Over the course of this year I have been learning about many components of digital design, animation, careers that deal with these skills, and the software and hardware that is needed. During this time I have learned the basics of many valuable skills that I can use in the future like creating 2D graphics in both Photoshop and Illustrator, how to make animations in Animate and After Effects, and how to make 3D graphics and then animate them. These skills could be helpful in the future because I know people that work in different jobs that use these different programs. For example, there are people who work on medical research that use Photoshop and Illustrator to show their findings by taking the images they took and adding text to explain what is showed. Another example is that architects could use 3D modeling software to better visualize what the building they are designing would look like. Another reason these skills could be useful in the future is because currently there is a large increase in the use of computers and digital design and this is predicted to continue because of new technologies that are being developed building better, faster and more powerful computers. With the rise of use of computers there will be a wider variety of careers in the future that will require certain skills that i have already learned during this course. This course could also help me get a "headstart" on other people who could apply for the same jobs. The most rewarding experiences I had in this class are in my opinion related to 2D graphics. This is because 2D graphics are used more frequently than animation and 3D modeling are in other careers. Another rewarding experience I had was typing because I used to be a slow typer but after taking this course I have sped up a lot and I can now type much faster. Overall this year I learned many things throughout this course and even though on some occasions some things could be frustrating I had fun overall.
Summary of the material:
0 Comments
Over the past couple of weeks I have started to learn how to make basic models in 3D Studio Max using basic primitives and subobjects. So far I have not encountered any issues with 3DS Max unlike Adobe Animate or Adobe Premiere Pro so I like it better than those two. During my time modeling using 3DS Max I learned many thing like how to create different shapes with different primitives and I also learned how to manipulate the primitives using subobjects. This allows me to be more creative because I can drastically alter the way the primitive looks in many different ways. For example, I made a tank using only a box but I used subobjects to change how it looked to make different changes like bring the bottom of the box in on both sides to make the continuous track of the tank and I brought out the front of the box to make the tank gun. Something else I like about 3DS Max is that it is easy to pick up and visually easy to understand because it is well organized into sections of different tools and each section has all the tools that do similar things. For example, the steering wheel has eight tools that have similar purposes or at least are used similarly. Also 3DS Max has many keyboard shortcuts which can help people quickly find different tools. Although the keyboard shortcuts are extremely helpful, they take a long time to memorize because there are so many of them and some of which I haven't used. Overall i found 3DS Max extremely useful, I have not found any serious problems with it and it is well organized and easy to find different tools.
“Autodesk 3ds Max Learning Materials.” ASCENT, 22 Apr. 2019, www.ascented.com/courseware-solutions/autodesk/courseware/autodesk-3ds-max?gclid=CjwKCAjwzPXlBRAjEiwAj_XTEbS7wSdFnXpRHM-vjv5tvD1t65EFTZ-bKQrcl75UaWKO. “3ds Max | 3D Modeling, Animation & Rendering Software.” Autodesk, 22 Apr. 2019, www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/overview. Over the past couple of weeks I have been learning about two programs that deal with animation. These two programs are Adobe After Effects CC and Adobe Animate CC. My initial thoughts about these two programs are very different. This might be because of the difference in difficulty of the two animations I made in each program. My initial thoughts on Adobe After Effects CC are that it is that it is a useful program and that it can be used for many things. For example I made a motion graphic describing myself and because my family is from Italy, I decided to add a pizza as a background. My experience with Adobe Animate CC was much more rough. My project was to create a monster eating a blob of food. When I started I had to draw the body using the pen tool and then animate it appropriately. However, when I added the shape tweens it would twist and move in an unwanted manner. Normally you could just add some shape hints and that would fix the problem but for some reason when I added shape hints it just made it worse. To solve the problem I had to redraw the whole thing. This was not the only problem I encountered, I also had trouble with the easing but that was solved by reapplying the easing after restarting Adobe Animate CC. Although I found more problems with Adobe Animate, I found that there are more options with Animate than After Effects, such as the use of symbols. This allowed for me to animate more abstract shapes without using shape hints. This saved a lot of time and helped facilitate many different portions of the monster. Overall I found Animate more useful but more problematic than After Effects.
Idle animations are little movements that a character in a video game does when the player has not moved in a bit of time. These animations can be complex or simple depending on what the artist is going for. For example, in the game Sonic CD, the character Sonic The Hedgehog impatiently taps his foot while glaring at the player and after a longer time he ends the game saying "Your plumber MCM could never." This is a fairly simple idle animation compared to Earthworm Jim. In Earthworm Jim, the character does many different movements such as jumping rope with his stretchy head, throwing his gun in the air and letting it fall on his head, showing off his muscles and then his pants fall down showing his underwear with hearts on it, etc. These idle animations are all very creative and unique and do not necessarily have to be complex and hard to make. An idle animation that shows this is in Aladdin. When standing still he throws an apple in the air an catches it repeatedly. This shows how the character is calm and patient, and is willing to wait a little compared to Sonic's glaring and foot tapping. Many professionals say they prefer Earthworm Jim's idle animation because it is creative and was different from most other idle animations. My favorite idle animation is probably Mario's in the game Mario 64 because it really shows how he is a lazy plumber who is basically being forced to go through many difficult places to save the princess. I also like it because it is fairly relatable, if I was forced to do nothing for a long time I know that I would try to fall asleep. Overall, idle animations can show a characters personality and their style.
Citations “What Makes a Great Idle Animation? Devs Share Their Favorites.” Gamasutra: The Art & Business of Making Games, 11 Feb. 2019. I have been using Adobe Illustrator for about a couple weeks now and I have made some opinions on some things. One thing I really like using and find very easy to use is the shape tool, along with this is the shape builder tool, these tools are often used together to make certain shapes that are irregular or cannot be made with the regular shapes. This helps me very often for example when I had to make a ring shape for one of graphics which cannot be made with the elipse tool, so what I did was I made two circles, one smaller than the other and colored the bigger one the color I needed and the other one white, then I put the smaller one on top of the bigger one and the using the shape builder tool I removed the center part of the circles leaving me with only the colored ring. While I used this for a basic shape, it can be used at much higher levels. Another tool I think is very helpful is the pen tool. I believe this tool is the most useful tool in Illustrator. Although I think it is extremely useful, I tend to struggle while using it but I believe that with practice I can improve quickly. A good website to practice with the pen tool is "The Bezier Game." This game helped me learn a lot about the pen tool in about thirty minutes, I learned how to use alt, and shift appropriately with the pen tool, and how to curve the line effectively. Summary
Citations
wikiHow. “How to Use Adobe Illustrator Pen Tool.” WikiHow, WikiHow, 21 June 2017, www.wikihow.com/Use-Adobe-Illustrator-Pen-Tool. “How to Use Illustrator's Shape Builder Tool.” Dummies, 10 Dec. 2018, www.dummies.com/software/adobe/illustrator/how-to-use-illustrators-shape-builder-tool/. |
Author
My name is Vinicio Maresca and my family is from Italy, however, I was born in the US. I will be adding to this blog page as time goes by.
Archives
May 2019
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools.
Categories
All
|