The assignments were also quite helpful, and can be quite challenging, depending on my choices and ambitions. Most of them were simple assignments, such as observing and understanding the frame rates of my own jumps, and some of them were essays about observations and applications of science and physics in fiction; movies, TV or video games. And some of them were projects actually related to animation and graphics in some way, such as creating 3D scenes in Maya. But probably the most hardworking and rewarding assignments, besides the essays, were both of the Stop Motion animation assignments.
The first stop motion was animating an item falling down, and I chose to animate a leaf falling from a tree, or rather, a paper leaf from a Bristol board tree (view page). This assignment was my first big success in this class, because it was selected for top three in the class by our celebrity guest judge, Titmouse animator Mike Harding, and his friend, an animator for the TV series, Robot Chicken. It was my very first attempt at stop motion, and as challenging as it was, I was very pleased that it was a success. I received some much needed extra credit for the selection, as well as very useful critique and advice from the professional animators in the industry.
The second stop motion assignment this time was character animation (view page), where students could animate any object(s) into a living character. I planned out this assignment with all the hype from my first stop motion success, and went into it with a lot of ambition. Around this time, I was animating a character dancing in my 3D animation class, and this inspired me to do a dancing theme. In addition, I also wanted to animate my character JUMPING, and so I came to the idea to animate an art mannequin doing figure skating, which includes a salchow.
Most of the others opted for a more simple way to animate characters, such as using a self-made clay figure or dolls. But I thought that my mannequin's human figure would allow me to animate more expressive poses. I had planned an entire dance routine lasting about a minute and a half, which would have included music, and even a small story. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with this kind of animation, and my own amateurish rigging setup, it ended up lasting a mere 9 seconds. It was a pretty cool-looking 9 seconds, though.
I regret that I did not finish and polish this little animated movie, and I am among the few classmates who animated something without an actual story being presented. Most of my animation classmates are great writers who come up with good stories for short films, while I am just not as good at writing stories that can be told in 30-60 seconds while remaining coherent. And that's why it's slightly depressing to me that my stop motion short film was not like the others and did not have a definitive narrative about a character with a desire; it's just an animation of a character performing an action.
Despite all of that, my assignment was once again selected for top three in the class, this time by DreamWorks story artist Bryan Mann. While underwhelming in story, my animation really sets me apart from the others for my strong attention to detail, demonstrating how focused, precise, and clean I'm always trying to be.
The other most major assignments in this class were the three essays about science and effects in films and media. I completed the first two essays, and because I earned high scores for both of them, I took the available option not to write the third essay and receive free points for it. But with that intention, I was still required to write and submit an outline for a third essay, and I did make a serious outline for one.
My last assignment in the class was creating stereoscopic 3D images (view page). From the blogs I read, the classmates appeared to have really loved this assignment, and I could see why. Our teacher, Mr. Garcia, gave us 3D glasses (the paper ones used in movies), and we shot photos of several things, including ourselves, and edited them to be viewed with the glasses.It took a little practice to get the photos shot correctly, but once it's done, there was a really satisfying feeling from putting on those glasses and watching the photos I took pop right out of the computer screen! I even took a video from my 3D animation final assignment and re-rendered it for stereoscopic 3D, and it did work, but due to the choice of dark colors and lighting in the video, it was a little difficult to appreciate the "pop" of it.
This was an incredibly fun final assignment and an excellent sendoff from this class. I wished that I had kept the 3D glasses just to play with them some more in my spare time, but out of respect and appreciation for my teacher, I returned them so that he can use them for future classes.
My performance in this class was very successful, rewarding, and even fun. A few times, I might have over-challenged myself without accomplishing as much as I had hoped, but I am passing this class with an A grade, and my stop motion character was shown in the animation department's final screening, along with other accomplishments from all the animation classes. I am taking from this semester a renewed inspiration to do even better, and a well deserved rest.
Thank you for a great semester, Mr. Garcia!
