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.
