like. If you click the number 3 button it smooths out the fish and makes it not look boxy.

I started the fun process of rigging and  painting weights on the fish. I honestly did not mind the process. Painting the skin weights is there when you start to move the joints and some other weird part would move that you don't want to move.  Like if I wanted to move the fin of the fish and the eye starts to move. Painting the skin weights gets rid of that problem. If the weight is white where you don't want it you get rid of that wight and turn it black to get rid of the white. i ran into some problems, one of the weights on my fish would not go away at all. I just kept messing with the skin weight settings and eventually it finally worked.  Sometimes weights would come back and I would have to erace them over and over again. Once all of you skin weights a good and ready to go you can start animating your fish.

Final Part

Texturing the fish was a pretty easy process. I used a new window editor called the UV editor. The UV editor has the fish when it is unfolded. If you unfold the fish you can see you fish almost perfectly in 2D. If you take a screenshot of the uv editor fish and bring it into Photoshop you can start coloring it. Once I was done coloring it I just added a favorite material phong and set it to an image of the UV editor I took and colored on.

The final piece of the puzzle is adding a simple motion path on the fish.  I just did a short little circle motion path, to attach it you just go into the outliner in the window tab and click on the locator and curve, and the go to the constrain tab and add to motion path.

Conclusion

This project was my most favorite I have done in animation class. I enjoyed pretty much all of it. There were some things that I could have probably done better. The way  I did my fin was I did extruding on the side of the fish. It just made it more annoying to get the type of fin that I wanted. But in the end I love the way that my fin had turned out! I think if I made my fish a little more fat and not as skinny as it was the fish would look a lot better.

This year I have had the opportunity to learn tons about web design. I have learned how to animate through web code. That was of the harder of the projects.  I have had a fun time in this class but I will end up going to animation next year for my junior. Although I will still continue to learn lots about web design, because web design binds everything together.

http://eravensonline.net/students/402jmt24/

We started in fourth quarter uploading some of our better websites to the internet. It was called our index. The index holds some of my best webpages that I made consisting of some of the animations, the past present and future websites. I plan on going to many royals games this summer.  I think in eComm next year I would do more focus on animation.