Amelia Sims's Blog

Photoshop Tutorials  The first project we did in graphic design was a series of Photoshop tutorials to expand and enhance our knowledge of the Photoshop software. This took about two weeks for us to complete. A challenge I faced during this project was learning the basics of manipulating some of the tools. Most would work fine but some required a few tries before I figured out how to best use them. Throughout these tutorials I learned how to use Photoshop. I learned about tools such as content aware fill, the patch tool, the clone stamp, layer masks, and the spot healing brush. I also learned different skills such as how to effectively use layers, how to use the content aware scale tool, how to use an adjustment layers, how to transform and warp objects, and how to create a shadow. Some feedback I was gives was that the photo on which I used the patch tool did not look realistic. I changed this by going back into Photoshop and fixing it the patch tool again. My overall opinio...

Ice Cream Project  One of my favorite projets that I made was my 3D model of ice cream. Through this project I learned how to use bump making in maya and how to animate in Maya. I also expanded my knowledge of different materials and how the look in Maya. I learned all this expire meting with different textures, materials, and bump maps in maya while following the guidelines set for the project. I picked this project because I am proud of the different features I was able to use and the way it looks. My greatest strengths in this project were using bump was maps and being able to create a good ending animation. My weaknesses were  placing an image as a materials to create a picture and figuring out how to render the scene as an animation that was color managed. Im going to apply what I've learned to future projects. If I redo this project I would make sure I render it out color managed. This project encompasses all the skills I have learned in Maya so far. Pen Proje...

Summary The project I chose was a short animated gif about a character overcoming challenges. The animator did this by using geometric shapes to create an obstacle course for his character, a ball, to get through in different ways. First it has to climb a hill and a little while later it gets other shapes to help it hit a button. Then, it has to practice bouncing on objects to get to another side. Last, it hast to get out of a maze. The animation is called There's Always a Way and you can access it here . Review If this was my project I would take the outlines off of all the shapes to make it look cleaner. However, I think that the rest of the animation is very well done. The ball bounces and spins in a way that looks realistic, and the moving pieces are all moving at the right speed, not to fast or to slow. Also the different movements ease in and ease out well, creating a feel or real movement. The music and sound effects help to accent the animation. The story this told ...

Article Summary  In the article I read the author discussed how Maya 2016 is the easiest version of Maya for students and beginning animators to learn with. He says thanks to the new organization and the simplification of menus maya is easier to work with than ever before. The author is claiming that mayas updates create a more user friendly program. They use examples of simplified menus, such as the fact that all modeling tools are now placed in a single menu. Also discussed more modeling tools which help animators create more lifelike characters without using a different program, such as Mudbox. The author also reviewed the improved hypershade menu, talking about its condensed features and the larger window size. The author concludes by saying that Maya 2016 is much easier to learn than any previous models. The authors strength is using a good tone and using correct industry terminology. The author also uses good visual representations to help emphasize the text. The author...

Overview This tutorial is about how to make wings flap in after effects from a side perspective. This helps make the animation of something flying look more realistic. If the wings don't flap on a flying animal it would just look like the animal was being dragged across the screen. This would be helpful to beginner animators. Steps  The first steep is to create the animal you want to animate, I chose a bee, and create it by drawing it or by vectoring it in illustrator. Next open adobe after effects and make a new composition. Once you do that import all your files one layer at a time (body, top wing, bottom wing) and drag them into the composition. Position everything where you want. Click the arrow by the top wing layer and set key frames for position and rotation. Next move forward 10 frames, set a new key frame for rotation by clicking the 0.0° and type -20 to rotate the wing 20° counter clockwise. The wing should look something like this!!!. Make sur...