Final Project - "Pixar-lite"

My final project is an expansion of my midterm project - a simpler version of Luxo Jr., the animated lamp in the Pixar promo (hence the title "Pixar-lite). This edited project focuses more on cinematography and animation, as the lamp model itself is pretty simple. In the weeks since the midterm, I refined the model and elaborated the set, but most importantly, rigged the lamp to a joint skeleton and achieved the realistic bouncing animation I originally intended.

I made the lamp base, lamp head and lightbulb using NURBS CV curves, and the lamp post using NURBS primitives. I placed a point light in center of the bulb to create the effect of it illuminating in all directions. Then, the hard part. I struggled for close to eight hours attempting to apply CV deformers and wondering why on earth the pieces were either scattering apart or deforming to the point of being unrecognizable before successfully grouping the lamp's individual parts together and rigging it to a simple three-part joint skeleton (pictured far right from four angles) and IK Handle (near right) to duplicate the effect of the lamppost bending and snapping at its center hinge.

After slightly elaborating the existing set by adding two more blue Phong planes to act as "walls" and a NURBS primitive cube (to which I applied a "Shatter" effect to jazz up its basic gray appearance) to act as a platform for Luxo Jr. Jr.., I was ready to animate. I used the principles of forward kinematics to animate the lamp making three short, shallow jumps across the floor before launching itself onto the platform and making one final small jump before settling into place - I then attempted to make the "bouncing" motion more realistic by reverting to "Persp/Graph" mode, clicking the "Translate Y" channels for the "Joint 1" lamp group and the IK handle, selecting all the points and pressing the "Linear Tangents" button. The total animation time is 400 frames. (from top to bottom: first frame, "bending into itself" frame, "jump-launching" frame, last frame)


This project certainly has room for improvement - the lamp's launching motion as it jumps onto the platform is a bit "float-y" and I had trouble animating individual parts of the figure. However, I'm pretty happy with how the project turned out - I especially like the realism of the lamp bouncing forward on the floor and how the light shines on the walls as it does so. As someone who has zero animation, modeling or cinematography experience (and little tech experience in general), the course material was frustrating at times (WWIII: me vs. Maya), but overall it was interesting to take a class so out of my element, and has sparked my interest in further exploring the intricacies of 3-D animation in the future. Also, when I tried rendering the animation, it looked like this:

I'm not exactly sure how to remedy this problem, so my final project is represented by a simple Maya binary file.

Midterm Project - "Pixar-lite"

My midterm project is a simpler version of the animated lamp in the Pixar promo - hence the title "Pixar-lite." I chose to focus on a blend of modeling and cinematography over animation because I'm still a rookie in the world of 3-D animation, and feel my skills are stronger in the former areas.

I made the lamp base, lamp head and lightbulb using NURBS CV curves, and the lamp post using NURBS primitives. I placed a point light in center of the bulb to create the effect of it illuminating in all directions. Then, I animated it to slide across the screen. I wanted to make the lamp bounce and bend more like the original Pixar one, but had considerable difficulty getting all the objects to merge and move on the same path - this is a work in progress, and I will continue to refine and improve this model as the semester goes on.

Bouncing Ball Tutorial

Screenshots of the completed Bouncing Ball tutorial at Frames 1 and 40 (I had trouble rendering the video onto YouTube). The main incorporated elements are animation and rendering (lighting, textures, particles).

Daisies in Vase Figure

Duck Figure

Assignment #1 - Figure

Here is a red ant I created using Maya. I'm still having trouble selecting components when working with NURBS primitives, but I attempted to make the ant aesthetically pleasing through rotating, sizing and carefully arranging each individual shape.

Welcome!

Hi! I'm Diana Bubser, a senior journalism/professional writing major and interactive multimedia minor at TCNJ. After graduating in May, I am pursuing a career in online media, writing, designing and producing multimedia for websites while increasing user traffic through search engine optimization and social networking - I took Animation to improve my interactive storytelling skills and learn more about an area of technology I'm not yet familiar with.

Currently, I am a Web intern for iVillage Health, where I research and report on health trends and assist in Web production, editing images, hand-coding pages and publishing content to the Web using Drupal. I also work part-time for the TCNJ Department of Public Relations and Communications as a Web Content Manager, leading the transition of TCNJ's main Web platform from Contribute to Wordpress by building and developing Wordpress websites and providing assistance to departments. I'm the Social Networking Manager for The Signal, TCNJ's student newspaper, and the Webmaster of The Seal, TCNJ's yearbook. Previously, I interned and freelanced for the online data desk and custom publishing departments at the Courier-Post, was an editorial intern at South Jersey Magazine and held several other editorial positions at The Signal.

When I'm not writing or producing, I enjoy reading, swimming, scuba diving (PADI Open Water Diver certified), obsessing over Glee, consuming copious amounts of caffeine and roaming the farms in my hometown of Mount Laurel, NJ. I studied abroad in Florence, Italy in Spring 2010 and continue to feed (pun intended) my passion for Italian culture through the devoted scouring of Italian language, history and food books and blogs.

I look forward to this semester and collaborating with everyone!