Grades

Just checked my school's website and it turns out I did better than I thought on my animations. I got an A- on both of them (along with an A- in my Global Economics class)! I think I may just go out and celebrate sometime this week.

The Trade

Last year I took a Screenwriting and Storytelling class at school. I really got into it, working on a script for a cartoon I had been working on for the last 10 years or so. I quickly got burnt out on that prject, but I really enjoyed screenwriting, so I started up two scripts: a Survivor-meets-zombies action/horror and a dark comedy about supervillains. With all the constant assignments in school, of course, these two projects got lost in the shuffle.

Along with my Asset Production class, which was to make filler for my demo reel, I was taking a Game Art Development class, which was also to make filler for my demo reel, except in this one, we focused on After Effects. I'd never used After Effects before, which lets you edit video and insert special effects, because the class that taught it, Videography, was never scheduled (I don't know how they missed it before, but now I've got to take it next term). Anyway, I decided to revisit my old screenplays and make a trailer for one of them as my project. Maybe one of these days I'll actually finish it (writing it, I mean).

Tank v2.0

I just last week finished up my Asset Production class, which is solely aimed at making filler for our demo reels.  Most of the people in my class decided to model out a number of fairly impressive low-poly models.  But I decided to go another route and try some animation.  I thought I wanted to do prop modeling also, but unwrapping is a BITCH.  So I decided to take a previous animation and update it.

This is the result.  I had higher hopes for it, but I learned what I need to do to fix it the next time.  The main changes here are in vehicle movement and the effects.  In the first version, I moved the vehicles through keyframe movement, but this time I decided to use path contraints for more fluid driving.  

I had a lot of stuff to work on with the effects, considering the explosions I had in the first one were so small you couldn't see them.  In fact, that weren't even explosions, I just used a short fires.  This time, at least they're visible.  I used a ton of Supersprays too, for gunfire and the missile.

Unfortunately, this video is just as short as the previous one.  I need to make it longer, and not just by stretching out the time.  I plan on adding a lot more stuff to it, but with only 12 weeks before I graduate, I'm going to have to bust my ass to get it done in time.