Barnyard Mayhem Take 2

Just in time for the Merit Scholarship competition, I decided to revisit my short film from last semester and finally finish it! I added an extra scene and addressed some continuity issues that popped up. Some textures were revamped and I ended up using Maya's Physical Sun and Sky for the lighting. My professor wants me to do a HD render of it at some point, so I want to touch up just a couple minor things before I'd do that.

Barnyard Mayhem from Hannah Strenger on Vimeo.

You Stole From My Kin! Final

Here's the final version of my entry for the January 11 Second Club. Didn't get done in time to submit, but wanted to finish it up anyway.

Now I'm moving on to the February sound clip. This one will be a fun challenge! Animating some swing dancing! Determined to get this one done by the end of February.

You Stole From My Kin!

In my Advanced Animation class, we are able to decide what we want to focus on animation wise and create our own projects. I decided to participate in the 11 Second Club monthly competition. I figured having a new sound clip to animate to every month will give me some good character animation practice... and hopefully some strong pieces to add to my demo reel!

This is the one for January. I know January is over now, but I loved the sound clip too much that I wanted to animate to it even though I wasn't able to submit it in time.

I roughed out the animation and lip sync last week. This week I'll go through and flush it all out and make it pretty! Will also be exaggerating some poses more and pushing the actions a bit more. I'm having a lot of fun with this sound clip and character. :)

NOTE: The sound may seem to be off from my animation for some reason. It all lines up in my Maya file. I swear!

Barnyard Mayhem

After a semester's worth of hard work, I now have a semi-finished short film! I learned so much doing this film about the process of creating a short as well as what I enjoy doing the most of the process. I am an animator. I absolutely love bringing a character to life. Cluckles was especially fun since he was the first proper model I had created.

There was a lot of frustration on this short. Things would go wrong left and right at the beginning of the semester. As the modeling and textures neared completion and animation got underway, the process became more fun for me. The best part for me though was near the end as I was polishing the animation and everything was coming together. That was what got me through all the late nights!

I am proud of myself. This is some of the best animation I have done so far. I'm excited to see what I will be able to do next semester to further my skills.

I'm going to go back and tweak some of the animation, fix some of the textures, and give it a nice render. But for now, here is a version of my short film, Barnyard Mayhem.

Credit must be given to my friend Mary for doing the chicken noises!

Bloopers

So as I head into the final stretch of my short film, I thought I'd share some funny bloopers that have happened throughout the course of the semester. Nothing ever goes smoothly in Maya and

random bugs are sure to pop up. Some are entertaining and some are down right frustrating.

I don't think it's supposed to stretch that far.....

He turned into one-legged chicken at one point.

My all time favorite blooper:

This is what happens when you key the wrong node. XD

Animation Tests

I have been working on some animation tests of my chicken running so I can finesse the weight painting of the rig. I also wanted to settle on a character run to help convey his personality. My first test was a bit too general and not quite what I wanted.

For my second test, I added a slight hop to give it character. I like how it came out, but need to work out a few of the details. I'll do that once I start the actual animation though.... which should be next week! So excited!

Short Film Animatic

So I meant to post this up a month ago, but time got away from me as usual. I'm in the process of making a short film for my Advanced 3D class using the featherless chicken I modeled last semester as my main character. I'm nearly ready to animate now having built the set and extra character. Just have to finishing mapping out the UV's and I'll be on to the fun part!

Here is a rough storyboard of my short film. The basic story is that this featherless chicken escapes from the barn. The farmer chases the chicken for a good portion of the short. When the farmer finally catches up the chicken, he puts a sweater on the chicken. My prof was telling me that when chickens get stressed out, they lose their feathers and there are little old ladies in England who knit sweaters for those chickens so they can stay warm while they re-grow their feathers. I thought it would be fun to tie that into my story.

And now here is a very rough animatic. The timing is so off and I've changed a few things, but you can get the general idea of what will happen.

Christian Bale Completed

Here is my finished animation for my Ideation project. I realize poses could've been pushed more and I could've totally went all out. Still struggle with that, but I am still happy with how it turned out. My critique for it went really well on Tuesday. Everyone enjoyed how I handled the contrast obstruction. Yay for yelling at teddy bears! I had to project it on some object in the student center which was interesting. I projected in on some blue couches to go with my blue monocromatic color choice. It was a challenge to work with the obstructions, but also fun. It was a beneficial assignment that got me thinking outside my comfort zone.

There may be a few small things I'll touch up before I send it in to the Spline Doctor's competition.

Blocking Stage

Here's my rough blocking of my Ideation project. This is proving to be a fun sound clip to animate to. I'll probably try to push some of the poses farther, but it's a start.