Reaching for the Stars

Making the 'Star' of the show

This semester was my first major animation project, to make an animation of my own design and concept in order to test the skills I'd obtained over the past two years. I originally wanted to do an entire animation about this star and its protector trying to find the little star named Sirius after he goes missing, but the scope and magnitude of the project at hand soon made me realize my dream animation would not only be wrought with difficulties, but I would only have time to rig the star completely and model the protector. I believe that was the purpose of this project was to show the difficulties that come with these freedoms I now have to make something entirely original.

Concept

I liked the cute short animations that Disney has done, with normally inanimate objects like something as big as a volcano to a small lamp on a desk. I chose to do a little star, due to the many possibilities I can make with them due to their names and characteristics. The star I made was Sirius, the dog star, which is why I gave my star small dog ears. My original protector character I gave a large, fuzzy imaginary-friend kind of character, as the animation I was going for was a whimsical fun tale that would've interested me as a child.
So I quickly drew them, put them on the computer, and modeled them within Maya. The star was simple to handle. The protector, on the other hand, was challenging. I had originally had fur on his character, with a bunny-like muzzle. Yet the fur tool on Maya was difficult for me to use and couldn't even utilize correctly. So, in a heavy heart, I scrapped the idea for a simpler design of stripes down the sides and arms for him. The protector had a skeleton like that of the star in order to make him move. Using the bone tool, I constructed a custom bone structure for Arcturous (the protector's name), but the types of faces I used had caused problems. So, on both Sirius and Arc, I converted the faces into triangles to attempt to get them to move properly, yet even as I painted weights upon the character, it still didn't move correctly without issue, so I had to abandon my story altogether, with me quickly replacing it with a walk cycle completed for Sirius. I toon-shaded him using the toon color tool within Maya, made him look like a cartoon, and quickly finished the little star walking within the vastness of space. The rendering went without a problem, for once, and I ended the animation in about 49 frames of animated walk cycle.

Lessons Learned

I not only learned abilities to follow specific tutorials within Maya that I hadn't discovered earlier, but I learned how to put in fur within 3-D animations. It was a simple matter of creating an X-Gen file within an animation within Maya, select the type of fur that one would want (custom or premade), and apply it to certain faces upon the character. Getting advice from my peers is something entirely to me, but it surely did help, for when I got stuck within a creative rut, one of them would point out a flaw that could be corrected simply, or even a new idea that helped push me past my stubborn wants for my own animation. They helped me see the flaws within my own work and learn to be more critical of my work. Lastly, I had learned much about the importance of modeling and pre-planning animations, as I went into this animation preparing to learn on the fly and wish to make something good based on ideas made on the fly. I have since been reminded to always plan out what I want to happen within the animation, otherwise I will get lost and lose inspiration from an animation I previously had loved from the beginning.

Same? Different?

I would honestly change the protector's design to closely relate to my star and make it look like he belonged in the same animation with Sirius. The design colors as well, as even some of my peers noticed that the blue stripes down the sides looked similar to those from Tron. But I would keep the concept and the star. I loved everything about them, despite their own individual difficulties I had with them at first.

Epilogue/ Sirius' Last Bow

Generally, this project seemed more of a wake-up call of the difficulties of animation more than anything else. But I did like this project nevertheless. Despite my misgivings about the fur tool, the complete redesign of what I planned to do, and my protector character not working properly, I am very proud of what I worked on throughout this entire semester. I decided for my next project within Maya that I will design them after I had drawn out what I want with them, and that they'll fit the layout design I've planned to make them with. Already, modeling for it is easier the second time around. Perhaps maybe I'll learn to use the fur tool this project, but the skeleton and mesh are much easier to move now that I've considered how my new character will move. I loved this project, as it helped me assure myself to be the best animator that I can be, despite all the misfortunes that may occur. I hope that in the future I will retain the knowledge I have and add to this ever increasing plethora of animation knowledge. Using the new information I learned from this project, I will make my next animation even better.