Project 1: Blend Shapes

Using your knowledge from last semester, and your newfound knowledge of blend shapes: Your goal is to develop a short (commercial length: 20 - 30 sec) blend shape animation!
As a example: Check out Pixar's Luxo Jr.!

• The story you create is up to you, but your character must showcase a personality as well as decision-making skills!
• Some problem must be solved by the end of the animation! Give your character a struggle to face to keep us emotionally invested!
• Examples of Struggles and Problems
• A place to go or a path to cross/arrive at.
• An object to move / lift / push / pull.
• A contraption to build.
• A want or desire "Example, Pencil A is in love with sheet of paper B"
• The goal of this project is to give inanimate objects human characteristics!
• Build a simple environment and a proper 3-D lighting setup for your film! Keep the amount of detail to a moderate level to speed up rendering time!
• Project timeline:  2 weeks!
• Use this project as a chance to re-familiarize yourself with Maya, while pushing the art-making abilities you acquired last semester! Through this time, we will continue researching your area of study for later this semester!

I will grade based on the following:

• modeling
• texturing (please do not overdo your textures for this project. make sure things are textured, but not overly so. editing your mesh and your model will warp your textures a bit.)
• lighting and shadow
• rendering
• scene organization