Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Ice Cream Project

I'm animating my favorite food! YEET!

This project was one of the most complex, elaborate, and anticipated projects we have done in Maya thus far. There were two parts to it: modeling and animating. This was the first time that we animated something in Maya.

First, let me explain how I modeled this. For this project, there was a lot of joining shapes together and applying textures. However, unlike the previous projects, which had fairly basic textures, for this one we used bump mapping. Bump mapping allows your models to appear, well, bumpy, and makes things look more organic as opposed to the artificial smoothness of the lamberts, blinns, and phongs. I used a cloud texture for the ice cream scoops and a leather texture for the cone.

Now, time to explain how I animated this. Basically, I used a cylinder to create a rotating platform for the objects to sit on, and I linked all the objects together so animating it would be less of a hassle. Then I opened the animation timeline and added a keyframe at the beginning. After that, I rotated it, went to the end, and put a keyframe there. Automatically, the platform spun in the animation. Then it exported it as a series of pictures and I put it all together in AfterEffects.

I learned a lot about how to animate in Maya and how to use bump mapping. I am very excited to see what more we will do with this skill!

Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Music Video Project (Party in the USA)

So, for Video Production, we had to make a music video. We got to choose our own groups,and me, my best friend, and some other kid were in high demand due to our artistic abilities. As a result, I 
ended up with 3 people who were casual acquaintances of mine at best. I secretly wanted to do a 
J-pop song, but I knew they would never go for it, so we settled on “Party in the USA” by Miley 
Cyrus. I was tasked with drawing all the storyboards, which was exhausting work, but I managed to 
do it and make it look good. There was also a day where we filmed, but I was not present for that. 
However, I was present for the green-screen filming, and I even managed to dance in it. I essentially 
learned how to make a music video. At one point, I did have an app called VideoStar that I used to 
make music videos, but I wasn’t very good at it due to me recording everything with my phone. 
However, this was my first experience with making a real music video with professional equipment. This was also my first experience with green-screens, a tool I will use in the future without a doubt. I had a lot of fun with this, and I’m looking forward to our next video project- a movie trailer!

Final Maya Project- The Pen

For our final project in Maya, we were asked to make a pen. However, the catch was that we needed to model it after an existing pen and make it as close to the original as possible. For reference, this was the pen I used:

So, we had to use all that we had learned to create a pen. I started off by making a simple cylinder, then adding subdivisions. After that, I went into Vertex Mode and made it so parts of it were more pronounced while the end of it tapered downward. Then I separated the grip and the top of the pen from the rest of the pen. After that, I created the push thing at the top of the pen using another cylinder and Vertex Mode. I then created the clip by drawing a NURBS curve, creating a surface from it, and extruding that surface. My initial plan was to use lofting, but that didn't turn out like I wanted it to. Then, after making the main body of the pen translucent, I added the ink and its container using yet more cylinders, and finally, I made the point of the pen with another cylinder and Vertex Mode. I also added colors and textures to everything- the plastic-like Blinn for most of the pen, the matte Lambert for the grip, and the metallic Phong E for the point. After that, I added lights and a floor, and I was done!

This project was a very exhausting one, but it was quite simple once I got the hang of it. After all this time, I'm proud of how far I've come in Maya. I'm amazed with what I have been able to create in Maya recently, and though I prefer 2D animation, at least I know how to do 3D animation now.