Visual Effects #4: Masked Bowser

I used the shape tool to make rectangles and then auto-traced them to create masks. I inverted the masks so Bowser appears when he passes over the rectangles.

Computer Animation #4: Diglett Levels Up

I downloaded a rock bump map online and applied it to the spheres around Diglett. The panorama is an image I got from Google. I also use paint effects to lay down a few daisies around Diglett.

Visual Effects #3: Super Bowser Bros.

Super Bowser Bros. from Chris Hewitt on Vimeo.

I took my last project and used advanced animation with curves in order to make Bowser's landing on the middle blocks more natural and less curvy. I then used eases to make him wait on the blocks and then perform a super jump to reach the high-up star.

Computer Animation #3: Booleans, Planars, Revolves, Extrudes, and Lofts

The first image is a Boolean I made by making the robot's head live and then creating a square prism on the left side. I then duplicated it and moved the copy to the other side and Boolean>Difference'd them both. I wanted to make it kinda look like eyes while at the same time making them hollow since they're not REALLY eyes. I want the robot's face to be rather creepy/mysterious.



Next is a planar. I made a circular curve and then 4 rectangular ones. This is supposed to be a silloheutte (however you're supposed to spell that--even my Spell Check doesn't know!) of the robot from The Incredibles.



This is an extrude. I made the back of the robot's face live, then drew a circular curve and a path on it to extrude along. I then created a cylinder and moved and scaled it so it fit on the end of the cord, made a cube, duplicated it, and moved it to the other side of the cylinder to make it look like an electric cord. This is how the robot charges up.

I put a metallic paint color on the cord and tried rendering it in metal ray, but it didn't render right for some reason.



I was trying to make a vase, but I rotated it along the wrong axis. I rendered it just out of curiousity and realized it looked like a totally badass shield or a hat like Po wears in Kung Fu Panda.



This one was by FAR the assignment I had the most fun with. I created 3 circular curves and elevated them and made a cubed curve atop them. When the loft was done, it totally looked like a Diglett, so I decided to keep working on it.

The nose, eyes, and irises are all spheres squashed and stretched accordingly.

The pebbles around Diglett are all spheres I duplicated and moved around his body. I altered their heights so that it looks like he just dug up through the ground.

Computer Animation #2: Maya Robot

The Make Live feature was really helpful for this project. I used it to make the glowing strips on the face, arms, and legs.

I wanted to make the face pattern come to a point, like in my perspective drawing, but I was having trouble doing it and decided to save that for later.

Visual Effects #2: Bowser Level

Again, took picture of Bowser in Brawl, converted the BIN to JPG, and Photoshopped the background before importing into After Effects. I used a mosaic effect to make Bowser look more Game Boy quality as opposed to Wii graphics.

This one really frustrated me. I couldn't figure out how to turn auto-beziering off on my keyframes, so I couldn't get my jumps to be like I wanted them to be. I also couldn't figure out how to totally mask the background when I Photoshopped Bowser. I think it might have had something to do with the kind of brush I was using, but for whatever reason, you can see faint traces of purple in a square around Bowser, especially when he jumps in front of the white clouds. It kills me.

I ran into a lot of problems not knowing how to make the program do what I wanted it to do. I bought a book on After Effects and will sit down this weekend and do everything step-by-step before next class.

Computer Animation #1: Robot

This was pretty tough for me. I've always been really bad at perspective. That said, the lesson on the different points of perspective really helped me.

In general, I tried to make dark surfaces on one side and light surfaces on the other to give it more depth. I had a hard time visualizing light and how it would look shining down on the robot.

Visual Effects #1: Bowser Hearts

I first used the camera feature of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to take a handful of different shots of Bowser in the game. I then converted the BIN files on my SD card an converted them into JPGs via a converter program.

After scouring the Internet for a good background, I finally settled on one from Kingdom Hearts, my favorite game series EVER. The picture I took of Bowser jumping in mid-air seemed like it fit best with the background image.

I put Bowser into Photshop, masked him, placed him on top the moon, and blurred the edges a bit.