Category Archives: Animation

Catch me if you can – Animated Short

Project:

“Catch Me If You Can” was completed as a final project for IMD’s 4th year 3D animation class. Students were required to rig at least one character, and and responsible for all movement, lighting, scenery and texturing. We were alro required to complete storyboards and all the pre-production documentation suitable for an animated short.

Description:

This animation was written, designed, modeled, animated and textured by myself*. The snake, called the Leviathan, was hand rigged and then expressions were used to make him swim. The head, jaw, and spikes were animated with keyframe animation, as were the captain, seagull and the seaweed. To make the scene appear underwater, I did a lot of experimenting with volume shaders and splash plugins, as well as particle systems for bubbles and sediment. A last minute requirement from our professor was to use paint effects, so these can also be seen in the animation.  Autodesk Maya was used for all 3D elements, and After effects was used for compositing and extra effects.

*(the Leviathan was textured by a classmate for a separate project, and the captain borrowed heavily from an external model – all of which was still within the bounds of the assignment). 

Outcome:

“Catch Me If You Can” was publicly displayed in a public screening at Carleton on December 16th 2011, and received and excellent grade. 

Augmented Reality Chess Game – Final Documentation Video

Project:
Battle Chess was created as a final project for Design Studio 3 at Algonquin College/Carleton University. The class was based on finding new ways to interact with our surroundings, and we were required to design and develop a project to reflect our learning. Suggest topics were Augmented Reality, Arduino, xBox Connect, Processing Camera Vision etc. 
Description:
Battle Chess is a chess game that uses Augmented Reality markers to create animated ches pieces. Battle chess was created using Goblin XNA, ALVAR and openCV. There were 6 character models, with interchangable textures depending on the team and mode of the character, and each character has an attack and a death animation. The hardware was hand made using bathroom tiles, and we used a camera attched to a baseball cap to make the game more accessable to everyone. This was a team project: I was responsible for modeling (Maya) the Knight, Wizzard, King and Castle, and all of the attack animations. I also completed our demo video (in under 12 hours) Brittany Pinder was the programmer, and Lindsay Codere was responsible for rigging all the characters. Meagan Leflar was responsible for the remaining modeling, and all of the death animations. For more information, please refer to our presentation slideshow posted below.
Outcomes:
A successful game that was fun to play with new and exciting animated characters. 
Final_Presentation.pptx

Final Photography assignment

So, most people in my class did the smart thing and used an auto movie maker to make their video. Instead, for “fun” I decided to use after effects (which I have never used before) two days before it was due. It’s 2am now, and I am just finishing up. It’s by far not the best piece of art I’ve ever made, but it was a really really good learning experience. All the swirls and whatnot were hand made (I am too cheap to buy video copilot assets right now) and I took all the pictures. Audio credits at the end of the video.

 

You can see all the photos on my rather poorly kept picasa site: