My midterm project consisted mostly of modeling a small, blue, flying monster. I then animated the monster to flap its wings, glide and do a loop in the air before gliding off-screen.
Production Log:
I started off working on this project with a NURBS sphere. Using CVs, I then molded the sphere into the monster. I started by dipping the mouth into the sphere and pulling wings out of the sides. I also pulled horns and a tail from the sphere as well as molded a brow and a spine-like bone structure on the monsters back. With a good amount of fine-tuning, I had a pretty good shape of what the monster would look like in a basic state.
I then added things like a nose--which I also molded to have nostrils--eyes, teeth and a tongue. These received a good amount of work in order to add character to the monster. For instance, I scaled the teeth to go back into the mouth as well as scaled out fangs. I used CVs to change the tongue so that it looked more like an actual tongue and less like a squashed sphere. I also gave the eyes lower eyelids for detail. After this, I added material attributes to the monster, like lambert for its skin and phong for its eyes and teeth so that they shined. I also added a blue color to its skin and nose to add a little more character. On top of this, I put effects on the eyes of the creature so that they would glow red once rendered.
Once I was finished tweaking the model, I got to work animating it. I started by having the monster bob up and down in a floating motion. I then manipulated CVs and used keyframes to make it flap its wings with the bobbing motion. The wings required that I use the move, scale and rotate tools for a realistic flapping motion. In order to give more life to the monster, I also made it rotate forward when in a downward motion and backward when in an upward motion. In addition, I made the mouth move slightly, though it is difficult to see in the animation. Lastly, I animated the tail to bob in time with the wing flaps; the monsters way of keeping balance, one might imagine.
I then used more keyframes to have the monster pause in mid-air and glide forward into a loop. The glide, simply required using the rotate and move tools, but the loop was much more complex. In order to get the loop to be one smooth motion, I needed to make sure the speed into the loop was accurate, which meant placing accurate keyframes. I manipulated the pivot of the grouped monster model in order to have it spin around it and set keyframes that would not slow down the animation. I animated the monster to slightly flap its wings downward in mid-loop to add another layer of realism to its flight. I then animated the monster's exit from the loop, which took some work to keep it from looking too jagged and quick.
After this, I added in the background and spot lights to mimic the beams of light seen in the background. If you look carefully, you can see a shadow move across the monster's back as it passes from one beam of light to the next. I tried to make this subtle and in-tune with the background. I then placed the camera to get the best view of the monster's flight and rendered the project.
Self-Evaluation:
After finishing work on the animation, I find myself a little disappointed in the length of the animation. I think that if I had worked faster (maybe if I knew the program a little better) I might have been able to get more work done and add in extra scenes of animation. Hopefully I can make some additions later on and extend the length of the animation. I also wish I was able to make the monster a little more realistic in terms of its model. I would like to have known how to add in realistic looking hair. Also, building the model with a rig would have benefited me greatly when animating. Some of my limitations came directly out of the fact that I was only using a NURBS model.
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