This assignment was another group assignment and I was excited for it, but I did have a lot of complications while working through it so I didn’t have much time to work with my team, but I did as much as I could to come up with something for the end result of the project.
For a couple of weeks we talked and discussed what each of us will be making for the project after we were given the brief and what it required us to do. We had to create some sort of animation that would represent the Neolithic times and stuff that they have used back then to do all sorts of stuff.
We all talked about it and decided that we should all just make a couple of objects for the group work and that should be the end goal. We started researching Neolithic stuff and history and the given brief we looked at the references that we might want to use as well.
These are some of the references that I have looked at. It was really interesting because we got a lot of sections to choose from. Stuff like organics or objects that were used in those times. I really wanted to do tools like axes or knifes and one of the pots, I had to choose from a couple of sections and make those models and prepare them for the animation.
We talked about and we wanted to model a few things each and then combine all of them and just show them off as our final project. I loved this idea and instantly agreed to it. Others choose to make a hut because we did want to maybe go in or out from a different direction and show us a couple of models that we created.
We all asked each other what we might want to work on in this project as well. We all divided some of the responsibilities and who ever wanted to do specific things they were allowed to as well. I said I want to work on more texturing of the models and more animating possibly. I don’t really enjoy any other animation besides 3D so I wanted to see how this will turn out.
We did also decide that we want the objects to be simple and stick to the old texturing to make sure we are fitting to the style of Neolithic and not stepping over the boundaries. We didn’t want to over complicated anything, because simple is what we were asked to do.
These were my models that wanted to create and as you can see I made them fairly simple to make sure that everything fits the criteria.
I made this very simplistic and instantly started to exploring different kinds of texturing that would possibly work for the objects. I knew that I was under time constraints throughout the project so I was kind of rushing by trying to complete stuff. It was not a good idea because I hate work being rushed.
I knew I was also behind the time schedule when it came to this project, so I didn’t really enjoy the process of working on this. I was on the low when it came to communicating with my team for a couple of reasons, but I was slowly working behind the scenes.
These are some of the textures I tried at first after researching the Neolithic times and looking at the brief as well.
I was keeping the objects in the same files because I wanted to see how each texture would bounce off of each other to make sure it fits the criteria as well and that I don’t go too far from what was needed. You can see that I use old worn out textured that would make the object looks old and ancient and look perfectly for Neolithic vibe.
The only one I messed up on was the pot as you can see it looks really weird and nothing like it should look. I feel like I didn’t play enough with the contrast and blending of colours enough for sure. It looks like brown blobs on a vase as you can see. I was definitely going to change that.
Throughout the months our groups had couple of presentations that we had to do to show our progress and what we are thinking of working with for the future improvements. I wasn’t able to join any of the presentations, but I did caught up with some of my peers and asked them what I should be doing later on. They said that we should work more on the textures and make sure that they are not too complicated. I needed to know what to do for later on, because I knew I won’t be available for all of time and gonna have to be working on my own for the most part.
I did more research it came to to the Neolithic times and how they used to be back in the day, I really wanted to make sure I’m hitting the mark when it comes to the feel of the objects.
I looked at some stuff on Pinterest and inspired myself with all sorts of different Neolithic art and ideas that could be used later on. We did want a animation sequence showing off different objects and talking over them.
I knew that I was going to run out of time for the team to finish their work, but I was determined to finish my sections of the work even if it doesn’t make it to the final project. I was determined to try out everything I said I will try at the start.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=neolithic+animation+sequence
I researched and watched a lot of YouTube videos to just learn more about the topic that we have and what makes it feels better then that. After changing some of my models texturing and modifying them a little I have come to like the textures and I was getting close to completing them and then trying my best to animate part of my project that I could have for the end. I didn’t change much of the models, but I did change the texture of the pot to give it more of a brick/sand feel, so it looks like an actual pot.
What I did then was research different games and tried to get inspired on what kind of animation I would like the 3 objects to do. What I found was looking back to my old favourites games and I happened to stumble upon Need for Speed: Most Wanted and then did a quick playthrough of it and saw that I loved the way they animated cars switching between each other. Appearing then switching while disappearing for a little and then another car appears. So, I decided I wanted my 3 objects to do the same.
I used this as the main reference for the animation that I did. It was really awesome to try to complete and try out different movements in Maya while animating 3D objects. First I had to make sure I laid the objects out nicely and made sure that everything is set up properly. I am very happy with the final result of the animation. I will post it here below.
The only problems I had were times throughout all of these projects, but with the extra time that I was given I was able to complete what ever I wanted to achieve. I enjoyed doing this animation once again because I don’t really enjoy animating. but 3D animation is different and special and I really like it.
Even thought I didn’t make the finals cut, I was able to create my own animation sequence and made it like I would of given it up for the final cut. Here is the reference below of the final group animation and the stuff that they created towards the project.
Mantas Macidulskas 