Jarrell 3D Modeling and Animation: Project 5: Final Project due Friday, 12-14-2012

Description of Assignment:
For this project, we were to create a short animation, lasting 15-30 seconds focusing on; character animation, facial animation, or dynamics. We could use any of our previous models, the ones on the class website, or create our own.

Concept:
I chose to create an animation focusing on dynamics. I created a Rube Goldberg contraption, a machine that performs a simple task in an overcomplicated manner. My machine used marbles, dominoes, slides, spinners, and buttons to turn on a lightbulb and release a balloon.

My Process:
Once I had created my domino and marble models I began constructing my structure and creating passive ridged bodies to interact with the dominoes and marbles. I first tried applying active ridged bodies and a gravity field to all the items but this proved too much for the computer to calculate and for me to troubleshoot. So I applied active ridged bodies to a few items at a time, backed the simulations onto the items, deleted their ridged bodies, turned the last item into a passive ridged body and repeated the process until all the items had and animation.

Playblast of Initial Design

With a base animation set-up I then began updating the structures to give the contraption more weight and believability. I added the light bulb to the machine and constructed different shaders for the objects and the setting. While lighting the scene I worked at adding shadows and camera movements to make the movie more dramatic and fun. I also added some extra dynamic effects like the lighting affect to simulate a spark. In an attempt to increase the complexity of my machine I also added a balloon using a gravity field of -9.8m/s2 to create a floating affect.

Rendered animation